(Sharon's Notes from the Playground) I took my daughter to the park today – pretty typical excursion, baby swings, watching other babies, waving at shadows. All fun stuff for a 7 month old. After maybe fifteen minutes or so, we meandered around the big play structure and I was struck by something, or maybe more accurately, a lack of something: there was a big void where the monkey bars used to be. At first I thought I had just missed them.…
Sounds like there was a power outage last night in parts of Wallingford (or, as the Seattle City Light web site prefers to refer to it, "the Fremont and Ballard neighborhoods"; thanks for the link Rob). Cause is unknown, but Chris W. notes that the My Ballard comments on the incident have some people reporting a loud bang just prior to the outage. Forrest took advantage of the opportunity to check out the neighborhood after dark, so to speak: When the…
Trinh posted this note to the Green Lake Moms list, we thought we'd extend the call-out for help: My husband and two little kids (3yoa daughter and 5yoa son) were coming home from Meridian Park yesterday (Sunday) afternoon at around 4:30P.M. and were crossing 50th Street at the crosswalk (at 50th and Keystone) when they were hit by a black Camaro. My husband and kids were already in the crosswalk when the black Camaro approached the intersection on Keystone without slowing down…
SFD is on the scene at 35th & Wallingford, responding to a report of an upstairs fire in an abandoned single family home. It doesn't look like there's any major structural damage or injuries, but the fire department is using some equipment that sounds like maybe a generator or saw. If we learn more, we'll let you know. By the way -- if you were one of those cars driving on Wallingford Avenue tonight competing with the 5 or 6 fire…
Every so often we get an e-mail from a reader asking why we don't cover some particular topic. Usually, the answer is "we don't know anything about it, but tell us more and we'd be happy to." But there's another piece to it: the "Wallyhood We" conceit is just that: a conceit. There really isn't a "we". Mostly, there's one guy who writes this when his day job is over and his baby boy is in bed. Which means we...I, really…
(Sharon veers off-topic this week, with a Note Not from the Playground) Halloween is a strange and fascinating holiday filled with frights, delights and everything that children of all ages seem to love. According to Wikipedia, the celebration has its roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holy day of All Saints. Although everyone knows its association with pumpkins, costumes, trick or treating, pranks, and slasher films, there are other interesting elements that conspire to make it utterly…
Erica writes: Any idea what's up at the Bartell pharmacy? I went in this a.m. to pick up a prescription and everything was fine — they were just busy, so they asked if I could come back in an hour, and they'd call when it was ready. When I didn't hear back, I called them — and was told there had been an "incident" so they were closed for the rest of the day. They diverted my prescription to the U…