Our fair city of Seattle was chosen as host for the latest regional conference of the English Speaking Union. Delegates came from Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Palm Springs, Phoenix and Tuscon, not to mention a representative from national headquarters in New York. The Seattle branch at the Washington Athletic Club hosted the conference over the weekend of May 19-21. The formal dinner on Saturday evening, May 20, was well attended by local branch members, including at least a dozen Queen Anne and Magnolia residents. Our keynote speaker was P. Scott Cummins, of Magnolia. And one of the highlights of the evening was the presentation of a 3-foot framed copy of a formal illuminated address, dated 1937, which read as follows:
In the summer of 2003 my wife and I bought a house in Magnolia a few blocks away from where we were renting. We had a young kitten, which we had gotten about a year and a half earlier from my wife's co-worker - affectionately known to us as The Cat Pusher - and were looking forward to moving him into our new house on a safer street.Leo, as we named him, was a cute little guy in his elegant tuxedo. He was so full of kitten energy I was dismayed at the thought of having to neuter him and change his personality. At the same time, I've always been terribly concerned about overpopulation of domestic cats and dogs.I had to make a decision soon enough. I did a little research and decided to get Leo a vasectomy. That's right, a vasectomy. The operation is relatively simple, although understandably more expensive than neutering. We found a young woman veterinarian willing to do it. Snip snip, it was done. Incidentally, those of you who have cats will understand when I say there is no such thing as a "free" cat. One of the interesting side benefits to giving him a vasectomy, I learned from my research, is that he would continue to breed with females in estrous, thereby ending their cycle without fertilization. In addition, he would be territorial and keep feral males away. The net effect would be a small victory for population control.
Andrew Morrison is living his dream. An American Indian artist who is part Apache and part Haida, he's only 25. But Morrison is doing something few artists of any age manage to accomplish: he's making a living doing what he loves.And he has an exhibit of his work at the art gallery in the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center in Discovery Park. Co-sponsored by the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation and Four Worlds International, it's called "Refuse to Die." The show features Indian themes, and Morrison titled the show that way because he was deathly ill while he was planning the exhibition. "I thought I was going to die," he remembered with a grimace. "But [the title] not only applies to me, it applies to Indians in general." It was an opportunity he just couldn't pass up.
Leann Nester doesn't understand what the problem is. A retired software lawyer who lives in the 1400 block of Fifth Ave. W., she called the cops right away when a man set off a huge container of fireworks on her street last New Year's Eve.Setting off fireworks in Seattle is illegal, but neither police nor the City Attorney's Office seem very interested in pursuing the case, she said."I was watching the [Times Square] ball drop," Nester said. But she looked outside after hearing a truck stop on the street, followed by the sound of laughter. The laughter was coming from a man who had a young boy with him, she said."And he pulled this big thing out of the truck and walked up and down the street looking for some place to put it," she said of a large container of what turned out to be an assortment of fireworks. "He deliberately set it under a tree, lit it and ran like hell," Nester said.That was followed by a couple minutes of explosions and flaming debris flying everywhere, said the woman, who was worried two homes under construction across the street might catch fire. As it was, the tree above the fireworks was scorched a bit, she said.
Depending where you live or work, parking in Lower Queen Anne is about to get a whole lot worse or a whole lot better. The comment period ended May 30, but the Seattle Department of Transportation has proposed increasing areas for paid parking and setting up several new Residential Parking Zones (RPZs), said SDOT planner Mary Catherine Snyder.The area to be covered stretches from Roy and West Roy streets on the north to Denny Way on the south, while the western boundary is Second Avenue North. The eastern boundary is Second Avenue North south of KeyArena and Fourth and Fifth avenues North at the northern edges of the Seattle Center.That's a scaled-back version, according to Snyder. "We had proposed looking at a fairly wide area," she said. But plans were narrowed following "a careful review of on-street parking conditions, area land uses and community concerns," according to a May 15 SDOT letter sent to area residents and businesses.It has been a balancing act that weighed the often-competing needs of businesses, visitors and residents, Snyder said. Business owners, for example, have long complained about people over-parking on streets that have posted time limits but no meters, she noted. At the time same, people who work in the neighborhood are worried about losing free parking in areas with no time limit, she said.
The Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation beat out several other ap-plicants last year to take over the West Point lighthouse from the U.S. Coast Guard, and now the facility is open for public tours.Discovery Park naturalist Anne Bentley is excited by the possibilities for the lighthouse, which was built in 1881. And shows it. "I think what we're going to do is have tours every half-hour," she said of a shuttle bus that will take people to the lighthouse from the Visitors Center for a $1 round-trip ticket on select dates.Only the lighthouse will be open, but a $600,000 restoration effort next spring for the lighthouse will also make the old lighthouse keepers' quarters available to the public, along with the nearby garage, which Bentley hopes will be converted into classrooms, she said. "There's not much here yet," she conceded.The lighthouse was the first one to be manned in the Puget Sound region, and lighthouse keepers used to have to row a boat to Ballard and take a streetcar to get downtown, Bentley said."It's still an operating lighthouse, and there's still a foghorn that goes on," she noted. But the lighthouse was automated in 1985, and generators that used to power air compressors for the foghorn have been replaced by updated equipment that is triggered by an automated camera outside.
I always enjoyed being a kid.I spent my childhood days playing with my younger sister, neighbors and friends. We didn't own a family computer; we didn't even have cable television. There were no electronics to pacify us, except for a cassette tape player and an electronic console that hooked up to the TV, to play educational games.We were usually left to entertain ourselves, and so ensued a magical time in my life-when I used my imagination. We would play house, of course, or perhaps something more specific like "Little House on the Prairie." Or we might reenact something from "The Boxcar Children," or pretend we were "runaway kids."There were many puppet and singsong shows that our parents were usually obligated to watch. Almost any type of object could become animated: our dolls, figurines, toy horses, even colored pencils.Oh yes, my sister and I would organize our pencils into families according to color, and we would get out the electric pencil sharpener and the pencils would have a sharpening festival. It didn't matter where we were or what things we had, we could come up with some type of imaginative game to keep ourselves entertained. In the time that we weren't playing, I would always be reading. Reading books helped stretch my imagination and inspired new ideas for stories that I could write or act out with my friends. I became so in tune with my imagination that whatever we played actually seemed real to me.
My Polish-American mother celebrated 95 years of life last month. The milestone event elevated her as the eldest in our family's genealogical tree-living or deceased.Mom lives in a well-run nursing home near Flint, Mich., my home town. Although I left the General Motors city four decades ago, I return regularly for visits.In fact, it was on a past visit that my dad died on the day I was supposed to fly back to Seattle. I had that fear with me during this birthday visit with mom. I kept praying each day that she'd stay alive so Rita and I could share precious moments with her.Even though I earned a doctoral degree in the field of aging, it did little to salve emotions when we first saw her motionless, eyes shut due to infections, with oxygen tubes inserted and barely able to speak. She recognized us by voice. Mom never was savaged with Alzheimer's symptoms and the nurses reassured me that she was comfortable and in no pain.Concomitantly, mom set another type of record: she was admitted in February 1994, making her the longest living patient in her nursing home.
I'm writing this from Iraq. I've been in country now for almost nine months.Nine months! No "outs," as other journos call the not-too-frequent vacations. Just three weeks sitting in a hotel in Baghdad watching TV and playing video games. Not quite the out I needed, but it sufficed.Now I'm sitting here in the Green Zone waiting for a flight home. For good. I'll never return to Iraq after this trip. It's strange to write that. I've been here for so long-22 of the past 28 months-that I've almost gone native. I speak some Arabic. Have adopted the gestures the locals use. And despite serious cases of food poisoning and losing 15 pounds, I've learned to eat the local food with gusto.Sitting here has given me a lot of time to think about the past few months. It goes without saying I've seen a lot here. It's a war zone, and seeing death, destruction and mayhem is a fact of life. I've also twice seen the very tenet of democracy. I witnessed the last two elections that eventually set Iraq free of outright occupation by our country, although some might say that occupation is more behind the curtains now.There is no one experience that defines Iraq for me. This place is so wild and chaotic that... it's hard to pin it down to just one time or place.
In the summer of 2003 my wife and I bought a house in Magnolia, just a few blocks away from where we were renting at the time. We had a young kitten that we had gotten about a year and a half earlier from my wife's co-worker-a person affectionately known to us as The Cat Pusher-and were looking forward to moving the cat into our new house on a safer street.Leo, as we named him, was a cute little guy in his elegant tuxedo. He was so full of kitten energy that I was dismayed at the thought of having to neuter him and change his personality. At the same time, I've always been terribly concerned about overpopulation of domestic cats and dogs.I had to make a decision soon enough. I did a little research and decided to get Leo a vasectomy-that's right, a vasectomy. The operation is relatively simple, although understandably more expensive than neutering. We found a young veterinarian willing to do it.Snip snip, it was done.Incidentally, those of you who have cats will understand when I claim there is no such thing as a "free" cat. One of the interesting side benefits to giving Leo a vasectomy, I learned from my research, is that he would continue to breed with females in heat, thereby ending their cycle without fertilization. In addition, he would be territorial, keeping feral males away. The net effect would be a small victory for population control.
Mayor Greg Nickels last week shot down concerns from five city council members that it might be a mistake to substantially expand Fire Station 20 in its present location.The council members-Tom Rasmussen, Richard Conlin, David Della, Jean Godden and Jan Drago-weren't convinced that an adequate case has been made for demolishing three Queen Anne homes to make room for an expanded firehouse, which serves Magnolia as well as Queen Anne. They suggested in a May 15 letter to the fire chief and the city's Fleets and Facilities department that an alternative location could be better, or barring that, that the new station could be reduced in size so that all three homes wouldn't have to be demolished.Nickels didn't buy the argument. The Fire Facilities and Emergency Response Levy defines what an appropriate size for a new fire station is, and one with a reduced footprint doesn't fit that definition, according to a May 25 letter from the mayor to the five council members. "While building on a smaller site may be physically possible, it is not operationally responsible and goes against the promise made to the voters," he concluded.
Volunteers from the Space Needle teamed up at the Seattle Center last Thursday with Habitat for Humanity of Seattle and South King County to partially build and disassemble two houses before loading the parts on trucks for shipment to Mississippi victims of last year's devastating hurricane season.The homes were paid for with more than $164,000 that was raised last fall in a "Tackling Hurricane Relief" effort that pitted Washington State University against the University of Washington in an Apple Cup fund-raising competition, which WSU won, said Space Needle spokeswoman Mary Bacarella. "Early on, it was an effort that was completely supported by Space Needle ownership," she said of the June 1 event. In fact, the traditional rivalry between the two schools extends to the Wright family, which owns the Space Needle. Howard Wright is a Cougar, while his brother Jeff is a Husky, said Dean Nelson, Space Needle president and CEO. "So we had a little bit of friendly competition, well... competition," Nelson said.
Andrew Morrison is living his dream. An American Indian artist who is part Apache and part Haida, Morrison, at only 25, is doing something few artists of any age manage to accomplish in a lifetime of work: He's making a living doing what he loves.An exhibit of Morrison's work is currently on display at the art gallery in the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center in Discovery Park. Co-sponsored by the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation and Four Worlds International, the show, which features Indian themes, is called "Refuse to Die."Morrison said he titled the show as such because he was deathly ill while he was planning the exhibition. "I thought I was going to die," he remembered with a grimace. "But (the title) not only applies to me, it applies to Indians in general." It was an opportunity he just couldn't pass up.
The Seattle Parks and Recreation Department beat out several other applicants last year to take over the West Point lighthouse from the United States. Coast Guard, and now the facility is open for public tours.Discovery Park naturalist Anne Bentley said she is excited by the possibilities for the lighthouse, which was built in 1881 and shows it. "I think what we're going to do is have tours every half hour," she said of a shuttle bus that will take people to the lighthouse from the Visitors Center for a $1 round ticket on select dates (see sidebar).Only the lighthouse will be open, but a $600,000 restoration effort next spring for the lighthouse will also open the old lighthouse keepers' quarters to public use, along with the nearby garage, which hopefully will be converted into classrooms, Bentley said. "There's not much here yet," she conceded.The lighthouse was the first one to be manned in the Puget Sound region; lighthouse keepers used to have to row a boat to Ballard and take a streetcar to get downtown, Bentley said."It's still an operating lighthouse, and there's still a foghorn that goes on," she noted. But the lighthouse was automated in 1985, and generators that used to power air compressors for the foghorn have been replaced by updated equipment that is triggered by an automated camera outside.
A favorite game in the lobby during "Jewels" is to pick your favorite section. But what girl wants to decide between emeralds, rubies and diamonds? All are dazzling.George Balanchine created his three-part ballet to celebrate New York City Ballet's move to the New York State Theater and, according to legend, secure some funding from jeweler Van Cleef and Arpels. The donation did not come through (such are the trials and tribulations of the nonprofit world), but the dance became a signature piece of Balanchine's company.Pacific Northwest Ballet's artistic director Peter Boal wisely chose this glittery showpiece to crown a triumphant first season leading the company.As in most of Balanchine's choreography, the ladies rule the stage. On opening night, PNB's female dancers were front and center.Principal dancer Louise Nadeau led "Emeralds," the most romantic of the ballets. Looking as though she had been blown onto the stage by a particularly benevolent zephyr, Nadeau wafted through her pas de deux with Christophe Maraval. This is a ballet with all the joy of being young and carefree, and a bit flirtatious, and nobody conveys those emotions better with Nadeau.