Author Archives: admin

Moon over QFC

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I went to a late Holiday Party last Friday and dashed into the QFC at 4101 49th Avenue Northeast
Tacoma (Brown’s Point) for a goodie to bring.They really have a great bakery. I picked the yellow cake on the bottom row, third from the left and it was as good as it looked! This appears to be the only QFC in Tacoma, with other locations including Gig Harbor and Parkland. The chain is headquartered in Bellevue, WA and has about 75 stores in the Puget Sound area. Kroger required the chain in 1998, though QFC has maintained its own identity.

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Cryogenics at Pacific Welding Supplies

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The word cryogenics gets my imagination going! Per Wikipedia, It means “the study of the production of very low temperature (below −150 °C, −238 °F or 123 K) and the behavior of materials at those temperatures“. When I hear it I think of human bodies being frozen until a cure for the disease they are dying from has been found and I think of science fiction books where the characters are frozen for a long, long space voyage.

I found an interesting article on cryogentics here http://abcnews.go.com/Health/life-ice-world-crazy-cryogenics/story?id=14167348#.TwuZh1auHTo.  The article states “And for approximately $30,000, anyone can be cryogenically frozen. Currently, there are over 200 people in a frozen state at cryonics centers in the U.S. – and some 2000 people have signed up for it.”

Cryogenics is the word printed on the large canister at Pacific Welding Supplies, 2902 S M Street, Tacoma, WA 98409. I suspect that the canister is most likely used for the gases involved with industrial welding instead of human preservation or space travel, but still its fun to consider the possibilities! The website for Pacific Welding Supplies is http://www.pacificwelding.com/

Washington State Surplus

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Washington State sells equipment that it no longer needs at their General Administration Surplus location at 7511 New Market Street, Tumwater, WA 98512.  My dear husband thinks it is great fun to go there and buy stuff for pennies on the dollar (if we need it or not). Today we bought a couple of VGA cords for me and some speakers for him. In the past he’s come home with a nice, rolling desk chair for $15 that we’ve used a great deal. Mostly they stock office furniture and equipment, but they usually have a nice selection of knives taken from people flying in commercial planes. Last time I was there, they were selling large crab traps!

http://www.ga.wa.gov/surplus/index.html

Mattress Mania

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I’ve gone past Mattress Mania at 2901 S 12th St., Tacoma, WA 98405 plenty of times, but on Wednesday I paused to consider it for a moment. The Tacoma Public Library indicates that in 1909 the site was occupied by I.E. Russell Drug Store and in 1930 by Twelfth Street Drug Co. and in 1950 by Fowler’s Twelfth Street Drug Co. The Pierce County Assessor’s Office shows that the building was constructed in 1938 and I’m unsure if the original building was demolished

Satellite Coffee on Division

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“Coffee in Tacoma that doesn’t suck” is the motto of Satellite Coffee at 817 Division Ave., Tacoma, WA 98438. I stopped in today for coffee and a cookie and they were both unusual. The coffee was French Press and really good and the chocolate chip cookie had raisins. The cookie was good to, just not what I expected. There are two Satellite Coffees and this one is located up a short flight of stairs. Inside there was some catchy music and a funky, pleasant atmosphere.

There website is here:  http://www.coffeetacoma.com/

The write up of their other location is here: http://blog.firsttries.com/?p=2237

Normanna Hall, Tacoma

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Normanna Hall at 1106 S 15th St., Tacoma, WA 98405 is another very wonderful building in Tacoma (the corner of South 15th and Martin Luther King, Jr.). The building was constructed in 1922 and Geo. Trust was the architect. The dedication was on March 19, 1923.  On August 24, 1979, the lodge celebrated 75 years in America.

The Sons of Norway, is a lodge that is dedicated to preserving Norwegian heritage and culture in the Tacoma area for over 100 years. Sons of Norway and promote Norwegian traditions and fraternal fellowship through cultural and social activities. Once a year, in October, the Norden Lodge (Sons of Norway) has its annual Lutefisk Dinner there.

The Metro Tacoma Fencing Club occupies space in the building and the Seattle Branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society has been known to kick up their heels there.

For more information about the lodge, including some photographs, check out their website at http://www.norden2.com/

North Slope Coffee House

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North Slope Coffee House by Gexydaf
North Slope Coffee House, a photo by Gexydaf on Flickr.

I needed a lime for Sweet Potato Black Bean Soup http://www.food.com/recipe/black-bean-soup-with-sweet-potatoes-174500. Stadium Thriftway was nearby so we made a quick stop and then grabbed a decaf Americano at North Slope Coffee Shop at 915 N Sheridan Ave, Tacoma, WA 98403. The Shop is at the entrance of Stadium Thriftway and today it was pretty chilly. The coffee was extra good and the service was cheerful. I remember when the coffee shop was in a slightly different location before they remodeled Stadium Thriftway.

Happy New Year at the Pythian Temple

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As we usually do, dear daughter and I celebrated New Year’s Eve at Tacoma’s First Night in Downtown Tacoma. We drove to the Dome Transit Center and caught the Link to the theater district and then we kicked up our heals! It is really a top notch event. The weather was cold, but not frigid and there was no rain (a small miracle). I ran into a bunch of folks that I knew, but dear daughter seemed to know almost everybody! She declared that her schoolmates owned the downtown domain!

The new place for the day is the Pythian Temple at 924-926 1/2 Broadway, Tacoma. The building was constructed in 1906 for the Commencement Lodge No. 7 of the Knights of the Pythias. On August 23, 1985, Pythian Temple was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The meeting room is upstairs and is amazing, with dark carved woods and lovely frescoes and a huge organ.

For more on the Temple, including some historic photos, go to here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythian_Temple_%28Tacoma,_Washington%29

This is my sixth building that was designed by Frederick Heath, architect and named after the 25th President of the United States, William McKinley. The others are:

http://blog.firsttries.com/?p=2012 Oakland School

http://blog.firsttries.com/?p=1961 Urban Grace

http://blog.firsttries.com/?p=1335 Titlow Lodge

http://blog.firsttries.com/?p=2370 Tacoma Public School’s CAB

http://blog.firsttries.com/?p=2374 McKinley School

A brisk walk at Wapato Lake Park

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It is a pretty chilly day, but pleasantly sunny. I was thinking about taking a walk and I asked dear daughter what she thought. She said no (something about a school project), but both dogs heard the W— word. Oh no! They pranced and danced and barked and whined and when I took down their leashes, the smaller dog (lLilly) grabbed the end as if to just walk herself. Well, OK then. Wapato Park has a nice, short walk around the lake. My coat was plenty warm enough, but I hadn’t counted on the breeze off the lake and wish I had brought a hat. The dogs thought it was the best walk EVER! We saw other dogs, ducks, geese, lots of crows and some kids. The park includes a covered picnic area, a bathhouse, grassy areas, playground equipment and a observation dock. Apparently the name Wapato comes from some of the native vegetation and means small potato!

The park’s website is here http://www.metroparkstacoma.org/page.php?id=285

Pierogies at the Russian Market in Tacoma

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About 16 years ago I tutored a lovely woman from Russia in English. We worked together a couple of years and while we were fairly different we really got along. Towards the end of our time together she had her 10th child and her husband left her to return to Russia.

I remember one holiday season I was given about 10 passes to zoolights. I had the brain storm that it would be fun to take my friend and her nine (at the time) kids and I would buy the tickets for me and another friend. I told her there was no cost, but because of our language differences didn’t even try to explain that somebody had given me complimentary tickets.  When we met up at Zoolights, I was surprised to find that my Russian friend had indeed brought her nine kids, as well as her folks, her sister, her sisters six kids and maybe a few more.  Ummm. I really didn’t have the funds to cover that many and they sure didn’t either. So we sent the large Russian contingency in first with all the tickets that we did have. They handed over the tickets and the poor zoo worker started counting them and counting the crowd (all of whom were jabbering away in Russian) and then the zoo worker threw up her hands and ushered everybody in! Problem solved.

All of this came back because my dear daughter informed me yesterday that she had to have pierogies for dinner. Her father had recently introduced her to pierogies and she really took to them! And apparently the pierogies at the the Russian Grocery were the very best.  The Russian Grocery Store’s real name is Friendly Foods and it is located at 3612 Center St #B in Tacoma. It is the size of a large convenience store and is stock full of foods imported from Russia. Most of the customers and workers were speaking Russian (which is what reminded me of my friend!).  I picked up three types of pierogies, though there were probably another eight types there — mostly meat, but also a black cherry. The store included a wonderful bakery case and a deli.