Back in Tac



I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.


As soon as we got back to Tacoma, we were back out on the town. Another first Thursday meant another Green Drinks Tacoma. This one was a sustainable Christmas gift exchange. In true Green Drinks fashion, there were no rules, guidelines or instructions beyond you could bring some things to share with people as gifts. There were a lot of nice things set out, including clothing items, art and miscellaneous household items. Ann brought a couple wedges of her cheese that she made. They were snatched up immediately.

The venue was a place called The Mother Ship back down in the south part of town. It hosts a


night market, which sounds like a combo art fair and farmers market kind of thing, a couple of times a month. It also hosts all kinds of events, from birthday parties to weddings. The proprietor was kind of busy and didn’t have any to tend bar, so she told people they could just pour themselves a glass of wine or a get a beer out of the fridge, and just leave some money in the tip jar to cover her costs.

The décor in this warehouse-like venue was fantastic. It was an eclectic mix of a ton of fun things, assembled and displayed in such a way that was artistic, and not at all messy or cluttered. It felt like a very well-appointed, cool apartment. Most places that try to pull off something like this end up feeling more like a flea market.


The next night wasn’t an environmental event, but Ann and had learned about it through a message board at work. It was the debut of a documentary about my new favorite subject: Tacoma. The movie is by “the ten.” The number ten comes from 2+5+3= the Tacoma area. What the ten does (according to its website):

Media, events, digital and print publications, and an annual artist incubator - all culminating in an annual film and a book to document the who, the what, and the where of each year.



Goals:

1. Encourage, inspire, and empower people to use their talents to encourage, inspire and empower others - a beautiful, infectious cycle!).

2. Highlight people, events, businesses, and campaigns that will cultivate a sense of pride in place.

You can get a peek at the movie here: https://youtu.be/VAqxUMiMA48.

The film was clearly made with a lot of passion and love, and we met great people at the showing. We loved the venue, a brewery/taproom called 7 Seas, https://www.7seasbrewing.com/tacoma/. It is located in the historic Heidelberg Brewery, https://heidelbergbrewing.com/. They promote themselves as being family-friendly, and it’s working for them. The place was packed, and there were a lot of young couples with babies and toddlers mixing among them. While there, we had dinner at the Canteen, a food partner co-located at the brewery. Our burgers were phenomenal.


A couple of days later we made it to the Washington History Museum, also located in downtown Tacoma. I learned a lot about local Native American history there, a refreshing departure from other history museums that too often starts when the first European shows up and builds a fort. 

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