Washington Voices

Games Badminton – Monday-Thursday, 12:30-2:30 p.m. Spokane Valley HUB, 19619 E. Cataldo Ave. $2 per person, per session. Equipment provided. Call (509) 570-2875 or (509) 570-3354 for more information.

For the week of Dec. 31-Jan. 4. Monday – Option 1: Beef goulash with Mexicali corn, mixed vegetables, dinner roll, pears. Option 2: Chef salad, mixed vegetables, pears.

Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous – 12-step fellowship based on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous. Mondays, 7-8:30 p.m., at St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute, 711 S. Cowley St. Call (208) 265-4936 for more information. Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous – Meets Mondays, 7-8:30 p.m., Country Homes Christian Church, 8415 N. Wall St.; call Mary at (509) 443-5580.

Alexandria’s House - Volunteers are needed to tutor moms or take care of babies at Alexandria’s House, a transitional living program for pregnant and parenting teenage mothers, sponsored by Volunteers of America of Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho. For more information, call Susan Woehrlin, volunteer coordinator at (509) 489-0349, or visit www.voaspokane.org. American Cancer Society Discovery Shop - Volunteers are needed for the Discovery Shop, 805 W. Garland Ave., for help with a number of duties. For more information, call Joanne at (509) 465-1607.

With 2013 almost upon us, we’re soon going to hit the expected peak of this current solar maxima cycle. The sun is on an 11-year cycle. Since early 2012, sunspot numbers, or storms on the sun, have averaged between 60 and 80 sunspots, making this one of the smallest maxima cycles in about 100 years. On Nov. 17, there were 163 storms, yet on Dec. 7 there were a meager 23 solar storms. During the last major solar maxima in the late 1990s, we were seeing 200 to 300 sunspots per day. The Earth’s average temperature was also at its highest level in 1998.

For 12-22-2012

For 12-22-2012

Service Lions Club, Spokane Central – Meets Tuesdays at noon, Red Lion Hotel at the Park, 303 W. North River Drive; (509) 328-6900.

Miryam’s House of Transition – For women moving through life crisis; (509) 747-9222. Spokane Community College – Offers free workshops on labor market and career preparation information, including assistance with resumes and cover letters. SCC Lair Student Center, 1810 N. Greene St. For more information call (509) 533-7249 or visit www.scc.spokane.edu/ ?cces.

East Valley Middle School has announced its honor roll for the first trimester of the 2012-’13 school year. Eighth grade

The Central Valley High School Key Club held a holiday service party on Monday to assemble no-sew fleece blankets to be distributed at area homeless shelters. For three hours, 141 volunteers from the Key Club, Honor Society, Spokane Valley Kiwanis members, the East Valley High School Key Club and other students worked on the blankets. When the project was finished, there were 152 blankets for homeless children in Spokane.

When I was growing up, we had this piece of plastic mistletoe that my mother would get out every year and hang up in a doorway. The ladies always got a kiss from someone special at the annual Christmas party. It took us kids acquiring our own girl- and boyfriends to figure out what all that was about. Mistletoe’s association with love probably came from the legend of the Viking god Balder, who dreamed he was going to die. His mother, Frigga, the Norse goddess of love and beauty, went to each of the earth’s elements – fire, water, air, plants and animals – and asked them not to harm Balder. However, one of Balder’s enemies found a loophole in Frigga’s request and tricked Balder’s blind brother into killing him with an arrow made of mistletoe.

Whether private property owners should be required to allow public access to the Spokane River dominated discussion Tuesday night during the regular Millwood City Council meeting. A public closed record hearing on the city’s mandated update to the Shoreline Management Program allowed the public an opportunity to discuss the issue without introducing new information.

For the week of Dec. 24-28. Monday – Option 1: Turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, dinner roll, pumpkin crisp. Option 2: Ham, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, dinner roll, pumpkin crisp.