I highly recommend the current Harlequin Productions offering at the State, Sins of the Mother, by Israel Horovitz. This is a new play, by a playwright with many writings to his credit, who, as the result of a series of unlikely events, has offered it to Harlequin for its West Coast premiere.

It’s a play set in a small town, long dependent on the extraction of natural resources, recently hammered by the over-extraction of those resources. While it happens to be Gloucester, Mass., it could have easily been set in Port Angeles or the Harbor or Shelton. The characters and their language are very closely observed and the action – and interactions – are tight and fascinating.

Saturday’s performance was enriched by the presence of the playwright. While a few people left once the play was over, the great majority stayed for an interesting and spirited discussion of the play between the writer and the audience. It was particularly interesting to see a playwright seeking and responding to feedback on the play. I’ve never seen that before and it crystallized what a collaborative and incremental process is the crafting of a play, in contrast to other, less social, more solitary literary endeavors.

Go see it!

I’ve been a member of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee for a few months now, so I have to say – by now – that I’ve got my feet under me. A good deal of the work is around building and revising documents that will become part of the city’s policies. Most of our focus over my time with the committee has been the Bicycle Master Plan, which is interesting and useful, but for which I’m not particularly qualified.

In the last meeting, however, city staff introduced a discussion of “neighborhood connections,” which are “paths, trails, or other non-motorized facilities that connect neighborhoods.” In other words, those shortcuts that you can’t make in a car. My level of interest, since I’m not a bicyclist (though there is a perfectly good bike hanging in my garage), was immediately elevated.

I thought it might be of interest to readers here to know that the city has identified over 100 connections, some formal, others informal, on public and private land. And that there is some interest, at least, in developing a program to manage and promote these non-motorized facilities (it doesn’t take long to adopt this kind of planner language).

Thanks to Olyblog, I am about to begin a three-year post on the Olympia City Council's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. I read about openings on the Committee in this post and decided to apply.

The entire process was pleasant: the application was simple, the interviews were brief and pleasant, and the communications from city staff were pleasant, welcoming, and useful. My interview with three of the city council (Kingsbury, Strub, and Ottavelli) was on March 17. Upon walking in, Jeff Kingsbury noted that I was the "most pedestrian" of the applicants (I walk to work most days, and have for years) and, such was the tenor of the interview, that I took that as a good thing (though I'm sure that there are people who would judge me fairly pedestrian). Two weeks later, it was official, and next week, I attend my first meeting.

I don't know how this all works, yet, and I expect that the advisory committees' agendas are pretty closely managed, but if you have any ideas that you think the BPAC should consider, let me know.

Earlier today, I took my dog to Olympia's Watershed Park for a walk. I parked at the new lot for the Woodland Trail on Eastside and entered the park by the Eastside trailhead. About ten yards down the trail, there was a barrier of yellow caution tape across the trail. Another twenty yards ahead was another yellow tape barrier. This one had been broken through and it included a sign that declared the trail closed due to storm damage.

We walked down into the ravine, around the entire loop and even checked the trail up to the McCormick and Henderson Blvd south trailhead and saw no storm damage, nor did we see another barrier of any kind. We did see another dozen people on the trail, too.

So, why was the Eastside entrance marked that way?

This weekend my wife and I and our energetic lab, Daisy, tried out the new segment of the Olympia Woodland Trail. This is a conversion of an old railroad grade that parallels I-5 between Eastside Street and Dayton St. (Phase II, now in design and permitting, will extend from Dayton, across Fones Rd., to the Chehalis Western Trail in Lacey.) There's a paved, 10' wide path the whole way and, for most of the way, a 4' gravel path. It's very green and cool, passing through woods and following Indian Creek for part of the way. Just the thing for a hot summer morning (or a drizzly summer day).

Park at the trailhead on Eastside, just south of its bridge over I-5, across the street from the Eastside St. trailhead to Watershed Park. There are covered picnic tables, benches, a drinking fountain, and restrooms.

Mr. Jenner's banking career led to a four-year posting in Hong Kong for the National Bank of Commerce in 1967, and Jo worked as a volunteer for several years with the Family Planning Council there. Her creation of a promotional poster featuring a pregnant man earned international media attention.

So said Dwight Pelz, Washington State Democrats Chair, in a short speech this afternoon at the Heritage Park fountain, which followed a pretty successful (as far as success can be measured for these symbolic events) rally against the war along 4th Avenue today. Of course, his use of the word insane was based on the folk definition of insanity, which is doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different results. Not a real diagnosis, nor even much of a rhetorical step above cliché, but it does make a good lead.

I went to the rally not because I it might bring about a change in policy (I’m not insane, by any definition), but because I thought it was time, once again, to stand out in public with others who think the same as I do as witnesses to our belief that the war is wrong, has always been wrong, and should be ended. Now. 

There were more people out than a year ago and the responses from those driving over the bridge, going about their daily business, were more weighted to the positive side. Whether this was because of a change in thinking, which subsequently led to the recent election results, or because of those results themselves, I’m not sure. It’s probably both. I wouldn’t be surprised to start to hear whining about how hard it has become to support the war.

Cross-posted at Peregrinate.

1. To blog more, here and there.
   
2. To get out and exercise at least 320 times next year.
3. To hike in the Alps.
4. To scan and organize all of my grandfather's slides (over 3500) and 16mm movies (over eight hours-worth).