One day last spring my daughter called me to ask, "What are my local newspapers?" Her college subsequently sent a story to the Ballard News-Tribune about her role as an Eco-Rep, educating other students about how to reduce their carbon footprint. But the best part was the photo of Emily hugging a tree, which is why people now ask, "Is your daughter Treehugger?" Well, Treehugger was in Seattle for two-and-a-half months this summer - and she kept me busy.

Ballard News-Tribune. August 16, 2010.

Blackberry Season
She lured me in with the promise of a ripe blackberry bush, but the subsequent obsession was entirely my own. This is a story about my daughter Emily's last week in Seattle before returning to college and her crazy mother.

Dating back at least 15 years, we used to carry handled baskets in the car with us during late summer in case we found blackberries.

We picked in Discovery Park, by Bitter Lake, on the slope behind North Beach Elementary, along the Burke-Gilman, by the railroad tracks above Shilshole. The goal was enough berries to produce enough jam to get us through the year.

Over the years, we fashioned coat hangers to pull down thorny branches from above our reach. We learned how to remove blackberry stains from our clothes (boiling water poured from at least 10 feet above), and we wore our scratched arms with hubris.

Last May, Emily returned to Seattle after her freshman year feeling at loss in job-hunting because of her mid-August departure. But within a few weeks, she had fashioned summer employment, first taking over Scott McCredie's electric lawn mowing business for the summer then becoming a pedal cab driver working the Mariner games and waterfront.

Between house-sitting and babysitting, she stopped by the house for occasional laundry and meals while I tried to coax details from her about working nights in downtown Seattle. I also lured her closer to home with a month's membership at Ballard Health Club and shared desire to go out to breakfast after Core Yoga.

Then, a week ago she lured me to a vacant rental house on Earl where she'd been hired to weed in addition to mowing dandelions.

"There's a huge blackberry bush," she told me. "Before it comes down, we should pick it clean."

I don't know how long the rental has been vacant - the owners work in Alaska during the summer - but it needed more than weeding. It needed bushwhacking, brush-clearing, machetes, a chain saw at least, in order to reclaim the house from the blackberries, choke weed, juniper and mysterious vines that were further entangling a slew of invasive plants racing to be the first to pull off the gutters, shingles, roof and front porch.

The blackberry bush had stems that were 6 inches in diameter and shoots at least 15-feet high.

A climbing vine had consumed the back porch, even snaking down the basement stairs and into the house through an old cat door.

The juniper bushes in front encroached on half of the sidewalk and even the laurel hedges were bent down by knotted vines.

There was something satisfying about trying to reclaim the house, unplugging the gutter drains and pulling out waist-high dandelions. Plus, there was the blackberry bush, as laden as Emily had promised.

There's no one explanation. It started with the berries and then seemed like a good way to spend time with Emily before her departure.

She was appreciative when I arrived with cold water and a new assortment of tools. I helped her break down the piles and piles of juniper debris and we took turns standing in the yard waste carts to pack down the brush.

We worked for hours during the unexpected August rain, grabbing lunch in the back seat of a steamy car and then returning to hack and pull at the invaders while water ran down our backs.

But when Emily had another work commitment, I couldn't pretend it was about spending time with her when I spent four hours by myself wrestling the blackberry bush down from the sky.

I'd cut my way closer to the middle, pick the berries and then cut in again. My face was scratched; there were thorns in my hair, once I even fell back when a bramble broke free.

I couldn't really fathom why I felt like I had to keep going, although I remember thinking, the blackberry bush is going to win.

Was it because I'd been so impressed with how hard Emily had worked all summer? Was it her muscle tone? Was it that I would be turning 50 in just five days? Was it the promise of my daughter paying me $10 an hour? Did I think that conquering the blackberry bush would keep Emily with me, the daughter who had actually said to me, "You have to let me go."

The blackberry forest is cut back to it roots, revealing a bush cowering within. The yard is piled in debris and hundreds of suckers. I have a huge mess to clean up at a vacant rental on Earl, and no one to blame but myself.

Then again, I have so much to show for it, stained clothes, future jam, scarred arms and the sweetness of working with my daughter.

Perhaps I didn't want the job to end, as though it would keep her here with me, but Emily is gone. She walked away from the airport curb without a backward glance.

I'll have lots of time to think of her summer visit while I rake and bag the debris; the madcap pedal cab ride on the waterfront, our Java Bean stop after yoga, her soft skin beneath my lips the times I dared to hug her and kiss her cheek.

It is my own fault that I am the one still here with fingers stained blue, literally holding the bag (and the berries).

It's been over a week since this event but I look at standard poodles differently now - not with fear but with respect for their energy and body weight.

Peggy and the poodles
On the hottest day of summer in a backyard filled with poodles, I thought longingly of the worst field trip experience that I ever had as the parent of a preschooler.
canine love
It was a lovely Ballard backyard, but there was no breeze, just full exposure to the sun.

For the poodles, there was a wading pool and treats called frosty paws. Although there were also beverages for the humans, the poodles assumed the coffee cake and bagels were also for them, crowding en masse beside anyone with a plate.

Crouching on a chair in an attempt to avoid the crush of poodle paws, I thought back to that visit to the pumpkin patch on a particularly miserable day in October.

Several children fell in the mud, which turned their fingers blue and brown. Driving south on I-5, it rained so hard that it was impossible to see the road. The wet children let off steam that obscured the windows, and then there was a sort of pillow fight involving doll clothes and Kleenex. I had to pull over and attempt a time-out threat. My daughter looked at me terrified between two girls waiting to resume textile tossing. I felt like I couldn't control or protect them.

On this summer day, I had been invited to attend "Poodlepalooza," an informal, annual gathering of poodles and their owners.

I recognized that the connecting thread between the poodle gathering and pumpkin patch was a sense of powerlessness, and many opportunities for alliteration with the letter P.

But in the grip of the heat wave, the bone-cold of the pumpkin patch suddenly seemed a welcome memory.

To put it mildly, I am not a dog person. But, the idea of a "Poodlepalooza" sounded as whimsical and fun as a troupe of Elvis impersonators all sky-diving at once.

Perhaps it hadn't occurred to me beforehand that, unlike visiting exotic animals at the zoo, these animals wouldn't be contained.

The first thing I realized is that I should have worn closed-toe shoes. Standard poodles are not light; putting aside the one miniature in attendance, there was a possibility of being trod upon by 28 paws with multiple nails. Perhaps needless to say, I was the only non-owner.

One poodle couldn't attend because of an issue involving ear drainage. Two others had decamped for the waters of Lake Chelan. Four had been groomed until the wee hours of the previous night, prompting the comment, "You put a mustache on a girl dog?"

The poodles seemed familiar with one another, giving each other a quick sniff and then succeeding in making the yard and humans look very small.

The oldest dog, Georgie, had the sense to find shade. The youngest, Teckla, had the most bounce. There were the two Gs, Gordy and Georgie, the four Bs, Bailey, Baxter, Benson and Brody, and the two Ts, Teckla and Tove. At least one was a Schnoodle, a Schnauzer Poodle.

I mostly listened to the unfamiliar speak of serious dog owners regarding the best groomers, the difference between dogs with blogs and dog-bloggers, teeth-brushing tips and massage therapy. The hostess, who prefers to be known as Georgie and Gordy's owner, distributed treats from her pockets and produced many a "frosty paw."

Looking at the beautiful coats of mostly white poodles, I thought of how they would look covered in the dark farm mud of that Snohomish pumpkin patch so long ago.

Like those children in the back seat, the poodles mostly ignored me, aware that I was an outsider. Unlike cats, dogs don't seem drawn to rub against those who are allergic or simply not dog-people.

One woman with four dogs had driven all the way down from Everett for the get-together. Her dogs have each other and while she has them, perhaps owners need the company of other owners sometimes.

The owner of the Four Bs, and herself a dog-blogger, told the others where to get break-away collars. She told how she once lost a dog, an earlier B, who had gotten his collar caught inside his cage and strangled. Just recently she had come to find a break-away collar caught in the deck but the dog safe.

She ruffled the head of her newest dog, the one that replaced her lost Bijou.

"He was the one who was saved because of the one who died," she said.

It was quiet a moment, both dogs and owners were still as a chill passed through despite the waves of heat. It seems in the end we all want the same thing as parents and owners; we want to keep our babies safe.

Reprinted by permission.

Whether or not you missed me, I'm back in Ballard after the annual east coast time. Per usual I was incapable of even posting this column. I did do some further gelato research and realized that D'Ambrosio Gelato is even BETTER than I'd realized. It may seem like summer ended in August rather than this week but I'll still want the gelato.

Ballard News-Tribune. August 30, 2010

The Summer of Gelato
Too often, summer passes without a certain touchstone that makes it summer: a beach picnic or Wooden O Shakespeare. Raspberry season passes without a berry, or pesto doesn't get frozen for the winter months.

Although there may have been gaps in this recent eventful summer, the gaps did not include strolling Ballard Avenue and eating gelato.

I like to designate a theme for each summer. This year's theme is the summer of gelato.

Whenever someone suggested meeting, I proposed Ballard Avenue. On non-farmers market days, it seems quiet and quaint.

Every time another business applies for sidewalk seating on Market Street, I wonder who wants to sit next to the cars waiting for the light, engines running. It's different on Ballard Avenue, without traffic lights or parking pay stations.

Throughout the summer, as various friends passed through Ballard from Manhattan, Palm Springs, Capitol Hill and more, I would meet them on Ballard Avenue to stroll before deciding where to eat.

The given was that for dessert we would have gelato at D'Ambrosio Gelato. The new gelato place on Ballard Avenue is just that good, with its Bewitched Ricotta and my constant, the Caffe Scuro.

One day, I was walking toward Market Street on Ballard Avenue slowly eating my gelato in its small compostable cup. A couple passing made approving noises.

"Do you think twice a week is too much for gelato?" I asked.

The woman replied, "I don't think once a day is too much."

This summer seemed slower than last, sweeter. (Last year was the summer of the book deadline).

One week, I met different friends on subsequent Mondays for the combination of crepes at Miro Tea and the two-scoop small gelato at D'Ambrosio.

One Friday, Martin and I ring shopped on Market Street, and then to celebrate finding him in a wedding band we went for gelato. I like to window shop while taking little tastes, always managing to stay close enough to return my dish to their special compost.

That Friday, I noticed the Parfait ice cream truck was parked just outside of Venue on 22nd Avenue Northwest.

"We should have an ice cream too, so that we'll have a good basis for comparison," I said.

It was decadent. It was extravagant. Martin thought it was a great idea.

When it came time for my last Friday in Ballard before heading east to be with family, the day before my 50th birthday, my friend Jo-Ann acted as though I was princess for a day.

"Whatever you want to do," she said.

Somewhat ashamed and definitely apologetic, I admitted that I would like to have a pedicure.

This would be the first one on my own initiative. I had been treated to pedicures while visiting San Francisco and one the day before the wedding but I'd never uttered the words, "I want a pedicure," before.

It would be the actual first in my friend's life, but she was willing to accept this great unknown on my behalf.

It was the perfect day. We walked to Golden Gardens and then changed our shoes for the walk to downtown Ballard.

After making an appointment with one nail salon, we changed our minds and attempted with much language difficulty to cancel our first appointment and make a second.

Perhaps because it was to be Jo-Ann's first time, we decided on a spa pedicure at the new Hoa Salon next to Duque. It was so peaceful there, except for the massage chairs that seemed to be trying to eject me like a rodeo rider on a bucking horse.

After an hour of shin and foot massage, we blinked in the daylight on the east side of Ballard Avenue, peering at our newly colored toes.

"Now gelato," I said.

Likewise, it was Jo-Ann's first gelato on Ballard Avenue after just watching me purchase and eat one before. This time I insisted that she order one for herself.

Then we walked slowly along Ballard Avenue, she with a cone, me with a cup. Tourists asked the way to the Locks. My enthusiastic gesture to the west sent gelato flying – onto Jo-Ann's toes.

Still, Jo-Ann said, "Isn't this street the best place in Seattle?"

And, the next day she suggested we go back for another gelato.

Some years ago Julie Pheasant-Albright commented on a post written from Martha's Vineyard, correctly stating this isn't the "Nantucket Times." I considered quoting her at the start of this week's Ballard News-Tribune column. All I can say is that when I'm there I think about Ballard all the time, and when I'm in Ballard I think about the Vineyard.

Ballard News-Tribune. September 20, 2010

The other Earl (and Obama, too)

Those of you who have been reading my column for awhile know that every year I return to the summer cottage on Martha's Vineyard that has been in the family since 1962. I try to write a few columns ahead of time while still breathing Ballard air, but after a few weeks the 97 percent humidity wipes my brain clean and I regress to my Massachusetts roots.

In the midst of the everyday drama that's inescapable with nine people in a flimsy cottage packed between another 350 cottages in similar circumstances, my family always asks, "Are you going to write about this?"

Sometime they are asking to be helpful, other times it is out of fear. (The view from the upstairs bathroom looks out directly over the outdoor shower).

There are moments (many) that add new definitions to "living out loud." We answer our phone when it is the neighbor's phone that is ringing and sometimes give ourselves away by laughing at things we weren't meant to hear.

But, mostly we all sit around on each other's front porches between dramatic episodes. One day it was the Obama motorcade on the street behind the house and a runaway pit bull in the front. We could only hope the two didn't meet because we sensed the dog would lose.

There was a wedding performed a few porches down and a birthday party that became an impromptu juggling and unicycle-riding lesson.

The best spontaneous gathering on the porch was the morning after our next-door neighbor was the server when the Obamas dined at the restaurant where she was working for the summer. Roused from our beds with the threat (later proved untrue) that she was "only going to tell it once," we gathered at Pam's feet like children on the first day of kindergarten, gazing up at teacher.

When the President and his family left the island, we thought we were going to settle into the relative calm of nightly skunk visits, fruit fly infestation and the Labor Day exodus, but suddenly the word on everyone's lips was "Earl."

Funny, I thought, Emily and I have been working for weeks on that yard over on Earl Avenue. What's this Earl?

Earl was the potential hurricane working its way up from the Caribbean with the potential to hit the entire eastern seaboard and the island by Friday. We don't get hurricanes in Ballard, and it seems that the fiercest wind and snow storms are the ones we don't see coming. Would Earl really hit?

By Wednesday, the towns had activated a system known as Reverse 9-1-1, whereby every household receives an automated phone call announcing "Code Red" with instructions on hurricane precautions and information on when and where emergency shelters would open.

The level of preparedness was unprecedented in the lifetime of anyone alive. Between the Internet and the telephone system, the citizens had never been so forewarned about a storm's approach; in due time the battery-buying and water purchases went from desultory to frantic.

The night before the hurricane was due, the five island towns prepared for lockdown. All the hanging signs on businesses were removed. Those in the boat hauling business were working round the clock, and people were stock-piling food.

The day dawned with a horrible yellow tint and even greater humidity. Under emergency orders, all businesses were to be closed by 2 p.m., and everyone was forbidden to drive. Meanwhile, the hurricane was losing its strength and starting to drop in its precious categories, 4-3-2-1-downgraded to tropical storm.

But, storm preparation was not so uneasily undone. Hotels had evacuated. The stores and libraries had closed (with the bars, in particular, threatened with fines and potential arrest). No day was ever longer as we waited and waited, windows boarded over, ice trays filled, lawn furniture removed. It was the only day of an eventful vacation when nothing happened.

The shelters stayed empty. The emergency workers imported from as far away as Pennsylvania weren't needed, and no one stopped our car when my mother took me driving just before midnight on the abandoned streets that were finally being lashed with horizontal rain and wind enough to shake the Honda.

By morning there were giant puddles but very little debris. The sun seemed especially bright on a just-scrubbed landscape. The main street was a gauntlet of plywood coming down and signs going back up, ladders everywhere.

Obama was gone. Earl had been scared off. It was back to the business of front porch drama and breathing in the sights and sounds that seem more than a world away from Ballard.

My Internet has been down. After being too busy to "blog" for weeks I never wanted to do it more than would have required leaving my house and/or reserving a computer at the library.

I wanted to show you the trusses being delivered for the mega house being built across the street.

Please join us at The BalMar for a Nordic-themed party benefiting Senator Patty Murray's re-election campaign in her race against Republican Dino Rossi.

DJ Rxmx will be spinning some awesome music, we'll have a Raffle for a grand prize and several other great prizes, and there will be drink and appetizer specials all night long.

Come meet some new people, reconnect with friends, dance to some of the best music, and help us get Patty & the Democrats past the finish line this November.

Bring friends and spread the word!!! Let's make this EPIC

THE BALMAR
5449 Ballard Ave NW.
Seattle, WA

If the cats know anything - they're not telling.

From the Ballard News-Tribune. September 29, 2010

Black Gold

I was in the jams and jellies section of the Martha's Vineyard Agricultural Fair when my cell phone rang. My mother had a third prize ribbon for her beach plum jelly, although a judge had mysteriously written, "Excellent grape!" on it.

"Can you talk?" Martin asked, calling from the house phone in Ballard.

I stepped outside the barn, waving to my mother as she set off for fried food.

"I have very bad news," Martin said.

My heart skipped a little beat, thinking to the neighbors awaiting the birth of twin grandbabies, the cats…even the safety of Ballard itself. Had Ray's Boathouse gone up in flames, again?

"My wedding ring is missing," Martin said.

It was twilight at the fairgrounds. The Ferris Wheel was starting to twinkle against the sky as it rounded down toward the gymnastics exhibition and then back up again, high as the weather vane.

"Where and how did you lose it?" I asked, which was pretty much what we'd asked a man about his pit bull earlier in the day.

Martin proceeded to tell me every place he'd been that day and how the wedding band had fallen off while he was in the dairy section at Ballard Market before he went to produce, but he'd retrieved it and put it back on his finger.

Then he'd bought green onions at Sunset Hill Green Market because he'd forgotten them earlier.

He concluded with realizing in the shower that he didn't have the gold band on the fourth finger of his left hand.

Then he told me about retracing his steps for two hours, and that he was heartbroken.

There was a sudden blast of bells from the midway section and my mother waving to me with two baskets of deep-fried vegetables. It's just a ring, I wanted say, a round piece of gold, not something irreplaceable like the finger itself, but I could hear his distress as though he had negated the marriage itself.

You see, Martin has never been married before, and he has never before in his life worn a ring on either hand.

Rings weren't exchanged at the ceremony at Sunset Hill Park. It wasn't until July that there was time to look at estate wedding bands to match my ring.

We found a band at Coleman's and then left it for sizing with George Smith, still doing business as Phil's Jewelry upstairs in the Ballard Building.

A week later we met to pick up the ring together before I left for the east coast. George started to give the band to Martin, but with a belated sense of ceremony I said, "Maybe I should do that," and put the ring on his finger.

George was saying, "It should be a little snug over the knuckle."

In hindsight, I believe there was a flicker of concern that it slid on so easily, but then Martin tugged at it a bit and George said, "Should be fine."

Hearing that it was Martin's first time married, he presented him with a cigar.

I took a photograph of Martin's hand to document the first time he'd ever worn a wedding ring.

The next day he took me to the airport. It was just three days later that he called me with the news.

By the time that Martin joined me at my parent's cottage two weeks later, everyone on the street would first greet him with congratulations and then ask, "Did you find the ring?"

For most of the time that I was on vacation, I believed that when we returned home I would find the ring beneath the piano or someplace obvious to me but invisible to Martin.

The night before our flight I finally asked Martin, "What do you really think happened to the ring?"

Then he told me about emptying the compost bin from the kitchen into the huge yard waste container and needing to rap it against the side to shake its contents loose. As a "lefty" he would have been rapping with the ring hand.

He went through the full contents of the yard waste twice, but he probably would have needed tweezers and a dissection tray to have found the gold band.

Since our return, I have not so much as looked under the piano. As far as I know, Martin still has the cigar.

Somewhere out in Washington state, there's a band of gold in future compost. Someday, perhaps mixed in with bark or potting soil, the ring will surface in a garden bed or greenhouse, a treasure simply misplaced.

I don't think losing the ring foretells the future of our marriage; it just means the ring has a different future - and perhaps explains the name of the leading brand of compost – Black Gold.

Reprinted by permission.

I've noticed Marjorie at the Ballard Farmer's Market over the years but didn't approach her until I learned that she was also a Ballard author. I've stopped by to sell hello to her the last three Sundays. The difference yesterday, October 10th was that I had to wait until she didn't have a client. She seemed busier than usual yesterday, despite the threat of rain. I don't think I get any credit but on the table was a copy of last week's Ballard News-Tribune, folded to show the column on her (and obscure the photo).

I'd better read her book.

Ballard News-Tribune. October 6, 2010

P is for Pizza, and Psychic
Off the main Ballard Avenue thoroughfare and dog parade of the Sunday Ballard Farmers Market, there's an extension into the vacant lot between two buildings. Every week that's where Veraci cooks pizzas in its mobile wood oven and psychic Marjorie Young gives readings; each doing what they do.

Marjorie Young has been doing readings at the Farmers Market even before its move to Ballard Avenue. Some weeks are busier than others, but there is always demand for the 10-minute for $10 readings, versus longer readings at her home.

Marjorie also does readings for pets, though not at the market. She can discern an unresolved conflict with a parent or an adopted dog's life before the shelter.

Now, I've never consulted a psychic myself, but it turns out that neither has Marjorie. She doesn't even know any. But, she hears stories about people who call themselves psychics and often claim that for additional fees they can make some karmic adjustment.

"If someone wants to sell you something like that, just get up and leave," she said.

For Marjorie, psychic abilities are simply something she has possessed since earliest childhood. What was difficult was realizing that others didn't see, hear and smell what she did about those in her presence.

She tried to suppress and hide her abilities, but that only intensified them. So she accepted them and trained herself to turn her psychic awareness "off" and "on" so that it was not like a television in her head that could never be shut down. Nor did she want to invade the privacy of others just because she could sense their emotions.

Raised in San Francisco after a divorce split her family, Marjorie became somewhat obsessed with Japanese films and culture. She saved her money for the trip to Japan she knew she needed to make.

Once there, she felt home in a way that had eluded her all of her life. She had always felt different than others, and in Tokyo she couldn't be anything other than different.

During that time she taught English and worked with a parapsychology institute that studied her psychic abilities and talents as a healer.

After 20 years, her mother and stepfather's declining health drew her back to the states, where she settled into a cozy apartment close to Ballard High School. She and her cats have been there ever since, relishing the relative quiet and ease of living in Ballard without a car.

Every morning at 5 a.m. she starts her day by running an hour-long route through the Ballard neighborhoods. Increasingly, her days are filled with writing. She is at work on book three of a saga that began with The Boy with the Golden Eyes, a self-published young adult story that was released in early August.

Most of the people who want a reading at the market are open to hearing from a psychic; a few are skeptical. All that Marjorie asks is that someone is willing to admit when she has told them something that is true.

There are times when she doesn't pick up anything from the client and tells them so. But mostly the connections work, even when she does telephone readings for clients all over the world.

Marjorie has also learned to listen if a voice seems to interrupt a session, in one case repeating the word "apricots." It turns out the client was worried about the breast cancer gene in her family and her late father was reminding her that he always believed his apricot crop could ward off cancer.

The market also provides Marjorie with the occasional "wise guy" who says, "Well how about I give you a dollar for a one-minute reading?" or, "If you can see the future, what's the weather going to be tomorrow?" One man said to her, "But you're so normal."

After Sundays at the Farmers Market, Marjorie has to go home and simply rest, drained by channeling the psychic energy of others.

She doesn't do readings for family members or close friends, but she'll talk with them about what's bothering them, as a friend or a sister.

Having read about my husbands lost wedding ring she offered to visit our home and get a sense of whether it's still here (My intuition says it's in the compost, but I am tempted to invite her to try to read my cats).

With her writing, as with her psychic abilities, Marjorie doesn't feel she can take any credit or explain the gifts. They simply exist for her the way others can make music or do calculations in their head (neither of which she can do). She is simply delivering the message.

The story of Rupert, the boy with golden eyes, began as a story for her nephew's son. She is interested as anyone to learn what is going to happen as it flows to her, a chapter at time.

Every Sunday, Marjorie carries her signboard and chair to Ballard Avenue and sets up at the market. It's noisy, but no one seems bothered by lack of privacy or being seen with the psychic.

"No one else is watching or listening," Marjorie told me. "The pizza people are just selling pizza."

"I just enjoy it," Marjorie said of her role as Ballard's psychic. "It's always interesting and exciting. As with all blessings, this gift is meant to be shared."

Reprinted by permission.

I'm starting to see a pattern in my behavior. Years ago I worked obsessively to match students with science mentors. Last year I went a little nuts planning the Sunset Hill wedding. Now I'm consumed by planning and (I hope) executing a brand new event. I want to bring as many Ballard authors as possible to one place to meet one another and their neighbors. The programming committee of Sunset Hill Community Club is allowing me to run with this. The countdown starts now. One week from today is the big event.

Ballard Authors & Neighbors
Sunset Hill Community Club
October 19, 7-9 p.m.
Free admission
Book sales by Secret Garden
"Author Bingo"
Panel discussion

Ballard News-Tribune. October 11, 2010

Ballard Authors from A-Z
It started so simply; a friend (Joel Niemeyer, you know I mean you) saying that I should meet another friend of his, also a writer. Then we joked about creating a roundtable of Ballard writers: Ballard's version of the famous Algonquin Table. The original idea has bloomed and multiplied like so much local moss and there will need to be many tables, fully extended, to accommodate the smorgasbord of local writers participating in the Ballard "Authors & Neighbors" event at Sunset Hill Community Club on October 19th, 7-9 p.m.

First I contacted a few writers I knew and then Secret Garden Books gave me many more. Then each writer gave me other names, and although a few authors had conflicts, no one turned down the invitation to meet one another and their neighbors at a community event. I decided to make it a potluck of authors, but without pre-assigned genres. So there will be cookbook authors and poets, writers with agents, and without. Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Literary Memoir, Health & Psychology, Young Adult, Early Readers - there will be something for every age and interest.

Thirty writers are planning to participate in this first attempt at rounding up Ballard writers. Secret Garden Books will sell everyone's work, self-published or otherwise (and are donating a percentage to Sunset Hill Community Association). There will be a panel discussion on building an audience, something I'm calling Author Bingo and door prizes.

All the authors submitted Ballard-centric bios upon request. Here's a mere sampling of what they shared, or else what I know about them, from A-Z (although the current list ends at W, a Z writer could turn up any day).

Nicole Aloni lives, writes, shops and cooks in Ballard but it's her Backyard Bartender book that has caught my eye. Karen G. Anderson and I met at my garage sale and I've called her Ghost Blogger ever since. Erica Bauermeister and I got to meet a woman who grew up in Norvell House (which inspired a setting in Erica's book).

Rita Bresnahan finds poetry in every day, and helps me to see it. Sandra Coffman was introduced to me by a West Seattle friend. She taught me to ask for jam at Besalu. Jay Craig gave me an early copy of his Scottish Buddhist Cookbook and liked that my review said, "It's not really a book." He'll be the one wearing the kilt. (It's not exactly a cookbook either). Lowen Clausen is Mr. Ballard " does the Ballard Building ring any bells? The second book of his police trilogy was set in Ballard.

Laura Cooper is on the Board of the Ballard Historical Society, has a greeting card company and is co-author of Fishes & Dishes which was the top selling paperback at Secret Garden Books last week. Carl Deuker has written eight young adult novels; seven of which are set in Ballard, but is most popular in Nebraska! (I used to get his mail when I lived just one block south).

Janna Cawrse Esarey now lives just south of the Ballard Bridge but her increasingly popular memoir The Motion of the Ocean: 1 Small Boat, 2 Average Lovers, & a Woman's Search for the Meaning of Wife had its starting point at Shilshole (and may be in competition for longest book title award). The protagonists in Kevin Emerson's Oliver Nocturne series "skulk around Cupcake Royale, Golden Gardens and Salmon Bay Park." Phil and Kaja Foglio's webcomic Girl Genius has just received its second Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story.

Liz Gallagher hosts TEEN.BOOK.CLUB at Secret Garden and has two young adult novels set in Fremont and Ballard respectively. Carol Hiltner lives locally but her life revolves around her experiences in Siberian and subsequent activism. Don Kentop curates Poetry in Fremont and has just had his chapbook published by Rose Alley Press.

One of Nina Laden's 12 books in print has sold over 500,000 copies. Kristine Leander is president of the Leif Erikson International Foundation. Carol Levin's house is known to anyone who walks a dog along 34th Avenue NW and she may be one of the few poets to be inspired by sea lions. Corbin Lewars is founder of the zine "Reality Mom" and author of the on-line column by the same name, in addition to writing memoirs and a novel.

Scott McCredie and I met after I read about his lawn service Eco-Mow. A longtime journalist he now mows our lawn, edited my book and his book has enlightened me regarding the physical sense of balance. Paul Michel's first novel Houdini Pie was just published by Ballard's own publishers, Bennett & Hastings.

Julie Pheasant-Albright is 4th generation Ballardite and an expert on early Ballard. Ingrid Ricks is the friend of a friend that I met over a table at Aster, Ballard's coffee shop of choice for writers since Nervous Nellie's became Nellie's. Julie Reinhardt is co-owner of Smokin' Pete's BBQ and believes "smoking pork butt might help women find balance in their hectic lives."

Michael Schein claims to have been named 20th Avenue NW treasure by a guy who hangs out in Salmon Bay Park. We met two years ago. Darrell Toland has a 6.5 foot talking robot in his garage. Marjorie Young gives psychic readings at the Ballard Farmer's Market. Allan Wenzel is a historian who has lived in the Ballard home built by his parents since a few weeks of age.

Ballardites, come meet the writer next door.

Reprinted by permission.

Tonight is the night. Tuesday, October 19th at Sunset Hill Community Club, 7-9 p.m.
3003 NW 66th Street
Free admission

The first ever (recorded) attempt to get as many Ballard authors in one place to meet the neighbors. The author count is at 36 (and could still grow).

Still programs to print, Author Bingo cards to complete and tables to set up!

The author list as of noon today:

Nicole Aloni
Karen G. Anderson
Erica Bauermeister
Rita Bresnahan
Sandra J. Coffman
Bob & Jan Dalrymple
Jay Craig
Lowen Clausen
Laura Cooper
Carl Deuker
Janna Cawrse Esarey
Kevin Emerson
Phil & Kaja Foglio
Liz Gallagher
Carol Hiltner
Donald Kentop
Nina Laden
Kristine Leander
Carol Levin
Corbin Lewars
Scott McCredie
Paul Michel
Lynn Moen & Judith Laik
Julie Pheasant-Albright
Ingrid Ricks
Julie Reinhardt
Michael Schein
Lora Shinn
Peggy Sturdivant
Darrell Toland
Marjorie Young
Allan Wenzel
Marcia Siam Wiley

Thanks to Secret Garden and Sunset Hill Community Association for what promises to be part circus/part book fair/100% fun.

See you there. Peggy

The invitations go out, posters get placed around town, the word travels on the Internet, but still, or perhaps because of the method, you just don't know who will turn up in person. With every seat filled at 6:55 p.m. for a 7 p.m. event, and cars circling the neighborhood to find parking it was soon obvious that both authors and neighbors were in the house. A full house!

The first "Ballard Authors & Neighbors" event at Sunset Hill Community Club last night was not only fun, but a success in that it allowed for writers to meet one another, aspiring writers to connect with others, and frankly a community love fest of readers.

As Nicole Aloni told me afterwords, "It made me proud to be a Ballardite."

Author Rita Bresnahan shared this by email, "The space was so abuzz with literary and neighborly energy that it was tingly! Sunset H C C was bursting at the seams, a community truly coming together in a way beyond what any of the founders could have envisioned for that space."

The panel moderated by Erica Bauermeister was of interest to everyone. I got to study the faces in the audience; rapt and smiling.

Meanwhile at the Secret Garden table, participants were buying books, from self-published to those published by Simon & Schuster. it was a fabulous, exciting, obviously superlative-laden evening all around.

Along with everyone else I am astounded by the talent in our midst and delighted that at least 100 people will no longer be strangers to one another. I've discovered new authors myself...and I'm going to plead my case with Secret Garden to do a window display of books that they had ordered for last night's event. "After the event?" Suzanne questioned.

Why not? I didn't get enough time to see the books written by neighbors last night. Why not take Buy Local to another level, being able to buy books locally written by locals?

Last night was a beginning; who knows where it will lead? I hope it will allow us to harness all that talent and do more with the energy that was in the clubhouse last night. More readings, workshops, some sort of collective? People left contact information to learn about other events and suggesting other writers. I've got names to enter and business cards to sort but for now I'm perfectly content. Content to relive last night because it was beyond amazing.

An earlier post included links to author sites; the complete list of authors was in this post.

I didn't know that I believed in a God but having just been at the scene of the accident on 15th Avenue NW I am praying to anyone who listen that the driver of the car that was hit from behind will survive. I wish that I had not seen what I had seen. Even though I wrote a book about Maria Federici's accident and the heroic efforts of Medic One it didn't seem real to me until tonight. How they must have had to work to keep her heart beating.

A car, evidently the one with a child in it, was hit by another car and the force pushed it underneath a three-quarter ton pick-up truck. The truck lifted above the hood. The car is squashed in the rear. The driver had to be cut out by the Seattle Fire Department. Even before they were on the scene neighbors ran out with fire extinguishers because of flames beneath the middle car.

Remember the scene in "It's A Wonderful Life" where George's wife Mary says to the son, "Yes, Timmy, pray very hard."

Pray very hard right now, whatever prayer means. Please try to send a miracle to the medics so that Thursday, October 21st is not the date of a fatality on 15th NW. Please don't let a child lose a parent. Please do whatever it takes to keep funding for the Fire Department and Medic One. Let Harborview keep blazing a path in saving lives by working with Medic One and Airlift Northwest.

Drive as though the life that could be lost by not paying attention, could be your own.

As the news finally broke that I had dreading and expecting, that the man trapped along with his daughter during last week's horrific accident, had died of his injuries the sky seemed know to go black over Ballard and Seattle.

Reading about his life on the web site of his workplace Sub Pop Records made me think of a poem that tides me through life and death, Raymond Carver's Late Fragment

Late Fragment

And did you get
what you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
Raymond Carver

I never met Andy but he was clearly beloved. If only the light and turned green and everyone had made it home safely.

It was Kim at The Scoop who first showed me the bumper sticker propped against the cash register. "He's a genius," she said. "You need to talk to him."

Kim knows all. Within a day or so she got me contact information written on the official store notepaper - a white doughnut bag.

I wanted the title to read, "Tolerate Genius" but I didn't want to swell Ben's head. He's clearly got a lot of extra brain mass in there already.
Ballard News-Tribune. October 27, 2010

Tolerate extraordinary
Ben Klinkman-Sinatra is 14 years old and an eighth-grader at St. John Catholic School on North 79th Street. He plays soccer. He runs cross-country. He lives in Ballard. He has to be coaxed to get in the shower.
He would seem to be an average teenage boy with two busy but involved parents, one younger sister and varied interests.
So why do strangers stare at Ben when we meet at The Scoop after his Saturday morning soccer game? Why are they looking at his chest as if it contains a riddle that needs to be solved?

Ben hasn't had his teenage growth spurt yet; he actually looks a bit younger than 14. He has dark eyes, probably from his mother's Sicilian side of the family.
Drinking a hot chocolate with whipped cream on top, it's not immediately obvious why anyone would stare. Until you read the white typeface on his black T-shirt: tolerate lactose!

The phrase started as wordplay on the morning ride to school, then a bumper sticker and now there are T-shirts, less than 24-hours old.
Tolerate lactose, people read on the white-on-black bumper stickers. "That's clever" they say, wondering, what it really means.
Another customer, Lucy, offers her opinion. She reveals that she herself is lactose intolerant. She doesn't consider the t-shirt message dismissive nor is she offended.
Many years ago doctors misdiagnosed her with liver cancer when the problem was revealed to be lactose intolerance.
For Lucy, the shirt says, "Never be afraid to speak out. There can be more than one reason for symptoms or actions. Everyone needs to be challenged."
Her response is articulate and impassioned.
Ben and I sit down while his dad orders us something with lactose and caffeine.
"My dad and I just like to joke around a lot," Ben told me when I asked what he thinks his slogan means. "We do puns and stuff. We were putting different words after 'tolerate' and that combination jumped out at us."
Ben's dad Dave joins us with the drinks.
"Ben has always been very inquisitive," he says as if by way of explanation.
It becomes obvious inquisitiveness and entrepreneurialism in the Klinkman-Sinatra family is not limited to Ben.
Theresa Klinkman-Sinatra, a fifth-grader at St. John's, writes and illustrates stories. She is passionate about jellyfish and has her own rubber stamp logo.
Dad, Dave Klinkman, has always had an aptitude for materials management and does project management and technical sales for Color Craft Inc., a print shop that puts logos on airplanes.
Mom, Jackie Sinatra, is COO of a medical clinic with a Masters in public administration. When Ben and Theresa were younger, she was the creator of "Jackie's Sassy Salsa." Sunset Hill Green Market was one of her customers. The Sicilian-based salsa was such a success that the business grew beyond where she wanted to take it.
Ben has already designed the logo/exterior design for when he and his dad convert an older BMW to electric. He is fascinated by almost anything with an engine that moves (boats, not so much).
He doesn't like to read music but composes on the piano by ear, memorizing his compositions. He started writing a pizza opera musical over the summer, with lyrics set to U2 songs, not yet completed.
Like his other ventures, such as the bumper stickers and T-shirts that he hopes to market, his profits will be donated to a charity, probably the Ballard Food Bank.
Not surprising in a teenager who is taking advanced math in the before-school time known as zero period and loves the Latin and Greek roots of words, Ben prefers nonfiction to fiction. But, he loves comedy in his movies and wit in his punning.
In exchange for helping his dad in the print shop he's been able to make the bumper stickers and T-shirts. He has started a website (not quite active yet) to market the Tolerate Lactose products and is considering adding a blog.
He's still learning about business and marketing costs, gross versus net profits, but there will be time. For now, he's got a slogan that his friends think is cool and that he and his family think might have market potential.
"Make your audience an interpreter, not a critic," his dad reminds him.
Ben's take on the meaning of his message: "I think it's a funny way of saying world peace."
Kim Paxton at The Scoop loves the Tolerate Lactose message but interprets it rather differently.
"Lighten up," she says. "That's what it means – lighten up."

Reprinted by permission.

Ballard News-Tribune. November 1, 2010

Hop to, baby
Over the years of writing this column and my blog on SeattlePI.com, the contents of my mailbox have changed. Not the basket that sits on my front porch but my online mailbox.

In the old days, I heard from a man certain he was the large man in bicycle shorts in my yoga class (he wasn't) and the occasional suggestion from a reader about a story idea.

My email box is now one part commercial/one part citizen advisory. It appears my new best friends are Dewey Potter (Seattle Parks) and Joelle Hammerstad (City of Seattle). On any given day they send two to three news alerts.

Meanwhile, public relations firms send generic emails about potential stories. It is rare that someone has actually personalized the pitch in any way.

The joy of writing this column has always been writing about what strikes me as I wander, rather than what tries to strike my inbox. Who do they think I am, I often wonder, sorting through announcements from Ghost Light Theatricals and Wilson PR? What do they think I am?

Once the communications people added blog contacts, they must have thought we were all alike.

A story prepackaged for me is never as interesting as one that appears on its own, with jagged edges and enticing gaps. Don't get me wrong. I love tips. But, a tip is a like a whisper that makes you want to lean in and try to hear more.

A prepackaged "you might be interested in this" story is as unwelcome as another plastic-wrapped set of telephone directories by the front door.

So when Nancy Hanauer of Hop to Signaroo emailed to see if I'd be interested in writing about classes that she teaches privately and at Swedish Ballard and First Hill, she had to overcome my email ennui.

What got through to me of course was the memory of my daughter using sign language in her preverbal stage. My dad still jokes, "Why did I teach any of you to talk?"

My daughter's first day care was Northwest Center for Child Development, an arm of Northwest Center for the Retarded (as the pickup trucks still read at the time). They employed many adults with disabilities and specialized in children with disabilities, along with children at normal developmental milestones.

For Emily sign language was normal, just part of a classroom with children who couldn't necessarily hear, or in one case, see.

I had to learn the signs. They were basic but helpful: please, thank you and more. My 18-month-old was patient with me.

So, I called Nancy Hanauer to learn more about her signing classes for hearing parents with hearing babies.

When Nancy took one of those tests in high school that is supposed to indicate potential careers, hers showed one: deaf education. She took that path and worked in Special Education for many years.

Then she decided to go outside of those determining dots and start an art business. She threw in some baby signing classes as a lark. Ten years later, the demand is still growing for the baby signing classes that she does privately and at locations like Swedish.

Nancy teaches parents and babies about 80 to 100 signs over the course of six one-hour sessions using American Sign Language.

When it came to naming the business, she remembered the beloved morning figure Captain Kangaroo. She figures if parents can remember sign language and kangaroo, that will be enough for any search engine to find her and products that now include "Roo-minders," a ring of chew-proof sign vocabulary cards.

Ballard has proved be a consistent market for Nancy's classes, which include one or two family members plus the baby (some couples start before the baby is born).

Although it often makes parents sad when their babies stop signing and start speaking, it appears the sign language skill is easily restored, especially with the arrival of a second child. The older child becomes tutor.

Both of Sidney Sakai's parents had coincidentally studied ASL in college. When they heard about Nancy's program, part of the attraction was that it is ASL, not a made-up language.

At 13 months, Sidney mostly signals her immediate needs by sign, as in food preference and diaper status. Her mom Kali recently realized they might have neglected some of the niceties signed by other babies, as in thank you or please.

Mike and Kim Brandenburg are delighted to have a way to communicate with their 18-month-old daughter Vivian; she has started talking but they can understand the signs better than the words. They were diligent about signing in front of Vivian from the time she was 9 months old because Nancy had counseled them to be persistent because "babies are more aware than you think." One night at Chinook's, Vivian simply started signing back.

Vivian knows many signs, including more and meat

Like the best of the PR firms sending me photo-filled pitches, Nancy knows how to work her market and her product. But once it comes to babies, there's no control over their expressions or their moods.

Yet she loves working with the little babies and witnessing the additional bond that can result from families signing with them. She also loves seeing somewhat older moms taking the class because, as much as Nancy loves them, "No babies of my own yet."

Being in a hospital setting always makes me nervous but an unexpected gift on the preview visit of the new Swedish/Ballard building made my heart race for yet another reason.

Ballard News-Tribune. November 8, 2010

Eldridge garden

A New Bridge in Ballard
"We're going to swarm you," Dr. Ray Jarris said, referring to future patients, at the beginning of a media tour of the new Ballard Swedish building that started on his turf as medical director of the Emergency Department.

Last week, I complained about press releases and pre-packaged stories. This week, I want to attest to the benefits, in the form of an invitation to tour the Tallman Building in advance of its official opening.

"It's a good thing I'm here," I said to Michael Harthorne, letting him take the quality photographs as outside light poured through the windows of each of the finished floors on our tour. With just three media (Michael, Kate Bergman from MyBallard.com and me) the Ballard Swedish "key spokespeople" group outnumbered us three to one.

"Did you invite the Seattle Times or the PI?" I asked Ed Boyle, Swedish's media relations manager, feeling guilty to be one of so few guests. He expects more press for the public opening on Saturday and will have a professional photographer on hand.

Will I ever again feel like I'm getting too much attention in a medical facility? Will a person off the street ever get as much time with a group that includes so many directors and managers: Dr. Rayburn Lewis, Dr. Ray Jarris, Jennifer Graves, R.N., Wendy Connors, R.N., and Mike Schaal, senior project manager?

Jarris pointed out the lack of chairs at the lobby entrance on Tallman Avenue, just across from Angelo's hair salon.

"Patients will walk in, be greeted, and escorted to a bed," Jarris said. "No waiting room."

Meanwhile, I was trying to balance memories of past visits to Emergency Rooms (as we used to call them) across the country with this gleaming, guided Thursday morning experience. With every new feature, all private rooms, many with a table and chairs for family, WIFI capability, telephones and flat screen televisions, I flashed back to their opposite: curtains that separated you from the patient a few feet away only in a few yards of cotton, one Christmas morning nightmare, hours without food or phone, unallayed fears.

I knew that I should feel overjoyed that Ballard Swedish had looked at historical practices with an eye for change and improvement, but my palms felt clammy just being inside an emergency department.

"The goal is higher patient satisfaction," Jarris said. "There used to be so many steps and we worked so hard. But now, forget the steps. We're going to swarm you. It's what we did with very sick people. We asked ourselves, why aren't we doing that with everyone?"

Wendy Connors, nurse manager in Emergency, pointed into one of the first rooms.

"All of the specialty equipment is modular," she said. "Every room is designed so we can put on a cast or deliver a baby."

I joked later that without a sense of past trauma from emergency room visits in a caregiver capacity that I would be an empty vessel. But what if a patient could have a positive experience: feel heard, be treated well, thoroughly and yet in a timely way. What if a vacation could be put back on track quickly and X-ray results viewed simultaneously by the Emergency physician and a specialist for an immediate treatment plan?

"No lines," Lewis piped up, looking more chipper than would seem possible even for him. "We got a line, we got a problem."

More pride as medical imaging and primary care physicians showed off their new homes on the second and third floor. Obstetrics and midwifery will open on the fourth floor next month.

On the unfinished fifth floor cocktail tables were already clothed in preparation for a VIP party in the evening. The view was unprecedented for me: someone scrubbing the paving stones down in the new Eldridge garden, the clouds above Magnolia, a northwest view of the Olympics that was incorporated into interactive graphic panels at the end of the new skybridge that connects the buildings.

In the absence of patients, it was the artwork and light-filled windows that held center stage. Seemingly everywhere on the first floors are new acquisitions from local artists, including a light-filled mural above the CT scan.

Graves, who was on the art committee, took us across the skybridge to the interactive panel. She told us it was made possible by a gift from longtime-volunteer Marvel Kolseth.

Kolseth volunteered in the gift shop for 34 years, not retiring until she was 90. She let me interview her on her last day. I learned of her death only through the briefest death notice, with no clue that she was leaving such a gift.

This past weekend they cut ceremonial gauze instead of ribbon and started a new volume in the history of Ballard's hospital, harking back to the original doorknockers.

At precisely 7 a.m. on Nov. 9, the new Emergency Department will begin accepting patients.

"This was quite a labor and delivery," I said to Lewis after we looked down on the new garden one more time.

He beamed, and I felt something inside me start to melt a little. Why not expect the best treatment? Why not expect these health care professionals to be able to deliver the experience they've described, in which there will be no lines, minimal waiting. Why not put past experiences behind me and let myself be pulled over the threshold by their sincere joy in being able to better serve their community - now that I see Marvel is waiting on the other side of bridge?

Over the last few years I've become acquainted with two artists in particular, Susan Schneider and Lina Raymond. Unfortunately, as is often the case with artists on the Second Saturday of the month, they will not be able to each others work as they will be with their own shows:
Susan at The Scoop at Walter's, starting at 6-8 p.m. 6408 32nd Avenue NW

Lina at Kiss Cafe 2817 NW Market Street, 6-9 p.m.

I see Susan everywhere, leading her sketching classes at the Farmer's Market on Sundays, walking up 32nd NW from teaching at the Senior Center, Sunset Hill Community Association meetings and events. Her watercolor and pen sketches will be on display at The Scoop for the rest of the months, along with framed oils and watercolors.

Household saint

If you're like me it's hard after the time change to leave the neighborhood after dark. Tonight everyone can stay in their neighborhood, be it East Ballard, Downtown or West Ballard, for the artwalk.

There are 28 locations open tonight, November 13th, with multiple artists at studios such as Ballard Artworks and Sev Shoon. Venture out.

I was just inspired by blowing leaves to put poetry on my car.

It started on First Hill when I realized that I was in sunshine with dark clouds to the north. Clouds were scudding across the sky as fast as rabbits racing for cover. Northbound on Aurora three lanes were suddenly covered in leaves, which then whooshed up in the air as if lassoed.

I always wanted to put poetry on my car. I bought a Magnetic Poetry Kit at Top Ten Toys for "really big words." Not refrigerator poetry but big words that cried out to me, vehicle poetry. What stopped me? The choice of words in the kit is not the most conducive but more likely it was fear of embarrassing my daughter, or more likely myself. We got so far as the word, SO, which adhered to our metal mailbox for years.

On 24th NW there was yet another swirl of leaves, these brighter and smaller. They made me laugh even as I listened to the translation of the verse on the back of a rickshaw written by a Pakistani whose broken heart isn't on his sleeve, but on the rear of his cab.

White caps on the sound, wind chimes singing wild on the front porch, the wind shaking vents...the message is clear. Go to the basement, find the poetry kit and try to capture the wind - in words.

I'll let the picture stand in for a thousand words (okay, 879), then the words are below.

Lost and Found
Most newspaper clipping services have become electronic but my mother still renders old-fashioned service with scissors at hand. She is unable to recycle any of her two daily and four weekly newspapers before reading them thoroughly and physically cutting out stories that she thinks might be of interest to a myriad of friends and relatives. Giant pumpkins for one, dumpster diving for another, police reports involving people from my high school class…The problem is the lag time between the delivery, the read date and mailing an envelope (with proper postage). Some articles are up to a year old. Newlyweds could be expecting their second child by the time my mother mails me the wedding announcement.

Receiving clippings from my mother takes on the same mysterious quality as notes that drift from long-shelved books. Why did I save this? What is this from? Likewise, not everyone reads articles at the same time, whether print or online. Instead of a column slipping from a book, readers follow some unknown trail through online archives lighting back years earlier. Even in person if someone says, "I really liked your column" I have no idea which one they are talking about. Each week's print column mentally erased by whatever I have already sent in for the next edition.

Even if it turns out we're not discussing the same subject, the reason I love writing this column is the direct contact with someone who reads what I write. That's if I'm lucky, because lately it is newish husband Martin who is getting the attention and I'm just his companion. Hugs at the Farmer's Market, inquiring emails, people he's never met before in his life say immediately upon introduction, "Did you find your wedding ring?"

I saw a license plate on a truck a few blocks away that sums up his situation – FODDER. Ever since I wrote about how Martin lost his Ballard-purchased wedding band four days after it went on his finger there has been a long trail of concern as neighbors work their way back to an earlier column. Underneath a polka dot umbrella in front of Bartell Drugs, neighbor Mary Lou said, "Oh Peggy. I'm so sorry about Martin's wedding ring." Has there ever been another one of my columns that generated so much concern?

In truth there are weeks when I don't even feel like doing my column. I've been teaching. I've had other deadlines. I have searched the house high and low for a missing vacuum cleaner part. The casserole dish cracked while we were baking the vegetables from our Sail Transport box and the oven needs to have caked cream and cheese scraped from the bottom. There are magnolia leaves to rake, the Japanese Maple has a fungus (we're going to need to replace the soil), the cat's underbelly is seriously matted or I would just like catch up on my own pile of unread newspapers.

Then, the phone will ring with one of those tips like the phone call before Walt and Helen Carlson's 74th wedding anniversary or the one about Joyce Van Tuyl's forced retirement due to budget cuts at the Washington Center for the Talking Book. Usually the column's not my story; I'm just the messenger as diligent as any courier service. The reward is the possibility that my column will cause someone to spit out their morning coffee because they're laughing at the mental picture of Martin confronting the bicycle thief, a reader might take all their pennies to Adams School for the Penny Harvest or a neighbor might say a prayer to St. Jude for Martin's wedding ring to appear.

Our lives can change too quickly, too tragically. A father can die of injuries suffered after he picks up his daughter at daycare. Another man can become a hero. Events take place that can never be undone. There will be no 75th anniversary for Walt and Helen Carlson; he died four months after their 74th anniversary.
Others thrive even as their lives change. Joyce Van Tuyl clipped the column about her retirement but at age 85 is far too busy to look back. The braillist herself is teaching math and science transcription for the Department of Education, and playing more bridge. Retired middle school teacher Jay Sasnett went camping at Mount St. Helens with Salmon Bay Middle School again – because he could. Some of us survived our weddings and others their reunions. Reporters move on. Lombardi's is gone but soon a new business will reveal itself. As did Martin's wedding ring after having been lost for eighty days.

Our breakfast nook has bench seating. Last Sunday morning I opened a bench to find Martin a canvas bag for a trip to Ballard Market. It was a mess so I started pulling out all the paper bags, plastic bags and canvas totes. There was a sudden metal clatter. I picked up the ring before I even realized what I had found. Catching the brass ring on the merry-go-round was never as sweet as finding the band that we had accepted as gone forever. So I just had to tell you this, no matter when you read it - the wedding ring is back. And when you see Martin, when you meet Martin, you can give him a hug because sometimes what is lost can be found like a clipping long misplaced.

Reprinted by permission.

Last night's wind drove me wild.
Instead of using words to paint a picture I'll just give you photos of words.

I've been so busy planning the Second Annual Ballard Filmfest (this Friday, the 19th at Sunset Hill Community Club) that I forgot to post about it. What with setting up a Facebook event, contacting other media and trying to get all the films in one place, I've been overwhelmed.

However the new reporter at the Ballard News-Tribune, Anne-Marije Rook has written a piece about that just appeared on-line. She was able to contact the Technical Director at Reel Grrls and some of the Ballard alumni. Her piece is linked here. Please read it because I don't have time to fill you in all the good stuff the way that she did.

Of additional note, Adams Elementary will be showing this year's film made to kick-off their Penny Harvest campaign - so bring change. There will be current works from Ballard High School Video Production Program, Center School, a "mockumentary" made for Seattle International Film Festival about what's called "fly" filmmaking and a preview of John Helde's not yet released documentary 120 Acres: An American Farm.

Suggested donation $1.00. Appropriate for all ages. Filmmakers (starting at age 9) present for questions.
Sunset Hill Community Club
3003 NW 66th Street
November 19 @ 7 p.m.