White Christmas highlights a couple of black eyes in Federal Way

I see the old cliché "another day, another dollar" as I look into the hour glass for 2008. Here we are, entering another fast-approached year, and we probably haven’t even enjoyed 2008.

Instead of wishing all of you a Happy New Year, perhaps it would be more fitting to say "Hoping New Year."

It’s that time of the year in which many have made new promises for the New Year. These so-called New Year's resolutions have so often become the covert way to kid ourselves that things will get better if we do the resoluted promises for the year. Whether it be losing weight or promising to eat healthier or to be a better citizen, or being a better spouse, or doing a better job of saving money or giving up a particular vice — they all sound great, but the reality is that so many will have the same outcomes they had last year.

I would love to hear Prince write and sing “Party til 2009.” I can’t imagine the content of the song.

Hoping New Year, because there are issues and things that need to have a “new leaf” turned over in the coming year. This is the year of flushing out the systems and to clean up the injustices, racism, bailouts and crooked local governing systems.

I turned on the local news and they reported that we were back to normalcy and pretty much caught up, after the lengthy storm we just experienced. I chuckled — no, I laughed aloud. After listening to such a good report, I went to my pile of mail. I got some mail that really floored me with angry-laughter.

The first letter I opened came from the homeowners association of our housing development. It asked “Need to paint the trimming of your house?” — then gave me a deadline to do it before being penalized. First of all, my house looks fine. But, what nerve they have, to send me or maybe others, a letter expressing concern for painting the trim? Here we are stuck in this snow storm. Is that what an association is supposed to do? Go check trimmings when the owners can’t even leave their home due to the storm? Why not instead use the thousands of dollars they are saving for that “rainy” day and rent/hire someone to plow the streets of our development and help us be functional during these “stormy” days.

The second letter I opened came from the water and waste department, notifying me that they were going to flush the water system in my street. That’s awkward timing to be encouraged that my water system is going to get flushed, when we are trying to keep our home water lines from freezing. They refer to it as "systematically flushing."

The notice also instructs that “you may be impacted by two separate back-to-back flushings." Hey, we still have ice and snow in my end of the street. Just hoping that it doesn’t create more problems with drains that aren’t cleaned, thus flooding the streets.

Then, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the front page announcement on The Mirror, “Garbage collection returns to normal.” As I look out my window, I see bags of garbage, stacks of wet and falling apart cardboard, and blue/grey containers overflowing with garbage. I know that it is referred to “recyclables.” Call it what you want — it is still garbage. And it still attracts unwanted pests and fowl, and it looks terrible. This might trigger another letter from my association: “Clean up litter and garbage before the city does it” and get charged for it. This is now the second miss of garbage pick-up, and I am given instructions by Waste Management to label and even use laundry baskets for the "recyclable" garbage.

Hoping New Year — hoping suggestions to go along with theirs:

1. Hoping that any association that is saving the homeowners money for a rainy day, remember that it’s for the betterment of that housing development. 2. Hoping that a better response process is being developed for the next major storm.

3. Hoping we don’t have another white Christmas because all it does is put a black-eye spot on our city and its communities.

PS: Ironic that "PS" stands for "post script" because I am hoping that when the postal workers ask for a raise in 2009, that we support them, because they were the only valiant public servants that didn’t make excuses.

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