Village Green/Town²

Invitations can be exciting. As a child, the excitement of receiving a birthday party invitation was unsurpassed. As adults we become more wary of invitations. "You are a part of an exclusive group to receive this special invitation.." begins a commercial pitch that comes in the mail. Invitations to fundraisers, no matter how worthy, may be less than welcome when money and/or time is in short supply. How can we bring the excitement of a genuine invitation to the promoting Columbia's tot lots, pathways, and open space? No matter how much you believe that everyone already knows, or that they "should know"' the truth is, many don't. Some may know but are just in a rut. They may look at these things and just see "same old, same old." They may need help seeing old things in a new way. I used a photograph yesterday which combined signage with QR codes and an invitation to interact through FourSquare. How would the use of something ...

Have you seen this video? http://www.inspirecolumbia. com/creating-gathering-spaces If you haven't, take a moment now. It isn't all that long.                                                                         *** It seems to me that this video is another step in the Columbia Association's quest to get residents to ask themselves, "Are we using the Tot Lots?" It certainly is a different approach than the one several years ago, where Village Boards were asked to evaluate their Tot Lots with an eye to closing a certain percentage of them. Period. That came across like an edict from on high. This feels more like an inv...

I saw something yesterday at the Food Lion that I haven't seen since I was a little girl. I'm a little bit embarrassed at how strong a wave of excitement and nostalgia washed over me.  I called Margo over and made her look as I explained what a rare sighting this was, and what seeing it meant to me.  She was not impressed. I looked at her and realized that the time had passed when such information would be noteworthy. A little piece of me crumbled. I know it is a natural part of growing up. I don't need or want to be at the center of her universe forever. But the growing up brings about so many tiny, wispy fractures in what once was as she moves on to what she will become. Stretches and twinges, fits and starts, beginnings and ends. We can't stand still as we are. There was a time, when she was younger, when bedtime meant read-alouds and and story telling. Long after we had stopped reading three books a night, she would still invite me into her bed with the request, ...

It seems that I will have to find a different routine for the summer. Our six am wake up has shifted to seven thirty or later. I'd like to get my blog post up by 8:30 am at the latest, but it is clearly just not happening.  It's time to find a Summer schedule that works for me. Summer is the time for trying new things at our house. Today I will be attempting to make kale chips with the kale from our CSA share. Having a CSA share is new for us, too. We're splitting it up with older daughter Alice. She'll be coming over today to fancify Margo's hair with henna streaks--quite the Summer adventure. If we can keep the kale separate from the henna, all will be well. My husband treasures his summers for the time to pursue music playing and composing. All the instruments get pulled out. He watches the Orioles while practicing guitar, banjo, ukulele, harp, mandolin. Oh, and the banjolele. Did you even know there was such a thing? One year he was pract...

Halfway down the stairs is a stair where i sit. there isn't any other stair quite like it. i'm not at the bottom, i'm not at the top; so this is the stair where I always stop. Halfway up the stairs Isn't up And it isn't down. It isn't in the nursery, It isn't in town. And all sorts of funny thoughts Run round my head. It isn't really Anywhere! It's somewhere else Instead! A.A. Milne I thought of this poem as Tom Coale announced his candidacy for the House of Delegates on Tuesday night. Back when we were very young, memorizing poetry was an established childhood activity. I think this poem may have been the first one I ever committed to memory. Back to Mr. Coale. Why on earth did this poem come to mind? Well, consider this: You've seen a number of versions of this shot over the past several days, I suspect, some dark, some blurry, some much better. We all had our reasons for wanting to catch that momen...

"Success to me is having ten honeydew melons and eating only the top half of each slice." Barbra Streisand I grew up in a middle class family.  My father worked full time outside the home; my mother worked full time running our home. Actually, both put in significantly more than full time hours. Two parents, three children. One income. We owned a home in the " old suburbs " and went to good public schools. We could go to the doctor and dentist for regular check ups. There were piano lessons, dance lessons drama lessons--depending on which child. My mother worked ceaselessly to economize in order to make the money stretch for that. Some years we had a family vacation. Most years, though, we did day trips to the beach or amusement park. We didn't go out to eat very often, and if we did, it was often to Howard Johnson's, not a fancy place.  My mother scanned the weekly grocery ads, clipped coupons, made every penny count. We were not rich. My mother used to use...

It is the last day of school.  My husband is finishing his eleventh year as a teacher in the Howard County School System. I have just finished ten years teaching music and movement in the Howard County RECC Program.  Margo is finishing sixth grade, her first year in Middle School. All of us are looking forward to the rejuvenating days of Summer vacation. I don't know what we would do without the time to recharge.  For some reason, the past school year has felt incredibly long. We have been inching towards the finish line. I have worked on an academic schedule for my entire professional life.  Until recently, that meant getting an additional job for summers. Through all of Alice's childhood, I had a church job as a paid chorister year-round, as well.  Still, working on a school calendar has always meant certain seasonal rituals for me: end of the year activities, parties, farewells. I have just learned that Oakland Mills Middle School will be sayi...

Bill Santos of Columbia Compass suggests using social media to let the community know about how you are celebrating this summer, by using the hashtag #summerofneighbors.  He gives some examples; I'll share a few here: Girls night out and dancing under the people tree - #summerofneighbors Monday movie night at #lakekittamaquandi.  Mr. B is awesome #summerofneighbors Impromptu house party last night, I <3 living in #Longfellow #summerofneighbors I am intrigued by this idea. I can't wait to see how it unfolds. But when I woke up this morning, I realized that I have a problem.  My tweets would invariably look like this: Family Game night with take-out from Maiwand. #summerofneighbors Cooking up a storm with A. after picking up CSA share. #summerofneighbors Finally meeting up with the ice cream truck at Hopewell Pool. #summerofneighbors Notice anything? A complete lack of neighbors. I spend almost 100 percent of my social time with my immediate famil...

Seen on Twitter... According to the following tweets, the Harpers Choice Tuesday Morning store is closing. As of this post, it may already have closed. Have you ever been there?  We used to love noodling around there before a trip to Maiwand or Rita's. When Margo was little, it was a great source for an inexpensive toy or a stuffed animal. @ingloriousBOH: Per Tuesday Morning employees, @Kimcorealty's longstanding neglect of maintenance issues is why they...are closing. #ColumbiaMD @ingloriousBOH: Easy to believe, if you've been to @KimcoRealty's #HarpersChoice Village Center. The store has buckets all over the store to catch leaks. @ingloriousBOH: Maybe that's why stores and restaurants rarely rarely start up in west #ColumbiaMD: @KimcoRealty owns WL/HC/HR, & runs them like slum lords. I don't know much about Kimco. But I do know that the Harpers Choice Tuesday Morning has been plagued by leaks as long as I have been going there. It...

Yesterday my daughter watched five movies at school. Five.  She is a GT student in the sixth grade in Howard County. Four of the movies were educational, and they were required to do worksheets while watching them. The fifth was Chicken Run, which was shown at lunch. I have read various complaints online about how the end of the year at school amounts to "babysitting."  I have thought a lot about this. As a teacher and a parent, I wonder how it has come to be like this. Since the advent of No Child Left Behind, the pressure put on teachers to get results on high stakes standardized testing has been immense. Every year more emphasis is placed on test results, and less time is left for creative teaching. More paperwork, more data, less teaching. Teachers are belittled, interfered with, condescended to, and judged by people who know absolutely nothing about education. So, once the testing and assessments are over for the year, what's left? I would love t...

Good morning, Monday . I'm sick. I was up all night coughing and I have two days left to teach. So I'm tossing this one out to you, readers. Take a look at Frank Hecker's blog post from this weekend and see what you think. A good part of creativity comes in combining things that haven't been put together before. A Whole Foods in the Rouse Building. An Arts Village in Symphony Woods. Central Library at the Mall.  I love it.  I love the combinations that will bring new energy and new ideas to our community.  In these ideas we see not a desire to destroy, but to transform. What are some other combinations that would transform Columbia? hocoblogs@@@

I woke up this morning and my blog didn't fit. I mean, it was all tight and bunchy and it just didn't feel right. Okay, so it's been creeping up on me here and there, but I just didn't want to pay attention to it.  I mean, it's the only one I have. I don't have time to go out and get a new one. I was starting to think of myself as a lean, mean, blogging machine, and now this. I feel intellectually flabby, out of shape, lethargic. My nouns and adjectives are listless, and don't even get me started on my verbs... You take one day off and boom! there goes your focus. I'm thinking I need to get out and have more local experiences. When Alice was growing up in Baltimore, we went to: Towson at Night concerts at the courthouse Towson farmer's market Bolton Hill Festival Fireworks at the Inner Harbor Flower Mart Maryland State Fair Storytelling at the top of Baltimore's World Trade Center Honey Festival, Oregon Ridge BSO Fourth of ...

I had the opportunity to meet one of my blog readers yesterday, at Dennis' memorial service. Among the subsets of guests at yesterday's event were the local bloggers. It was like a family reunion of Hocobloggers. Dennis was our brother, our father, one of us--only bigger and better of course, because he was Dennis. And so Mr. Schwarz, referencing a post by TJ Mayotte of Rocket Powered Butterfly, said, "you have big shoes to fill." He didn't mean me, personally. He meant that we, as a blogging community, now have the responsibility to step in and take up the work Dennis has done. "I think we're going to have to tag-team it," I said. He nodded. We both knew that all of us together couldn't make up for the writing of that one, wonderful man. " Go where Dennis would go, do what Dennis would do." In the shock of losing someone who ought to have been granted so much more of life, we look at ourselves. What will we do with ...

Yesterday, at around ten forty am, I was traveling between Bollman Bridge and Running Brook and my route took me along Little Patuxent Parkway. Symphony Woods was to my right, the Mall to my left. I was thinking about the morning's big announcement, wondering if there would be any trace left of all the people who had converged on our "Town Square", if you will. I glanced to the right as I passed the old Rouse Building. Everything seemed in order. Just as I was about to turn my attention back to the road, I saw a small sign. It read, "Lakefront." This made me smile. I have often puzzled as to why so many of Columbia's beautiful vistas are hidden. I do know that many Baltimoreans hate to come here because they always get lost.  So when I saw that sign, it struck me as an acknowledgement. I imagined hordes of out-of-towners driving round and round the Mall in frustration. "They said it's at the Lakefront." "What Lakefront?...

How do you feel about politics?  There are some people who enjoy the thrill. I'm not one of them.  I have friends who do good work, aspire to do greater things, and I support them. I realize that I would have done much better if the CA Rep. position had been one I needed to apply for, like a job. I was willing to do the work. I was willing to make my case as a qualified applicant. But the politics of it? That was a whole different story. I'm not an aggressive self-promoter. I had a team of wonderful people who worked hard and pushed me to do better. I know I was a challenge to them. What do you do if you want to get the job done but you don't like politics? Write a check, maybe. Volunteer. Serve on a committee. Write a blog. This morning someone for whom I have great respect is beginning a new phase of his political career. It's a big event. But when I think of the whole thing: the carefully planned event, significant location, local electeds who w...