Confessions of a Graphic Designer

I've lived in the same house for four decades, and as long as I can recall, there has been a wonderful health resource right here in my neighborhood. For many years my mom worked across the street from this resource, now known as  Providence St. Joseph.  Providence reaches far beyond my neighborhood, which is just east of downtown Seattle. It has grown over the years and is a  guardian angel   watching over seven Western states: Alaska, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas and Washington. Providence St. Joseph is the largest provider of health care in Washington State. Its services span from hospitals, clinics and senior centers, to hospice, home health services to communities of all size. The organization provides essential health care programs as well as social services to those who are poor and vulnerable, and they’ve showcased it as part of their “Health is a Human Right” campaign. The Health is a Human Right  camp...

You might think from reading the headline that Seattle has a lot of bicycles. According to a blog I have not heard of, Seattle is, in fact, NUMBER ONE in the U.S.! Bike lanes are everywhere now. Streets have been retooled to accommodate bicycles, complete with dedicated lanes, islands and other measures to help ensure the safety of bicyclists. Parking spaces in downtown Seattle and elsewhere have been eliminated and replaced with bike racks. The removal of car parking spaces is a drag for motorists since there is not a lot of parking in the first place. The funny thing is, except in areas around the University of Washington and Burke Gilman Trail (where traditionally there has always been a high volume of bicyclists), often I will see absolutely no bicycles in the bike lanes. Parking space converted for bicycles. And all of the bike parking that has been created while displacing car parking? Often it's the same case where they are under utilized. I hope you don...

Charming family home, built in 1908 We have a long-time neighbor and friend named Lad. He tutored our oldest son in math. Our families exchanged baked goods, shared meals, and enjoyed conversations on our front porches. We’ve watched as our neighborhood evolved from “unsafe,” to one where even the dicey streets have been gentrified, and houses are now selling in excess of $1 million. A couple months ago, Lad called to let me know he was planning to move. I wasn’t too surprised—there hasn’t been a better time to sell here. Seattle has zero inventory available. Houses sell in one day. There are bidding wars. Many friends have downsized from their huge Seattle homes to lofts, condos and simpler “country life” on some of the islands surrounding the city. As they sold their family homes, they amassed enough funds to buy another, smaller house, with plenty left over to see them through their retirements But for Lad, it wasn’t just about cashing out. He and his dog have been on th...

Fern tree across from the hotel Okay so some of you guys know I went to Los Angeles last week. There are more details about the gathering I attended on my other blog American Express made it easy to get my flight using miles, but booking a hotel was an adventure. I looked and looked, using many of the usual sites and didn't feel like there was a significant difference between them. It's not as simple as it should be. Basically, I know nothing about LA, so didn't feel like I could find a place on AirBNB and confidently know it would be convenient in terms of getting to the W Hotel in Westwood—the venue of the #140confLA event. So I tried to find a reasonably priced room in the W Hotel, which is across from the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden at UCLA. (BTW, there wasn't a reasonably priced room, but I bit the bullet and booked it anyway since the event was taking place there.) Being a little bit nervous traveling by myself because I usually have my trusty...

It’s weird how you can be merrily be rolling along when something you don’t want to happen, happens. I was in the eighth grade when my family moved from Seattle to Arizona. Middle school is an awkward time, and I was just hitting my stride socially and emotionally. Suddenly I found myself leaving my friends and life for a place with virtually no racial diversity—very different from Seattle. I was initially regarded as somewhat of a freak. Even so, I managed to adjust to Arizona, and after two years, my dad’s Boeing assignment was done, so we were able to return to Seattle. When we got home, everything was different. Our house had been rented, and the yard, which had always been meticulously maintained, had been completely neglected. In fact, as we drove up to the house, Caesar, a neighborhood kid, was playing with friends and popped his head up from the tall grass that, much to the chagrin of our neighbors, used to be our lawn. The worst disappointment was learning my parents ...

Through The Seattle Public Library The Sally Goldmark Library in Madrona is our local branch. Sometimes I think my husband, David, and I are the only people in Seattle who don’t subscribe to Netflix or Hulu. I guess one reason why is, we aren’t huge consumers of video content and we'd regard it as wasteful to pay for something we won’t use. We like watching films and television series, but since we opened Alki Surf Shop , we have even less discretionary time, including TV time. We spend an average of about an hour each evening watching films or programs. Truth be told, we’d dearly love to "cut the Comcast cord," but there are certain channels that would be a bummer to lose, like Bloomberg News, and any channel that airs "Law and Order" episodes :) The concept of getting rid of cable became more of a possibility when David discovered a treasure trove of content available through The Seattle Public Library (SPL). He regularly visits the SPL web ...

This final day of 2015 started out pretty normally. Woke up, fed the cats, put on my make-up, got dressed, then looked at my to-do list. All doable! I needed to pick up my car from my mechanic of 19 years, and no one was around to drive me there, so I called Uber . Uber was in 50 percent surge-price mode, so I said, forget that! Opened Lyft and put in my location and request... Lyft did something weird. I watched the Lyft car circle around, then was notified the car had arrived. Scanning all directions—no Lyft. The driver calls and tells me he is in West Seattle. Uh, yeah. I was 20 minutes away in Madrona. Wonder what happened? Obviously I couldn't wait for him, so I called my old standby, Farwest Taxi. They said it would be 15 minutes until a cab would reach me. No thanks. In this age of "I have no time to wait," I called Yellow Cab next. They arrived in 5 minutes. An older East African gentleman was driving and he wouldn't exceed 25 MPH....