Columbia Citizens

Live locally.

Consult your community calendar.

• Healthy & Active Rainier Valley Coalition (Wed),
• Farmers Market (Wed),
• Big Blog meetup (Wed),
• help design a new park (Wed),
• a benefit at Lottie's (Thu),
• a bench dedication (Thu),
• a garden club (Thu),
• library storytime (Fri),
• Landmarks Review committee (Fri),
• games night (Fri),
• a Walk for Rice @ Seward (Sat),
• C-City runners (Sat),
• a work party at Hitt's Hill (Sat),
• kickoff party for summer reading (Sat),
• a mosaic project (Sat),
• storytime in Vietnamese (Sat),
• a Whatchamadoozie with a Whaddayacallit… (Fri-Sun),
• Bicycle Sunday,
• Windermere's Columbia City Night Out (Wed),
• Southeast District Council (Wed),
• and Citizens post more events all the time!

In the calendar, you can click through to each event's online information. If a local event is missing, please send a Citizen's alert.

We're keeping the winners we've got, Up and The Hangover, and bringing in a sure fire crowd-pleaser, State of Play. It's only here for five days, ending Tuesday, 6/23, as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen arrives with a bang on Wednesday, 6/24.

On Facebook? Join the Columbia City Cinema group. Just another great way to stay on top of all that's happening at Seattle's Coolest Neighborhood Cinema.

See you at the movies.

Lyall Farms will be back with Teiton and Rainier cherries, and Pilchuck Farms will provide us with more sweet juicy organic tomatoes. And have you heard the great news?? Estrella Family Creamery has returned for the season with their award winning cheeses!! Stokesberry Farms will also be back this week with eggs and chicken, and Communi-Tea Kombucha will be sampling their unique handcrafted beverage.

As always, the Market is open Wednesdays 3-7pm in the south parking lot of the Columbia Plaza building. Please join us, grab your fresh produce for the week, and enjoy yet another lovely evening at the market!

We've got Tamara on Fathers Day. I think Dad would approve. I know I would! :)

• Thu — (theater) WAF: save the children of West Africa charity
  (lounge) Open MIC Night with Stephen Smartt
• Fri — GS Boyz - see them do the Stanky Legg. Also performing: Godspeed, The Incredible Zig, Trigganometry, SWAGG & LA White, Scoob Diesel
  DEFSOL Comedy
• Sat — Columbia City Cabaret hosted by Tamara the Trapeze Lady
• Sun — (theater) West Africa Foundation presents Malian singer Adama Yalomba
  (lounge) Open MIC Night with Martin G.
• Mon — WAF: save the children of West Africa charity
• Tue — NPost

Here's the full list of events.

Full Tilt Ice Cream

Full Tilt Columbia City is pleased to say that we have set our opening date as July 3rd, 2009. We are very excited to bring our own fresh ice creams, including many vegan options, as well as some great old-school pinball machines and vintage video games. We make our own root beer, and will also be selling a few choice microbrews in bottles.

If you can't wait to try the flavor of things to come, you can check us out now at our White Center location (9629 16th Ave SW). You can also see what Seattle is already saying about us on Yelp. Some of them are side splittingly funny. The big "scoop" award goes to the Stranger-mere minutes after we twittered our opening date, they picked it up and posted it on Slog. Rumor has it that they've been watching our twitter for new flavor postings…

We look forward to serving the neighborhood we live in and love!

Summer Bike League

Hi Neighbors — I work for Cascade Bicycle Club and we're doing a summer bike project called the Summer Bike League. We are giving people the opportunity to log their bike miles all summer. We will have fun prizes and such for the community the rides the most.

The best part about about it is each neighborhood is competing against each other. Columbia City vs. Fremont vs. Ballard. etc. I really think we can kick some butt. We have Bike Sunday and we are having a Summer Streets event in August on Rainier. All we have to do is log our miles. Check it out.

As part of it we are also doing a Bike to Baseball Day. If you buy your tickets here and pledge to ride your bike to the game, you can get your tickets for half off.

Have fun riding and I hope you join me in riding as part of Columbia City this summer.

Columbia Citizens meet facebook

Now you can get your Wikli fix via facebook. If you "fan" our page, you'll get Wikli alerts and the first post of every discussion thread, straight to your news feed.

This seems to be another good way for Citizens to self-identify and share information. Facebook isn't a wiki, so it won't replace what we're doing here. But facebook might make it easier to connect with the friends of our friends — a useful tool in this neighborhood. So let's see if this helps with the community building we do here — check it out.

Christo de Klerk kicked off a Columbia City group awhile back, and it's grown to well over 400 members. If you're a facebook member in the "Seattle, WA" network, you can join and invite your neighbors.

Big Blog meetup at Columbia Park

Hey all! Weekly on Wednesdays I host informal reader meetups at different locations around the city. On Wednesday we'll be at Columbia Park, across the street from the Columbia Farmers Market, from 5:30-7 p.m. ColumbiaCityBlog will be there. Come say hi if you're around. Here's hoping for good weather!

Columbia City Night Out

Columbia City merchants and Windermere Mount Baker are getting together to raise funds for Southeast Seattle kids and families!

On Wednesday, June 24 from 5pm to 9pm, follow the Windermere Open House signs to Columbia City! Participating merchants have agreed to donate a portion of the evening's proceeds to The Windermere Foundation, with the funds earmarked for use in our Southeast Seattle neighborhoods.

There will also be a SILENT AUCTION at the Columbia City Theater, with LIVE MUSIC from Freddie Mac and the Bad Assets. See an updated list of auction items at the Windermere KidsCause blog.

Jazz singer Mercedes Nicole will be performing at Kallaloo Restaurant (3820 S. Ferdinand).

Go to KidsCause.blogspot.comfor more info about participating merchants, and items in the silent auction.

So, come out and eat, drink, shop, listen to some great music… and give to your community at the same time!

family music classes

I am offering summer music classes June 24 - August 12, Wednesday evenings from 6 to 6:40pm at the Rainier Valley Cultural Center in Columbia City (Alaska & Rainier). Fee for all 8 sessions is $115, which includes CD and booklet.

Children from birth to age 5 are welcome to attend! The older children love to lead, while the little ones love to learn from the big kids. All benefit from the weekly immersion of music class, from storytelling and poetry to listening to sounds; making music with percussion instruments, dancing and moving about the room in creative ways, and of course — lots of singing!

These classes are a great way to help bring more music time to your home, and offer a special time set aside each week to bond with your child. Additional sibling discount rate is $75. Please contact me with any questions at 329-1650.

Salon Vibe

Do you need a haircut? Color, foil, or relaxer? Call Salon Vibe today. We do great work, we are affordable, friendly, and close to home.

Life's crazy! Salon Vibe loves walk-ins and we will always work to fit your schedule into ours! Call 722-VIBE(8423) and book an appointment. Mention this ad and receive a free deep condition with your service.

See you soon!

It's a Whatchamadoozie with a Whaddayacallit with a Thingamajigit on Top!

Last week to see a new children's musical It's a Whatchamadoozie with a Whaddayacallit with a Thingamajigit on Top! at the Rainier Valley Cultural Center (3515 S Alaska St). Performances will be on Friday evening at 7pm, Saturday and Sunday at 2pm.

The musical is set in Tremble Town. When a suspicious glow is spotted in the sky and an ominous musical note permeates the air, the adults are paralyzed by fear andthe Mayor orders all of the children inside for the summer. It takes Lucy Margaret and her plucky pals Cecil and Gracie to save the day by transforming fear into wonder and fiction into fact!

Tickets are $6/child and $12/adult and you can purchase them at brownpapertickets.com.

For additional information, please go to our website.

Columbia City in the news

Neighborhood news from the traditional media is sparse this week — the blogossiphere has it.

• A tree across Columbian Way attracted helicopters, stopped traffic, and reset our digital clocks.
• If you see more neighborhood items, please post.

Hillman City Posts

• Diana Vinh rewrote Expanding Rainier Valley Gardening Opportunities with a full update.

• Columbia Twitterzens — We've made a first stab at setting up a go-to space for tweets about the neighborhood. It still needs work, but here's a start. Hopefully we can arrange things so you you can follow these in your own account.