Happy Monday to you, all around the world!

Welcome to the new week! Looking around the island….

• Wonder what you’re eating? Here’s a good place to start – here’s more from Rob:

Monday, October 17th at 7:00pm at the Library!
The Conscientious Projector presents
The World According to Monsanto
Join host Rob Simpson as we watch the documentary The World According to Monsanto, directed by Marie-Monique Robin, which investigates the practices of the Monsanto, the producer of “Roundup” & Genetically Modified Seeds.

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• Everyone on the island knows Tracy James from her amazing shows at the Community Theatre and her work at the bank…she’s lived in Paris, France for the past few years and just got married last month to John Petty – congratulations, Tracy!

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• Julie Andrews was in Gig Harbor over the weekend to receive an award for her late husband, and mentioned they liked coming to the San Juans, which she referred to as “God’s Country.” Here’s more.

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Here’s a poem by Wesley Minchin:

Amber Glow

Red and yellow painted leaves
hang idly within the trees
They break and sail along the breeze
As fires of Autumn’s time

They dance and surf upon the ground
Overlap each other with ruffling sound
A setting I am glad I found
As fires of Autumn’s time

Like fires of the Autumn season
they leap and dance without a reason
A factor of Autumns many seasons
As fires of Autumn’s time’

The grey clouds break, the sun appears
The dancing leaves appear to sere
These flames its kept for many years
As fires of Autumn’s time

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• Prep corner: The girls soccer team kept it close on Saturday, but Meridian made a goal margin stand up in their 1-0 victory over the Wolverines at Meridian. Meanwhile, people who came early for the Homecoming football game Friday night saw the JV football team win in the last couple of minutes.

At Saturday’s sunny district tournament, FHHS tennis saw our #1 doubles team of Parker Satin & Hayden Place deliver the goods, cruising to first place. Our # 2 doubles team of Ryan Cole & Sean Hills nearly picked off Coupleville, then won its second match to become the first alternates to the tri-district next week. Meanwhile, our #1 singles player, Swiss exchange student Sandro Meyer, placed second while our #2 singles player Shaughn Anderson placed fourth. This means that Parker & Hayden play Tuesday at the Amy Yee Tennis Center in Seattle in the Tri-District Tourney, with Sandro playing a match before Tuesday sometime to see if he goes to Tri-District as well. Tri-District winners go to the state tournament in six months, when the state playoffs start in May. Good luck guys!

Meanwhile, here’s a quick look of the varsity football team being greeted after halftime by the cheerleaders and fans, to the tune of the FHHS fight song. The team had a tough time with visiting Nooksack Valley, as the nearly-top-ranked Pioneers prevailed 48-7…

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The thing I kept hearing from folks on Saturday evening in town in response to the occupy actions both in the evening & earlier in the day was, “What’s it all about?”

Here’s a succinct essayby Josh Brown for Public Radio’s Marketplace called “Dear Wall Street – this is why people are angry.” Clear, easy to understand, and even more clear the discussion has just begun.

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• Gotta keep talking about it, gotta deal with it: When the world hits seven billion people later this month, it’s more than a number. Already stretched resources continue to take a hit…here’s more from the mainstream press.

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• It was a beautiful evening at the Islands Museum of Art (IMA) as hundreds of friends came by for the opening of Ann Walbert‘s work. She was well-known to many islanders before her death in late August (here’s the writeup of her passing) because of her incredible talent, but even more because of her generous spirit, wry wit, and amazing energy. One measure of how much she touched the folks of the island was the number of people who came to the opening of an exhibit of her work at the IMA Saturday night.

Besides her amazing work, the exhibit includes her sketchbooks & notes, which feel like a glimpse into her process, and her heart. Sometime in the next month I hope you get a chance to drop by & see what she’s left us – it’s a rare opportunity to see her work all in one place.

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Categories: Around Here