This Week Has Gotta Be Better - Or Not As Bad

Another Monday. Another long week ahead. But it has to go better than Lynda Mills’ Thursday. The Mica Flats woman was on her way to work when she found daughter Lyndsi, 13, at the bus stop crying. She and her brother had missed the bus. Lynda figured she could take the kids to school and make it to work on time. But she’d be cutting it close. Then came that funny smell. Lynda guessed a belt was slipping. So she stopped at The Jiff-EE Mart to check it out and get her Pepsi fix. That’s when she found the family’s pet cat, Tuxedo, clinging to the manifold, singed paws and all. Frazzled, Lynda dropped off her kids, took the cat to the vet and finally made it to work only to discover she’d knocked over her pop. Some days, it isn’t worth chewing through the leather straps in the morning.

Dog days

Things weren’t looking good for a chow-lab mix that tangled with newsman Tobby Hatley’s KHQ-6 rig Feb. 25. And lost. After all, who wants a stray with a broken leg? Tobby was on his way to an interview when the dog ran under his wheels at Seventh and Front. The gallows awaited (for the mutt, not Tobby) until management stepped in. Not only did Q-6 pay the $191 vet bill, but it featured Bowser on its “Pet Savers” program. Now, the dog is living with Janet Ladeen in Troy, Mont. All together now: Awww.

Gone with the pen

Don Johnston was an interested observer Tuesday as he inspected Walker-Macy plans for a redesign of Coeur d’Alene’s public waterfront Tuesday. “Hey,” said the former mayor to two other former mayors, Ron Edinger and Al Hassell, “they’ve eliminated my building.” Sure enough, the tentative sketches called for replacing his old warehouse along Northwest Boulevard with landscaped parking. “I won’t mind, if someone pays me for it,” continued Don. And there’s the rub … A Walker-Macy rep told me why his firm penciled in an ugly, gray parking lot on the lakeshore: “The merchants want it.” And? “The merchants are paying for this study.” Oh?

Separated at birth?

Is it possible George Evjan was selected as Kootenai County’s “Employee of the Year” because he looks so much like his boss, Assessor Ray Lee? Both sport the same hairdo (or lack thereof) - graying stubble ringing shiny crowns. Quoth Commissioner Dick Panabaker: “They’re twins, only one’s a little shorter.”

Huckleberries

“Chicago Hope,” a TV hospital series, is back to its Idaho bashing. This time, a black male doctor tells a white female sawbones that she’s prejudiced, concluding: “Maybe you should move to Idaho” … In spring 1997, a “Chicago Hope” character claimed a prominent person has a better chance to receive a heart transplant than say a jackhammer operator from Idaho whose mother just happens to be his sister … Fan Mail: Eunice Gillam answered the question posed in Huckleberries Past: “What is there in South Dakota besides Mount Rushmore?” E-mails she: the friendliest people in the U.S., stressless little towns, wonderful fishing lakes, great pheasant hunting, deer in groups of as many as 32. And on and on. Mea culpa … Stat of the Week: You wonder why you grumbled when you saw snow Thursday? Beginning Nov. 1, only 12 of the next 120 days had cloudless skies … Last week, I waited on hold for 12 minutes to ask the IRS two simple tax questions. However, a pleasant recording kept urging me to continue to wait and the Muzak du jour was classical. Maybe the Infernal Revenue Service really is getting nicer.

Parting shot

Recently, I defended the dogcatcher’s right to bear arms. Now, I’m not so sure. A black lab, described as a “vicious dog,” was shot in the head and killed at a Idaho Transportation Department gravel pit on Hanley Avenue. Teeth bared, the dog lunged at a Dawg Deputy and another man as they climbed on pea gravel toward her. Then again, who can blame a new mom that’d just given birth to 10 pups for being out of sorts?