The fleece is coming off. Sunday is forecast to push 78–80°F, the warmest weekend of the year so far, and Seattle is going to react like a city that has never seen this happen before. People will wear shorts in the morning and regret it by 4pm. Strangers will smile at each other on sidewalks. There will be a 90-minute wait at every restaurant with a patio. This is who we are.

It is also a stacked civic weekend. The 40th Windermere Cup and Opening Day of Boating Season hit the Montlake Cut Saturday, the Mariners retire Randy Johnson's #51 at T-Mobile Park the same afternoon, and Friday morning starts with the May Day march launching from Cal Anderson. If you are trying to do all three you are going to need a plan and probably a bicycle.

One housekeeping note. The May Day march is rallying with explicit demands aimed at Mayor Wilson over the downtown surveillance cameras the city already reversed itself on once, plus Governor Ferguson over DOL data sharing with CBP. If the cameras and ICE coordination feel like a recurring Drizzle theme, that is because they keep being one.

Opening Day of Boating Season + 40th Windermere Cup | Saturday
The cannon goes at noon. The Montlake Bridge raises. A flotilla of decorated yachts, rowboats, tugboats, and Coast Guard cutters parades through the Cut while families picnic on both shores eating supermarket fried chicken. Before that, starting at 10:15am, Husky Rowing takes on the British men and women's national teams, the Canadian women's national team, and Northeastern men in the 40th edition of the Windermere Cup. This is one of the four or five days a year Seattle is unironically the prettiest city in America. Get there by 9:30am or you will not find shoreline. The Cut closes to boat traffic at 9:30am sharp.

Mariners vs. Royals + Randy Johnson #51 Retirement Fri 6:40 / Sat 6:40 / Sun 1:10 The Mariners are an exact .500 club through 32 games (16-16) and finally back home after a 5-1 road trip. The bigger story is Saturday: the Mariners retire The Big Unit's #51, the second number retirement in two years after Ichiro got his last summer. Saturday is going to be loud. Sunday is the family game with the roof open and Sunday Steelheads jerseys. Tickets start at $12.

May Day March | Cal Anderson Park | Friday, noon
National day of action. Rally at Cal Anderson at noon, march through downtown after. Demands include shutting off the city's surveillance cameras (a story that already required Mayor Wilson to walk back her position once), getting WSIB to divest from GEO Group, and stopping DOL data sharing with CBP. Capitol Hill Seattle is reporting larger crowds than usual because it falls on a Friday this year. SEIU 775, MLK Labor, Casa Latina, Starbucks Workers United, and a dozen other coalitions are coordinating. Bring water. The route is two-plus miles in 70°F sun.

Cinco de Mayo at El Centro de la Raza Saturday 11am-3:45pm
Beacon Hill's annual community Cinco celebration. Mexican food, live music until 5pm, ballet folklórico, kids' programming, and a craft fair packed into the plaza outside the old Beacon Hill School. This is the actual Cinco de Mayo, not a tequila brand promotion at a bar in Pike Place.

Charlie Puth at WaMu Theater | Sunday, 7pm
"Attention" is fifteen years old now and somehow still on the radio. Sunday night arena pop after a sunny day has its own logic.

José González at Showbox SoDo | Friday, 8pm
Folksy, hushed, intimate. The Swedish-Argentine fingerpicker behind every reflective scene in your favorite 2010s indie film soundtrack. Abby Sage opens. The exact opposite of a stadium show, the exact correct way to spend a Friday night before a 70-degree weekend you actually want to be functional for.

Jesus Christ Superstar at the 5th Avenue Theatre | Opens Saturday
Saturday night is opening night for the 5th Avenue's homegrown production of the 1971 Webber–Rice rock opera. Not a touring company, the 5th Avenue's own. The whole thing rises and falls on whoever they cast as Jesus and Judas, and the 5th Avenue does not usually whiff on vocals. Two weeks of run after this if you'd rather wait out opening-night premium pricing.

Waxahatchee with MJ Lenderman + Brennan Wedl at the Paramount | Sunday, 7:30pm This is a stacked indie bill on what is going to be the warmest day of the year. Katie Crutchfield's been on an unbroken hot streak since Saint Cloud. MJ Lenderman is the most quietly canonized songwriter of his generation. Brennan Wedl is a Seattle local who's earned the slot. If you can only do one show all weekend, this is probably it.

OPENING: Aslan Brewing Co. – Seward Park
Aslan's third Seattle location took over a shuttered Zeek's at 4920 S. Genesee. Round pies with Detroit-style toppings, including a Tie Dye Rubirosa knockoff and "the Bianco" with garlic olive oil and hot honey. Family-friendly, all-ages, beer's solid. One note: Aslan calls it "Seward Park" but it's a brisk half-hour walk from the actual park. Don't promise your kid a swing set.

OPENING: Alley Cat Lounge – Capitol Hill
Tucked behind Kai's Thai Street Food on Broadway: walk through the dining room, past the bathrooms, down a hallway, behind a curtain. Candlelit speakeasy with chandeliers, four versions of a martini, a hot honey old fashioned, a coconut fat-washed negroni, and a pad thai burrito on the food menu. Exactly the kind of place that should not exist and somehow does.

OPENING: 70 & Sunny Coffee Co. – Pier 70
A pink and yellow walk-up window down on the waterfront at Pier 70. Marionberry mocha cold brew, salted brown sugar latte, plus the standards. The waterfront has needed a caffeine option that is not a hotel lobby for years. Park, get coffee, walk Myrtle Edwards. The whole afternoon writes itself.

Opening Day shoreline picnic | Montlake Cut | Saturday
The whole point. Bring a blanket, supermarket fried chicken, a coozie. Both shores are free, first-come, first-blanket-down.

First Friday Art Walks | Citywide | Friday evening
Pioneer Square, Capitol Hill, Ballard, and Georgetown are all running their First Friday gallery walks. Free, walkable, weather is finally cooperating. Pioneer Square has the densest cluster.

Weber Smokey Joe Premium 14"
It's the first weekend of the year you can credibly grill outside without lying to yourself. The Smokey Joe is around $70, lives in a closet ten months a year, fits in a trunk, and turns any park bench, friend's deck, or back patio into a cookout. Charcoal only, which is a feature.

Pickleball Set (Two Paddles + Balls)
Cal Anderson is currently the site of an ongoing pickleball-versus-tennis turf war, which means there's no better moment to commit to a side. Recess makes the rare pickleball setup that doesn't look like it came out of a 1997 retirement community closet. Decent paddles, two balls, carry sleeve. Buy it, take it to Cal Anderson Sunday, and pick a fight on principle.

That's the weekend. Saturday is going to be one of those days where you bump into four people you know between Montlake and the ferry terminal, and Sunday is going to be the day everyone you love texts you "want to do something outside?" within forty minutes of each other. Say yes to one of them. The rest can wait.

If you're heading to Opening Day, be honest with yourself about how early you need to leave. If you're going to the Mariners game Saturday, sit down at 6:30 sharp because the #51 ceremony is going to be quick and emotional. If you're marching Friday, hydrate beforehand. And if you're doing none of it and just want to go to Discovery Park and lie in the grass for six hours, that's also a complete sentence.

A reminder, too: this is the kind of weekend that turns into core memory weather. You'll tell people about Sunday in 2026 the way Seattleites tell people about specific snow days. Take the picture. Wear the shorts. Eat the food.

If The Drizzle made your Friday tolerable, send it to the friend who keeps asking you what's going on this weekend so you don't have to explain it twice.

We're back Monday with the Weekly. Until then, enjoy the heat. We earned it.

— The Drizzle