In the pink-to celebrate the end of Magnolia Tennis flights 2006, a group of women (below) met at Szmania's in Magnolia Village Nov. 16 to hold the first annual Dana Sigley Pink Luncheon, with everyone donning pink in honor of Sigley who passed away this year in May. At the luncheon, Julie Szmania of Szmania's restaurant in Magnolia Village presents Magnolia resident Isabelle Ochsner, captain of Magnolia Tennis, with "gifts from Dana." Spring registration for Magnolia Tennis flights begins in April 2007. For more information, contact www.magnoliatennis.homestead.com or call 386-4235. Photos courtesy of Karin Barnes
Dear Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky,...
Public Health-Seattle & King County is encouraging people to vaccinate against the flu (influenza) and pneumonia now through the new year. The vaccines will help reduce the risk of getting the flu or pneumonia and their severity.The flu vaccine is highly recommended for those who are at high risk for complications from the flu, including children age 6 months to 5 years; pregnant women; people age 50 and older; people with certain chronic medical conditions, such as heart, lung or kidney disease or diabetes; people in nursing homes or other long-term care facilities; people who live with or care for those at high risk for complications; and health-care workers.
You can take the hassles out of shipping holiday gifts by following just a few tips from two popular shipping services: FedEx Kinko's and the UPS Store. In a nutshell, know exactly where you're sending the gifts, come early in the day and don't plan on shipping hazardous materials from your neighborhood shipping office."You don't even have to pack your gifts - we can do that," said Joseph Fulginitti, of the UPS store in Roose-velt Square (on the southwest corner of Northeast 65th Street and 12th Avenue Northeast). Note that boxes, bubble wrap and other shipping material may cost extra.For a fee, FedEx Kinko's also will wrap your items, pack them in a box with all materials and label them. The UPS store charges more than $35 to box, wrap and ship a book and a small Nerf football (second-day air). Bringing one's own packing materials and not waiting until the last minute to ship might have cut that cost dramatically."It gets crazy around 5 p.m. (the deadline to ship FedEx)," said Eileen Coleman, of FedEx Kinko's University District store on the northeast corner of Northeast 45th Street and Eighth Avenue Northeast. "Mornings are the best time to come in."<
A tradition continues as Seattle Public Theater (SPT) presents its sixth-annual holiday production of "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever," through Dec. 24 at the Bathhouse Theatre, 7312 W. Green Lake Drive N."The focus of this production has always been about the growth of the kids and the sense of community that the production brings to the Seattle community, especially during the holidays," said director Shana Bes-tock, Seattle Public Theater's artistic director. "'Best Christmas' takes on a different meaning as opposed to our normal mainstage shows, in that the theater is an outlet for which the children can find in themselves the opportunity to emote and learn to leave their inhibitions behind by expressing themselves."<
As I was asking my children to write their Christmas wish lists out for me, I realized that it's been an awfully long time since anyone has asked me. I decided it's high time Santa heard from me. Tape, tape and more tapeFirst of all, I would like a never-ending supply of tape. I will designate a drawer in the desk for it, and it will become the Magic Tape Drawer. I will expect it to never empty of clear tape, masking tape, duct tape or that blue tape you use when painting. Then whenever the husband or one of the offspring comes to me in search of tape I will be able to point them to my magic drawer. Next, I'd appreciate it if you would make white chocolate one of the major food groups. Oh, and cause it to have negative calories. Don't worry about any other color of chocolate; I'm not greedy. Fixing the white for me will do just fine. I would like all the mirrors in my house to be replaced with those funhouse mirrors that make a person look very thin. It also would be wonderful if everyone who saw me would see the me I am on the inside, and not the Crypt Keeper look-alike I seem to have become on the outside, according to my children.Please make low-cut jeans and belly shirts drop out of style. Make wearing them such an incredible fashion faux pas for the teenage set that my 17-year-old daughter wouldn't be caught dead in them. Going along with that last request, I'd like it if you could make tanning at a salon excruciatingly painful. In fact, make the mere thought of going tanning give my children migraines.
JEFF COMA"Honestly, not harsh enough. He should have gotten the death penalty. He is an individual who wishes harm on Americans and has shown no remorse. I don't think that we should have spared him."PATTI HULVERSHORN"I was grateful to see him receive the life sentence as opposed to the death penalty. It just didn't look to me from everything that I read that he had done anything that was worthy of the death penalty. My fear was that if he had gotten the death penalty it would have been based on emotion."
Space didn't permit it in the previous issue, but we wanted to note the April 29 concert at Seattle Center in remembrance of the young victims of the recent shooting on Capitol Hill. The show ran from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and featured a lineup of local musicians and deejays.
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 Magnolia 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 am just a "ye of little faith."People are seeing God, or at least His image-and Mary's, too-on the side of garages, in the shape of trees and plants, and now on the skin of a burnt Terra Blue chip product.
I remember my dad glibly declaring back in the 1950s: "When the price of a pack of cigarettes hits 50 cents, I'm quitting."My beloved father died in the 1990s from a heart attack, so he's not witness to the current price of his cigarettes at $5 per pack or more! Knowing him, he'd have continued to pay the pension-busting budget cost.Many smokers made similar personal promises but are still smoking and paying the astronomical price of $50 per carton. Furthermore, no manufacturer of the cancer-causing cigarettes have gone bankrupt from mass stoppage of smoking. The analogous moral of this anecdote is the present global concern over the price of gasoline.Didn't many people utter similar ultimatums in the 1970s, and even just a couple of years ago, when $2 a gallon gave us collective spasms. The media was all over the story, and what did that accomplish? Nothing.Concomitantly, few of the world's top car manufacturers have stepped forward with any firm plans to eliminate gasoline-dependent cars. Did we stop driving our automobiles? Heck no.And we'll never stop driving them, no matter what the price of gas becomes.
"Talk to you on Myspace!" a girl calls to her friends as she jumps into her mother's car. Myspace is a free, international Web site with millions of profiles of people from around the world. Virtually anyone can use it. I created a Myspace account last fall, after hearing how great it was from some of my friends. And it indeed has been a great way to reconnect with old friends, to network and keep in touch with close friends and relatives who live far away.As I searched for people on Myspace, I began to discover an intricate extension of youth culture. Suddenly I had access to hundreds of profiles of high school and middle school age teens, many of them kids that I know. As I read through these profiles I was somewhat shocked by what I found. Judging from some of the things I witnessed on the site, I doubt that most parents are aware of what their kids might be up to in the Myspace universe.
When Bernie Whitebear, whom Dan Evans called "my own personal hero," died of cancer in July 2000 at age 62, this region lost one of its most charismatic and beloved leaders.Whitebear's journey began with an impoverished childhood set in the tawny hill country of eastern Washington. Along the way he performed stints with the Green Berets and Boeing until, after finding his political consciousness in the "Indian taverns" of Tacoma, he went on to become executive director of United Indians of All Tribes Foundation and an inspiration to many.Whitebear's big brother Lawney Reyes has told his story in "Bernie Whitebear: An Urban Indian's Quest for Justice."The 74-year-old Reyes, a Beacon Hill resident and retired art director for the Seafirst Corporation, is an internationally respected sculptor. His sister Luana, who died in 2001, had a distinguished career with Indian Health Service.His previous book, "White Grizzly Bear's Legacy: Learning to Be Indian," told his family's tale. In that lyrical account Bernie, or Bernard, the baby of the family, was kept mostly in the background.In Reyes' new book we learn more about what made his little brother tick.This is an affectionate memoir, not biography in the strict sense. Objectivity gives way to loving regard: a big brother should deliver nothing less.
Seattle schools Superintendent Raj Manhas announced May 1 that all drinking water supplied to Seattle public schools will be shut off due to increased arsenic levels. Bottled water will be supplied to students in the meantime.They city plans to test all sources of drinking water for arsenic.Two and a half years ago, the district began a testing and repair program to ensure all drinking water meets Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards as well as policies set by the school board. The district tests for lead, cadmium, iron and copper.
On May 17, a handful of students from around the Seattle area-including one Magnolia student from Catharine Blaine School-will share their original poems, plays and prose crafted during the school year at Benaroya Hall.Ciara Carucci, a seventh grader from Catharine Blaine K-8, will be among the 20 readers featured at the Writers in the Schools (WITS) celebration. She will present a poem alongside her mentor, Laura Gamache, a senior writer and one of two program mentors. Gamache is in her second year at Blaine as a writer in the schools.About 200 teachers and 7,500 students participate in the program.
Longtime Magnolia resident Mary Dirksen is a woman on a mission. Armed with a master's degree in nursing, the Canadian native works at Harborview Medical Center when she's in town.However, she has spent most of the past several years working with Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontieres or MSF) in impoverished countries overseas.Dirksen said she got involved with MSF almost by accident. She was reading a list-serve on the Internet in 2001 when she noticed a job posting for a tuberculosis nurse in Uzbekistan.That was right up her alley; Dirksen specializes in controlling and preventing infectious diseases. She found out only later that MSF was involved because the organization doesn't typically fill positions on list-serve postings. "So I came in the back door, so to speak," Dirksen smiled.