Category Archives: Life on the Hill

“I want them to be able to say more to me than ni hao

The Seattle Times has a lovely feature today on Beacon Hill’s Dolores Veliz. Veliz realized several years ago that she was unable to chat with many of her neighbors because they didn’t speak English well. Instead of merely wishing things could be different, she took action to demolish the language barrier directly by offering free English lessons. In three years, she’s taught about 500 students, aged 5-75, and made about 500 new friends.

It’s melting!

Photo by Bridget C.
Photo by Bridget C.
We are emerging from our snowed-in kitchen full of Christmas cookies and leftover food, to find that, for the first time in a couple of weeks, we can actually see our lawn again. There hasn’t been too much to post about for the last couple of days; “the streets are still slick, drive carefully” and “UPS still hasn’t brought our Christmas presents” seem to be the most common topics around here.

Now that we are able to leave the Hill without fearing for our lives on icy roads, however, it seems like a good time to look back at the last couple of weeks and talk about how it went. What did you think of the city’s handling of the snow and ice? How about Metro? Did you have to make extreme changes to your holiday plans? Did you enjoy the snow? Did you hate it? Tell us what you think, please.
Continue reading It’s melting!

Neighborliness and snowstorms

Yesterday we were keeping warm and enjoying the snow. I was working on pulling together some things to post on the blog, and getting ready to go out and take some photographs and see what people were up to in the snow.

Then we got a phone call from our friend Kristen, telling us she was worried about her cat. I went to Kristen’s and saw that her 7 month old kitten Julius was indeed very ill, and needed to visit a vet immediately.

But there were 11 inches of snow outside, and none of us had chains, snow tires, four wheel drive, or anything else that would be helpful for driving to a vet. Additionally, there are no emergency vets in Southeast Seattle. We would have to go to West Seattle, Wallingford, Bellevue, or Lake City. I guess you can’t call 911 and get an ambulance for a cat, can you?

So we turned to the Internet. We posted on Twitter: “Trying to find emergency vet transportation for someone, to Wallingford from Beacon Hill. Sick kitten who needs a vet, and we have no chains”. We also posted an appeal on the Beacon Hill mailing list.

And soon someone did reply. I don’t know if he would want us to mention his name for this, so I won’t, but a kind Beacon Hill neighbor drove Kristen and Jason up to the emergency vet, and waited there with them until they were able to see the vet and then come home.

It is nice to know, that despite some of the neighborhood problems, that people are still neighborly and help each other out. Thank you to the neighbor who helped save Kristen’s cat.

(The kitten turned out to have an intestinal blockage. He had surgery last night and apparently the blockage was caused by eating part of a cat toy — one of those small fur-covered little mice. The surgery went well and Julius is resting now.)

Holiday lights: 16th Avenue South

Holiday lights look so much prettier in the snow, don’t they? Here’s a cute little bungalow blanketed in snow and lights, on 16th Avenue South near the library. (Know of more? Email us. If you’ve taken photos you want us to feature, email them, or add them to the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr.

The lights are pretty through the snow!
The lights are pretty through the snow!

Here’s a map of all the houses we’ve posted about so far (now marked with little green trees). Scroll or zoom out on the map to see the other houses:


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Snowy smile on the Hill

Snowman on 17th Avenue South. Photo by Wendi.
Snowman on 17th Avenue South. Photo by Wendi.

How did your snowy Sunday go? We are getting sick, so it was less fun than I would have liked, but we did manage to get this picture of a very cheerful snowman just before it got dark outside.

We had to drive to Walgreens to get a prescription, which reminded me of how nice it would be if we had a drugstore up here on top of the hill. The arterials weren’t bad when we were out, but I can see how frustrating it would have been if we were iced in.

More holiday lights: 11th Avenue South

As recommended earlier by a commenter named Steve, we visited the 4500 block of 11th Avenue South and found this cheerful house with a rotating Christmas tree! It’s hard to get a good picture because there are trees in front of the house, but we did our best. Know of other houses for us to look at? Email us or post in the comments here.

As before, here’s a map. You can scroll around or zoom the map to see all of the houses we’ve featured so far:


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Holiday lights: South Columbian Way

We found more lights tonight. This cheerful house is on the 1700 block of South Columbian Way. (Know of others? Please tell us. We’ve gotten a couple of tips about light displays so far and were able to go out and photograph them. You’ll be seeing more photos soon.)


Here’s a map of the sites we’ve found so far (click on the map and scroll around or zoom out to see the other locations):


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Holiday lights: Beacon Avenue South, again

Here’s another house cheerfully decorated for Christmas. This one caught my eye with its Virgin Mary with a shining neon blue halo. It’s in the 8000 block of Beacon Avenue South. (Know of more brightly-lit houses? Please tell us.)

I love that you can see their Christmas tree, too. So many of the houses I looked at had the blinds resolutely closed despite the cheerful Christmas lights outside.
I love that you can see their Christmas tree, too. So many of the houses I looked at had the blinds resolutely closed despite the cheerful Christmas lights outside.
Santa surfing the south slope of Beacon Hill.
Santa surfing the south slope of Beacon Hill.

Here’s a map showing this house’s location. If you click on the map and scroll around, or zoom out, you can see all of the houses we’ve featured so far:


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More holiday lights: Beacon Avenue South

Here’s another house with some holiday lights, in the 5400 block of Beacon Avenue South. Know of any decorated houses? Email us so we can feature them here!

I think they need more lights on the upper part of the house. Imagine this house with lights around the roofline.
I think they need more lights on the upper part of the house. Imagine this house with lights around the roofline.

And here’s the updated version of our map of decorated houses. Scroll up and you’ll see the location of yesterday’s house:


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