Village Green/Town²

  I walked in the room and noticed a napkin on the desk. I was just about to put it in the wastebasket. I stopped. Something about this particular napkin spoke to me. It bore a message: REMEMBER. Remember what? It reminded me of the time I found that I had written a question mark on a particular day in my calendar but had no recollection of why.  Why??? I never did figure it out. If you found a message that merely said “remember” what would it bring to mind? This feels woefully open-ended to me. The laundry? To buy milk? The phone bill? On the other hand, wouldn’t it be a great clue in a murder mystery - - a puzzling piece of evidence that eventually became the key component in the solution. A slightly rumpled napkin, a smudge of chocolate, perhaps? Would they need to analyze the handwriting? REMEMBER Imagine our ill-fated victim becoming increasingly distressed as a series of napkins appear around his home bearing the ominous message… Yes, I did eventually find out the sig...

You’re invited.  So are your hocolocal friends, neighbors, and coworkers.  All are welcome. The PATH Early Voting Action event is tonight. The theme is: Our Votes, Our Power, Our Values WHO: Howard County residents from across faith, race, socioeconomic                         background, language, and geography Candidates for office. Currently confirmed: County Executive: Vanessa Atterbeary, Bob Cockey, Deb Jung, Liz Walsh County Council: Cat Carter,Linfeng Chen, Kevin Chin, Janssen Evelyn, Arinze Ifekauche, Amir Naviwala, Jessica Nichols, Felita Phillips, Christiana Rigby, Jean Xu Board of Education: Mark Covington, Linda Frascarella, Lanlan Xu State Delegate: Amy Brooks, Pam Guzzone, Abdun Matin, Gabriel Moreno WHEN: Thursday, June 11, 2026 6:00–6:30 pm, followed by voting WHERE: Parking lot of St. John Baptist Church  9055 Tamar Dr, Columbia, MD WHY: to promote voter turnout, educate residents o...

    I have an inordinate fondness for discovering what people think about Columbia/HoCo when I’m on Bluesky. (Same for Twitter, back in the day.) I think it’s good to see things through the eyes of folks with a different perspective. True, it’s not always flattering. But I usually learn something. And sometimes the takes are amusing. Here are a few recent ones: Q: What is the least culturally powerful city where people do the "you're not a real [local]" thing, because New York is very very far from the only one. A: Columbia MD, where all directions are given in terms of a business that closed 30 years ago. ***** The culture of Maryland is a married couple consisting of a doctor who works at a hospital in Baltimore and a lawyer who works in DC, who have 2-3 kids who pass down the same Volvo with each of their college stickers on the rear window, live in Columbia, and shop at Total Wine religiously. ***** [It] depends a lot on where you are in the state. Like, in Howard Co...

  Ready? Let’s get started. Grab a tote bag. You will need: Black light Magnet Tape measure Curious? Then you should take a look at this piece about thrifting tips before you head out to any yard sales this weekend. Why the owners of Twin Thrift Vintage bring a magnet and black light to every yard sale , Megan Knight, WMAR-2 News What I learned from reading this piece is that I am not looking for the same things at yard sales as the owners of Twin Thrift Vintage. No surprise there. Ali and Jordan Virden are professionals. As dealers, they are looking for high quality items to resell. I mostly go to yard sales for fun these days - - without any particular goal in mind. If I spend more than five dollars it’s a big day. When I was teaching I was primarily looking for children’s books and items that could be used in learning activities and dramatic play. Too bad a black light won’t automatically tell you if things like that have been stored in moldy conditions or spent years in rooms f...

  For reasons unknown to me, June 8th is Name Your Poison Day. While making the rounds of the usual “did you know about this holiday?” websites I discovered that no one seems to know the actual origin of the day. That’s odd. How do we know it’s really a holiday if no one can document its origins? Perhaps it’s even a hoax. How would we know? The poison du jour is AI, which is making it harder and harder to do online research or to tell truth from fiction. Examples: Facebook is now flooding my feed with accounts and posts from “Howard County” and “Columbia” but from other states entirely. When I search YouTube for current local stories these days, I routinely get substantial amounts of unrelated junk - - even if I put my search term in quotes.  My realtor’s newsletter just recommended this house to me. See the problem? What AI has meant in my daily life is less accuracy, more difficulty finding what I’m looking for, and an overall degradation in the quality of information. (See ...

  I always seem to be in my car at mealtime these days. These past few months have been an exercise in trying not to eat the worst sort of food while driving either to or from during lunch and/or dinner. I know it’s not good for me but often I don’t have the energy to do better. The one bright light in the vast wasteland of grab-and-go eating has been Bon Fresco.  Their food soothes me and calms my stomach no matter how crummy I feel. It’s slight out of my way but it is absolutely worth it. The quality of the food is excellent, the prices are fair, and the customer service is outstanding. I regret many things these days but I don’t regret one cent I’ve spent at Bon Fresco. One of the employees now recognizes me and calls me by name. I will forever be indebted to them for complimenting me on my favorite summer pants - - which are honestly on their last legs - -  on a day when I felt about one hundred years old.  My favorite menu items are the London Broil sandwich (no...