“Did you bring a pillow?” a legislative aide asked, when I stopped to say hello on the way to Tuesday’s Common Council proceedings.

■ On Wednesday, April 4, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s Chola Dynasty bronze of Shiva as Brahma had been bought at auction by the Cleveland Museum of Art for $4,072,000. The amount is a record for a sculpture of its type, and just tops the high end of what Sotheby’s predicted it would fetch. Though a loss to the museum’s collection, this particular transaction has three clear positives: 1) The statue remains in a public museum, rather than disappearing into a private collection; 2) Cleveland is nearby; and 3) It’s a good price, and pushes the total proceeds to the Albright-Knox so far close to $30 million.

Lobbyists working to defeat the Bigger Better Bottle Bill let out a collective sigh of relief on March 31, when the item was sacrificed from Governor Eliot Spitzer’s 2007 state budget in order to pass the overall budget by the April 1 deadline.