West Seattle, Washington
01 Tuesday
Sat around the house for a few minutes, watching the fire flickering in the fireplace, and wondering why we weren’t out in the street with our neighbors, singing folk songs and playing the glockenspiel — isn’t that sort of bonding what is supposed to ensue when this kind of semi-catastrophe happens? Then another member of the WSB entourage decided we simply had to get down the hill to the powerful sector of town (aka The Junction) — there, we found the bonding. Every eatery in town is jammed. Folks are sharing power-outage stories. No wonder the home fires aren’t burning up on the hill. However, no one seems to have an answer to the one question that simmers in thousands of us at the moment … when the HELL will the power come back on?
More than 14 hours after Wind Wallop ’06, the West Seattle Blog World HQ is still out of power. Sneaking a moment of internet cafe access now, looking for another way to post some real updates shortly. We promise, we’ll get broadband wireless before the next one!
The lights are flickering; the Internet connection is wavering … Sounds out there like This Is It — the wind wallop the weather experts warned about. The National Weather Service “current observations” say it’s gusting to 58 mph at Alki Point! (Look for “K91S” here, under the “GS” column for gusts, “SP” next to it for ongoing wind speed.) E-mail and online reports mention a variety of problems around WS already, including some sort of sinkhole at Northrop and Thistle, up the hill from Lincoln Park, and power outages in Westwood and at the Fauntleroy end of the WS Bridge. We might be too powerless to post later, so to speak, but please keep everyone updated by adding a comment to this post with a report from your ‘hood. (And if you want to know what’s up elsewhere, the RPIN appears to provide decent updates.)
We’re sure you’ve heard by now that it could get insanely windy overnight, on the heels of all this pouring rain. In case you want to write it down or print it out before the power goes out, here’s the official City Light advice. Stay safe! And let us know about any trouble in your neighborhood.
A dozen places in The Junction are participating in tonight’s Art Walk, 6-8 pm, starting at Divina, with beverages and hors d’oeuvres. We’ve got the complete list of participants and artists, thanks to Divina.Read More
Since part 1 of our Christmas-lights search, our chances to keep scouring the streets have been limited by personal holiday activities (like getting a reasonably priced tree). But others have provided more info on WS lights for you to enjoy. For starters, one e-mail tipster mentioned that Fauntlee Hills is nicely lit as usual (here’s how to find that area), and it’s also written up in this region-wide Times roundup today (along with a few other WS spots). Yet another address is mentioned at the end of a touching letter-to-the-editor in this week’s Herald. We’ll be out searching again this weekend so please share your discoveries by e-mailing us.
Not much more, but this short Times article this morning does identify the victim as Robert Samson.
The folks in The Junction say it was nothing sinister, just the stormy weather, that took down the WS tree, and since they didn’t have a foolproof way to anchor it, they’re leaving it down till the weather mellows out. Which apparently won’t be anytime too soon.
What’s going on here this week? First the stabbing, now a shooting reported outside an Arbor Heights home. Very short articles this morning from the P-I and Times. Is it the turbulent weather (which at this moment features howling wind following a night of pounding rain, and forecasts threaten worse on the way)?
Just visually confirmed an e-mail report that the Junction Christmas tree is horizontal tonight. Trying to find out whether the weather is to blame, or something more sinister, like perhaps a prolonged protest over its fleetingly shelved Sea-Tac brethren.
The PR people for Beato Food & Wine, at the ex-O2-post-Ovio site, tell us opening night is set for Dec. 19, one week from tonight, with hours set for 5-11 pm Tuesdays-Sundays. They also mention a special New Year’s Eve dinner in the works, which dovetails with a site visitor’s suggestion today that we collect info on WS New Year’s Eve doings and add it to the Holiday Stuff page — great idea, will start looking, and everyone’s welcome to e-mail us now with news of any special local events that night.
P-I and Times both report this morning that a man turned up with stab wounds near Lincoln Park, though he said the attack happened in The Junction.
So reports the Seattle Times today. We didn’t know the victim, Lyn Wesselhoeft, but from the online references we just found (including a past mention on the Fauntleroy Church site), a lot of people here probably did; the Times story says she moved to NM just a few months ago.
In no particular order, here are the results of our first West Seattle Blog Posse Cruise for Christmas Lights. More to come …
BEACH DRIVE/ALKI/HARBOR: Sad to say you can drive the entire waterfront stretch without many significant sightings, except of course the brightest WS Christmas house of all, the Menashe mansionette on Beach Drive (a few blocks south of Shore Place). From there, we had to drive all the way to 1671 Harbor for anything on the waterfront worth writing home about (at least as of last night).
ALSO NOTABLE TO THE NORTH: A block on the west side of Walnut, south of Hinds, has several bright spots, as does a short stretch of 40th, north of Charlestown, and the east side of 41st, heading north from Manning. Then on the SW corner of 41st and Hinds, there’s a house with a novel deployment of light strands — two dangling in the air between the porch and the front-gate arbor, like power lines. Back on Walnut, we saw a few bright spots north of Stevens (back side of WS High School). (This map will give you a general guide to the entire area we just mentioned.)
THEN IN THE NORTHWEST QUADRANT: If you love the famous light-encrusted tree at Point Defiance Zoolights, you’ll love the tree outside a home on the west side of 45th, south of Lander (near Lafayette Elementary). And not far from there, 47th both just north and just south of Admiral impressed us too.
One more reminder, if you want to share a light location with your fellow West Seattleites, e-mail us and we’ll be thrilled to share.
Usually we just bring you pre-weekend “here’s what’s happening” blurbs. But so much is going on this week before the weekend, besides basic holiday stuff, so here goes:
–TUESDAY NIGHT: An e-mail tipster reports that West Seattle’s own Mac “Santa Mac” Macdonald is producing “Rock ‘n’ Roll Christmas,” a benefit show at 7:30 pm @ McCaw Hall, and promises it’s “the most fun to be had this holiday season.”
–WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Cafe Rozella hosts author Layne Maheu @ 7 pm, reading from his book “Song of the Crow.”
–THURSDAY NIGHT: The next Junction Art Walk, 6-8 pm, starting at Divina, with 12 participating locations (we’ll post artist specifics by Thursday). Then get involved in civics and meander over to the Southwest Precinct at 8 pm as the city Design Review Board makes its pronouncement on the huge Fauntleroy Place development.
-Just back from our first official drive in search of WS’s best Christmas lights. Will post our findings sometime tomorrow. To generalize wildly — so far, the north side of WS appears to have many more lavish displays than the south side.
-Sorry if this is old news to Morgan Junctionites; just noticed the big CLOSED FOR REMODELING, REOPENING FALL 2007 signs in the windows of Washington Federal Savings at Cali & Fauntleroy. Somehow you gotta wonder, will they really reopen as a bank? That corner is so incredibly prime … you’d think those “mixed-use” developers would be clamoring for it.
-Earlier this fall, when we posted a few times about best-selling author Terry Brooks (who lives in WS at least part of the time), someone wrote to say that other best-selling authors live in WS, including a couple, Skye Moody & G.M. Ford. If that’s so, apparently they won’t be here much longer, according to her MySpace page, which mentions they’re moving to the Oregon Coast next month.
We’ve heard Starbucks checks the temperature of its drinks, but how about the temperature of its signs? (Taken half an hour ago at the ex-Rainier Roaster.)
Just back from two of the Christmas Ship‘s three WS stops tonight (its WS finale for ’06 is tomorrow, Don Armeni, 7:10 pm, music by the Dickens Carolers, seen and heard in WS just last weekend for the Junction Tree Lighting). Missed the early stop @ Seacrest; intended just to enjoy the Lowman stop, but a member of the WSB entourage suggested we check out its Alki stop too, so off we went. At Lowman, the bonfire was the centerpiece, neatly held in a cordoned-off fire ring (obviously brought in by the parks crew, as fires otherwise aren’t allowed there), unlike a few years ago, when we remember a pile of pallets set ablaze with great abandon. At Alki, the non-cordoned bonfire was almost an afterthought at one heck of a party, with a live band on shore, a huge city-provided tent, and free cookies and cocoa/cider in Tully’s cups (amusing since the smaller tent next door belonged to Starbucks, offering tiny free samples of gingerbread lattes). We wondered between stops if the Vashon Island Chorale would sing the same half-dozen or so songs at both stops; answer: no. Just one overlap, the appropriate finale “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” Big crowds at both stops, thanks to the cleared-up-in-time weather, and the Alki event had quite the afterparty going long after the Christmas Ship vanished into the downtown glow.
Drum roll … we’ve completed our one-day tour of West Seattle Christmas-tree sellers (yes, “Christmas trees,” not holiday trees, sigh). From the Holy Rosary lot in the north, to the 28th & Roxbury lot in the south, here’s what we found:
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Taking a quick break from the tour of tree lots … so far, if your budget really requires the cheapest tree you can find, Home Depot is the place in WS (you can get a 6′ Douglas fir for about twenty bucks). More sites to visit, so that may not turn out to ultimately be the cheapest tree in WS, but in case you’re going out this afternoon, now that the rain has stopped (paused?), did want to mention it. We personally still mourn the old White Center Chubby & Tubby, where you could get a $5 “Charlie Brown style” scraggly little tree. More later …
The Fauntleroy Community Council reports zero coho returning to their creek, for the first time in more than a decade. The watershed watchers cite possible reasons ranging from global warming to tribal fishing.
We’re just trouble magnets today. After the drama of the 35th (and surrounding streets) shutdown earlier (see posts below), on our way home from an evening outing just now, the Fauntleroy/Alaska intersection got blocked, as we approached it, by a police car arriving to check out a three-car smashup that appeared to have happened moments earlier. Didn’t look too serious, but the city 911 log page does show a fire-engine callout, so things may be a little jammed there till later tonight.
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