Meteorologically mean
It is just plain vicious that today will be spectacular and Saturday, when many of us are released from our cages offices to frolic at events such as Maritime Day, it’s supposed to be standard-issue soggy. If you can skip work today, go right ahead, and take an extra lap around Alki for me. I unfortunately was born with a weird gene that will cause me to drop dead on the spot if I ever call in sick when I don’t happen to be. So as Snow White’s mini-men once sang, hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go …
Sad sight
We didn’t realize till tonight that the Lincoln Park pipeline project has torn up Cove Park just north of the Fauntleroy ferry dock. The little park has been a favorite stop of ours during spring and summer walks — a nice place to sit on one of the driftwood logs for ferry-watching and Olympics-admiring. Tonight, once the weather cleared, we went down to Cove Park for the first time in months — and were absolutely shocked — the driveway down to the park from Fauntleroy is stripped of its artsy inlaid glass border; the driftwood logs are mostly gone; the beach is a staging area for the pipe work, complete with humongous backhoe; and a joint on the above-ground temporary pipe is venting sewer gas right at the entrance to the beach (no wonder the first house north of the parklet is vacant and posted “for rent”). We understand this project was necessary but that doesn’t make the loss of the little park any less heartbreaking. With that and the loss of the southernmost Lincoln Park parking lot (also a staging area for equipment, gravel, etc.), we don’t think we’re going to be spending much time on this end of the WS waterfront until the work is done in a few months. We find it hard to believe this won’t affect Colman Pool access, at least for the first few weeks, but the city brochure doesn’t reflect any impacts …
West Seattle’s most spectacular spring flowers
They’re just about to bloom at the Fauntleroy Creek overlook (across the street and up the staircase from the ferry dock).
They’re not big splashy flowers like tulips or daffodils. They’re small and relatively rare. They’re on a spiny plant called Darwin’s barberry, and they are the color of a tequila sunrise. No photos do them justice but here’s one anyway. They usually bloom at the start of April — that’s when we saw them for the first time, on a bush at Shore Acres State Park in Oregon, more than 15 years ago — and discovering them on a hedge at the salmon overlook here was more joy than we could stand. Just wondrous.
Turning greenery into green
You see their vans everywhere — and they are based right here in West Seattle — the phone number starting with “93” gives that away — I’m in awe of the Botanical Designs folks. Seems like they take care of plants at every business in the city. I’ve seen their teams pulling up in front of nondescript office buildings, and parking outside plush hotels. Hard to find out much about them, though; even their Web site is mysteriously shallow. But two (green) thumbs up to them for helping make sure we don’t devolve into a plantless world.
Breathtaking
Don’t breathe too deeply, suggests this story about a new pollution study. The report apparently drills down to specific census tracts; I’m out of time to look that deeply into it this morning, but I’d guess the WS areas closest to port traffic are the ones with the worst air.
This morning, though, I suspect it’s safe to inhale … we’ve got double-digit wind out there and it sounds rough enough to scrub out everything but the basic ingredients!
Blinded by the light
Call it the flip side of the phenomenon that occurs in spring and summer, when the sun temporarily blinds you as you’re driving eastbound to work in the morning on the WS Bridge.
The light that blinded me (figuratively speaking) tonight was … light in the western sky, as I drove home at dusk. LIGHT IN THE SKY, AT 6 PM! HALLELUJAH!
Speaking of driving, one more plug for my new friends at the Alki News Beacon — they’re running an online poll about whether signs on local freeways should point visitors to The Beach.
Sounds like a great idea to me. I didn’t even make it over to West Seattle the first time I came to the city as a tourist in the late ’80s; even though I had a rent-a-car and roamed quite widely around the area, this side of the bay was quite the well-kept secret.
I came back two years later, and found my way here after reading a blurb in a tourist guide. The rest was history … six months after that, WS Blogger Spouse and I were loaded in the car and headed this way, for good (in more ways than one).
Even now, though, West Seattle is way too “off-the-beaten-path.” I know we don’t want to be overrun with people, but still — a little tourism could be encouraged (scenic tours? see where Seattle’s first settlers landed?), without much skin off our backs. Just a little. Daytripping, they used to call it. Sunglasses & sunscreen, here we come!
Another way to escape the winter blues … um, grays
Even if you don’t swim, pay the three bucks and change, and go hang out at West Seattle’s only city-run pool during one of the public swim periods. The air is tropical. If you choose to go in the water, you can also close your eyes and imagine yourself somewhere much, much warmer. Really, the admission fee probably falls short of what you’d pay to stay home for the same hour or two and keep the thermostat up. (I know I’m not the only one with an outrageous City Light or PSE bill these days.)
Stay out of the water
Reportedly there’s a sewage leak in the Lincoln Park vicinity and authorities have “posted the beach (as) closed.” Well, whew. So much for that yearning to take a midwinter swim in salt water.
“Poison” ivy
This afternoon, walking along an otherwise lovely, hilly block of modest West Seattle warboxes, I got the answer to a question I asked some weeks back, while reading this article: “Who in the WORLD plants ivy ON PURPOSE?”
Yes, there they were, about half a dozen snarling starter clumps of ivy, carefully spaced along the north-facing bank of a warbox that sits about five feet above the sidewalk.
I so badly wanted to just yank them out. But that’s vandalism, even if the cause seems just.
I don’t have the cojones for an anonymous note in the door or under a windshield. So this post will have to do.
Sinking feeling
West Seattle’s first major storm damage … or at least it sounds storm-related … a sinkhole closing one of the paths down to the beach in Lincoln Park.
Reminds me of a James Taylor album title
… “Mudslide Slim and the Blue Horizon.” (1971) I refer to our soggier-than-usual weather, already blogged inventively today by Defective Yeti with an apropos screen grab. No new mudslides here in the west yet (a slide in Everett has been the big headline so far). But the “blue horizon” has indeed appeared — like — WAIT! RIGHT NOW! TO THE SOUTHWEST! I’m bolting for the front steps so I can get a fraction of a ray … later!
Don’t drink the water
Half a dozen West Seattle elementary schools are on the latest list recommended for new water pipes, along with Denny Middle School & its neighbor, Chief Sealth High. The total project cost is estimated at $11 million plus. I’m wondering, how much is it costing, in the meantime, to provide alternative water sources for our kids? Do we really have to wait for another levy to fix this? Bill Gates is busy throwing money at Third-World health issues; maybe he could give a few centavos to Seattle Public Schools. Oh wait, he did, didn’t he, and regretted it, if I recall correctly …
| Comments Off on Meteorologically mean