West Seattle, Washington
16 Thursday
First, the getting – We caught that quick video clip in The Junction this afternoon, as festive boxes (decorated by Swee Swee Paperie) arrived at merchants participating in the big $5,000 Giveaway – go to a participating West Seattle Junction (WSB sponsor) merchant (full list on the 2nd page of this flyer) any time starting NOW to enter (free!) the raffle for Junction gift certificates totaling $5,000. There will be three raffle drawings, starting with one at the Christmas Tree Lighting at 5 pm December 6th (44th/Alaska).
Two more Junction notes: Husky Deli has its holiday open house 5-9 TONIGHT, and also — this just in via Twitter — just launched its updated website (see it here).
Also from the “getting” file: Lora Lewis at Hotwire Coffee (WSB sponsor) sends word of bonus Internet access hours:
Are you an early riser and like to get your Internet surfing done in the mornings? Then come into Hotwire and with a drink purchase you receive a full hour of Internet surfing in the mornings from open till 10 am. More of a night owl? Then we have surfing for you too! Purchase a drink and sign in between 4 pm and close and you also receive a full hour of surfing. Between those times you still get 15 minutes of Internet surfing with a beverage too. Hotwire has computers loaded with the full MS Office suite, a printer and super high-speed connection. We’re also a great place to do any online holiday shopping too with our double firewall secure connection. Have a laptop? FREE lifetime wireless is at your fingertips.
Also from West Seattle coffee land, in addition to the Java Bean food drive we mentioned yesterday, C and P Coffee sends word that through the end of December, if you bring in a “food or diaper item” to donate to its Food and Diaper Drive, you get a free drink. One last coffee note – the other day, we mentioned that Xconomy Seattle seemed to be slighting West Seattle in its post about innovators’ favorite coffee hangouts; it heard the call and has updated the list, a bit. P.S. We are starting to assemble our annual holiday “which coffee shops are open and which aren’t” lists – if you are a WS coffee provider, e-mail us with your Thanksgiving hours! Thanks!
Before night finishes falling, a quick note about some of what’s happening in The Junction tonight as holiday-shopping season really starts to rev up: We’ve mentioned the Capers “Girlfriends’ Night Out” event (see the Holiday Happenings page for full details), and we’ve also received word of an event at Windermere in The Junction (4526 California SW): “Jewelry, scarves, glassware, holiday items galore! Hosted by Kim Tingley and Barb Ogden of Flutter and No Wire Hangers, an upstart boutique, soon to open in West Seattle. 5:30-8:30. Bevs and snacks served while you shop. % of proceeds to help fight Lou Gehrig’s disease!” Tomorrow, meantime, you’ll be able to start entering the holiday gift-certificate raffles being offered by participating merchants in the West Seattle Junction Association (WSB sponsor) – thousands of dollars in gift certificates will be raffled off next month, at events including the West Seattle Christmas Tree Lighting (5 pm 12/6). (More on Friday-Sunday events coming up in tomorrow’s West Seattle Weekend Lineup; also, Junction merchants have more holiday events listed on the WSJA website – we’ll be adding those to Holiday Happenings ASAP.)
HIGH POINT COMMUNITY CENTER: (map) Free (early) Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night – turkey, veggies, rolls, door prizes! 6 to 8 pm.
SOUTHWEST COMMUNITY CENTER: (map) They’re still accepting vendors for the Holiday Bazaar coming up 9 am-5 pm December 6th. Call 684-7438.
ALKI COMMUNITY CENTER: (map) Free spaghetti dinner 6-9 pm December 11th, a chance to “come see what programs we have to offer and fill out a questionnaire for future programs” according to a flyer we picked up while speaking to a group there today.
Just in from West Seattle Family YMCA (WSB sponsor) and subsequently just added to the ever-updated WSB Holiday Happenings page: “Gobble Stomp!” free exercise classes on Thanksgiving morning (just 9 days away!) at both the West Seattle and Fauntleroy YMCA facilities. Bring donations for West Seattle Food Bank and/or WestSide Baby (especially newborn-size diapers). Times and other details here (and of course on the HH page).
JOB LISTINGS: The latest listing in the West Seattle Jobs Offered section of the WSB Forums (where you can post West Seattle-based job openings FREE) is from Cafe Revo, whose upcoming opening is so fervently anticipated that some forum members are already laying the groundwork for a meetup. See the CR job listing here. Also, thanks to the fine folks who have applied for the first-ever WSB job listings (as posted here) – we’re starting interviews this week, and there’s still time to get resumes in.
HOLIDAY HAPPENINGS: More additions to the list this weekend, as the weeks to come get busier and busier: We now have a variety of Santa sightings (The Junction, Westwood Village, Admiral Theater, Delridge Community Center) as well as dozens of dinners, concerts, shopping events, Christmas-ship stops … we’re updating the page as often as possible so if your event’s not listed, send us the scoop! Thanks!
Driving through The Junction this afternoon, we spotted the lamp-post wreaths going up. Just in time for various holiday events happening this weekend (as you can see in the latest West Seattle Weekend Lineup). It also gives us a chance to mention that the dates are set for Junction fun you can enjoy before, during, and after shopping trips, as the West Seattle Junction Association (WSB sponsor) reminds you to “Live Local” this holiday season, and beyond. An hour of fun is planned for the West Seattle Junction Christmas-tree lighting, 5 pm December 6, including music and giveaways – dozens of Junction merchants are offering free tickets (available starting next weekend) for December raffling of thousands of dollars in gift certificates, and the tree lighting event will include an announcement of some of the winners (as well as holiday music and surprises). You’ll also see Junction fun on the following Sunday afternoons: December 7, 14, 21, with carriage rides and lots more – instead of picking just one “Hometown Holidays” weekend like last year, they’re spreading out the holiday joy.
Before we get to the list of Veterans Day closures/changes/events (partly previewed Monday), first a few words about non-Veterans Day events: More chances to demonstrate that yes, you CAN get involved with your neighborhood — the Junction Neighborhood Organization (JuNO) meets at 6:30 pm at Ginomai (SW corner of 42nd/Genesee), with the agenda including a development update from Harbor Properties, which also is continuing to seek your opinion on what kind of retail should be in its buildings. And 2 meetings at 7 pm — Admiral Neighborhood Association @ Admiral Church, and Fauntleroy Community Association at Fauntleroy Schoolhouse. Now, as for Veterans Day-related events, closures, and changes — including two free offers for veterans — here’s our list:Read More
Tomorrow’s Veterans Day, and it was suggested back on Columbus Day that we put up the “who’s closed” reminders a day in advance rather than waiting till the day itself. So here goes. First, a couple more notes: Even if you didn’t answer the call on Friday, Alki Elementary invites any and all local veterans to come be honored at its assembly this afternoon, 2:15 pm, school cafeteria; also, a full list of major statewide Veterans Day events can be found on this state-website page.
Again, the following is all for TOMORROW, Tuesday 11/11/08:
BANKS: Most if not all closed
MAIL: Regular delivery, no; Express Mail, yes.
SCHOOLS: Closed
STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT: Most facilities closed, including community centers (and just-reopened Southwest Pool)
PARKING: Free in the Seattle spots where you’d usually pay meters/pay stations
TRANSIT: Regular (with a few exceptions, Metro info here, Sound Transit info here)
LIBRARIES: Closed
TRASH/RECYCLING PICKUP: Normal
Among the joys of attending neighborhood-group meetings for WSB news reports: Learning more about cherished features of each neighborhood — some of which we’ve managed to miss even though we’ve lived in West Seattle for 17 years. Above, one such feature – the labyrinth in the “recovery garden” at the southwest corner of Cottage Grove Park in North Delridge (map). We checked it out because of an announcement at last week’s North Delridge Neighborhood Council meeting: A candlelight winter-solstice event is being planned at the labyrinth, 6-8 pm December 21st – “candles, cider, music,” promised Michal-Ann McElhany, who ran the NDNC meeting this time. She also has gotten the labyrinth listed on the worldwide Labyrinth Locator; see it on this page with Seattle’s nine other listed labyrinths. (The solstice walk is now on our Holiday Happenings page.) Meantime, not too far north of there, a random blog post that came up in one of our routine searches called our attention to this public artwork on the west side of the park area at Delridge Community Center/Playfield (here’s a map):
The blog post (see it here) expressed delight in discovering that the third, darker boulder in the group (our photo doesn’t show part of the westernmost boulder because of tagger vandalism) isn’t a boulder at all, but a bronze sculpture. Subsequently searching for more information, we found this bit of the 1994 installation’s history – and thought we’d share for anyone else who’d never noticed before. P.S. Speaking of the North Delridge Neighborhood Council — congrats on another successful Adopt-a-Street cleanup yesterday — eight volunteers spent several hours brightening the neighborhood, and the rain stopped just in time. NDNC also has entered a new phase in the Cottage Grove Park tot-lot project; more on that to come.
That’s our quick clip from Skeleton Theatre, staged annually with “talking” skeletons in the yard at 36th/Hanford (here’s a map; here’s the preview we published Thursday). Big crowd when we stopped by in the 8 pm hour last night; they’ll do it all again tonight, 6-9 pm (be prepared to park and walk a couple blocks). Not far from there, Todd spotted a landlocked Jaws – and says he heard the movie theme music playing in the background:
Next, some real animals — 2 costumed dogs. First, Emily sent this photo of Fiona:
And Lisa wanted to share this pic of her puggle pup Biffy:
We’ve got a cute human to show you too — Jamie‘s son Owen in “Mr. Roboto” mode:
A few more jack-o-lanterns … Debbie in Morgan Junction sent these (and gives a shoutout to zombiepumpkins.com as a “great site for pumpkin patterns”):
And from Jeff Gilbert of Feedback Lounge (also in M-Junction) fame says someone “anonymously sent this (to him) claiming (it’s) a West Seattle pumpkin”:
Ready to move on to the winter holidays now? Admiral Church has a holiday bazaar today, 9 am-3 pm! And one more bridge between the holidays – this photo came in on Halloween, but was from the Kiwanis Halloween Carnival a week earlier at Hiawatha:
West Seattle Hi-Yu Summer Festival vice president Deena Mahn sent the photo with this info:
The WS Hi-Yu 08-09 Junior Court, Princesses Elyse Mitchell and Anna Fuller, along with Queen Zoe Mahn, struck a ‘glam’ pose at the Hiawatha Community Center Halloween Carnival on Friday, Oct 24th. The royalty trio greeted tykes to teens and passed out participant ribbons to ghouls, witches, and other costumed participants at their first official event. Look for the Royalty Court at the upcoming annual Kiwanis Breakfast on Saturday, Dec 6th, Masonic Temple. They will be selling hand-blown glass holiday ornaments ($25) and ‘new style’ Hi-Yu collector pins ($5).
WSB covered the Junior Court’s crowning last July 18 (and the Senior Court’s crowning a few days later).
Yes, Halloween is for grownups too. Those are some of the hard-working Highland Park Action Committee leaders who set up a Halloween haunt for all ages at the HP Improvement Club building tonight — replete with fog machine:
Over in The Junction, a couple parties are under way, including the Ghostly Gala at Twilight:
That last photo reminds us, Twilight’s Mary Enslow still doesn’t have her stolen motorcycle back – stay on the lookout. Meantime, one more scene from Admiral businesses’ trick-or-treat extravaganza this afternoon – big stream of families drawn to Atomic Boys, its first year to share in the tradition:
Lots more Halloween pix to come, including yours (e-mail us!).
Admiral District trick-or-treating (map/list of participants) continues till 6; Westwood Village till 7; lots more here. Here’s our first video from Admiral:
That’s the spooky spider dangling by the door at Alki Bike and Board (WSB sponsor). Next: photos showing the Admiral District was truly abuzz:
Thanks to Luca the baby bumblebee for holding still there, sort of, while we checked out trick-or-treaters at Click! Design That Fits (WSB sponsor). Next one’s the crew at Head-to-Toe Day Spa:
And this one was taken at Linda’s Flowers and Gifts:
Be sure to send us your Halloween pix later if you want to share!
RIDE THE WATER TAXI WITH THE MARINER MOOSE: Reminder, that’s at 11 am today. After tonight, the Elliott Bay Water Taxi‘s docked till next year.
ADMIRAL DISTRICT TRICK OR TREATING: 3-6 pm. Here’s the map of participating businesses. Yes, the weather’s supposed to improve.
WESTWOOD VILLAGE TRICK OR TREATING: 5-7 pm. Full Halloween list is on the Holidays page; West Seattle Weekend Lineup‘s coming up shortly too.
FOLLOW THE WEST SEATTLE HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL GAME TONIGHT VIA OUR TWITTER UPDATES: In case you can’t get to the big game at Memorial Stadium — by popular demand, we are moving the updates OFF the regular westseattleblog twitter account. Co-publisher Patrick, who has been reporting on the games in recent weeks both during and after, will have running updates on his account, wsbbizdev – watch it on the Web at twitter.com/wsbbizdev, and you will also see it on our WSB Twitter page, which explains a little more about what Twitter is if you’re not using it. We’ll also temporarily add a sidebar box to this page below the turquoise one where our latest Twitter update can always be found.
Happy Halloween! No pix of this yet, but last night, Walking on Logs at the end of The Bridge was surrounded by glowing jack-o-lanterns. Didn’t see it far enough in advance to pull over for pix. Eddie e-mailed that he saw cars there just after 8 pm. Let us know if you know who did it – and/or if you have pix! Now, the latest WSB’er pumpkins:
That’s from Meredith in Admiral. Next, a jack-o-lantern group from Benjamin at 13th/Webster:
And two from John Moore of Northwest Insurance Group (WSB sponsor):
John also sent an Obama-o-lantern — one of several we have, along with two other celebrity (nonpolitical, more or less) carvings; just click ahead:Read More
He’s been on our Holidays page – and now sadly we have word that this inflatable “Boogie” (from “Nightmare Before Christmas”) is in the hands of thieves. Brian just e-mailed:
Unfortunately within the last 90 minutes, somebody came in our front yard near 42nd and Andover and stole him. We are checking with our neighbors to see if they saw anything or captured any footage on their security cameras.
Please send a message out to the wonderful people in West Seattle letting them know to be on the lookout for Boogie and alert the blog if they see him. And for those that may be reading this and know
anything about this, returning Boogie back to our front porch would be the right thing to do.
That’s probably the only front yard in West Seattle with not one, but two pirate ships (and our photo doesn’t even show the BIGGER one). It’s the scene of the third annual edition of the 36th/Hanford Halloween hit Skeleton Theatre; the final stages of construction were going fast and furious when we stopped by last night to check in with its creators, and what they’re assembling sounds more Hollywood than ever. The skeletons themselves were still in semi-hiding; more on them in a moment. During our visit, Chris Walker, wife Maia Low and a continually growing cast of friends, neighbors, and family members (meet some of them here) were toiling away to finish transforming the front yard into the stage for the free show that is bound to delight visitors Friday and Saturday nights – video clips just ahead, starting with the skeletons themselves (and the explanation of one skeleton’s mysterious origins):Read More
The first two pix are from tonight’s West Seattle Halloween highlights: First, a Johnny Cash pumpkin, plus a spider, thanks to Laura. Meantime, from 37th and Graham (map), an front-yard display sent by Emily, who says she and her husband love Halloween and add a bit more to the display daily (nightly?) during pre-Halloween week, and more pix can be found here:
Even more jack-o-lanterns and Halloween pix tomorrow (send yours!). By the way, we dropped by the scene of Skeleton Theatre tonight and will publish that video-enhanced report tomorrow, as they get ready for two big nights Friday and Saturday (more Halloween events here). Now, one more photo – Keith spotted this at 44th/Oregon in The Junction and wondered if anyone knows who/what this is supposed to be:
Co-publisher Patrick kicks off the guessing with “Stephen King?” But if you know for sure, or have a different guess, please enlighten! ADDED 10:54 PM: Just in, two pix from the annual Pathfinder K-8 pumpkin-carving celebration; Eric Baer reports about 150 participants, and sends these photos taken by Holly Rikhof:
Eric says there were about twice as many jack-o-lanterns as could be squeezed into that shot!
Thanks to Susan and Kevin for sending that photo of their pirate pumpkins, from the wild seas south of The Junction. Next, a spacey creation:
“That’s no moon – that’s …” Stephen‘s Death Star pumpkin. Last but by no means least, two jack-o-lanterns from Myrbob:
Got one to share? Or spooky decorations? E-mail your pix to WSB! One more Halloweenish note – Remember the Thrill the World zombie dances on Saturday? Turns out that for the “official” world-record attempt – the West Seattleites (and their cohorts from the rest of the city) were the THIRD BIGGEST GROUP IN THE WORLD! Read all about it (and see more pix and video) at the Thrill the World-West Seattle blog.
Big week for the Highland Park Action Committee — it’s sponsoring Highland Park Neighborhood Halloween on Friday night, with the Highland Park Improvement Club building as headquarters for family-geared fun. But first, tonight it was the regular monthly meeting, including a briefing on recognizing domestic violence and helping its victims, and the last-minute arrival of HPAC’s chair, fresh out of the City Council‘s budget hearing, with news about the ongoing fight against the potential construction of a city jail in West Seattle — read on for details:Read More
Thanks to Susan and Ben in Admiral for sharing their jack-o-lanterns; we’d love to showcase yours – send pix (creative outdoor decoration pix welcome too) to editor@westseattleblog.com! (P.S. We’ve added more Halloween events to the WSB Holidays page, and speaking of Admiral, the listing on that page for merchant trick-or-treating Friday now has a link to the map showing all 31 participants!).
Both are on the WSB Holidays page (along with tons more Halloween and winter-holidays events) but in case you’ve got something to sell at events like this, wanted to mention it quickly here too: Arbor Heights Elementary has its bazaar 4-8 pm December 4th; table charge $25, call or e-mail Amy Christensen, 206/938-2634 or amychristensen_3@hotmail.com – Highland Park Elementary has its bazaar 9 am (setup) to 3 pm December 6th, table charge $10, call Christie Sjostrom at 206/252-8250. (If you have an event coming up that’s NOT already on our Holidays page, or Events page if it’s not holiday-related, please e-mail us the info!)
Thanks to Courtney for capturing the aerial view of the sizable Zombie Walk that’s been heading through The Junction and up toward Admiral this afternoon/early evening – we mentioned it on the calendars, but you might still have been startled to see it; it’s a citywide event, and this year they decided to stalk West Seattle. (No relation to the zombies of the Thrill the World event yesterday, though some Thriller-dancers were reportedly considering joining in!) P.S. Lots of participants in the Zombie Walk means lots more pix online, including some posted by Tofublog and Kero360.
Thanks to Luckie for these photos of “the entire West Seattle YMCA Preschool” (the Y’s a WSB sponsor) taking its “annual trip to the Carpinito Brothers pumpkin patch in Kent.” Luckie continues: “There are few things more gleeful than 35+ preschoolers scrambling around acres of pumpkins. Best of all were the squishy dead pumpkins, which were a source of endless fascination.” That’s what you’re seeing here:
Got a Halloweenish pic to share? Jack-o-lantern, decorations, or? E-mail us!
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