West Seattle, Washington
25 Thursday
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
Never a dull moment at Wendy and Stephen Hughes-Jelen’s High Point townhome.
They always have a variety of enterprises under way. For one, they’re companions to Sophia, the Italian greyhound, who’s appeared on the cover of CityDog Magazine. For two, Wendy has a green real-estate practice, and a social-media sideline with multiple blog-format websites (most recently, she’s been producing videos to promote Eat Local Now! – the local-food celebration coming up Sept. 30th).
We could go on, but why bother, when the next thing we’re going to list is so all-consuming: Their current sideline is round-the-clock kitten-raising. Five heart-stealing kittens – with, best of all, webcams. (One’s here; the other’s here.)
On behalf of West Seattle-headquartered nonprofit shelter Kitty Harbor, Wendy and Stephen volunteered to foster the little fluffballs – now six weeks old, two weeks away from adoptability – and decided to chronicle the whole thing online.
The clouds are back after four hours of sunshine graced the second half of the West Seattle Junction Car Show – but not before yielding a perfect rainbow arc over Elliott Bay. Kristina shares the photo above: Jerry from JetCityOrange shares the video below:
(added 7:47 pm) David Hutchinson shared a photo too:
And Jillian got the water-taxi perspective:
Thanks again to everyone who shared photos! You might not be surprised to hear famous forecaster Cliff Mass say that this may wind up as the wettest September on record.
(Our earlier WSJ Car Show reports: #1 is here, #2 is here)
Prime time to come down and see the West Seattle Junction Car Show (co-sponsored by WSB) if you haven’t already – we’re in hour 4 of sun (the puddles from the morning monsoons are almost all gone – check out the blue sky over the Last Resort Fire Department ladder:
That’s parked by the spot where raffle/drawing tickets to raise money for West Seattle Helpline are still on sale, and judging continues, with awards coming up at 3. Here by the way are a few more of the cars that have been here all day, through rain and shine:
Like West Seattle Summer Fest and all the other great summer festivals we were thrilled to be part of too, there’s a whole lot of “get out and talk to your friends and neighbors” going on here – thanks to everyone who has stopped by to say hi! More to come as the awards are announced in about an hour. 3:36 PM: Show’s over – awards have been announced, cars are rolling out. We’ll publish the list of who won (with pix) a bit later.
As mentioned in our food-notes roundup on Friday night – Metropolitan Market (WSB sponsor) is in the midst of its annual “For the Love of Cheese” celebration, and today’s the biggest event at the Admiral store, with cheesemakers and samples till 5 pm. You can also check in on the hand-pulled mozzarella that Metropolitan Market staffers make year-round:
The full schedule of cheese festival events at the Metropolitan Markets around the region is online here.
That’s former West Seattle Hi-Yu Summer Festival Junior Queen Kailin Jo Alexander Spencer with her creation from the Zucchini 500 under way at West Seattle Farmers’ Market right now – she came over to the neighboring West Seattle Junction Car Show to show it to us. Here’s the table at the market where kids are welcome to stop, make and race their own:
Also at the Farmers’ Market – before the sun came out (it’s been sunny a whole hour now!) – we found Sustainable West Seattle‘s Bill Reiswig, promoting Eat Local Now!
If you haven’t heard about it yet, the annual Eat Local Now! dinner is coming up September 30th at Herban Feast‘s SODO Park – it’s all about local food – to celebrate, and educate! WSB is among the co-sponsors again this year; tickets are $35 adults/$10 kids, available here.
You first heard about the Dick’s Drive-In “where to build a new location?” poll here back on August 30th – and today, our friends at KING 5 point out this is the final day to vote. The “South” option, which includes West Seattle, is in second place, albeit a distant second – nonetheless, there’s still time to round up some more votes. So we’re mentioning it one last time. Here’s where to vote.
(Scroll down for added photos and updates – as of 10:57 am we’ve got a sunbreak!)
Yes, it’s showery, but the third annual West Seattle Junction Car Show is on, rain or shine as promised, and the brightly colored cars are a great counterpoint to the 10-shades-of-gray sky. There’s plenty of people-watching too – here’s Husky Deli proprietor Jack Miller with one of the Last Resort Fire Department trucks you’ll find on SW Alaska between KeyBank and Easy Street Records:
Right nearby (just west of our tent on the Easy Street corner), you can also buy a West Seattle Junction Car Show T-shirt – shown off here by the West Seattle Helpline crew:
Also at the Helpline booth, you can get in on the drawing/raffle that’s raising money for Helpline, too. We’ll be adding more sights and sounds (classic rock’s on the sound system, by the way) in the hours ahead – the clouds are moving fast so we just might get sunbreaks along the way too! 11:07 AM: And that’s exactly what’s happened – after a couple of good cloudbursts, we’ve got a break, and some blue sky coming in from the west. Meantime, even the police are in rain gear:
The Last Resort Fire Department’s ladder has a flag over the west end of the show.
And speaking of “last resort” – today’s participants include a classic … hearse!
Also, there’s Brian Alvarez’s ’65 Mini … he tells us about it in this clip before we take a peek inside:
More to come!
With the third annual West Seattle Junction Car Show scheduled to start at 8 am, the setup’s been under way since before dawn – with tents arriving when it was still dark, along the closed-till-late-afternoon heart of The Junction. Then, as the eastern sky started to lighten, the participating cars (and other vehicles!) lined up to roll in:
First in line: Bill Baum and what he describes as his “1934 Ford pickup rod”:
Before the cars could start parking, the hydros had to get into place:
The show’s free, 8 am-4 pm, and we’ll be there reporting live all day; other Junction activities include a breakfast buffet at the West Seattle Eagles, $8, 9:30 am-noon per their newsletter, and the annual Zucchini 500 at the West Seattle Farmers’ Market (which is on as usual, 10 am-2 pm) – kids get to make and race their own veggie vehicles. More to come!
From Sean:
2 thieves were caught on camera breaking into cars at the 6300 block of 34th Ave SW [map] 09/17/2010 between 3:00 am – 3:15 am. They were very quiet, making sure to not shut doors and make noise, and probably were taking full advantage of the fog to further conceal their activities.
They were seen on camera heading northbound after digging through several cars on the 6300 block. If anybody has information or thinks they were victim of the same guys, they might try to contact Officer Larry Longley.
Meantime, yet another reminder – the West Seattle Crime Prevention Council‘s next meeting is this Tuesday night, 7 pm, Southwest Precinct meeting room. Community Police Team officers, who work on ongoing neighborhood issues, are usually there as well as at least one rep from precinct leadership, and it’s one way to ask about chronic (or new) concerns.
That’s photographer Tim Aguero, snapped via the WSB BlackBerry between mini-photo sessions at Avalon Glassworks on Saturday afternoon, during “Head Shots at the Hot Shop” – a chance to get a new photo for your online profiles (or whatever), with a suggested $40 donation going to the White Center Food Bank. We stopped by toward the end, but it was too soon for the final tally, which Avalon Glassworks’ Shannon Felix has posted on their Facebook page (along with shots of some of the participants) – $745. AG’s FB page is also a good place to learn a little more about art-glass creation – which we caught in action while covering the fundraiser:
That’s Sean with the torch. You can watch the creative process at the shop four days a week!)
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