Welcome to the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy, where the dewy voiceover tells us that the episode will
be all about secrets [how dramatic!], which “can’t hide in science” because “medicine has a way of revealing
the lies” and pile up “until you’re so full of secrets that you’re going to burst!”

And speaking of secrets — George is spending some quality time in the bathroom examining himself with the Big Guide to
Rashes. It’s very convenient that they keep a copy around the house. Because she assumes that his girlfriend is
imaginary, Izzie assumes he’s “playing with little Jimmy and the twins.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Every week, these recaps of the dramatics of Seattle Grace Hospital get longer and longer. But since it’s the last one of the season, why not splurge a little bit? After the jump, the full rundown on the hilarity of hospital STD epidemics, a man with an ovary, a bloated gut begging to be drained, lots of secrets revealed, and very little about “Seattle” on this final episode of Grey’s Anatomy
(more…)

At one end of the Ballard Farmers Market (held Sundays).

I like hearing the story of the Ballard Farmers Market (one day, 5 years ago, the Fremont Market sent off some of its stalls to Ballard to grow a baby farmers market). I like thinking of Fremont as the queen bee market, sending off a daughter bee with part of the hive.

The Ballard market is about the size of the city block it sits on (it has spawned an extra arm down a side parking lot, however). Aside from the fruits and vegetables and flowers (cherries, asparagus, and peonies are in season), it has a few arts and crafts stalls, such as a photography stall, several jewelry stalls, and other misc. There are bread, cheese, meat, and fish stalls (seriously, it’s like an outdoor grocery store), but I believe the two crowning glories would definitely be the crepe stall (four crepe chefs means you will never have to wait too long) and a European pastry stall. Mmmm… flaky pastry.. drool.

It might not be a bad thing to mention that there are a couple of times a year (late May and especially, late June), where the low tide in Edmonds goes out further than normal for a few days. Sometimes it goes out to the point where it gets on the news, because they have to maneuver the ferries carefully (Heck, at that point, you may as well wade to Whidbey Island). Small children get all excited and run around pointing at fish and little crabs, and stomping on anemones. Herons squawk and keep carefully out of reach.

Sunset Magazine’s June one-pager on Edmonds says nothing about the tide, choosing instead to focus on the fact that there’s a waterfront pier you can fish off of. Pier, schmier. Edmonds is so much more. There are Farmers markets galore on the weekend. There’s that guy with the free Europe travel classes every Saturday. There’s fireworks on 4th of July; the Taste of Edmonds come August.

Sunset also touts Anthony’s Beach Cafe. Anthony’s is some sort of local favourite whose charm has thus far escaped me. But Arnie’s calls to me with their Sunday Brunch and impossibly huge sticky buns. Or how about Chanterelle’s, where the tomato bisque is so good they’ll sell it in mason jars for you to take home and savor?

For those who didn’t make it to the opening night gala last night, it looks like an encore performance of Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know has been added to the film festival program [siff] for Saturday morning. I’m guessing that it was added to make up for the cancellation of the “conversation with Miranda July” session.

I saw it last night and it’s pretty great. It has the vague sensibility of a video art installation with the added benefit of a plot and lots of quirky endearing characters. Everything seems to happen in a world where things are just ever so slightly off — weird textual/sexual situations, awkward meetings and conversations, strangely interacting storylines — but the whole thing comes together nicely into an impressive debut film. It’s worth your $7 to see it while it’s here.

Dear regular reader(s) of seattle.metblogs.com,

I imagine that you’ve been reading the site for a while and wondering when we’d get around to writing about {your topic of interest, for instance: turf grass management}. Perhaps you’ve thought that the site would be even better if it only featured more posts about {the trendy new sumo wrestler diet} or about {the city’s burgeoning underground typography fetish scene}. Then again, it’s possible that you’re not insane and just have ideas or opinions about things that we missed or don’t have time to type about as often as we should.

We’d love for a few of you to join the Metroblogging family. If you’re interested in writing about Seattle a few times a week, point your browser over to the Metroblogging mother ship and fill out an application [metroblogging]. Fame, fortune, and rollicking editorial meetings await.

Thanks,

[ josh ]

And we’re back, with the regular ^* rundown of what to read in the weekly papers. Special note to those who deal mainly in newsprint: this week features a brand new design at the Stranger’s website. Although change is usually scary and bad, this version improves the readability a bit (possibly breaks all old links to the site’s archives) and introduces a “Slog” a Stranger Blog.

The Stranger	Seattle Weekly
emerging themes
Reading the weeklies every week is something like following a television drama. And every season needs a recurring plot arc. It’s becoming clear that this summer’s Teen Dance Ordinance / Build the Monorail / Lift the Poster Ban / etc. storyline is bound to be Broadway Height Restrictions. For a while it looked like Microsoft Hating the Gays had a chance at long-term recurring story status, but with their re-reversal of position the story seems to be cooling. This week’s issue features two brief mentions — one as an article [#] and another as a column [#].	Conveniently enough, the Seattle Weekly takes something of counterpoint. You can pretty much count on finding an article or column arguing against Nickels and his plans to usher in an era of more skyscrapers or density or streetcars. This week’s “Mossback” takes up the charge [#], questioning the wisdom of the city’s founders who originally called our city “New York Alki.”
B-story: Religion
Like the reality show contestant who wins by “flying under the radar,” Religion is also vying for a supporting role in the contest for summer stage time. Popping up in the Stranger  in stories about the Micah Painter sentencing [#], as a warning in “Police Beat” [#], and as a sort of feature story about young people praying like crazy [#], God could be the one to watch this season.	The Seattle Weekly also continues its commitment to following the God story with a follow up this week on yet another weird Washington worship story [#]. Regular readers may remember the New Gnostic Church as one of the Weekly’s creepy cover stories from a couple weeks ago. I’m sure it was even accompanied by a provocative headline.
insert vs. insert
It’s pretty amazing what the pull-out section says about the character of each weekly. The Stranger includes the already-mentioned monster SIFF Notes [#] as well as a guide to Sasquatch, which will be very helpful in navigating the way too many great acts playing at the Gorge next weekend.	In the next newsbin, the Seattle Weekly features a pamphlet all about the Northwest Folklife Festival. My devotion to recapping the weeklies is no match for my deeply held conviction to avoid all things Folklife; so this section was immediately discarded.
other highlights
A preview of Juliette Lewis’s band that considers her filmography as motivation to rock [#]; a tiny article about the brewing poster wars [#]; and a series of funny trading card/vignettes from Team Tinkle [#].	The Weekly lets everyone know about a production of Hamlet performed by tiny plastic ninjas on video [#], which sounds totally amazing; as well as a call to arms to the Seattle Art Museum to recruit a superstar curator [#].
Sith Report (spoiler: two thumbs up)
Bradley Steinbacher celebrates the relative kid-unfriendliness of Revenge of the Sith. Representative sentences proving his fanboy status: “It ain’t The Empire Strikes Back, but then again, it ain’t Return of the Jedi either. And let’s be clear: As atrocious as the Phantom Menace turned out to be, it was Episode VI, with its unforgivable ewoks and equally unforgivable dud of a climax (Not to mention the shameful snuffing of Boba Fett), that first spelled doom for the series.” [#]	Brian Miller vaguely recommends a viewing of the final installation of the Star Wars mythology, too. Amid the quibbles about politics and executions, he makes some interesting points: “Sith is the greatest, grandest DVD featurette ever made; a nice setting to the jewel in the crown that is the ‘77 original” [Ed: sorry, Empire is the crown jewel of the series], “John Williams’ [sic] thrilling score actually gives all six movies more thematic continuity than their scripts”, and “There among the mourners is Jar Jar, and Lucas doesn’t even let him open his mouth. So there really is A New Hope.” [#]

^* a nice way of saying that the slow and painful war of attrition is not yet over, as far as the w.w.r. is concerned.

Compare and contrast:

Local TV news all this week, and the Seattle Times, reports that the city of Seattle has opened up two large wifi spots: one on University Ave, the other in Columbia City (which, great, is just in time for next month’s Beatwalk), and is planning four more wifi spots in parks next month. If ever you were planning to have an open air office, now would be the time to put that plan into action by scouting out good park locations and marking your territory.

Meanwhile over in Bellevue, I’ll continue my doom-and-gloom report of closures by citing a different Seattle Times article about the Bellevue Borders store closing. I wish I could muster up some feeling about this, but I’ve been in that store only once since it opened. The marketing VP for The Square had this to say:

“It’s frankly been really hard to put our finger on,” Leavitt said of the store’s performance. “We’re disappointed for losing that category.”

Free wifi would have been a good start, don’t-cha-think? And not making me run a ratmaze to get to the bookstore would have been nice too. Oh, and have I mentioned? Don’t make me go up three floors just to get to the sci fi section — that’s just mean.

Spazzo’s is an oasis in the middle of the wasteland that is Bellevue — a watering hole on the ninth floor of the Key Bank building, with a view of Seattle, Lake Washington, both bridges, and much of downtown Bellevue. It stays open late, and has 2 happy hours — one for the after-work people, and one for us nightowls.

And they’re closing.

It’s really not their fault, I guess. The new owners of the building have decided that instead of having a restaurant with a view, the thing to do with the top floor of the building is to put in offices.

So, me and a bunch of gal pals (yes, I know that isn’t good grammar, but I’m really distraught here) went to bid farewell to Spazzo’s (their last day is May 27th. They got all of ONE MONTH’S NOTICE.), by ordering their flaming cheese.

It’s not like you can’t get flaming cheese by walking down the street to Orexi, but where can you get flaming cheese with a view from the 9th floor, at ten o’clock at night in BELLEVUE?

I’m very sad.

I’m loving this crazy, indecisive weather. A few minutes ago I looked out my window to see rain falling through dazzling sunlight — and a great big rainbow arcing over Capitol Hill. I snapped a few photos and in the time it took to transfer them to my computer, enormous gray clouds rolled back in and the rainbow disappeared. Rain poured down for a half a minute, and now it’s stopped again. I can hear thunder rolling across the sky and trees are swaying in an unsettled wind.

For all the rain we get in Seattle, a real thunderstorm is a rarity, so it’s kind of a thrill to get even the hint of one. Ooh! There’s some lightning!

The public is invited to submit nominations for the City of Seattle Third Annual Mayor’s Arts Awards recognizing the contributions of individuals and organizations that make a difference in our community through art and cultural diversity activities.

Deadline is coming up and must be received in the City of Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs by 5 pm, Monday, May 23, 2005, or postmarked by the U.S. Post Office no later than Monday, May 23, 2005.

The award will be presented on Friday, September 2, 2005, at the opening ceremonies of the uber-fabulous Bumbershoot Arts Festival