Life and Times in Leschi This is the first in an ongoing series based on my 44 years (so far) of life and times in and sometimes out of Leschi. Thanks to editor Diane Snell for soliciting additional writers to the already lively Leschi News. So, let’s jump right into it. I first moved to Leschi in the spring of 1976, though but for a fluke it would have been three years earlier. After being pushed out of a Capitol Hill rental (where I learned auto mechanics in the backyard garage) by an avaricious landlord in 1973, I got together with my brother and three friends to look for another house. We found a great one on 30th Avenue South and had a verbal deal to rent it, but late in the game the landlord decided to move into it himself, so we were back on the streets searching. For people like me with some ingenuity and no money, those were good times. (Leschi’s Bill Corr, when trying to raise money for the fledgling food co-op, called our Capitol Hill commune the one with “the least visible means of support.” Or maybe he meant “least-visible.”) Seattle was still in the (latest) Boeing recession. Rent and food were cheap, and co-ops of all sorts were springing up. The central part of the city was littered with vacant, foreclosed houses that had been bought with zero down during the boom times. Unfortunately, the Federal Housing Administration, which held the note on most of them, was keeping them off the market. We prowled through many of them, on east Capitol Hill and even down to Madrona Drive, hoping against hope, but all we found were Princess phones with lighted dials. In those days, all phones were owned by Ma Bell—until we came along, anyway. We amassed a good collection of them that lasted for years to come. We had developed a nose for empty houses, FHA-owned or not. In the fall we hit the jackpot. On a side street in Madrona there was a sturdy old house with nice white columns holding up the front porch. Scrawled in lipstick on one of the posts were the words “Thelma the Bitch.” Inside, we found Thelma and her family cleaning up the wreckage left by disgruntled recently departed tenants. By comparison, we seemed like responsible renters, so Thelma made a deal with us for about $180/month. After a couple of years, Thelma offered to sell me the house for $18,000. I consulted with my father, who was still thinking of the time in 1963, during another Boeing recession, when he got a job in California and we were unable to sell our Seattle house. (We rented it for two years to a black family, in all-white Lake Forest Park—a story with a Leschi connection, for another time.) He advised me not to buy. A couple of years later, after I had moved, Thelma tracked me down and offered the house again, this time for $60K. Next month: Destination Leschi. ~Roger Lippman Submitted February 17, 2020, the 50th anniversary of TDA. For that story, see http://roger.lippnet.us/trial.htm. Small Media Victory Last month we wrote about the problems for the Madrona News and national news carried more stories about struggling newspapers and possible future consolidations. Seattle does not do well with only one paper; news is thin unless you are a sports fan. So, it was heartening to read about one small victory. The Mountain Messenger The New York Times carried a full-page story about the only paper in all of Sierra County, CA. This paper has been in existence for 160 plus years and actually carried some columns by Mark Twain in its early days. The editor was retiring and there was no replacement. At the last moment, a 71-year-old retiree stepped forward and bought the paper for a 4 figure sum. This is NOT a money maker; the paper loses money each year and there is a one and a half hour mountain drive to the printing company to pick up the finished paper. Then it is delivered by the editor to the various locations in the entire county. (We just deliver in Leschi and Madrona!) But the paper goes on and the citizens are delighted! One small victory in the media world! Meanwhile Trump’s budget cuts out funding for NPR by 2023. Our plea for contributors last month brought forward a Leschi resident of some 40 years; we talked at length about our experiences here and I learned quite a bit about life in Leschi before we moved here in 1989. We welcome Roger Lippman with his monthly column! ~Diane Snell

Hello Fellow Leschi Residents, Well, as you read this message, we are about to “spring forward” on March 8th. Are you ready? I would be curious as to your feelings about it...love it, hate it, or leave my circadian rhythms alone. We have an exciting program lined up for March, which is Women’s History Month. This also coincides with this being the 100th year anniversary of women’s right to vote, or the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. We are very thrilled to have Tames Alan, a performer who has appeared at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival, as well as local historical theatre. Tames will depict what life was like as a suffragette. This program is an opportunity to dial back time and honor the rights of women and the women who made it possible. Please join us. Again, the Leschi Art Walk will be in Saturday, September 12th this year. We are looking for both artists and volunteers who want to help this event continue. Last year we had new artists on board and each year, the artists, plus the events focused on children in the park, are a great way to meet and interact with your fellow Leschi neighbors. As you embark on planting spring flowers, note that there are always programs that need volunteers headed by John Barber aimed at continuing to beautify our street ends and small parks that are underserved by the Seattle Parks Department. Please join us on Wednesday, March 4th for the Suffragette presentation and reach out to your neighbors to see if anyone needs a ride that evening to the Central Area Senior Center. The program will begin at 7:30 pm. Warm regards, Janice Merrill Brown, President, LCC

Attend our Reenacted Suffragette Meeting with Actor Tames Alan March 4, 7:30pm at The Central Area Senior Center, FREE! As we celebrate the Centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment, we are familiar with some of the names like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage and Lucretia Mott, but there were many others and many incidents not as well-known as the marches of women in white carrying banners for equal rights; It was a 72 year old struggle with arrests, imprisonment and forced feeding following hunger strikes. Not a pretty picture! If you want to see the gritty side, we recommend the film Iron-Jawed Angels. But let’s look at some of the lesser known incidents. In1838, white women and African American women joined forces in an Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in Philadelphia Hall in Pennsylvania. Pro-slavery men were so incensed, they threatened to burn down the meeting hall and did so. When the women exited the hall, it was surrounded by angry mobs of men and windows were being shattered; each white woman joined arms with each African American woman for protection. The First National Women’s Rights Convention was held in October 1850 in Worcester, MA with this resolution “to secure for (women) political, legal, and social equality with man, until her proper sphere is determined by…her powers and capacities…” In August 1862, Matilda Joslyn Gage, in support of the Civil War to end slavery, said that “unless liberty is attained—the broadest, the deepest, the highest liberty of all—not for one set alone, one clique alone, but for man and woman, black and white, Irish, German, Americans and Negroes, there can be no permanent peace.” Following the Civil War, Congress outlawed slavery and granted African American men the right to vote, but not women. The American Woman Suffrage Association supported the 15th Amendment for men’s voting rights but went on with their struggle for equal rights for women. Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States, July 4, 1876: “…we deny that dogma of centuries, incorporated into the codes of nations—that woman was made for man…” A “suffrage boat” took 200 people past the Statue of Liberty in 1886 while Lillie Devereaux Blake, president of the NYC Suffrage Association said the Statue seemed to say with her silent lips of bronze, “I am the embodied hope of the future and the enthroned prediction of liberty for women.” Ida B. Wells, African American journalist and activist, refused to march at the back of the Woman Suffrage Procession in 1913 and instead, joined her own Illinois delegation saying, “either I go with you or not at all.” The National Women’s Party began picketing the White House led by Alice Paul in 1917. Woodrow Wilson had them arrested; the hunger strikes began in prison. Three years later, in 1920, the suffrage amendment was passed in the House and then the Senate. Then began the process of ratification by the states, culminating in the final vote of Tennessee. In the words of Carrie Chapman Catt, “Let us remember that we are no longer petitioners. We are not wards of the nation, but free and equal citizens. We have proved in Tennessee that this is a government of the people, not an empire of corporations. Let us do our part to keep it a true and triumphant democracy.” And so, we must continue this tradition of voting and supporting voting rights for all. And we will all hope that Ms. Chapman Catt is not turning over in her grave about the modern-day part of corporations. Selections compiled by Diane Snell from a product of the Syracuse Cultural Workers in the form of a calendar celebrating the 19th Amendment “HEAR US ROAR”. Let’s continue roaring!

Reparations is not a word I use often. There were years when I neither heard nor said the word. Then in June 2014 Ta-Nahesi Coates wrote that exceptionally lengthy article, “The Case for Reparations” in The Atlantic. No way could I not think about reparations: the making of amends for wrongs, injury done, according to the dictionary. For many persons, especially those of African descent, “reparations” is the payment of 40 acres and a mule promised persons freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, Special Field Orders No. 15 by William T. Sherman, the Union Army general. About two years after Donald Trump became president, I heard a commentator say, “All Democrats have to do is continue talking about privilege and reparations, and they will lose in 2020.” Though the statement caught me off guard, it has since crossed my mind often. I’m in that group who believe though many sat out the 2016 election for assorted reasons, many others voted to teach the Democrats a lesson: no black person should be President of these United States—ever. Never should Barack H. Obama have been president. And there are those who will do everything in their power to prevent such an anomaly from repeating itself. Regardless of actions that helped many whites, especially those in lower-income brackets, Obama’s blackness was unwelcome and unwanted by a great many Americans. Composing this article makes me realize how I found myself thinking about reparations and the gentleman’s statement more often than I cared to. Surprisingly, the word continues to show up, come up. Not surprisingly, I agreed with the commentator although I cannot recall previously connecting the terms “privilege” and “reparations.” I do not remember the first time I heard the word “reparations,” but I do recall the first time I went to Washington, D.C., 1967, and saw a glaring instance of inequity. I was a college student taking part in a conference at Howard University. Of course, we toured the highlights of the city. But what I remember most is all is the black persons at every site: in uniforms as guards. I’m sure I had never seen so many people in uniform, people who spent their days protecting the country’s invaluable wealth and directing tourist traffic. I remember being told that the first wealthy blacks were Pullman porters—they received good. The November rejection of Washington State’s Referendum 88 and my first visit to the World War II Museum in New Orleans combined returned the term to my immediate consciousness. Leaving Seattle shortly after a bill the entire legislature supported was rejected by 50.56 % of the voters coupled with learning so much more about the role of African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, Native Americans in World War II triggered more thoughts of reparations. Never had I seen so much information, much of it a revelation, in one place! Passage of Referendum 88 could have been a degree of reparations. Maybe volunteers who worked so hard to get it passed will be willing to undertake the task once more. ~Georgia S. McDade, Ph. D. This article is the first of three on this issue.

January 6, 2020—Attending: Janice Merrill Brown, Trevor Lalish-Menagh, Tracy Bier, Diane Snell Janet: sending treasury report by email Janice: Review of Feb and March programs for her message in newsletter. We agreed to produce questions for our Crime Prevention Officer (February). Diane will send background info on actor presenting the March program. Janice has planned to meet with Randy & Buzz at Bluwater to give them their Leschi Star awards. Trevor: Plan for mural discussion on Jan 15. He agreed to moderate. Artist Lawrence Pitre will present his plan and then there will be Q and A with audience. Review of programs for rest of year; we had only made plans through June, but further discussion gave us some thoughts about the fall. Our District 3 rep, Kshama Sawant, should be asked to come in Sept. as the Council will be getting the budget to respond to and it is a chance for us to have some input on budget items. Nothing definite but perhaps something on ecology for October. Janice proposed an Eco-Corner in the news. Discussed helpful tools from the city like Find It Fix It and graffiti hotline; perhaps mention this in newsletter so folks use it more often. John: Although unable to attend this meeting, John had sent some good news. In reviewing the parks budget for 2020, it looks as though wading pools will be open two days each week. Tracy expressed some concern about the February program. She felt it seemed rather quiet in the neighborhood. Diane suggested that folks are not reporting to the police, so data doesn’t show reality. NextDoor still seems full of pkg theft and car prowls. We felt that sending some questions would supply more substance to the program. Diane: Feb. Newsletter deadline: Jan. 20 Peppi’s Park: the Parks Dept. has sent a letter to the volunteers of Peppi’s outlining the restoration they plan to do following the mess created by the cutting of some trees and the introduction of big equipment in that restricted area. We hope to cover it in the Feb. newsletter. Diane suggested that we donate to Seattle Music Partners, the group that supplies music instruction after school to Leschi students. We helped them get started by funding a bus to take the students home after the extended day and we later gave them the proceeds of our annual Big Book Sale, but we have neglected to continue helping. It was agreed that we would send $250 to SMP. Diane will apply for a Small Sparks grant to fund the March program. Janice said that she did not get the grant for the ArtWalk this year and Diane suggested that she try the Small Sparks grant later in June. ArtWalk: Diane asked that Janice set a February date for the first ArtWalk meeting so we could publish it in the Feb. news. Janice suggested we invite folks to the Board meeting so they will have a better idea of what we do and realize it is not that demanding to be on the Board. She will invite Eva to next Board meeting. Meeting adjourned at 7pm. ~Respectfully submitted by Diane Snell

My husband has always had a boring birthday and often forgotten due to the fact that it comes two days after Christmas when everyone has had too much of everything. But this year, we were just starting to enjoy our morning coffee, when our grandson came in with a bag of goodies from Bakery Nouveau! What a feast! There were twice baked chocolate croissants, an apricot pastry, a cranberry-filled pastry and a very unusual selection: a pastry with butternut squash filling and pumpkin seeds on top. We cut everything into fourths so we could each sample the different tastes, but we couldn’t make it through this embarrassment of riches. I would like to recommend the apricot and the butternut squash pastries. ~Diane Snell

Make Valentine’s weekend extra special by learning the art of making succulent and sultry cocktails using northwest native plants! We’ll learn about native and wild plants our region offers us for seasonally foraged cocktail ingredients, which we’ll use in this interactive class to create unique herbal, nut and fruit liqueurs, which you’ll make for yourself. This will be followed with a ‘happy hour’ in the historic manor enjoying classic cocktails made with foraged cocktail ingredients. You’ll take home recipes and your own holiday-themed liqueur. You must be 21 years of age, or older, to attend this workshop, and singles, couples, and friends are welcome!! Saturday, February 15, 2020, 2:30–6pm Adults ages 21 and up; $55; Advance tickets required https://sewardpark.audubon.org/events/sweethearts-foraged-cocktail-workshop

Leschi Market ’s monthly Wine Newsletters always includes two special features: Staff Selections and Best Sellers. The first, Staff Selections, consists of favorite wines that the staff is currently excited about, new arrivals to the wine aisle, or old favorites that deserve remembering. Many times, customers find a particular steward whose palate matches theirs, making the “monthly picks” more of a shortened, condensed personal shopping guide. The second feature is the Best Sellers List, a very straightforward list of the previous month’s best-selling wines by number of units sold, broken down by different parameters: Red, White, Bubbles, Rose or Greater than $20, for example. Personally, I’ve always viewed the Best Seller list as the Customer Selections list. Fun, right? A newsletter that features both employee favorites alongside customer favorites! Love is in the air all month long, and what better way to celebrate than compiling many of our favorite wines. Following is a Top-10 List from the last several months, combining Staff Picks and Customer Picks, to create Wine We Love . Pablo Picasso may have said, “Love is the greatest refreshment in life,” however, this list may challenge that! Red 2016 Quilceda Creek Red Wine “CVR” Columbia Valley ($55.99) “A combination of all our vineyard sites and represents a great value. It is the best version of this wine to date displaying highly aromatic black and blue fruits with nuances of anise, smoke, forest floor and minerals. This blend of 87% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot will be best enjoyed over the next 15 years.” ~Paul Golitzin, Director of Winemaking. 2017 Sarrazin Bourgogne Rouge Vieilles Vignes ($21.99) “The finest wines from the Cote Chalonnaise are known for their effortless beauty, delicate aromas, fruit-driven flavors and silky textures. The winery’s family history of growing grapes in this valley dates back to the seventeenth century.” ~Winemaker notes. 2016 Querciabella Toscana Mongrana ($21.49) Lovely aromas of plums, cherries and currents with a hint of flowers and undertones of dried flowers. Full body, round and silky tannins with a bright, fresh finish. A blend of Sangiovese, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. Biodynamic and Vegan.” 95 points, James Suckling. 2017 Rainoldi Alpi Retiche Nebbiolo ($19.99) Early drinker produced with Nebbiolo grapes coming from the vineyards of the DOC area, vinified as a whole together with other grapes gently pressed for must. It is characterized by utter freshness, fruitiness and rich aromas. Mellow, round taste, recommended with starters, first courses and fresh uncured cheeses. An instant Leschi Best Seller! 2018 St. Cosme Côtes du Rhône ($13.99) “Lively savory, lavender, cherry and black currant notes mix in this friendly, open-knit wine, which reveals a tug of dark earth at the end. Drink now through 2020. Smart Buy.” ~Wine Spectator, 89 points. 2017 Glaze Cabernet Sauvignon Ross Andrew Winery ($13.99) “Rich, lush, and delicious. This wine blends the power of Red Mountain Cabernet with the perfect amount of Merlot, Petit Verdot and Malbec, resulting in layers of enjoyment. A fantastic everyday wine, but also big enough for your dinner party.” ~Winemaker notes. White Wine 2017 àMaurice Cellars Chardonnay Conner Lee Vineyard ($29.99) “Hand-picked, hand sorted and whole cluster pressed at our winery in Walla Walla. The end result is rich and creamy with well-integrated French Oak. The lively bright acid makes the mouth water for more.” ~Winemaker notes. 2018 Domaine Paul Cherrier Blanc Sancerre Loire Valley ($20.59) “Sancerre Blanc is sleek and crisp, with citrus, mineral and herbal aromatics and a good backbone of acidity. The soils in and around the village of Verdigny consist of a mixture of marl and gravel which produces elegant, well-balanced wines with a good fruit character. Stainless steel tanks. Sancerre Blanc is a joyful, lively wine.” ~Winemaker notes. 2019 Bodega Garzon Reserve Albarino Uruguay ($18.69) “Pale yellow with greenish reflections, this Albarino is intense in the nose with peach and citrus. The freshness and minerality in the mid-palate are superb. Remarkable acidity and a round, crisp finish.” ~Winemaker notes. 2018 Pascal Jolivet ‘Attitude’ Sauvignon Blanc Loire ($13.99) “Made with the same attention to detail as Jolivet’s great Sancerres, this wine is made from grapes grown outside the appellation. The wine offers expressive floral and fruit aromas, freshness and minerality in the mouth. This is textbook Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire.” ~Importer notes. Kenneth Benner, a Seattle area native, is a trained chef and has worked in such restaurants as Barbacoa, B.O.K.A. Kitchen + Bar, and Dahlia Lounge. Ken is the wine buyer at Leschi Market. He has a passion for learning, a meticulous palate, and a tenacity for searching out the best for his customers while offering some of the most highly coveted wines in the area. His wine column is intended to inspire and explore new choices in wine, learn about wine with his readers, and share his knowledge and experiences in the wine world. Check out the latest at www.LeschiMarket.com or request to be added to email updates or send questions, comments, or suggestions to ken@leschimarket.com and follow the wine department directly on twitter at twitter.com/leschimarket .

We are having another thrilling museum opening in Seattle this month! The renovated Asian Art Museum opens to the public on Saturday February 8 after three years of remodeling. The museum’s stunning 1933 Art Deco building has been restored to its former glory, along with the glass doors in the entrance, and outside, the original fountains and Olmstead pathways. I went to a preliminary presentation by Ping Foong, Foster Foundation Curator of Chinese Art; Xiaojin Wu, Curator of Japanese and Korean Art who created the inaugural installation Boundless: Stories of Asian Art, a complete rethinking of the museum that took three years. They started with asking “What do we mean by Asia? Where is Asia? Who is Asia?” Rather than follow traditional geographical designations, they created twelve themes from ancient to contemporary. They brought in Darielle Mason, an outside expert on East Asia from the Philadelphia Museum, as well as working with senior scholars and community groups in advisory sessions. They divided their twelve themes into two larger ideas: the South Galleries focus on the sexual and the spiritual and the North Galleries on the material world. Since the themes are based on so much creative thinking, I think it is worth recording them all here. In the South, the themes are “Awakened Ones” (in a darkened room with several Buddhas, as a meditative pause), “Divine Bodies,” “Sacred Places” “Bringing Blessings,” and “Spiritual Journeys.” In the North, the themes are “Are We What We Wear?”, “What is Precious”, “Color in Clay”, “Writing Images, Painting Poems”, “Picturing Nature”, Sharing Stories” and “Fashioning Eternity.” Needless to say, the critics listening to this idea were skeptical that the general public would be lost without the geographical identities of the different works highlighted. They cautioned that the diversity would be flattened. The curators said that they were not tied to these themes, they could be changed, but they wanted to try a new approach. I was dubious at first, given the great failures I have seen at the Museum of Modern Art when thematic approaches were used. But those were big obvious themes, like still life and portraits, while these two young curators, based on three years of hard work, have produced a brilliant group of ideas that will be thrilling to experience. I will elaborate on this theme once the Museum actually opens. In the Garden Court they installed a work by Kenzan Tsutakawa the grandson of our famous George Tsutakawa, composed of LED lights. It creates a delicate canopy and connects to the outside world. Finally Be/longing: Contemporary Asian Art, the installation of contemporary Asian Art includes 12 artists from 7 countries, all of whom work outside Asia, many from the Museum’s permanent collection and familiar to us, such as Shirin Neshat (the stunning videos) and Do Ho Suh (that big piece with dog tags). The 5000 square foot gallery will enable changing traveling exhibitions. It is also the new space projecting into our beautiful Volunteer Park, causing great concerns on the part of park lovers. We will see if it enhances or intrudes once it opens. Also, impressive will be new Asian Paintings Conservation Center, led by Nicholas Dorman, SAM’s Chief Conservator, which the press release claims to be the only such center in the Western United States. Seattle’s commitment to young museum goers stands out nationally, and at the Asian Art Museum there will be an expanded community and student learning center. Also reaching out to all ages is a smart phone tour, and interactive multimedia in the galleries. Hopefully, the smart phone tours won’t be too distracting from looking at the physical work. Our Asian Art Museum reflects an exciting and innovative era of Seattle collecting, especially by its founding director, Richard E. Fuller; the collection includes over 8500 works! The deep ties of our contemporary city to Asia makes this exciting new expanded Asian Art Museum particularly timely. ~Susan Noyes Platt www.artandpoliticsnow.com

Not all wildlife is welcome in our neighborhood. You may see this unwanted guest if you walk along the lake or make a circle around Seward Park. Is it a beaver? A muskrat? Or, the dreaded nutria? The latter has wreaked havoc in Chesapeake Bay and denuded natural levees along the Mississippi and is busy chomping its way through the ecosystem here. Nutria are largish rodents native to South America. They were imported to the Pacific Northwestern part of the fur farming industry in the 1930s (think hats and muffs from glossy brown fur, and later coat linings). But not all nutria stayed on the farm. Escaped populations became feral and, because they can produce two to three litters a year of 11 or so offspring, they quickly multiplied. Nutria live along the shores of freshwater lakes and ponds. According to the Washington State Species Council, they consume up to 25% of their weight daily, each weighing 12 to 40 pounds. They eat roots and stems of plants, destroying about ten times more plant matter than they eat. “Nutria have been known to turn riparian areas into muddy bogs, destroying marshes that provide protection for flooding and habit for other animals, birds, and fish. Nutria often construct circular platforms of compacted vegetation, which they use for feeding, birthing, resting, and grooming. Nutria are known to construct burrows in levees, dikes, and embankments, causing bank collapse and erosion. They also are host to a variety of parasites and pathogens.” Yuk. Warming winters are contributing to their geographical spread. One pair of nutria can, with the environmental right opportunity, jump start a population of 15,000 in three years (and that’s with a life span of approx. 3 years.)According to a 2015 Modern Farmer magazine profile, 20 nutria were introduced to Louisiana in 1938 and two decades later the population had reached 20 million. Friends who saw what they believed was a nutria along the UW shoreline said it was large and absolutely fearless despite their German Shorthair Pointer locking eyes with it. The chief nutria predators in this area are coyotes and raccoons. If you see one along Lake Washington—or anywhere else as they travel overland—you can report it to www.invasivespecies.wa.gov. If you are a property owner, you can call a wildlife trapper who can capture the animal(s) which will then be euthanized as it illegal to release it elsewhere in the state. Of course, you could eat it…The meat is allegedly packed with protein and tastes somewhat like rabbit. Most chefs have trouble getting past its rat-like appearance. A good hot barbecue—perhaps with a honey mustard sauce—is said to destroy any pathogens. Nutria are often mistaken for beavers or muskrats. Size-wise, they fall in between the two. The tail is the key for identification: nutria tails are rat-like, thin, round, with little hair, and pointed at the tip. And these tails can be upwards of 12 to 18 inches in length. (A muskrat’s tail is hairless and flat.) ~Anne Depue

The Pacific Northwest is a tough place to forecast the weather for in general, but nothing is tougher here than forecasting snow. This was particularly true this past January, with two events that wreaked havoc across some locales while leaving others unscathed. The first—an arctic front and associated Puget Sound Convergence Zone—occurred on 1/12–13 and brought blizzard conditions to Bellingham while dropping over 6 inches of snow to parts of Snohomish County. The second—a persistent band of snow that dropped 2 feet of snow over Port Angeles—occurred on late 1/14–15 and was not even forecast until 12 hours prior to the start of the event. In both events, south Seattle saw much less snow than north Seattle; Sea-Tac only received 0.7 inches of snow for the month, while the Seattle NWS forecast office near Magnuson Park saw 3.8 inches. But as tough as forecasting snow is—communicating a snow forecast, particularly in an area with as many micro-climates and local terrain features as our own— is even harder. And unfortunately, social media allows eye-catching but incorrect forecasts (such as a blizzard from a cherry-picked model run) spread like wildfire, giving people the impression that “Snowmageddon 2020” is imminent and that they need to head to their nearest PCC to stock up on fresh fruit and vegetables! Models hinted at the potential for a cold and snowy mid-January more than a week before our events. However, these models (particularly the American model) showed much colder temperatures than the ones that verified. The American model showed highs staying in the teens and lows dropping to the single digits, and while the long-range forecasts spit out by weather apps recognized this as an outlier, they were still calling for mid-January to be the coldest period since at least early February 2014. As the event approached, the models (as expected) backed off on the cold, but there was a tremendous amount of uncertainty in snow forecasts due to (1) temperatures being on the fringe for snow, especially from Seattle southward and (2) uncertainty in the location and amount of precipitation. Meteorologists can interpret and visualize this uncertainty using “ensembles,” which is a suite of many slightly different forecasts from a given model. Ensembles will play a bigger and bigger role in forecasting as computers become faster and faster—they take massive computational resources but are more exact and better convey uncertainty than just a single model run. Communicating uncertainty to the public is not an easy task—a consumer would much rather hear how much rain they are going to have to deal with on their evening commute than hear that there’s an “80% chance of rain” while they are driving home. But a forecast that doesn’t communicate uncertainty is a very dangerous one indeed—one only needs to go back to the infamous “Ides of October” 2016 windstorm forecast bust to see how focusing on the worst-case-scenario can come back to bite you! In recent years, the National Weather Service and media outlets here in the Pacific Northwest have pivoted their forecasts to talk in terms probabilities and multiple, potential outcomes rather than a single, in-depth forecast to align their forecasts more closely with the probabilistic nature of forecasting as a whole while still providing easy-to-digest information to the public. So, here’s my challenge to you, my fellow Leschi News readers! Next time you hear about snow in the forecast through a weather app, weather model, or social media, see if you can find out the amount of confidence is in a potential event and what the reasonable range of outcomes are. In a city that can be crippled by an inch of snow, it’s important to be prepared for any flake that might fall! ~Charlie Phillips Charlie Phillips, a Madrona resident, received his B.S. in atmospheric sciences from the University of Washington and works in Portland as a meteorologist. Check out his weather website at to charlie.weathertogether.net .

Cello Lockwood sends her final blog from Argentina which we will reprint in two issues: February and March. Doma India: curso de caballos y la vida In the past months I have been willingly swallowed by the pampas, happily swept off grid by these wild and welcoming gauchos. The second episode of my Argentine adventure began at a prominent Gaucho event in the Congresso in Buenos Aires. I had been invited to attend by Cristobal Scarpati, who I would be studying with. I stood on my tip toes in the packed assembly, peering over traditionally dressed gauchos and gauchas to the stage where I saw Adolfo Cambiaso (the polo player) was being recognized and then Oscar Scarpati (the father of Cristo). Oscar is famous in Argentina, and beyond, for his unique approach to taming horses. The Scarpatis are not working gauchos, but they are the heart of Argentine equine tradition. Every single gaucho in this country knows their name. We spent the next day at a polo club where German filmmakers were shooting for a documentary on the Scarpatis. Oscar, Cristo, and Painé (Oscar’s second eldest son) worked with rebellious polo horses until they allowed the barefoot men to nimbly spring onto their backs and lie beneath their bellies. Even the professional polo players stopped practice to watch. On Sunday we set off on a 10-hour road trip to the Scarpati homestead in the mountains of San Luis province (a desert region in the north-west corner of Argentina). My time with the Scarpatis unfurled like soft smoke from an asado: timeless, shapeless, fluid, transformative. Life exists in a separate dimension here. The day is formulated by presence, not by time. There is no Argentine translation for “what’s the plan?” Also, difficult to communicate is “when?”, “where?”, “with who?”. A full 180 from my earlier travels, I had zero agency in what we did during the day. During the first week I alternated between deep peace and pre-panic attacks. The complete lack of structure was like walking on the moon; no matter how hard I tried to place one foot in front of the other, I kept floating away from the path I was desperate to remain on. It took me many weeks to realize that the line I was trying to follow only existed in my head. The first 9-hour family lunch brought me close to tears... The exhaustion of not being able to understand the adults (or the crying kids), combined with the effort of trying to squash the feeling that no matter how welcomed I felt, I was still an outsider. The next family lunch lasted 36 hours. (I learned that when with the Scarpatis, it is essential to keep a toothbrush in my purse.) This gathering was hosted by Oscar in his home 2 hours away from Cristo’s. His house spawns out of the desert, natural and unassuming amid the dry brush and sturdy cacti. A living museum, rusted relics of the past decades decorate every surface of the modest open-plan house. Horseshoes hang on the walls like crucifixes. It is amazing to me that humans can live in harmony with the land here, the harsh climate so unwelcoming after the soft, lush pampas of the east. I watch in awe as the kids run around unsupervised—everything poses danger to their soft flesh. Cacti with 4-inch-long prickers, tarantulas as big as my hand, rattle snakes of all sizes (a special kind that don’t have rattles). But they brandish grandpa’s old shotguns against these trivial evils and race across sand in their alpargatas. Oscar scoops up a tarantula in his hands. The kids squeal as they admire it, then he gently places it down where he found it and the game of tag continues. I pick up my feet, suddenly inspired to sit cross-legged on my bench. Later in the day the fire from our asado licks the night sky. I chew on some thick juicy carne (doing my best to ignore my true vegetarianism). Mumbles of Spanish spice the air, millions of stars sprawl above us. Except for the nano-puff jacket wrapped tightly around my chest, this moment could exist in any decade. Time isn’t linear here. Not in this place, not in this house, not in this family. Conversations don’t fade until the embers have long extinguished themselves. Still unaccustomed to the 2am bedtime, I excuse myself, gingerly picking my way among the rocks and cacti to the small structure where a bed has been laid on the floor for me. I realize I no longer feel lonely. I am beginning to feel that I belong. Despite the Argentine wine it takes me a long time to fall asleep, my ears alert for the silent movements of tarantulas and rattle-less rattlesnakes. ~Cello Lockwood