West Seattle, Washington
25 Thursday
If you’ve checked the papers or watched tv, you may have heard the latest round of “it might snow” hysteria. Here’s the latest from the experts.
In line at Morgan Junction Thriftway on Thanksgiving afternoon, we listened to our checker swap tales with customers about what sounded like the Ferry Line From Hell down at the Fauntleroy dock. Didn’t have time or need to check it out for ourselves; but the blog stories we’re finding tonight sound like the next best thing to having been there — 1,000 Comedian Out of Work…’s Blog tells of surviving the seemingly endless line, only to wind up at the wrong dock; Acting Up mentions giving up upon the mere sight of the line, and “driving around” instead to get to Kitsap County.
… and all through the town/nothing much was scheduled/’cause few were around.
Well, it’s not that slow, but close (the really good stuff is next weekend, including the 2nd annual West Seattle Tree Lighting). Keep in mind that the community centers are closed, the Senior Center’s closed, but stores are open, so it’s a great weekend to start shopping! (We’ll post some recommendations soon for only-in-WS gifts.) Aside from that, here’s a few weekend events: Santa’s arriving @ Westwood Village at noon Saturday … the Holy Rosary Tree Lot opens Saturday (we’ll be scoping out others this weekend too) … on Sunday, it’s one of the final four West Seattle Farmers’ Market days of the year … ongoing art exhibits include “Visual Ensembles” @ ArtsWest, Alexis St. John’s retrospective @ T(ea) Gallery, and “Art for the People” by Chad Stieg @ Revolution Coffee & Art.
Soon as you are … check out the latest additions to our WS Holiday Stuff page. And as soon as you (or your neighbors) turn your house into a light-encrusted showplace, send us the address … we plan to list the coolest decorations, too, for all to see.
Among many other blessings, we are thankful for you taking the time to stop by this site and see what’s up. (Otherwise, we’d be talking to ourselves, and heaven knows, we’ve done enough of that in our time on this planet so far.) We are also thankful to still be here in wondrous West Seattle … where you can see sunsets like this (photo by Lisa) and this (photo by Michelle) … where you can go for a summer swim at a pool like this … where you can find community groups like this and this, spending their “spare time” to nurture our neighborhoods … others banding together to caretake precious bits of urban wildness between the condos and the concrete … yet others who do what they can to share with those in need … We could go on all day, but we’ve got other things to do and so do you. Again — thanks.
While the “for (re)sale” sign flaps in the breeze outside Gatewood Baptist Church (on Cali, just before the big hill), the city has just issued a fat set of permits for the multi-family housing that’s going up on what was church property across the street: two “duplex townhouses” at 7200 Cali, two more (plus a demolition permit) at 7202 Cali, two more at 7206 Cali, and last but not least, two more at 7208 Cali. As a meditative scene, if this density disturbs you, ponder this photo of West Seattle housing some decades back.
Just got a note from Tony, longtime proprietor of West Seattle’s most illustrious coffeehouse brand, Java Bean. Tony is (#1) thanking everyone who donated to JB’s just-completed food drive — 200 pounds of food on its way to Northwest Harvest! — and (#2) offering to take turkeys over to the White Center Food Bank (urgently needed, as we mentioned a couple posts down). Tony says that if you drop a turkey donation off at Java Bean (on Avalon, just south of the bridge; here’s a map) BY NOON TODAY (Wednesday), he will take it to the food bank. Three cheers for Tony! (And for Java Bean, whose old cart at the pre-’97-fire Thriftway is where we first truly fell in love with lattes, guzzling intense triple-grande-nonfat from our old-school saucer-bottom reusable mug. Ah, the memories …)
We can’t resist noting you read about Bakery Nouveau (in the ex-Borracchini space) and Beato (in the ex-O2 space) here first … BUT … props to the P-I for dishing up new details on both in tomorrow’s paper.
Or two. Or even three … We mentioned the White Center Food Bank’s need for turkey donations. We hope at least someone out there heeded the call; we took a few down ourselves. Well, ’tis two days before Thanksgiving, and we just got a note from the WCFB saying they’ve got fewer than 20 turkeys left, but hundreds more families to serve. C’mon, you can get turkeys REALLY cheap at Safeway or Fred Meyer. Open your wallet, open your heart. (And if you know of anyplace else in our area that needs last-minute donations, please leave a comment for all to see!)
The folks at Holy Rosary must have a heck of a web team. Even their famous Christmas tree lot (we just added it to our Holiday Stuff page since it’s opening this Saturday!) has its own site.
One of the chroniclers linked from our Other Blogs in WS page is sporting quite the photo essay. While having some trouble finding a usable parking space at Jefferson Square, Dustin decided to capture the space-munchers on camera.
Looks like Gatewood Baptist Church isn’t just changing locations, it’s changing its name. The sign outside its future new home on 35th is now draped with a banner reading “Life Church Ministries, Coming Early 2007.”
There are two, in fact, in today’s P-I:
–The traffic columnist disappoints an impatient West Seattle driver by getting the city to go on the record, again, promising the “walk all ways with walk” status of Cali/Alaska is safe. (Personally, we don’t mind it, whether in the car or on foot.)
–Elliott Bay Brewery plays a big role in an odd little article promising to be part of a series themed something like “wow, parents actually still drink in front of their kids.” EBB is one of many swell places in The Junction (yummy burgers), and it’s great to see the area get publicity, but since you can get a drink in a zillion restaurants where you also can bring the whole family (gasp, we’ve had the West 5 mai tai in front of a grade-schooler), we’re a little befuddled as to what makes this a trend. We would have liked to see them poll the patrons on whether they’re walking, busing, or designated-drivering. (Around here, they also could have focused on the creeping tendency to NOT let under-21s in, with both Talarico’s and Matador right there on the same side of Cali.)
-Junction road work’s almost done – just a few finishing touches left around the edges of the “raised crosswalks.” They don’t seem to do much as speed bumps; hanging out in The Junction on Saturday, we saw people zoom right over them, none the worse for wear.
-The official sign is now unveiled at West Seattle’s first drive-thru Starbucks, though the rest of the ex-Rainier Roaster renovation seems to have a ways to go:
… go to the Farmers’ Market today and get a bag of the spectacular salad mix from Willie’s (usually near the northwest corner of the lot). Last chance; they told us last week that this week would be their last visit for the season. (Last week they were also displaying photographs of how the recent flooding affected their farmland in Monroe.)
So we’re sitting in the balcony at Cinerama downtown watching Casino Royale, the new James Bond movie (six thumbs up). The theme song is by Chris Cornell of Audioslave, ex-Soundgarden. “Doesn’t he live in West Seattle?” we ask ourselves. Sadly, post-movie research reveals, he used to, but not any more. He got divorced and remarried; his ex-wife got the house in Gatewood. Good song, tho; hear it here.
We know you’ll be slugging your way thru the supermarket aisles sometime this weekend, looking ahead to the cookingest holiday of them all. One more pitch for turkey donations to local food banks … the White Center Food Bank still needs ’em; a reasonably sized frozen turkey won’t set you back much scratch, and you can drop it off Monday 8:30-5. (Don’t know about the WS Food Bank; tried calling, nobody answered.) By the way, for your shopping convenience, here are links to nearby grocery stores’ latest ad flyers: Morgan Junction Thriftway … Westwood Village QFC … Metropolitan Market … Safeway … Burien Fred Meyer.
123 stores for Tully’s, versus four-billion-kajillion for S(BIG)BUX. Yeah, I’d call that an underdog. So Tully’s is trying something new — according to the end of this story, it’s getting new treats from Alki Bakery. By the way, if you didn’t already know, two of those 123 stores are here in WS — the one on Alki (used to be a Taco Time), and the one at Morgan Junction (which once was a Cafe Starbucks).
Took us several years as homeowners to realize this undying truth of November: If you want to put up Christmas lights, seize any rainless spell you can. You’ve probably noticed that our current reprieve has led to a sudden pre-Thanksgiving blast of decorations around the neighborhoods. We’ve seen at least half a dozen homes and “multi-family” buildings suddenly sporting lights along the stretch of Fauntleroy between Alaska and California. One more day till the next storm hits, or so they say.
Here’s some of what’s up this weekend around West Seattle: For starters, things are jumping on Delridge tonight, with the “semi-annual open house” for Youngstown Arts Center & Cooper Artist Housing, plus an “open-campus celebration” for Delridge Community Center, the Delridge library branch, and nearby community-service agencies … Friday Night Family Skating again tonight @ Alki Community Center … EarthCorps work party Saturday @ Me-Kwa-Mooks … Holiday Craft & Plant Fair on Saturday @ Southwest Community Center (as posted earlier on our WSB Holiday Stuff page) … Community Rummage Sale on Saturday @ Hiawatha Community Center …“In Fere” Saturday & Sunday nights @ Youngstown Arts Center … Andy Crow plays piano & organ Sunday afternoon @ Kenyon Hall … West Seattle Neighbors for Peace & Justice presents “Sir! No Sir!” @ the WS Library on Sunday afternoon … the Visual Ensembles exhibit continues @ ArtsWest … live music tonight and tomorrow night (as is usual for Thurs/Fri/Sat nights) @ Skylark Cafe … Finally, two memorials that we mentioned below: Saturday afternoon @ Seattle Center Pavilion, the public memorial for 47th/Admiral accident victim Tatsuo Nakata; also on Saturday, the Dix memorial cruise. Anything we missed? Leave a comment or e-mail us.
The city has announced a public memorial service at Seattle Center this Saturday for Tatsuo Nakata, the man hit and killed at 47th/Admiral earlier this week. Meantime, the P-I takes on pedestrian safety in a Friday editorial. Certainly a touchy topic, as evidenced by the discussion here and on other blogs, like this one.
Not a very cheery week on this side of the bay, is it? Tonight’s news, a fire at an Arbor Heights house has killed a woman. The P-I says her son was badly burned trying to save her.
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