The long-time home of The Erotic Bakery, which briefly hosted Art of Confections, is now set to become a…wait for it…mini-market!

OK, mini-market and sushi deli.

I don’t have many more details at this point. I popped my head in when owner John Chung was there to see what was going on, but didn’t get much more info than you see here, plus that he is hoping to open sometime in February.

I’m curious what a “sushi deli” will end up meaning. Sushi made on demand, or pre-made? What style?

We’ll know soon.…

Thank you to everybody who has donated our Wallingford campaign for FamilyWorks, our local food bank and family resource center. When I first started working on this with FamilyWorks, I wasn’t quite sure where to set the goal. Early on, I thought maybe we could set it at $5,000, but I got nervous: what if we came up disastrously short? What kind of embarrassment would that be for the kindness of the neighborhood? Even asking people to go together to pledge $3,000, seemed a reach, but a good “stretch goal”.

Which is why I’m just teary with appreciation at the …

There have been a few sitings recently of package thieves around the neighborhood. Kimberly writes:

I saw some HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS behavior from this man today. White male, brown hair, tall and skinny, probably in his 20s, wearing jeans and brown boots with a black hoodie and a navy jacket over the hoodie. He was carrying a large, dark green sack that had items in it.

I saw him coming down from a porch on N. 38th Street, then followed him about 10 blocks. He was stopping at every corner, looking up and down the street and then walking partway down …

On Wednesday night, about 40 members of the community showed up at the John Stanford School to meet with State Senator Jamie Pedersen, State Speaker Frank Chopp, and representatives of WSDOT about the possibility of erecting a wall alongside I-5 to mitigate highway noise in Wallingford, similar to the one in place north of 52nd along 5th Ave NE.

This past summer, WSDOT ran a study to evaluate the feasibility and reasonability of the project. “Feasible”, in this case, means specifically that the “noise wall has to reduce noise levels by at least 5 dBA for at least 51% of …

The word “flaneur” has gone through some gyrations over time: if you ask Google or a modern dictionary, you’ll get “an idler or a loafer”, but in times past, it’s meant something less negative, more civic. To Baudelaire, the flaneur was a “gentleman stroller of city streets” or a “botanist of the sidewalks”, for example. The Brooklynflaneur further quotes Cornelia Otis Skinner:

“There is no English equivalent for the French word flâneur. Cassell’s dictionary defines flâneur as a stroller, saunterer, drifter but none of these terms seems quite accurate. There is no English equivalent for the term, just as there …

If you hear some caroling tonight (Wednesday, Dec 16), or want to join in some caroling, it’s for a good cause. They’ll be raising money as a gift to Patty and Joe, who lost their “holiday house” in a fire last month. Bette and Patti write:

Come caroling with us for a good cause.  The “Holiday House” on Latona was recently gutted by fire. Its longtime residents, Patty and Joe, had insurance, but – as we all know – insurance inevitably falls short.

That’s why we’re holding a caroling party to benefit the couple who’ve contributed so much to …

It’s not too late to catch the Christmas Ships:

The Argosy Cruises Christmas Ship festival is a holiday celebration that has been a Pacific Northwest tradition since 1949. Every year, the Argosy Christmas Ship sails to different Puget Sound waterfront communities, over 45 in total. Choirs onboard sing 20-minute performances to these communities, all broadcast via state-of-the-art speaker system. On shore, thousands of people gather around roaring bonfires anticipating the arrival of the Christmas Ship.

This Friday, from 8:40 to 9:00 pm, they’ll be pulling up in front of Westward and Little Gull on Lake Union from 8:40 to 9:00 …