Chillin' Wit' Cindy Bass: Where pit bull, cat coexist

CITY COUNCILWOMAN Cindy Bass attends Triumph Baptist Church in Nicetown on Sunday morning, then takes a lunch break at her Mount Airy home with her daughter, Carson, 3; her "great husband," Scott; pit bull Mecca; black Labrador Kinsey, and new kitten . . . "Um, Kitty, for now."

"Mecca was abused," says Bass, explaining the coexistence of a pit bull and a kitten. "They were trying to make her a fighting dog, but she wouldn't fight.

"My 23-year-old nephew, Michael, who lives with us, rescued her and brought her home in January 2009 - a bleeding, bloody mess with chunks of one ear missing.

"I said, 'Michael, I'm six months pregnant, about to have a baby. I don't know about this.' But she is the sweetest dog. I come home, she's licking on the kitten."

Bass' one concession to Sunday is waking up later than her weekday 6 a.m. - "4:30 a.m. if I'm going to the gym at 5:30" - because she doesn't have to get Carson ready for preschool.

After lunch, back at Triumph Baptist for a community meeting, Bass turns to Rosa Woods - her chief of staff and longtime friend - and tells the congregation, "Just on the way down here, Rosa was saying she doesn't have enough to do."

Woods looks startled, laughs and exclaims, "Oh, my God!"

Bass says, "So whatever you can find for Rosa to do, she'll be gratified."

Then the councilwoman confides to the congregation: "She's going to get me later."

After church, Bass attends the viewing of slain Philadelphia Police Officer Moses Walker Jr. Then, as chairwoman of Council's Parks and Recreation Committee, she heads to the Mann Music Center to say a few words before the Smokey Robinson concert.

Long Sunday. Good thing she got those extra couple of hours of sleep.

- Dan Geringer