TUESDAY, FEB. 10 2015 >>>

1. Oscar nominees for Documentary Shorts will screen at 1:45 and 6:45 p.m. at The Grand Cinema. A film of startling intimacy, the elegiac Joanna follows a mother diagnosed with terminal cancer, and focuses mostly on her conversations with her precocious 5-year-old son. The sometimes harrowing Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 spotlights the critical work being done by the counselors at the Veterans Crisis Line in Canandaigua, New York, as they attempt to provide support to veterans contemplating suicide. In the heartrendingly empathetic Our Curse, director Tomasz Sliwinski documents his and his wife's struggles caring for their infant son, who has a rare, and potentially fatal, breathing disorder. Christian Jenson's White Earth chronicles life through the eyes of three children whose fathers' work in the oil fields of North Dakota. And Gabriel Serra Arguello's The Reaper (La Parka) follows a worker at a Mexican slaughterhouse.

2. The W.W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory says the flowers are blooming; the birds are chirping; more and more frequently the sun peeks through the glass dome. So, the Conservatory will open "CRAVE: An Early Glimpse of Spring" at 10 a.m. with featured flowers azaleas, cyclamen, tulips, clivia, cymbidium orchids, assorted species of winter blooming orchids, vireyas (sub-tropical rhododendrons) and oxalis (purple shamrocks).

3. Commencement Bay Haiku will meet at 6 p.m. in King's Books to read haiku or one page of haibun (prose with haiku), as well as discuss various aspects of haiku, haibun, or haiga (a painting, sketch or photo with haiku). It's not easy to convert the innards of your soul into scrawled words on paper and then wax rhapsodic as judging eyes stare at you. You have our permission to use this haiku at King's: "At the tractor pull / We shared super nachos, Coors / Belched each others' names."

4. In appreciation of these 10 years that the Slavonian-American Benevolent Society has opened their lovely hall for the Classical Tuesdays in Old Town Tacoma concerts, the 6 p.m. concert will featuring music of the Croatian and the Balkan regions. Clare Petrich, owner of Petrich Marine Dock in Tacoma, will lead the night off with a presentation "From Old Town, Dalmatia to Old Town, Tacoma ... And Back Again: An Ancestral Journey to Croatia." At 7 p.m., the female a cappella group Dunava will be followed by Dave & the Dalmatians band.

5. Moby Grape was one of the most versatile San Francisco rock bands to emerge out of the summer of love. Sadly, through a combination of inner turmoil and bad management decisions, the mighty Moby Grape broke up in 1969. However, their debut album is still considered one of the best of all time by many critics, in part because of the nimble fingers of guitarist Jerry Miller. Miller was named one of the top 100 guitarists of all time by Rolling Stone above Eddie Van Halen, Johnny Winter and Randy Rhoads. The Tacoma native has enjoyed a rich career sharing the stage with countless musicians including members of the Doobie Brothers and Carlos Santana. Miller hosts an open jam at 7 p.m. in Dave's of Milton.