On Saturday, July 15, the 20th Annual Crown of Queen Anne Fun Run & Walk in support of the Queen Anne Helpline will begin. The 3.3-mile race may be run or walked. It's a flat course that circles the Crown of Queen Anne and highlights our beautiful city views. Preregistration is available online, queenannehelpline.org, or at Super Jock & Jill, in the Green Lake area through July 12. You may also preregister at Metropolitan Market, 1908 Queen Anne Ave. N., on either July 13 or 14 from noon until 9 p.m. Preregistration is $20 beforehand, $23 the day of the event. T-shirts may be purchased for $10. All event proceeds support the Queen Anne Helpline. Participants meet at 7:30 a.m. on the 15th at the Queen Anne Lutheran Church, 2400 Eighth Ave. W. Activities begin with bagels, coffee, water and a warm-up group stretch led by Jennifer from Queen Anne Physical Therapy. Walkers lead the way at 8 a.m., and runners start 20 minutes later. The finish line is located at Coe Elementary School, atop the west side of the hill.
Seattle City Council member Peter Steinbrueck thinks the design for a new Queen Anne water tower is just plain ugly, and he had a powerful urge to send it back to the drawing board as chairman of the Urban Development and Planning Committee. The project ended up in front of his committee because the work requires a height variance, he said. But Steinbrueck, an architect, said he was distinctly unimpressed with the look of a new water tower that will replace one that has been a Queen Anne landmark for around a century.Fellow committee member Tom Rasmussen also didn't think much of the design or the landscaping he saw at an earlier presentation, and sent the project back to Seattle Public Utilities, mainly for the landscaping problems, Steinbrueck said."They came back to the second meeting with modest changes to the landscaping," he said. But the design of the tower remained the same, and that was a problem, according to Steinbrueck.
In 34 years, we've never been without pets for any length of time.When I met my wife in San Diego, she had a 20-pound black cat named Sambo, a name that disgraced a chain of pancake houses taken from a children's book back in the day. The name became politically incorrect, and with good cause; the story and the accompanying image of "l'il black Sambo" was a racist relic from the past.We then received a puppy from some friends; we named him Muffin. He was a Cocker-Pekinese mix-either Cockinese or Peeker, we were never sure which was appropriate.Sambo, in addition to regularly boxing the puppy's ears, taught Muffin to wash himself, in the manner of a cat, of course. Dog saliva, akin to Elmer's Glue, produces hardened knots of hair instead of a shiny feline coat, requiring a surgical-like scissoring of twisted hair from a squirmy dog's tummy and nether regions.Sambo the cat died at 18, so we got Miki, a white, odd-eyed cat-one yellow and one blue-from a local woman who found homes for abandoned and unwanted cats. Miki's job was to keep the now-cat-bonded dog company when we were away from home, thereby ending the chewing of everything, a habit that had developed when Sambo died. Of all the animals that would share his home, he became his closest friend.Before long we added Charlie, an Abyssinian cat. That's another story-suffice it to say that it would take the owners of an Abyssian (or Abby), or possibly a monkey or raccoon, to understand what life is like with such a breed.
It was in the running for awhile, but in the end Interbay didn't make the cut as a potential truck-to-rail intermodal facility for Seattle Public Utilities' (SPU) solid-waste division.Nonetheless, SPU still needs city approval for its preferred $70 million intermodal location south of Georgetown, and that's not necessarily a sure thing, conceded agency spokesman Andy Ryan.The intermodal facility is a critical component in a $160 million SPU plan that would also include improving and expanding the run-down South Park and Wallingford transfer stations for $50 million and $40 million, respectively, Ryan said.Identified in the Solid Waste Facilities Master Plan, an intermodal site is necessary to handle an estimated 450,000 tons of trash a year and to reach the city goal of recycling 60 percent of the waste stream, according to Tim Croll, director of the solid-waste division at SPU.The city currently trucks down containers of trash and recyclables from the north and south transfer stations to a privately run South Seattle location. "Our idea is to do it all in the same location," he said. It would be more efficient for garbage trucks to unload into containers that will go directly onto the trains, Croll noted.
When Vivian Estrada was growing up in the Philippines, she and her extended family picnicked on Saturdays down by the river near their town."It was a nice river," says Vivian, stroking the air in curves, "clear and flowing. Lots of shade." While the men rested and the children played, her mother and aunties cleaned laundry in the river.Now Vivian works at the Queen Anne Laundry Room among gleaming white machines. The setting and method are different, but the activity is pretty much the same.Vivian was born in 1957 in the municipality of Mabini, province of Pangasinan, north of Manila. She is the sixth of nine children in the Estrada family. The eldest were twin girls, one of whom died of asthma as an adult. Vivian's father was Mabini's postmaster, and her mother was a laundress in a nursing home, another foreshadowing Vivian's present job.Vivian studied banking and finance at the University of Pangasinan, where she met fellow student Marcelino Abarra. The two fell in love and got engaged. Then Marcelino moved to Manila to take a job as a sanitation engineer for the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA), and for two years they continued a long-distance romance. Finally Vivian decided there were more opportunities for her, too, in Manila, and moved there without finishing college. She got a job as a filing clerk.
Harold Thiel knew early on that he might be heading into ministry. In fact, he was only 3 or 4 years old at the time. Sitting in church with his mother one morning, the youngster stood up and made a loud declaration. "I was standing on the pew next to my mother, and she was very devout with her hands folded, head bowed," he said. "All of a sudden I screamed out at the top of my lungs, 'I want to be the man at the altar!' [i.e., priest]. And she was saying, 'Would you shut up?'"Now, more than 70 years later, Thiel will celebrate the 50th anniversary of his ordination at 11 a.m. Saturday at Sacred Heart Parish in Lower Queen Anne. "Quite a few invitations have been sent out, and there's been some elaborate ceremony prepared," Thiel said. Two of his remaining five classmates will also be on hand. Thiel, 76, was born in Rainier Valley and eventually moved to Queen Anne. At one point he even had a job delivering - what else? - the Queen Anne News. Eventually he went off to Holy Redeemer College in Oakland, Calif., and also to the major seminary in Oconomowoc, Wis. Soon after being ordained in July 1956, he took off for Thailand where he spent most of the next 45 years ministering to the people there.
Seattle Parks and Recreation last week unveiled seven potential locations for off-leash dog areas in Magnolia and Queen Anne. But hardly anyone at packed community meetings in each neighborhood thought much of the choices. And a few objected to the very idea of letting dogs run free in public parks. In fact, a petition drive launched at the Queen Anne meeting called for the Parks Department to drop the plan altogether. In many ways, the two meetings were reminiscent of the heated pro-and-con rhetoric that erupted when the Seattle City Council held hearings about setting up off-leash areas almost a decade ago. Tempers were running so high, in fact, that police were stationed at some of the meetings.That was then. There are 11 off-leash areas in Seattle today, and the goal back in the mid-1990s was to set up the areas in each part of the city, said park planner Lana Krisman. But Magnolia and Queen Anne ended up with none, she noted.However, a new effort may change that.
Tim Walsh, owner of Tim Walsh Salon, 4105 E. Madison St., gives Broadmoor resident Victoria Brown, 26, a free haircut on Wednesday, June 28, so that she can donate her cut hair to Locks of Love. The nonprofit organization makes wigs for youths who have lost their hair due to cancer treatments or other medical conditions. Visit www.locksoflove.org for more information.
On June 26, the runners waiting for the start of the New York City Marathon had nothing on the nervous crowds preparing for the Shore Run. By 7:l5 a.m., an endless line of masochists waited to climb aboard a bus headed for the starting line at Leschi or Seward Park, depending on whether you were a 10K-er or a 5K-er.I'm a 5K-er myself, and not too certain I could handle that. So I disembarked at Leschi with two grandchildren who were willing to accompany me, provided they didn't have to be seen with me...and that was the last I saw of them until we reunited at Madison Park.I looked around at the crowd, many of whom wore gold badges to celebrate the cancer victim they were running to honor.At the startAfter a few minutes, I spotted the walkers from Park Shore, looking cool and confident.And not far from them, the Madison Park Times team, all set to establish new world records for walking 5 kilometers. The announcer called out the order to take our places at the starting line, and Park Shore and Madison Park Times team members, exuberant children and sleek-looking young males and females hurried to get to the front of the crowd.
My entire life I've been a liberal. I grew up being told that Republicans were evil, heartless capitalists and for most of that time I believed it. I even worked for the Democratic National Committee as a fund-raiser during the 2004 campaign. But my experiences over the last two years have changed my views.As I entered college, I was bombarded every day with far-left propaganda. Everywhere I looked, there was some poster by a socialist, communist or anti-war group. Their beliefs were far out of the mainstream, and for the most part, people I met at school bought into it all - hook, line and sinker.I took several classes where the teachers were, from my perspective, blatantly anti-American and regularly degraded our culture, our society and those who serve our country. Students nodded their heads to what I believed were lies and untruths about America. I began to doubt my own liberal beliefs and whether I also had been misled.It took a while for me to leave liberalism.
The penny arcade story must have hit home for many of you, as I've since heard stories of the many good times there. I recently discovered a place downtown that had a penny-arcade feel to it: Gameworks. It is wall-to-wall video games, but not a one of them cost a penny. It was an all-around, electronic wonderland, requiring earplugs because the games made extraordinarily loud beeping and ringing sounds. How does a kid today ask his parents for the funds to pursue this pastime? "Can I have a few hundred so I can play video games, Dad?"I laughed, remembering during the war years having just barely enough in change for the triple bill at the Colonel Theater: a whopping 9 cents! Inspecting the toysIn those days, we often met early at the No. 11 Madison bus for an adventure to Downtown Seattle. As soon as we got off the bus, we heard Turko, a large man with curly, white hair, selling papers outside Kresses department store. He shouted the headlines, followed by his own thought-provoking comments. Kresses sold our favorite toys - such as the compressed-wood toy soldiers that crumbled if left out in the rain - and there was plenty to examine. Downstairs, a man proclaimed the time- and money-saving benefits of the latest, greatest kitchen gadgets. The Kresses inspection complete, we walked east on Pike Street to Ben Bridge Jewelers, whose window displayed pictures of the war. The store changed the pictures weekly to provide an updated, but limited, view of the latest war effort.
Young and old alike doubled as spectators and participants in the Shore Run - which featured a 5K walk and run, 10K run and a children's run - on June 25.
This fall, St. Therese School in Madrona will employ a new program that already has everybody talking: dividing up sixth- and seventh-grade girls and boys into separate classrooms.Dividing the sexesStudies have long shown that boys and girls develop at different rates and levels - a characteristic that sometimes hampers their intellectual growth when placed in the same classroom. Many Catholic schools have adhered to the gender-division model, although it's most common form was in a high-school setting, such as at Seattle's O'Dea High School and Holy Names Academy. These models have been the inspiration for St. Therese principal Eileen Gray when planning the upcoming gender-division program at the K-8 school."Being a product of a single-gender high school myself, I simply didn't have many of the gender issues that I see in so many young adults today. Throughout my 30 years in the education system it has become clear that boys and girls have very different and very specific needs at this age," Gray said.The program - which will affect next year's sixth- and seventh-graders and the following year's eighth-graders as well - is an attempt to positively nurture the social and emotional aspects of being a certain age, while, at the same time, fostering an environment where both genders will have improved intellectual performance.
Text-messaging - the newest hazard on the roadways.According to a recent survey by the Washington Traffic Safety Commission (WTSC), 25 percent of our state's teenagers regularly send and receive text messages on their cell phones while they drive."Text-messaging is particularly concerning because of how much it takes your eyes and mind off the road," said Jonna VanDyk, WTSC communications program manager. "It takes so much concentration."The WTSC surveyed 663 high-school students in four locations across the state: Spokane, Bellingham, Yakima and King County. Instead of a written questionnaire, students were individually interviewed on traffic-related topics, ranging from speeding, cell phones and seatbelt use."We have never focused on teens as a population, so we started looking at some of the data," said Julie Furlong, a WTSC public-relations consultant. "We found out that teens represent 7 percent of the driving population but are responsible for 15 percent of the traffic-related fatalities. That's just too high."
Summer brings justification for less time spent in the kitchen and for more time outdoors, enjoying heat-saturated days and light-filled evenings.Good summer recipes should be able to be made ahead in part or in full, allow you to be outside with family or guests, go together quickly and be versatile. This refreshing cocktail, pasta accompaniment and make-ahead grilled entrée will take you well through the summer as a little "arsenal" of recipes. Mount Gay Rum and tonics are a summer-must. This simple drink refreshes and transports at the same time. We had our first taste at the hand of some friends of ours on Henry Island 10 years ago. I am not sure whether it was the drink or the fact that we stayed well past dark and had to use a flashlight to maneuver our boat back across Mosquito Pass, but I think of that night every time I have the drink.Thin spaghetti noodles are merely the vessel for savoring pistachios, parmesan cheese and fresh basil in this pasta that can be served warm, at room temperature or cold. Leftovers (if you are lucky) are just as good the next day.