Yeah, I know I just posted about Buy Nothing Day (see below), but now I’m going to encourage you to spend some money. It’s for a charitable cause, so I guess that makes it OK.

Seattle’s first Diva Dash — a women’s and girls 5k fun run/walk (and 1k “Little Diva” walk/run) — will be taking place on December 3rd at Seward Park. Registration and t-shirt pickup opens at 7:30AM on the 3rd, with the walk beginning at 8:30 and the run at 9:00. The dash is a benefit event for Girls on the Run, a national after-school program promoting healthy exercise for girls between the ages of 8 and 11. Today is the last day to register with the guarantee of getting a groovy Diva Dash t-shirt.

Costumes are encouraged, but not required. A $20 registration fee gets you a t-shirt. If you want to contribute something more ($35-$65), you can register as a “Fairy Godmother” and get a tiara and/or magic wand (!). [Does this event have Drag Queen written all over it or what? I am so hoping the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence make an appearance.]

I promised a friend that I would go, and she just emailed to remind me that I need to register. Since I’m observing Buy Nothing Day, I decided I’ll live without the t-shirt and register tomorrow.

Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?

Wallace Stevens, Sunday Morning

Without fasting, where’s the pleasure in feasting? As compared with so much of the rest of the world, we Americans live in a perpetual state of feasting, eating too much, buying too much, working more and more hours so that we may consume more and more stuff, and then dedicating our ever scarcer leisure time to buying more or caring for the things that we own (and that increasingly seem to own us). How many of us can truly say that our closets are empty or our cupboards bare?
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Traveling on Thanksgiving Day always results in a saner trip, less crowds, and a lower ticket price. It also can lead to quiet moments at SeaTac, waiting for the Southwest flight to de-plane so you can board. During that time you often notice little details around you, such as this traveling fish — part of the terrazzo artwork throughout the B-gates.

Before I moved to Washington almost six years ago, I spent eight years living in Colorado. I loved Colorado with its freezingly crisp white winters, efficient snow ploughs, and gravelled traction. It’s quite arid up there, but a beauty nevertheless, and where we were located, we were able to spent time at Rocky Mtn National Park, and even take a few trips to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, which I persisted in calling Jellystone long after the husband threatened me with a good dunking in Old Faithful. I appreciated the brief green of spring, the yellows of summer and fall, and the bleak white of winter. But I chose to move to Washington, and I was lucky that our work careers enabled the move. Every year I give thanks for the reasons I moved to this state and add to my growing list of reasons to stay.

1. Water Everywhere I look, there it is. I have a coastline again, which I haven’t had since I left Australia. There are rivers, and ponds, and lakes, and gosh, I have a “Sound” — I never had one of those before. And beyond that, the wild sea. Up north, innumerable little islands gather like acne on the face of the ocean. And oh my gosh — humidity! We don’t have that in Colorado!
2. No seriously — Water Probably a reaction to having lived in a state where it’s sunny 300 days of the year, I looked forward to having a really real, proper rainfall. We moved in the spring of 2000 just after the winter of “60 days of rain and counting” — people thought we were nuts, but here we are, and I still get a kick out of water! Falling out of the sky! Look! There’s green stuff growing all over!

   Last winter, when it was really really mild here, and they said there might be a drought, I could scarcely believe it, although of course they didn’t mean *I* was going to have a drought; they meant the poor farmers out east were going to have a drought. Still, I don’t think the forest fires were too terribly bad this year.

3. Fresh fish It took moving to a landlocked state for me to truly appreciate fish. When I was young, I avoided sushi like it was plague and as a punishment, when I finally felt that I would like to eat sushi, I wasn’t really in the position to do so. I’ve gotten spoiled here with wonderful fish and sushi restaurants and I will never be able to live inland again.
4. O, Canada Just as Jeffery over on Vancouver Metblogs is a big fan of ours, so shall I become a big fan of our new baby sisterblog. A big part of coming to live in Washington was its proximity to Canada and Vancouver, the nearest city — it was a bit like getting two countries for the price of one. Although the three-hour drive is a killer, with the right timing and a good mix of tunes, we’ve been able to make the occasional Canadian vacation a cheap reality. What is there not to love about Canada?
5. Those nice ATC people You might not realise this but there are little airports everywhere. And the air traffic controllers? So nice!! I’ve heard nightmare stories of brusque controllers in other states, but let me tell you about how patient and kindly ours are. Admittedly, my home base, KPAE, is quite out of the way of SeaTac’s boundaries, but the few times I’ve gone south, they’ve been nothing but professional in keeping me and my baby plane out of the way of the big boys and being my guardian angel. From up north at Bellingham’s airport, to out west at Hoquiam’s, south as far as Longview-Kelso’s, and east into Wenatchee, I salute the airports I’ve landed at, and those lovely ATCs who helped keep me safe.
6. Thai foooooood We moved from a town with one (1) thai restaurant to a town where there’s a thai restaurant down the street from every Starbucks. Have I mentioned there’s a Starbucks on every street? Admittedly, that wasn’t the big consideration when we moved here, but I’ve certainly grown to appreciate it.
7. Name recognition Everyone knows Seattle. We were in Costa Rica, and a local asked where we were from (I guess we didn’t look Costa Rican). Upon hearing the answer, he nodded sagely. “Good apples; good wine,” he turned to go, but stopped and turned back, “Good music.” I wonder what he would have said to Denver? Good mountains? Lots of snow?
   

My first thanksgiving in Seattle was spent at a coffee shop. All my friends were out of town for the holiday. I was living in a roominghouse in the U District and almost all my room-mates were gone. I walked down University Way looking for somewhere I could get a meal. At a coffee shop called The Pearl, the owners had put together a huge thanksgiving meal which they were giving away for whatever people could pay. There was quite a random and bedgraggled bunch of us, but the food was delicious.

What was your first Thanksgiving in Seattle like?

The food is cooking, things are smelling nice. Countdown to food coma: 5 hours.

Happy Thanksgiving, all! Enjoy your turkeys and non-turkey isotopes!

Ah, leftovers. One of everyone’s favorite parts about Thanksgiving. In that spirit, here are a few Metroblogging Seattle’s thoughts on the matter of the big weekend.

To varying degrees, Thanksgiving is a secular consumer holiday in which eating plays a central role. To that end, Cat pointed out more than a few ways to have a dinner that spares the turkey (”Tofurkey Day” [#] “. . . and Pumpkin Pie, too” [#]) This year, brought a few options for sparing your kitchen. Carolyn took a traditional approach, suggesting restaurants (”Going Out on Thanksgiving” [#]) and Samantha highlighted an interesting alternative (”Eating with the Animals [#])

While we’re on the subject of dining and other festivities, Samantha also pointed out a few takes on appropriate behavior with “Thanksgiving Etiquette” [#]

With all of the traveling that occurs around this very long weekend, you’re bound to have a relative or two dropping by in need of entertainment. Along with Dylan’s recent suggestion for taking the kids to the Westlake Carousel [#] on the day after tomorrow, you might also find Skye’s chronicle of showing thanksgiving visitors around town [#], Dylan’s reader roundup of must see Seattle [#] and Rusty’s “Blitzkrieg Tour of Seattle” (with lots of great feedback) [#] helpful as you try to come up with ways to stay busy.

What about you? There’s a lot of time after dinner, what do you plan to do with it all?

As of today, the WSDOT still advises against driving over the pass for Thanksgiving [#]. The speed limit is set at 35 miles per hour, and people driving on the two open lanes are all slowing down to look at the poor suckers trying to bolt the mountain back onto itself.

If you really must get to grandma’s house, they’d like to warn you that alternate routes through the mountains will probably also be backed up from everyone else that has the exact same idea [#]. According to the P-I, the list of things you should bring with you include ice scrapers, food, blankets, sand, flashlights, and anything else you can think of that would help you dig your way out of the next rockslide. I suggest road flares and a spare turkey to share with your new friends in the next car over–if traffic really is delayed for five hours, you’re going to get hungry.

Some mornings on my way out to work I hear the sound of construction equipment across the road. At long last, the city is building out a section of the Interurban Trail — the stretch between what was once the 110th Street platform and the Bitter Lake station.

People have been using the right-of-way as a walking trail for years, as have a number of homeless people living in the bushes marking the cemetary boundary line. Now there will be a paved trail suitable for strollers and bikers, a crosswalk at 125th, and some improved connections to the Shoreline Interurban Trail segments and the city’s so-called “bike route” that follows Fremont Avenue from Green Lake to the north end.

The Interurban, of course, was Seattle’s first mass transit system, but it ended service in the late 1930s thanks to the completion of the Pacific Highway to Everett and the George Washington Bridge. (You know them better as Highway 99 and the Aurora Bridge.) Other than the right-of-way, some oddly wide alleys in the Greenwood neighborhood, Greenwood Park, Waiting For the Interurban, and the Groveland station turnstile (still working), there’s really no evidence in Seattle that there was ever a light rail line that ran from 8th and Stewart clear to downtown Everett.

The trail is supposed to be finished by the spring, but they’ve been making good time — the first block or so is paved, and the crossing at 125th Street has been created. Soon, the north part of the city will have an alternative to the overcrowded Green Lake walking trail (though most of us have been walking the right-of-way for years anyway).

another take[coupland]

Driving a couple hours north, playing nice with customs, and practicing our best western Canada accent just to find out what’s up-and-coming in Vancouver has always seemed like a whole lot of effort. Plus, every trip there always seems bound to end in some sort of west coast urban jealousy complex. After all, they have a SkyTrain and universal health care while we have a toy monorail and ongoing car tabs.

The point of this is to say that keeping up with the neighbors is getting a whole lot easier. The Metroblogging empire just got a little bit farther flung with the addition of Metroblogging Vancouver, the third Canadian in the family.

Be sure to drop by say hello. After all, we’re all part of the same Republic of Cascadia, right?

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Speaking of expanding the Metroblogging universe, we here at Metroblogging Seattle are always eager to add new members to our own little contingent of webloggers. If you want to join the fun, can post a few times a week, and are mildly obsessed with at least some facet of life in Seattle, don’t hesitate to point your browser over to the application page [metroblogging].