Columbia Citizens

Live locally.

Consult your community calendar.

• Toddler Tales & Trails at Seward (Wed),
• farmers market (Wed),
• parade and heritage festival planning (Wed),
• a vigil for Aaron Sullivan (Wed),
• planning for a new park at 46th & Juneau (Wed),
• a play group in Spanish & English (Thu),
• DINKs and SINKs (Thu),
• story time for preschoolers (Fri),
• nature drawing (Fri — it's full),
• a festival on Lucile Street (Sat),
• a running group (Sat),
• a work party at Cheasty (Sat),
• a neighborhood brunch (Sun),
• CCCC meets (Mon),
• CCBA meets (Tue),
• Night Out block parties (Tue),
• HCBA meets (Wed),
• a library book club (Wed),
• … plus another whole week loaded with neighborhood events,
• 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.

This month's bands include Soyaya, Blues to Burn, Two Scoops Combo, Miles and Karina, Debi Prassad Chatterjee and Tor Dietrichson, and Prescription.

Perfomances will be from 7 - 10 p.m. It only costs $5 and kids are free. Complete info is online, and you can find us now on facebook with lots of band links and info. See you then!

Introducing the new totally air-conditioned Columbia City Cinema. The three auditoriums have always been like a cool breeze off the water during a movie but now, just in time for our heat wave, we finally got the ac unit that's been sitting on the roof for a year hooked up. Glacier-cool breezes finally blow through the upstairs and downstairs lobbies and through the world headquarters offices of your neighborhood cinema. Hooray! Come see a movie and feel those breezes yourself.

Be sure to check our website for the most up-to-date movie information! Or, better yet, sign up for our weekly newsletter and get movie times delivered straight to your inbox.

See you at the movies.

Preschool storytime Fridays July 31st and Aug. 7th from 10:30 to 11am. Bring your preschoolers to enjoy stories, rhymes, songs and fun with our children's librarian.

Nature Drawing Friday July 31st from 1 to 2:30 pm. Think like a scientist and see like an artist with the Nature Consortium. Using real objects in nature, learn to draw images that capture the natural world and create a journal that reflects your environment. For ages 7 - adult. Registration required. This class is full

Evening Book Group Wednesday Aug. 6th from 6:45 to 7:45pm. Join us for a book discussion at the Columbia Branch. Everyone is welcome. This month's title is The Way I Found Her by Rose Tremain. Pick up your copy at the Information Desk!

Bree Loewen reads Pickets and Dead Men Thursday Aug. 6th from 6:30 to 8pm. Bree Loewen shares her experiences as a climbing ranger on Mount Rainier, where respect is hard won and on-the-job performance can be the difference between life and death.

Watercolor workshop Tuesday Aug. 11th from 1 to 3pm. Join us for a free watercolor class! For ages 7-12. Registration required. This class is full

Summer Reading Come to the library to sign up, find out about summer events, and win prizes!

Library programs are free and open to the public. Everyone is invited to attend.

• Thu — (theater) Afton Presents: Mike "G" & M.A.R, Qswyft and Gfly, Caspa, Critical, The Hometeam, The Revolutionaries
  (lounge) Art & Music Showcase
• Fri — Hempfest - the Herbivores
• Sat — HempHop
• Sun — (theater) Jazz Night School
  (lounge) Open Mic Night w/ Martin G.

Here's the full list of events.

Night Out block parties

August 4, Night Out is a national crime prevention event. Here it's a great excuse to close down a street, throw a block party, and connect again with neighbors.

• Want to join in? Some neighbors have created pages with details of their events.
• Can you help out? If you've got a grill to share, a table to loan, or an hour to drop notes with neighbors, you can update your block party's page. That way it's easy to tell what's already covered.

Southside Booty Camp

New session begins August 17!

Southside Booty Camp is a no-nonsense women's outdoor fitness program designed to help women feel confident and strong in their bodies.

We have sessions in Seward Park, Lincoln Park and Volunteer Park.

Our website is southsidebootycamp.com.

Heritage Parade and Summer Streets Festival

Saturday August 8 is the Rainier Valley Heritage Parade and Summer Streets Festival! Rainier Ave will be open to pedestrians from Orcas to Alaska Streets.

The parade is 11-12 followed by the festival from 12-3.

Rainier Ave will be sectioned off for different festival activities. Beginning in Hillman City and traveling north the sections will be: Fitness St, Health & Beauty St., Art St, Sustainable St, Music St and Restaurant Row will be in Columbia City.

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 500 members. If you're a facebook member in the "Seattle, WA" network, you can join and invite your neighbors.

Salon Vibe

Come on down to Salon Vibe and meet our new Master Barber Ahzunique Ladd. With over 20 years of experience Ahzunique works with all textures and lengths of hair.

Salon Vibe is always building clientele so give us a call today and book and appointment at 206-722-VIBE! Check us out on the web at www.salonvibe.com.

New Park at 46th and Juneau!

It's time for the next community meeting to help design the park at Juneau and 46th!

The park's steering committee has been working with John Barker to flesh out some possible park designs based on initial input from the community. He'll be presenting some design drawings at the meeting for the community to comment on.

If you couldn't make the last meeting, here's your chance to participate!

The meeting will be Wednesday, July 29th, at 7:00 pm, at the park site at 46th Avenue South and South Juneau Street. (There'll be a tent in case of rain).

After the meeting enjoy food and drinks with your neighbors. Beer and wine this time.

See you there! For more information, go to http://juneaustreetcommunity.net/

Columbia City in the news

• Columbia City's Light Rail Sale gets attention from KING5.
• Times columnist Jerry Large eulogizes Columbia Citizen Bob Markholt.
• We lost another Citizen last week — 17-year-old Aaron Sullivan (P-I).
• Tuesday was too hot in the library, so they closed it, according to KING5.

Hillman City Posts

• There are plenty of August 4 block parties to choose from, and neighbors have put up their own wiki-pages. If you plan to pitch in, please contact organizers directly, or go ahead and update your party's page.

• abbeynorris has created a new page for Park(ing) Day 2009, a "one-day, global event to highlight the need for more urban open space, rethink the way green space can happen, and improve the quality of urban human habitat". This year it's on September 18.

• carrie d posted to the Sustainable South Seattle blog, about a solar home tour.