We lost a friend and neighbor today.

Paulette Flohr was our neighborhood’s early warning system — after more than 20 years here she knew most everything about everybody, and if she had any doubts, she asked questions, point-blank, right up in your grill. She would have made an excellent reporter, but instead crunched numbers for a living, when she wasn’t busy inspecting the perimeter with her chocolate Lab, Bob.

She was a big ol’ gal, with a head of hair that just wouldn’t quit, and you could hear her laugh from blocks away.

But cancer doesn’t care how loudly you laugh, how many friends toasted you at your 60th birthday bash, or who will walk your dog when you’re gone.

Paulette leaves her husband, Steve, Bob the dog, and uncounted family members, friends and neighbors who will miss her beaming smile, booming laughter and progressive spirit.

Here’s something you don’t hear every day. I’m rolling the Vespa out of the garage to scoot over to the senior center, drop off our mayoral-runoff ballots, and our neighbor tells me her new dog ate her old bird.

And I ain’t talkin’ a bucket of finger-lickin’ from The Colonel, either — I’m talking a decorative item, a parakeet, which probably wishes it had never seen a long-haired dachshund. As if life isn’t already short enough.

Meanwhile, the smart money is on the wrong guy winning the mayoralty, surprise surprise. This is Bibleburg, after all, wherein reigns Nature, red in tooth and claw.

What next? The pic on the NYT is a Pulitzer candidate and the news is all bad. As longtime friend of the site K notes: JFC.