A due date’s arrived and this time, it’s not your homework that’s due — it’s your ballot. Today is the last day to submit your votes for two replacement levy measures that will affect Seattle Public Schools.

On Saturday, Feb. 6, more than 50 schools were represented at the Schools First rally to spread the word about why Seattle should vote to renew the measures.

I got a chance to speak with parents, including Isabel D’Ambrosia, as well as Lisa Macfarlane, director of external affairs at the League of Education Voters. School Board Directors Peter Maier and Betty Patu were also present to support the levy campaign and shared their thoughts.

We just got word from a New Balance apparel and shoe rep that there will be a New Balance sample sale in the neighborhood on March 13th.

Women’s medium-sized apparel, men’s large-sized apparel, size 7 women’s shoes, and size 9.5 men’s shoes will be sold “well below cost.”

The sale will be held at 6416 Latona Ave NE, Saturday, March 13, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Read about other neighborhood bargains on My Green Lake.

photo credit: yoppy

We received the following information about the Chef Tribute Dinner Series from Nell’s Restaurant (6804 East Green Lake Way N):

We periodically honor a past chef with a dinner representing his or her cuisine in conjunction with lively commentary and paired wines. The Chef Tribute dinners bring some of our great culinary icons to life!

February 25, we will honor Sheila Lukins [1942-2009], legendary author of Silver Palate Cookbook series and Silver Palate cook shops in New York. She was also the food editor of Parade for 23 years. Ms. Lukins will be remembered for her contribution to the popularization of gourmet cooking in the 70s and 80s. Join us for a fun-filled evening in honor of Sheila Lukins! Dinner is $80 person and begins with passed hors d’oeuvres at 6:15pm. Reservations are available at (206) 524-4044 or www.opentable.com.

Sheila Lukins Menu
February 25, 2010

Passed Hors d’oeuvres:
Rosa Mexicana Guacamole
Grilled Smoked Rosy Shrimp
Mushrooms stuffed with Walnuts and Cheese
Pomegranate Coupe de Champagne

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Roasted Carrot Ginger Soup
Sean Minor, Sauvignon Blanc , Sonoma, 2008

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Red Snapper with Citrus Salsa
Long Shadows, Poet’s Leap Reisling, Columbia Valley, 2008

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Chicken Breast Baked on a Bed of Wild Mushrooms
Rex Hill, Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, 2007

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Emma’s Short Ribs and Mashed Potatoes
Chateau Ste Michelle, Cabernet Sauvignon, Indian Wells, 2007

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Chunky Apple Walnut Cake with Apple Sauce and Whipped Cream
Lustau, East India Solera Sherry

$80 person excluding tax and gratuity.
(206) 524-4044 or www.opentable.com

Read more about neighborhood restaurants on My Green Lake.

I hope you kept March 4th open as requested because it’s time to RSVP for W.O.W!

Women on Wheels
Gregg’s Greenlake Cycle (7007 Woodlawn Ave NE)
Thursday, March 4, 2010
6:30 – 9:30 p.m.

A night just for the ladies. It’s a great chance to come an learn all about cycling. We’ll have speakers and clinics about cycling as well as factory reps here to answer any questions that you might have.

This year we’re proud to announce that our featured speaker will be Sally Edwards, a Triathlon Hall of Famer and competitor in over 150 triathlons. Sally is a best-selling author with more than 20 books and 500 articles on health and fitness including the popular book Heart Rate Monitor Guidebook and The Complete Book of Triathlons. This professional triathlete is a 16-time Ironman finisher, a member of the Triathlon Hall of Fame, and past winner of the ultra-marathon, he hundred mile Western States Endurance Run.

Also:

• Special Deals
• Fashion Show
• Beer
• Wine
• Chocolate
• Raffle Prizes
• Did I mention great ONE TIME deals
• and more…

Invite your friends but remember that this is a ladies only event so leave the guys at home!

[Gregg's Cycle]

Coming to the Green Lake Branch of The Seattle Public Library (7364 E Green Lake Dr N):

Preview lecture of Seattle Opera’s upcoming production of Verdi’s “Falstaff.”
Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010, 2 p.m.

The merry wives of Windsor unite in mischief-making when an ignoble nobleman plots to plunder their savings in this inventive creation capping Verdi’s career. Join us for an entertaining and insightful preview lecture presented by Seattle Opera Education Department staff.

Library events and programs are free and everyone is welcome. Registration is not required.

[The Seattle Public Library]

Read more about Falstaff on the Seattle Opera Blog.

Read more about the Green Lake Library on My Green Lake.

Green Lake Summer Scenes to Blast your Winter Blahs

Our response to color is so primal, personal and immediate, that it obviously plays a huge role in determining your garden’s character.

Here are some illustrations from Green Lake gardens and tips to get you thinking about ways to use color to your garden’s best advantage.

In Seattle, the near-constant cloud cover affects our perception of color. The colors we choose need to have the strength to pierce the haze without being washed out.  One Oregon-based paint company Devine Color designed their entire line to harmonize with the haze of the Pac Northwest.  The most visible colors to human eyes are the “Emergency” colors used in fire trucks, stop signs and caution tape -yellow, orange, and red, so adding these warm tones to your schemes will help.

Quickie Color Wheel Lesson:

•    Colors directly opposite each other are known as complementary – these are the boldest combinations, often employed in advertising to get our attention.  If your mix needs some spice, throw in a complement, or a near complement (the color next to a complement).

•    Adjacent colors are called analogous.

•    Triadic combos are groups of three evenly spaced on the wheel – red/yellow/blue is a commonly seen triad.

•    Split complementary combos start with one color, say blue, and then instead of going for blue’s direct complement, orange, split to either side of orange, adding orange-yellow and orange red.

A richly layered composition on N. 81st Street made up of magenta lychnis coronaria, lilac-toned acanthus, burgundy-leafed cotinus and in the distance, hot red crocosmia.  Color theorists call this an analogous combination, because the colors are adjacent on the color wheel.

Though vibrant, these combos produce an overall effect that is soothing rather than strident. The smoky cotinus and the slate-hued birdbath are not the first things you notice, but they are vital supporting players – they ground the grouping, tying together the more vibrant shades.  Try covering up the right side of the image and see how lost the flowers look together.

In fact, when we put this image through a free color palette generator, the resulting color chips were all muted purples, violets and greens; the reds and magenta did not even register. So don’t be afraid of bold accents – be brave!

In my garden, I love the way the periwinkle stems of the “Sapphire Blue” Sea Holly (Eryngium amethystium) pop against Achillea “Terra Cotta,” but my Gardener’s Color Wheel tells me that something is missing.  This wheel, created by garden writer Sydney Eddison, is modified to include muted hues you might see in a garden, rather than the harsher tones of the standard artists’ wheel – this makes it easier to use, but the concepts are the same.

For ultimate harmony, a coupling of blue-violet and red—orange needs to be balanced by yellow-green to make a triadic combination, or yellow-orange to make a split complementary combination.

Let’s say I go for the triad and add chartreuse. In my sunny south-facing bed, I can look to Euphorbias, add more lime-colored (lambs’ears), Alchemilla mollis, Carex grass, variegated Thyme, or a dwarf Hinoki cypress.  (Shadier spots could try Hostas, Heucheras, or Hakonechloa grass.)

As artists know, nature never makes a color mistake. Knautia Macedonica at the Woodland Park Zoo Rose Garden (750 N 50th St) shows how to mix bold colors, even with such a pastel look. Boldest plum shades the center of the creamy (yellow-tinged white) petals, but lime (the complement to red-purple) on the petals and pistils really wakes up the combo.  It got this bee’s attention, which was the flower’s plan all along.

Gold and plum put on a traffic-stopping show on N. 75 St starring this happy hydrangea.   Yellow-orange and Red-violet are near complements on the color wheel, proving that sometimes being one shade off can make a combo especially intriguing.

This contemporary town home on Dayton Ave. shines with this split complementary scheme. Despite its small size and back-border location, the high wattage of the chartreuse Spirea bush makes it a glowing focal point that echoes the house exterior. Teamed with red-violet and blue violet, the scheme vibrates with the energy of a Van Gogh painting.

These California Poppies, planted from seed in June, came up just in time to pair up with ‘Munstead Lavender in August to make a lovely complementary pair in my garden.

Read more about gardening in Green Lake.

Check out today’s Seattle Times for a riveting historical account with ties to our neighborhood.

Written by Russ Hanbey, 1916 Seattle was a hotbed of sin when 2 officers were killed describes a wild, unlawful time in Seattle’s history.   Against a backdrop of booze, prostitution, and general unlawfulness, Hanbey share the details of the July 1916 murder of his great grandfather, Seattle Police Sgt. John Finis Weedin, in the first multiple killing of Seattle police officers in the line of duty.

Did you catch that name?  Yep, Weedin, as in Weedin Place NE, that little street in east Green Lake, located east of NE Ravenna Blvd and running under I-5.

Sgt. Weedin, his wife, Agnes, and eight children lived at a farmhouse at 6042 6th Ave NE, a few blocks south of present-day Weedin Place.  Sadly, this residence no longer survives; in it’s place stand the south-bound lanes of I-5.

Close

Hanbey writes:

Poor [Green Lake] had been diked, dredged and drained, and its once-free-flowing outlet stream, Ravenna Creek, had evolved into a wetland dependent on springs and minor tributaries. What was left in the creek’s ravine was a tight thicket of alders, willows and a few towering cedars set off as Ravenna Park, where visitors were supposed to pay a small fee to enter.

There was a nice pathway through the ravine, and the Weedin kids had a field day playing in the murky landscape behind their house, despite the official boundaries. In front of their house was a forest dense with 600-year-old Douglas firs and hemlocks. Often, the sun didn’t make it through the forest canopy to lighten up their home, but Sgt. Weedin traveled into the light daily on his trip to downtown Seattle.

After Sgt. Weedin was shot and killed,

Weedin’s widow, Agnes, was forced to sell off most of the family land to survive. Her son, John K., quit school and went to work as a logger to help support the family. The street Weedin Place near Green Lake was named after the pioneer family.

Thank you, Russ Hanbey and The Seattle Times, for sharing this information.  Russ, we eagerly await your forthcoming book!

Read more stories with an historical bent on My Green Lake.

[ed. note: Yay!  Another excellent post from our neighborhood vegan correspondent, Anika Lehde of Vegan Score.  Thanks Anika!]

I’ve been waiting, seeking, yea, dreaming of an all vegan spa or salon for years and now Green Lake has answered my wishes. I know many salons that carry vegan products, but none that are 100% vegan, and I’ve known vegans who work at spas, but again those joints had a lot of “beauty” products with animal parts in ‘em or products that are tested on animals. Ick. Boo.*

Sweet Surrender, Seattle's only all-vegan spa. Heather is vegan and is the owner-operator.

Sweet Surrender is an all vegan sanctuary spa studio located near the eastern shores of Green Lake. Proprietor, Heather Flanders, opened her one-person studio to share the gift of therapeutic massage, body sugaring, and holistic skin care with all Seattlites.

Her studio is beautiful, relaxing, and Heather is very skilled at both massage and esthetician work. And the hours at Sweet Surrender are reasonable, so you can actually go after work: Monday, Wednesday-Saturday 11a-7p (by appointment, of course),

And boys, don’t you think for a moment that a place called Sweet Surrender is only for the gals. Admit it, your muscles need some relaxing and your skin could use a little TLC. You know what I am talking about.

The best part? You can get 20% off of services at Sweet Surrender if you tell Heather that you heard about her from Vegan Score on My Green Lake. So before or after your walk around the lake, or before or after you gorge at Mighty-O and Turnpike, make an appointment and then toddle over to 402 NE 72nd Street, Suite 8, for a dreamy escape.

Once again, Green Lake is trying to steal my heart. I still love you First Hill, just get a coffee joint with Mighty-O Donuts already.

*Not vegan and wondering why a vegan spa is so rad? I can’t post the videos here because I don’t have the heart or stomach for it, but you can wander over to YouTube and search on “animal testing” or “why vegan” if you really want to see what is going on behind closed doors.

Regular readers may remember that last month I kicked off a new series, “The Trees of Green Lake,” for which I will be drawing from the helpful (and hilarious) book Trees of Green Lake, written and published by Arthur Lee Jacobson.

Arthur Lee Jacobson measures Green Lake's tallest tree.

Green Lake's tallest tree, a Sierra Redwood

Since publishing the January installment of the series, I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Jacobson, whom I truly consider to be one of the heroes of our neighborhood.  As he and I walked the lake, he showed me some of the many different Green Lake trees.  He holds an amazing amount of knowledge about each of these trees, and – lucky us – he is more than willing to share it.

In addition to publishing Trees of Green Lake, available for purchase directly from him and for checkout at the Seattle Public Library, Mr. Jacobson also offers educational walks around the lake (I’ll let you know when they are next scheduled), keeps a list of Green Lake trees on his website, and has contributed many hours to the park’s planning process.

So, without further ado, here are some of the trees that Mr. Jacobson enjoys most during the month of February:

ALDER catkins continue to open.

Incense CEDAR pollen.

Whitcomb CHERRY continues to bloom (bright pink).

Cornelian-cherry DOGWOOD continue to bloom (yellow).

Cornelian-Cherry Dogwood | Copyright Arthur Lee Jacobson

American ELM flowers (inconspicuous).

Bigleaf MAPLE seedlings sprout.

Cherry PLUM blooms (white).

Moseri PLUM blooms (pink).

Coast REDWOOD sheds pollen.

YEW contines to release pollen.

Upcoming wine tastings at Meridian Market (2201 N 56th St):

Wednesday, February 10th 6:00pm-9:00pm

Just in time for Valentines Day!!
Cost of tasting is $5.00.
10% off purchases of the nights wine that evening.
Taste up to 6 fabulous wines

Special Guest: Aaron from Intrigue Chocolates
French Chocolate Truffles of all kinds!

Wednesday, February 24th 6:00pm-9:00pm

Cost is $5.00 for the tasting.
10% off purchases of the nights wine that evening.
Taste up to 6 fabulous wines