much ado about a tree

you can go ahead and thank me for not titling this post 'a tree grows in brooklyn'. there. it had to be said.

so say what you will about bloomberg being evil, he has steadily garnered my respect over the years by doing things that affect me personally, positively. he took the smoke out of bars. he campaigned for gay marriage. and he's got this million tree planting program that is tree by tree, beautifying new york city.

in this program, even lowly tenants like little ol' me can request a tree planted in front of their building. which is exactly what i did back in september of 2008.

okay, so maybe change comes really damn slowly, and maybe i lost a little bit of faith that anyone from the million tree program ever cared about little ol' me. imagine my excitement when, 2 and a half years later, bloomberg's truck came to call on, you got it, little ol' me.

honorable indeed!

...and dropped this little leaf linden on my front door step just like santa came in june. (our little leaf linden, pictured here with our friendly neighborhood 'vodka zombies'. more on them in a later post, that is, if you all haven't given up on me and my never posting habits of late).

little tree, meet 64 diamond street. your happy new home.

it was an awesomely streamlined process which jade and i watched glued to the window, occasionally running down to the front door to gawk. after the truck of trees delivered our little leaf linden, a man came by and painted multicolored warnings on the surrounding sidewalk, pointing out cable, gas and electric lines. then a big tractor came to dig up the sidewalk.

(are you sensing how this whole process turned me quickly into an eight-year-old?)

the tractor operator rocked an amzing cap covered with a rainbow of pot leaves. his deft hands controlling the dinosaur jaw of the backhoe (?) reminded me of kamaji, the boiler man from spirited away.

jade, glued to the window.

start a new life! plant a tree!!




then these dudes came with the dirt truck and pushed a bunch of dirt out of a secret flap, prompting jade to declare he'd found his dream job: to ride around new york city every day atop big piles of dirt.

and just like that, our new little guardian, and me, a smug as a cat who swallowed a mouse. (isn't there a phrase that goes something like that?) feeling personally responsible for bringing this little life to our little brooklyn block.