Mother's Day (this year on Sunday, May 14) is one of the busiest days of the year for florists, restaurants and the telephone company, as we want to show Mom just how special she is. But many of us are not aware how Mother's Day became a holiday in America. Before the Civil War began, one woman, Anna Maria Reeves Jarvis, was working hard to establish Mothers' Works Camps in present-day West Virginia to help women stricken with tuberculosis, as well as to improve health and sanitation conditions throughout the community.A few years later, when the Civil War started, towns and states were ripped apart as America plunged into the bloodiest conflict we have ever known. Anna Jarvis, however, convinced the women within her organization not to take sides and to offer care and food to all in need, regardless of the color of their uniform. As a result, countless lives where saved. But the end of the war, four long years later, did not stop the conflict, as former foes returned home to the same towns and often the same families. Anna Jarvis then organized Mothers' Friendship Days all along the Mason-Dixon Line.
More than 70 jury-selected and resident artists will have their works displayed at 53 different sites on the Greenwood-Phinney Art Walk on Friday, May 12, and Saturday, May 13.The art walk will feature art of various media, including paintings, sculptures, photography, prints, glass, metal and fiber art, ceramics and mixed media, in businesses along Greenwood and Phinney avenues North, between North 65th and 87th streets. Whenever possible, artwork was matched to corresponding businesses. For instance, Buster's Brown Bag will feature work by Nanette Cotton Pawlowski, who does her art on brown paper bags.The weekend festivities also will include musical entertainment, street performances, chalk art and activities for children.
For 13 years the brick buildings on the corner of North 45th Street and Burke Avenue North remained vacant, the owner adamant about not renting to anybody - a mystery that no one seemed able to solve.That is, until just under two years ago, when local Wallingford residents Jehan Strouse and Patty Bradley, who had worked together at the Mari Don Healthway store across the street, decided it was time to open their own store and inquired about the building's history."The neighborhood was devastated when [Mari Don] closed its doors after 37 years of business, and we knew that we had to do something. We loved the community and loved what we did," Strouse said."We began inquiring with some maintenance guys that did work over there, and they forwarded on our request to the landlord of the building, and it just worked out. The timing must have been just right," she explained.The business that became their Bee Well Vitamin Shoppe opened July 10, 2004, and its adjoining organic health-food and smoothie haven, Juice Goddess, followed a year later. The store's bright-yellow front can't be missed by passers-by.<
Dog lovers on Queen Anne have gone to the dogs, having just enjoyed a thoroughly doggy weekend with an exclusive canine event entitled "Tux and Tails," done up like a dogs dinner to benefit the Humane Society. As it happens, another Queen Anne resident had just acquired a greyhound and was interested in learning more about the breed and greyhound racing in England. Since I have done extensive research on the subject for a past radio programme, and since 2006 is the 100th anniversary of the National Greyhound Association (NGA), I was able to share the following.The origin of the greyhound is long and colorful, dating back over 4,000 years to what is now southwest Turkey. While no one knows for sure, this breed may be the oldest known to man.Ancient Egypt revered the dog; they were rated number one among all animals both as pets and as hunters. In Persia, ancient Rome and Greece, the greyhound enjoyed similar esteem. It is the only breed of dog named in the Bible (Proverbs 30:29-31), and the first dog in literature, as included in 800 B.C. in "The Odyssey." St. Patrick, on his escape from slavery, traveled in a boat in which the principal cargo was greyhounds, being exported for use in the Roman arena. We know the dogs had arrived in England by 1014 (or 1016, in some texts), when Canute (a Dane) became King of England and enacted the Forest Laws.
In order to be healthier, I've embarked on some bizarre shopping habits. I buy only those items that are guaranteed to taste bland, be difficult to chew using only your teeth (an industrial grinder would be more helpful) and have posted on the side of the package a list of the nutrients you will be consuming that is so long they use a negative font size just to get the entire thing written down.Last week I bought something touted as being "Heart Healthy." I believe they lied, since simply chewing this stuff nearly gave me a cardiac arrest. Yes, I soaked it in fat-free milk first, but I might as well have dipped a bowl of pebbles in milk for all the good that did me. Perhaps they need to advertise this cereal differently. Saying that it's Heart Healthy isn't truth in advertising. If they had said that consuming this cereal would be all the cardio workout you'd need for a month, then that would be truth in advertising. Plus, I'm quite certain I chipped a tooth and then swallowed that chip. I suppose that upped my calcium intake for the day.
Too many things are happening. I can't seem to catch up to all the things I wish to write about - my way of sharing with all you lovely and not-so-lovely folks. Too bad the Queen Anne News isn't a daily ("Is he saying he wants to do this to us more than once a week? God forbid!").Speaking of God, am I the only person who saw the strange article a few weeks ago about the woman flying to Florida from New York City who thought one of the potato chips she was munching on hosted an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary?The picture, which should be worth a thousand words, accompanying the news item looked like a burnt potato chip to me, but maybe I just am a "ye of little faith."
t's been just over a decade since I took my first plunge into Web surfing (I'm a late starter, albeit not a Luddite), and I still frequently catch myself three-dimensionalizing the Internet in incurably naïve ways. Sometimes it's a cross-country - make that international - highway system maintained by fleets of invisible cyberservers. Other times it's more like a form of outer-space travel somehow being conducted here on Earth.Always, though, there's the anthropomorphically comforting sense of going from one place to another, of connecting outposts of quirkily personal or unfathomably bureaucratic identity in an inky, yet curiously unintimidating, vastness.I don't feel peculiar in this. Fact is, there's mounting evidence that others regard the World Wide Web as a place encompassing millions of particular places.
More than 500 drummers joined legendary musicians from the bands Yes, Queensryche, Death Cab for Cutie and others on May 13 in Woodstick 2006, one of the world's largest gatherings of drum-playing in one place. The Donn Bennett Drum Studio's fourth-annual charitable event attracted drummers to the Qwest Field Event Center, where local and regional musicians joined artists such as Yes' Alan White, Queensryche's Scott Rockenfield, Prince's John Blackwell, Aretha Franklin's Bernard Purdie and Death Cab For Cutie's Jason McGerr to support funding for the Seattle School District's music programs. With current limitations of educational funding and the decline of state support, many school programs are cut back or eliminated. Music programs are often among the first to go. "Music is one of the early intelligences that are recognized as a little kid. Through that, you can lead to more discoveries," said McGerr of Death Cab For Cutie. "You get discipline out of it, you get passion, you get a creative outlet and all those things are things that music programs provoke and endorse. [Music] is a vehicle for just overall development in a human being, and I think it's so important."
Part of the rebound process for me was finding myself involved only with women who were - from the get go - not options for long-term partners. I guess there are many ways to protect one's heart - and only dating women with utterly incongruous life paths is one of them. But as my life has shifted, new challenges have appeared.Taking it in strideJust recently, I went to a party and met a woman who managed, over the course of the first five minutes, to tell me that she shares four of my long-term dreams. Now, these are not common goals that every other girl on Craigslist shares. No, these are the nearly impossible-to-fulfill dealbreakers involving religion and international geography. Just hearing a woman talk about these things was enough to dilate my pupils. The next thing she told me was that she was going overseas in three weeks to spend the next month with a lover she hadn't seen in a year and a half. OK, I said, taking it in stride. Then my goal is to spend the next three weeks making sure that she missed me when she went. And, indeed, I did a relatively decent job of it.
We know that social activities and helping others enrich our daily lives. Now, studies show an additional benefit: It may even make us live longer. Several scientific studies have proven the benefits of positive emotions and a sense of belonging in promoting longevity. One such study is the Religious Orders Study, also known as the Nun Study. The main focus of this study is to better understand Alzheimer's disease. However, it also concluded that many of the nuns live 100-plus years and remain healthy due to the benefits of group living and a strong sense of self-purpose. Other studies focus on the importance of social capital and the need for social engagement. A recent study by Cannuscio, et al., published in the September 2003 Annals of Internal Medicine, says, a good "example [of social capital]...is the individual who may lack social ties and social support on a personal level but nevertheless benefits from residing within a community that is rich in social connections."
The Herald-Outlook won two awards in the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ)-Western Washington Pro Chapter's 2006 Excellence in Journalism Competition.Editor Vera M. Chan-Pool and Erik Hansen won first place in the Editorials (Non-Daily Newspapers) category for their column "Forked Tongues, Hidden Agendas and Southwest Airlines," which ran last October in the Herald-Outlook and its associate publications.Doug Schwartz, editor of the Capitol Hill Times, took third place in the same category for his column "These Are the Days, My Friend." The piece reflected staff photographer Bradley Enghaus' police harassment suffered while taking photos of a bank for a story.Hansen and Rick Levin also took first place in the Social Issues category for their multiple-part series "Work Wanted: America's Unknown Labor," which appeared last fall.The series - which focuses on the predominantly Latin American immigrant culture in Seattle that utilizes the Seattle day-labor organization CASA Latina - also recently earned a second-place Communicator of Excellence award from the Washington Press Association in the Editorial Journalism (Non-Daily Newspapers) category. Hansen also placed third in SPJ's Social Issues category for "Black Panthers Reunion to Inspire, Instruct Youths," which ran in the Beacon Hill News/South District Journal. Hansen is the editor of that publication, and Levin is editor of the Magnolia News. Writer-at-large Russ Zabel placed third in the Spot News category for his "Homeland Insecurity" story in the Queen Anne News. The story covered a potential terrorist threat at Queen Anne's Mecca Café.
Visitors to last weekend's University District Street Fair enjoyed the many food and craft booths, as well as the daring duo Brothers from Different Mothers, who juggled knives, fire and each other.
Most people don't believe me when I tell them how this works," said Doug Nafziger, owner of Advanced Mobile L.L.C., an environmental car-detailing service and auto-glass repair business since 2003. Instead of washing the cars the old-fashioned way, Green Lake's Nafziger uses a spray-on substance that can be wiped right off the dirty car. "The only thing that touches your car is our cleaner and [a] soft, terry-cloth or microfiber towel," he said. "This is superior to a conventional car wash, which grinds in the dirt, or power-washing, which 'sandblasts' grit across your car's delicate finish."Actually, several good causes are involved," Nafziger continued. "One is a clean car, which everyone loves. Another is water conservation. Another is protecting our planet by ensuring nothing whatsoever goes down the storm drains and harms fish."
Every Wednesday morning for the last two years, Margareta Giron, 73, begins her day at Olympic View Elementary School. She sits in a circle with a group of children, listening carefully as they take turns reading to her. The following morning Fred Utevsky, 85, begins his day in a similar manner, only he reads to a captive audience of youngsters. Both are volunteers in the literacy program at the Maple Leaf school, but their paths never crossed until Volunteer Appreciation Day. The fateful meetingVolunteers were invited to attend a party given in their honor. Sitting across from one another at an ominous, round table, Fred waved a friendly hello to Margareta, who was sitting alone. She decided to join him on his side of the table. Although it was a brief meeting and she enjoyed his company, she had someplace to be. When it came time for her to go, Fred coyly slipped a business card into her pocket. It wasn't until later in the evening that she discovered the card. It had all his contact information. However, what struck her was the image of a rose imprinted on the face of the card. She thought, "A man who puts flowers on his business card can't be all bad." So she gave him a call.
The Seattle International Film Festival officially opens on Thursday, May 25, with a gala showing of "The Illusionist" starring Edward Norton at the Paramount Theatre.While the festival takes seriously the "international" in its name, SIFF has also developed into a friendly showcase for the talents of local filmmakers. Programmers point to a strong line-up of local features including opening week screenings of "Apart from That" (May 31 and June 1, NW Film Forum), "Boy Culture" (May 26 and May 27, Egyptian), and "Expiration Date" (May 27, Egyptian).On Memorial Day, the Fly Film Challenge returns to SIFF. This SIFF event gives the filmmakers just five days to shoot a script in Seattle and then another five days to edit it into the final short.This year, SIFF picked screenplays and then let the writers pitch their stuff to the Fly directors. The result is three fiction shorts and one documentary that will be seen on Monday, May 29, 1:30 p.m., at the Egyptian. All were made by local directors working with local crews, so expect a strong turnout of those involved at the screenings.