BUGGY BLOGGER

Blogger/Blogspot was having some technical difficulties last night. Apologies for the late post.
MY WAY: While the kids were at yoga/music camp, another mother and I strolled the neighborhood. It's in the Mount Baker area of Seattle, along the southwest shore of Lake Washington. Lots of stately homes, steep hills and stairs. Oh so many stairs.

The super cool gargoyle pictured above spews water from a concrete channel/trough that runs along a railing for one of those public staircases

One particularly loooooong series of stairs that we ascended was labeled "Dose Terrace" at the top. It made me curious ...
So tonight, I learned from a page on the University of Washington Special Collections Web site. According to their information, "Charles P. Dose was a German immigrant who had a real estate business originally based in Chicago. In 1871 Dose and his partners, the Fricke Brothers, bought a 40-acre piece of land on Lake Washington in Seattle. Dose moved his family to Seattle in 1898 and began working with his son, Charles C. Dose to develop the land. They platted the Dose Addition in 1906 on 10 acres along South Walker Street in the area that would later become part of Seattle’s Mount Baker District. The first house was built at 31st Avenue and Walker Street. The Dose family lived in Mount Baker Park and Mrs. Charles C. Dose (Phoebe Dose) was instrumental in the creation of the Mount Baker Improvement Club."

So there you have it - mystery solved regarding the Dose Terrace label. Further down the page, I clicked on some of the little camera icons, which led me to photos of then new homes built in the Dose Terrace neighbhorhood. I recognized a couple of them from my walk today.

YARN BOMB: We took a different route home from yoga camp today in hopes of avoiding Seattle Mariners' matinee traffic. Our route took us past Occidental Park in Pioneer Square. There, we were super surprised to see several trees wrapped in colorful sweaters!
(Sorry the photo's blurry. I was driving at the time ... )

Apparently it's part of ARTSparks 2011. These tree sweaters, on display June 11 through July 15, are the work of Suzanne Tidwell. They were installed to coincide with International Yarn Bombing Day, June 11, "a day celebrated by subversive knitters everywhere" according to the ARTSparks Web site. Fascinating.

IN THE PM: This afternoon Annabelle had a "Stars and Stripes" ballet camp. I thought its title was simply a nod to the holiday coming up next week. I didn't realize that there is actually a ballet by that name until the teacher let us know they'd be watching some video from it.

Turns out "Stars and Stripes" was choreographed by George Balanchine in 1958, and it featured original music by none other than John Philip Sousa. Performed in 5 acts, it lasts about 28 minutes. The ballet is still performed annually by the New York City Ballet on or around the Fourth of July.

BLOWING IT: After dinner, Annabelle announced she wanted to blow paint. Um, OK. So we watered down some paint, she got a straw, some paper and went to town.