Saturday, August 8, 2009

Who Owns Trader Joe's?

Do you know who owns Trader Joe's? Check out this short piece from the NY Times
here

New Street Proposal for Park



And this just in from Bellevue Street Safety--traffic calming for the park. No mention of astroturf.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Seen in Eugene

Seen in Eugene: An infrequent signage feature on Red Apple Elegy

New Tenant at Stod's


Stods' new tenant

Mojo Espresso rises again?



How about this idea for a community fundraiser? We contact Mojo Expresso guy and re-open the coffee cart (which has been shuttered for over six months) as a community project to raise funds by selling lattes? I’m sure he’d rent it for next to nothing (as he’s making nothing on it as it is) and we could bank the proceeds to beautify our neighborhood center.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

This morning's harvest


On a lighter note, feast your eyes on this morning's harvest:

Oregon sugar snap peas
Black brandywine heirloom tomato (first of the season!)
Lots of English Yellow Perfection tomatoes

I've been eating my cucumbers and peas and beet/mustard greens nonstop since I got back.

Rubbery Nerdlets part 2

Newport Hills as I left it in July...



And so, back to Newport Hills, meetings every night of the week and my favorite topic: the mundane and wonderful day-to-day existence of my neighborhood.

First thing I did in the record-breaking temperatures was to go check out the state of the astroturf over at Robinswood Park, seen in the photo above. Hot and stinky. I stuck my finger in the stuff and it actually made a small hole--I wonder what soccer shoes do to it--and pulled out a black-coated digit covered in (you guessed it) tiny black rubbery nerdlets.

Folks, this is nasty stuff.

It smells like the inside of Les Schwab's and looks terribly unnatural. Like painted asphalt. Leaves lie on top of it in a very surreal way. There's no way they could be raked off--of course they're blown--I can only imagine what a McFlurry looks like spilled on this stuff. Click on the photo to identify litter: mainly leaves and an orange peel.


And then there are the rules. At Robinswood, the public can be asked to take their dogs to the dogpark, their children to the playground, the frisbee players and kiteflyers to the grassy field, and for anything else you do besides soccer there seems to be ample room. This is not the case with Newport Hills park. To ask us to compare Newport Hills' tiny but well-used neighborhood park with the massive expanse that is Robinswood's is ludicrous, to put it mildly.


Come on City of Bellevue--you know we're underserved in this department. You've said so yourselves. It's time to ask the people of our community what they want.