We’ve been wondering why it’s taken so long for somebody to do something about the burned-out, fenced-off ex-Schuck’s store in the 3700 block of California. Meandering around the land-use-application database, we discovered evidence that something is in the works, finally. (And shockingly, given recent development trends, NOT A RESTAURANT … well, at least at this stage.)

Sun or no sun, it’s opening day for West Seattle’s coolest pool.

Most people get there by parking in Lincoln Park’s south lot and walking north on the paved waterfront path. We prefer the other way — find a spot by Lowman Beach, walk down the end stub of Beach Drive to the start of Lincoln Park’s unpaved path — so much more beautiful and peaceful.

But whatever you do, our advice is, just go! We won’t get there today; something else is on the calendar … but before the holiday weekend’s over, we’ll definitely make our start-of-season pilgrimage.

-It’s not just Alki. I see urban tree protests are becoming the hot new thing.

-The new First Mutual Bank branch north of the Junction is finally open. Huge “GRAND OPENING” banner. That site was home to a “COMING SOON” sign for what seemed like years.

-The new Safeway gas station on Admiral (east of the Jack in the Box) looks close to opening. As we drove past, West Seattle Blogger Spouse exclaimed, “Good God, the site is even LANDSCAPED!” (But do a couple cents a gallon really matter when gas prices are this high? Just asking.)

-Driving almost the full length of California, I was a bit astounded at the number of new teardown-to-condo projects under way. It’s grown exponentially. One project even shows the transformation on its Web site. (And some of those condos are going for ALMOST A MILLION BUCKS!)

I’ve been a devoted voter since the first election after my 18th birthday — some tiny special election, sewer district board or something like that. Haven’t missed an election since. Every election day, the entire West Seattle Blog delegation walks to the small semi-public facility where workers for our precinct and several others are headquartered, and we cast our votes.

Apparently those days are ending. This may be good news for a lot of people, but not me. Voting always felt like a precious ritual. Trust me, I know it can be inconvenient — I’ve worked a lot of jobs with crazy, long hours, and sometimes it was tough to carve out that time to walk over to the polling place and do the deed. But it was, and is, important. Now it’ll be just something else to do at the cluttered dining table. I’ll miss those little old precinct workers.

Looks like things will be back to nearly normal soon at Lincoln Park.

Meantime, remember, tonight’s the Cupcake Royale grand opening. We are hoping to make an appearance.

So much for the “heat wave” … didn’t hit anywhere near 80 ’round these parts. West Seattle Blog World HQ was comfy throughout the evening, even the parts of the bunker exposed to direct sunshine out of the west. However, it’s definitely time to switch from hot espresso drinks to iced espresso drinks. And if you’re into sugary (er, corn syrupy) soda, don’t miss the “four 12-packs of Pepsi products for $9” coupon in the Fred Meyer insert from last Sunday’s paper. (We alternate trips between the really nice Fred Meyer in Ballard, aka West Seattle North, and Burien, aka West Seattle South.)

-Go to the Farmers’ Market (10 am-2 pm).

-Decide whether you want to recruit somebody for the Hi-Yu Pageant (deadline tomorrow) or perhaps protest it as a last remnant of sexism (hey, after all, the Miss America pageant is in its last gasps). BTW you will never catch me trashing the Hi-Yu Parade. Beauty queens or not, I love the parade. Hope you’ll join me on the sidelines (July 22).

-Stake out a spot on Alki for tomorrow’s impending heat wave.

-Practice cooling off by going to public swim at Southwest Pool (4 pm).

Taking a brief break from all that sunshine … Our neighborhood positively roared with the sound of lawn mowers and weed-whackers, mixed with the chugging of cars en route to the garage sales dotting every block. One member of the WS Blogger Clan managed to purchase that best-of-all garage sale souvenir … a knick-knack whose true purpose in life is entirely mysterious … even the seller had no idea what it was for.

Back with more later tonight … but first … a reminder … tomorrow’s the Letter Carriers’ Food Drive; do some good without even having to leave your house/apartment/wherever — fill a bag with nonperishable food ‘n’ put it out where you pick up your mail.

Totally forgot about Larry’s Markets’ brief, doomed venture into West Seattle till the mention deep inside this story about Larry’s bankruptcy. But the recovered memory reblooms vividly: Summer 1995, venturing over to that space where the Roxbury Safeway now holds court, to check out “LoBucks” — loved the idea of Larry’s treats like brownies being available over here, but the store just stunk. Literally. Couldn’t set foot in it a second time. And soon it was gone.

As for the entirety of the Larry’s demise, it saddens WSB Spouse and I a bit. In our early years here, long before Metropolitan Market and other rivals, we used to drive all the way over to Queen Anne just to enjoy favorite dishes from the Larry’s deli. A couple times in the past two years or so, we went back in hopes of recapturing the magic — and it just wasn’t there — many trademark cold salads and marinated chicken varieties had vanished — even the trademark brownie trays were hard to find. So we stopped going. And apparently we weren’t alone.

… be sure not to leave West Seattle next Saturday; our side of the bay will be in the spotlight that day (May 13) as the Garage Sale Capital of the World. The folks from Megawatt were out at the Farmers’ Market yesterday with reminder leaflets.

The WSB clan is not much for garage-saling; we bought our house from someone who apparently made most of her living having them, and for months afterward, we were rudely awakened many weekend mornings by people asking when we were going to start putting out the stuff. So we won’t be among the sellers, but we might try a little browsing!

… on a breezy, showery Sunday morning, than go outside!?

The Farmers’ Market awaits. We want to see if the Vashon Island nurseryfolk who grow offbeat plants including some spiky nightshade varieties are back. And the lettuce that’s so tasty, it reminds you that supermarket non-organic varieties are barely a cut above green paper.

Not sure yet if we’re going to make it to the Water Taxi party. I have to arm-wrestle other members of the WSB household as to what we’re doing beyond the Farmers’ Market.

No doubt the cloudy, coolish weather tamped down the turnout a bit, but it’s still disappointing to see so few people show up for a fun only-in-Seattle tradition. As planned, we water-taxied over — the boat’s added some ad banners this year, including one for “coming soon” Cupcake Royale and another for “Patron Saint of the Water Taxi” Councilguy Dow — and wandered up to Pier 66. The free harbor tour switched this year from an Argosy boat to a Kitsap Ferries boat, the Rachel Marie — lots more space but fewer takers. The Port of Seattle guy who narrated had some outdated facts; he claimed six cruise ships visit every weekend during the season, but this year it’s going to be nine. As for the tugboat races, it’s always hard for us amateurs to tell from the shore exactly what we’re looking at — just looks like a bunch of tugs out there, whether it’s mid-race or not. More interesting were the pierside booths, including one plugging the tunnel option for the Viaduct replacement (an excuse to mention that another round of public meetings is coming up). Anyway, we had a good time, but I would just love to have the pier be elbow-to-elbow some year with huge crowds enjoying the festival, which for me is always the unofficial Start of Seattle Summer.

Thanks to a tipster for writing WSB to tell us the Burger King Dave’s eyesore on Alaska east of the Junction is morphing into a bank. Info on the city business permit site appears to confirm this, and mentions “Viking Bank.” The VB site mentions it in the company’s latest newsletter, and I found info on the construction project elsewhere. Have a little lutefisk with your Money Market Account?

My personal pick for Best Cocktail in West Seattle is the mai tai at West 5. Discovered tonight that you can get it during “Happy Hour” for an amazing price — four bucks. Even at that price, I couldn’t handle more than one, much as I wanted to. (Happy Hour btw is 4-6 pm daily.)

Going to have to go look for something to report. Wanted to tell you about the banner from the Fauntleroy pedestrian overpass that’s in some language I don’t even recognize … but I didn’t get a chance to write it down. So that can wait till tomorrow. The sun’s too high in the sky right now to let me stay inside!

-First day of the new season of the West Seattle Farmers’ Market. I won’t make it there this week but if you see this before 2 pm, there’s still time for you to check it out!

-The Water Taxi hits the bay tomorrow. The official celebration’s not till next Sunday, but the WSB clan can’t wait to climb on board for the Maritime Festival next Saturday (which includes great freebie secrets that few people seem to catch on to, including free harbor cruises and free admission to the underattended Odyssey Maritime Museum).

-This one is West Seattle-related only because every Starbucks in the country, WS and elsewhere, has been promoting it: Akeelah and the Bee is actually a very good movie. Wonderful cast. No matter how cold-hearted and cynical you are, it will grab you. (Local aside, looks like our regional spelling bee was just a month ago. The champ came from the Eastside. I can’t find any evidence we’ve ever had one from our side of the pond.)

Some days back, WSB visitor Kathleen enlightened us as to the fate of the woman I remembered as “the bird lady of Beach Drive.” Now I’ve finally figured out what happened to a woman I could correspondingly call “the travel lady of California Avenue” — She runs a business called Cruises by Kay, which until a few years ago was housed in a house on the east side of Cali Ave, just south of the Morgan Junction biz district. Then she moved to a smaller house on the other side of Cali Ave; the previous house went down, condos went up. Now the house that used to bear her signs is also targeted for the wrecking ball (backhoe), and the building permit site says townhouses are going up. Rooting around a Web site for her agency, I found an address that suggests she moved to Bremerton. I hear that’s a hot neighborhood for real-estate gentrification too …

Looks like the folks behind Seattle Music Fest at Alki are going to try again this year. (If you’d forgotten, last year’s effort resulted in a last-minute cancellation.)

I’m not deeply into live music, so all I can say is, just don’t ever try mixing the music festival with the Fourth of July again … that happened at least once in the late ’90s, and I remember being at the beach and trying to reconcile the splendor of the fireworks with the grungy dirge of the 10 pm stage act … yii.