Did you know that you could enjoy a session of yoga OUTSIDE every Friday morning this summer at Ravenna Third Place Books? Weather permitting, of course.

We sent to a session ourselves, and did a little email interview with yoga instructor and bookseller Annie Price to learn more.

Yours truly, Denny and Liz moving through Cat and Cow

Ravenna Blog: Yoga on the Patio at Ravenna Third Place Books.  I didn’t see that coming.  How did the idea come about?

Annie Price: Well, we have this great patio space at the store and a while back we were having a meeting about how to better use it this summer. We talked about hosting events out there, having clubs use the space, etc… We really want people in the community to feel they can use our patio to hang out, and be in their “Third Place,” so I thought a yoga class would be great. I have also been looking for a good space for an outdoor practice this summer. (Coincidentally, I am a yoga teacher.) The store’s needs and mine met up and it worked.

RB: The Lake Forest Park location does seem to have the edge where “Third Place” SPACE is concerned.  How has the outdoor practice experience been for you so far?

AP: It’s been great. It’s a small group so far, but a beautiful space. In fact, depending on interest, I am hoping to add Wednesday mornings as well. We’ll see.

RB: Tell us a bit about your yogic education.  Hatha?  Ashtanga?  Childhood friend ofRodney Yee?

AP: I’ve always practiced. In high school our math teacher, Mr. Cornell, lead classes at lunchtime in the wrestling room. I was one of the four people that would show up. I’ve always been teaching, too. My first memory of teaching yoga was after French class in middle school. I got everyone down on the floor in a twist… Aside from the constant giggling, I think we were pretty good.

My formal teaching education began about five years ago in the neighborhood. I took from Richard Schachtel at the Center for Yoga on 65th. He is great. He threw me into teaching classes the second week of my training. He is an exceedingly knowledgeable Iyengar practitioner and has been teaching for longer than I’ve been alive. Iyengar is great. No coddling, no nonsense, no woo woo stuff. Just good alignment and a good practice.

Since then I’ve broadened my style of teaching to include other lineages. I’ve taken trainings from Shiva Rea here in Seattle, in San Francisco and in India. The yoga I teach now is a mix of what I’ve learned from my teachers, from my friends and from my students.

RB: India!  The source.  How do you feel the visit affected your practice the most?

AP: Indirectly I am sure it has. But my impressions from my trip were mostly just a traveler’s impressions, rather than a teacher’s. It’s a wonderful place to meditate, away from all the distractions of modern life (no worries about the cell phone ringing or that awful high pitched almost inaudible sound electronics make that you get so used to you barely even notice). And people there are very, very nice. It’s a wonderful place to surrender ego and expectations (which is a huge part of the practice of yoga).

RB: Favorite pose?  I’m a big Savasana fan, myself.  Feels so good after all that work.

In balance

AP: Some of my students laugh at me when I say “This is my favorite pose right now” because I say it about everything. For myself my favorite pose right this second is coming from a seat to Urdva Danurasana (wheel) because I just figured out how to reach back instead of coming from the floor. It’s so rewarding when something you’ve been not quite getting for years finally just… works. Because of that my favorites are the “hard” poses. My favorite pose to teach is a headstand for that same feeling. People will be frustrated as hell with it for months and then one day it is just.. AHA! and you’re up.

RB: You do work at the bookstore, so I feel obliged to ask a book question:  How about a personalized staff pick, for our readers.  What could you recommend from the stacks these days?

AP: Everyone who has been willing to listen to me in the last six months has left the store with a copy of Aimee Bender’s “The Third Elevator.” It’s a great fable written by one of my favorite authors. In it a swan and a bluebird fall in love and have an egg that hatches a little blue cloud. And a logger who loves trees tries to find better things to chop down… It’s just great. And tiny. A carry in your pocket and give away type story.

RB: And I just read in the Ravenna Third Place twitter feed that the one hundredth copy of “The Third Elevator” went out the door today, in no small part due to your prosthelytizing. Congratulations to you and Ms. Bender.

Anything else you’d like readers to know about Yoga on the Patio?

AP: Yoga is a hugely rewarding art to share and I love to have it available affordably outside of a studio setting, which is why I am donating my time and experience to lead these outdoor practices; however, the realities of rent and groceries can’t be ignored, so I would welcome a 5$ donation per practice.

____________________

Annie Price is a bookseller at Ravenna Third Place Books, and teaches yoga at Sutra Yoga Center in Wallingford, Epicenter Fitness downtown, the Patio at Ravenna Third Place Books and soon on the Lawn at Green Lake.

Yoga on the Patio at Ravenna Third Place is happening on Fridays from 7-7:50am through the summer, weather permitting.  No experience necessary.  Donations thankfully accepted.  Bring a yoga mat if you have one (she’s got loaners, too), and a sweatshirt: Mornings can be chilly!

Another (hopefully) regular weekly post for you: Things to do in Ravenna (or close to) on the weekends.  And we’ll throw in a forecast, too.

Saturday options (AM clouds, PM sun; high of 72!):

• University District Farmers Market, 9am-2pm; University Heights Community Center parking lot, University Way and NE 50th Street
• Family Story Time at the Northeast Branch of the Seattle Public Library, 10:30-11am
• Wine tasting at McCarthy & Schiering, 11am-5pm; 6500 Ravenna Ave NE; Darioush Napa Valley Wines (Darioush Khaledi in the Ravenna shop from 11:30am-2pm)
• Kids’ Story Time (with Mrs. Wigglesworth) at Ravenna Third Place Books, 11-11:30am; 6504 20th Avenue NE
• Paper Airplanes! at the Northeast Branch of the Seattle Public Library, 2-4pm; Museum of Flight representatives lead hands-on activities; ages 6 and up
• Drink Manny’s at Ravenna Alehouse and fight Crohn’s disease and colitis, 5pm-close; 2258 NE 65th Street, 21 and over

Sunday options (partly cloudy; high of 73!):

• Meadowbrook Farmers Market, 11am-3pm; Seattle Waldorf School campus, 2728 NE 100th Street

Saturday AND Sunday:

• Ravenna Third Place Books is having one of their big ol’ 40% Off All Used Books Sales this weekend. B.Y.O.Wheelbarrow, note the flyers.

The forecasts are via weather.com, for the 98115.

If you have never seen or heard of the phenomenon called Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel, you can just stop reading this right now.

Phil Harris, captain of the F/V Cornelia Marie (and the poster boy for how to look sexy in a mullet), will be at the University Village QFC TODAY from 4-7pm.

If you miss him then, you have plenty of opportunities to try again.

Support your local small business owners!  It’s good for them, good for the community, and it gets you away from those Dow Jones tickers that seem to be popping up on every local news broadcast.

Don’t know where those small business and their owners happen to be?  Then you should attend this year’s Shop Local Seattle, held at the Ravenna-Eckstein Community Center this Saturday from noon until 3 pm.  Heck, you should attend even if you do.

There’s even a raffle!  We loves a good raffle.  One free ticket at the door, $1 for additional tickets.  Proceeds go to the Literacy for a Lifetime, a program dedicted to giving books to sick kids at Seattle Children’s.

The list of vendors at this year’s event is here, and it’s impressively long, I would say.

An article by NWsource shopping columnist Alison Brownrigg about this year’s event is here.

Thanks to Chris D. for poking me in the inbox.

Autumn is upon us.  Nevermind that it’s supposed to be 80 degrees today, or something.  The trees are turning, there’s lots of football on TV, school is in session; thus, autumn.

Walked to Third Place Books yesterday, after a bit of a hiatus from doing so.  Good timing on my part, as the mural on the outside of the building facing 20th had just started undergoing its extreme makeover:

Much more is gone today.  Two large holes are now visible.  Too bad about the mural, but the windows will be sweeeet.

Nana’s Soup House has left its longtime home on 55th and 35th and will soon reopen in Fremont, across from the Taco Guaymas.

The move was first reported by the My Ballard Blog Group back in mid-August.  Reader Chris D. reminded me of the loss, hence the post.

We’ll let you know when the new location has opened.  And then it’s all aboard Route 30!  Next stop: Delicious.

So, we’ve been in the neighborhood since November.  And I have to say, I love the signs that The Herbalist puts up.

Case in point:

You can check out the Detox-It Kit here.

Da Pino Italian Cafe is now open at 65th and 22nd.  We went there last weekend for lunch and forgot to tell you.  Our apologies.

We will further admit at this point that the last charcuterie we lived next to was Salumi, and a finer cured meat we have yet to eat.  But the Da Pino salami in our sandwich was right up there in tastiness.

The specials board that day included a few dishes with wild boar that we will definitely be going back for — how often do you get a chance to eat wild boar?! — and we have yet to try the pasta.

But nothing says autumn like boar meat and carbo-loading for the winter, eh?

[The internets tell me that's Greek for a very polite hello.]

Honey Bear leaves Third Place after this Friday, and Cafe Vios opens Thanksgiving-ish.  NWsource has a little write-up about the eatery switcheroo here, including more info about the arrangement of the cafe and the books (we can still get our coffee and pastry fix, meet with our book group AND have a sit-down dinner).

Vios Cafe already exists on Capitol Hill.  We have not been, but the Stranger has, the Seattle Weekly has, Seattlest plus kids have, and Yelp has quite a few reviews of the place.  To sum up: Great food that some find a bit pricey.

We’ll reserve judgement until we’ve purchased and nibble for ourselves, but for now we’ll be reading the backstory on owner Thomas Soukakos, his son Alexander, and his wife’s losing battle with postpartum depression.

This article, published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer back in 2003, chronicles 10 months of visits with the Soukakos family starting a couple months after Carol Soukakos took her life.  It is utterly heartbreaking — a love found, a child born, a mother lost, a family wounded — and ends before we really get a feel for Thomas’ and Alexander’s future.

This article from 2006, again from the P-I, catches us up on the little family as well as Thomas’ work here in Washington state on postpartum depression awareness.  The restaurant reviews above will catch you up on the eatery side of things (Carol and Thomas worked together at his first Seattle restaurant, El Greco; he sold the restaurant after her death and later started the Vios Cafe).

Vios means “life.”  And by all accounts, Alexander’s father celebrates it full force in his Capitol Hill location.  And soon, again here in Ravenna.

Sorry, Honey Bear, but I can’t wait until Thanksgiving.

The Ravenna Third Place Books shelving arrangement redesign is still taking shape.  Here’s a shot from about halfway to the cafe, looking back toward the door:

Among the changes I noticed during a brief walkthrough this afternoon:

• The cashier’s counter has been moved to just inside the door on the right (if you’re walking in).
• The craft and food section is no longer in a easy-to-walk-by-and-browse-through friendly aisle.
• For those more geographically-inclined, many shelves that were situated north-south are now east-west (lots of this to the right of where this picture was taken).
• The browse-friendly, wide-aisled U-shaped path (front door to cafe to magazines to kids’ section) is REALLY cramped now over by where philosophy used to be.

It’s still very much a work in progress, clearly: Books and pieces of shelves are everywhere.  The Ravenna TPB website says that the buy counter will be open again on Monday.  If that means that everything is back on a shelf and the store is shipshape again, we’ll eat our copy of A Cat in the Hat.