Village Green/Town²

I was sorry to read the news that The Casual Gourmet   in Glenwood will be closing. From the Western Howard County Shares Facebook page: This page was created to share WHC news and events with an eye towards supporting our local small businesses and farmers.  To that end, we are sorry to pass on that Casual Gourmet is closing. The owner is a WHC resident and Cattail neighbor-we wish her the best and thank her for being a source of last minutes gifts and local non-chain cafe options. In the meantime, merchandise is 30% off. Now, Glenwood is not really my neck of the woods but I have indeed visited the Casual Gourmet several times, both on my own and with my family. It was a lovely little place to have a tasty lunch or cup of coffee, and a fun gift shop for “noodling around”in. Perhaps there was too much noodling and not enough actual shopping to keep the place afloat. I do know that the businesses in those shopping centers are hampered by inadequate septic capability....

(Photo credit Kristen Carrasco) He’s back. Santa, that is. I’ve only had two entries to my caption contest. Perhaps I should actually announce a prize on the off-chance that winning something might be a motivator. So, here goes: Winner of the caption contest will receive a 25 dollar gift certificate to the Second Chance Saloon in Oakland Mills .   Deadline to enter is January 5th at midnight. Entries will be judged by me. I’ll probably read them all to my family. All entries will be published in a future blog post for your enjoyment. Submit your entry here: https://www.facebook.com/VillageGreenTownSquared/?ref=bookmarks There’s plenty to unpack in this photo. There’s the gentleman at the far left, then Santa, of course, and the group far right. Not to mention the setting and the signage. Get creative! Could we be seeing a crime scene unfolding? A flashmob gone wrong?  To get your imagination going, here are the two entries I’ve received so far...

Someone told me it’s all happening at the park. I do believe it, I do believe it’s true.. . ( with apologies to Paul Simon ) I received a letter from Nina Basu of the Inner Arbor Trust reminding me of everything that’s happened at Merriweather Park in Symphony Woods this year. It’s an impressive list for Year One.  This is what the folks at the Inner Arbor Trust have given to the community in 2017: Hosted the Columbia Orchestra for a  free, family-friendly pops concert ; Partnered with Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks to host a  four concert series  in the Park; Hosted Vaught Contemporary Ballet for a  free ballet performance  based on the book Dune; Hosted Stary Olsa for a  free performance of medieval Belarussian music ; Partnered with community groups to host the  three night free Heritage Film Festival screening movies in different languages  (with English subtitles) to celebrate this community’s inc...

A place called Players Bar and Grill in Woodstock has a released a photo of their new HoCo Burger which will be featured on their 2018 menu. It looks scary.  If your New Year plans include trying to eat in a more healthy way, you might want to skip this. Internationally known HoCo photographer David Hobby (aka Strobist) posted a photograph of long lines of local citizens waiting to prepay property taxes. Actual photo not shown HoCo Director of Finance Stanley J. Milesky now reciting The Night Before Christmas *from memory* to people waiting to prepay 2018 property taxes. He had no patience with representatives from national news outlets who were hoping to get rights to use said photo for free. 1/ Phone rings. It's Ilana, from ABC News. "We really like your photo and would like to use it on World News Tonight." but...  2/ ...    1. We need to clear it. (Sure, what's your rate?)           2. We don't have a rate, since...

“Howard County was better without Columbia,” —Man From Ellicott City who now lives in Florida So reads the comment on a Facebook post from the Howard County Police Department about a Christmas Day stabbing at the Trellis Center on Hickory Ridge Road. Let’s play along. Imagine it’s 1967 and Columbia doesn’t get founded. In the perennial holiday favorite, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, Jimmy Stewart’s character George Bailey is in the throes of a personal and community crisis when he wonders whether his life is worth living. An angel-in-training, Clarence,  is sent to show him what life would be like if he had never existed. What would Howard County be like without Columbia? One clue is how excruciatingly long it took for the school system to implement school integration : eleven years after the 1954 Supreme Court ruling. That tells us that negative attitudes about whites and people of color learning together were deeply entrenched. Not to mention the founding of Glenelg Country S...

“And so this is Christmas And what have we done Another year over A new one just begun” - John Lennon  Let’s begin today with a song. A song for year’s end. It’s time for year-in-review retrospectives, top tens and listicles. Not just on television and on social media. You can find them right here in Howard County. One major difference is that you are being invited to participate. From the Elevate Maryland podcast comes this request: Happy Holidays everyone! Next week, for our 20th show, we’re doing a special “year in review” episode. If you have some ideas about what Tom and Candace should discuss, please post them below.  You can find the request on their Facebook page.  In yesterday’s post I put forward the claim that change in the Howard County Schools was one of the top local stories of 2017. I can think of a few others, but I’m more interested in what you think. Columbia-centric stories? HoCo stories? Politics? Business? Education? Arts? Neighborh...

Perhaps you’ve seen it. A little twist on the traditional Christmas narrative. This Christmas, and as the year comes to a close, I am thinking a lot about three particular Wise Women whose journeys toward the truth brought light for the rest of us in Howard County. The change in the leadership in the Howard County School System is one of the biggest news stories of the past year. Of course it began with the election of new Board of Education members the November before but it continued to be big news through 2017. Many local citizens worked to bring positive change to our schools. I’d like to highlight three without whose efforts we probably would not be where we are today. Vicky Cutroneo , founder of the Mold in Howard County Schools Facebook page, also HCPSS Shares. Former BOE candidate, present President of PTACHC. Her persistent advocacy for students, parents, teachers, and staff in mold-affected schools was instrumental in shaping the conversation about transparency and...

Lucy Van Pelt : I know how you feel about all this  Christmas  business, getting depressed and all that. It happens to me every year. I never get what I really want. I always get a lot of stupid toys or a bicycle or clothes or something like that. Charlie   Brown : What is it you want? Lucy Van Pelt : [Someone who can really write about commercial] Real estate. I read this news yesterday and couldn’t help but think about the late hocoblogger Dennis Lane. Our friend @builtbycostello is at it again w purchase of #ColumbiaMD @Sheraton. Cant wait to see what's in store. Exclusive: Sheraton in Columbia sells to local developer, 10M in upgrades planned Dennis would’ve been all over this. In fact, he would have known about it long before the parties involved had signed on the dotted line. And he also would have had a subscription to the Baltimore Business Journal, which I, sadly, do not. (Note to self: get on that!) Here he writes about a previous upgrade in 2009....

This Christmas my husband and I decided that, instead of giving each other traditional presents, we would choose two things to do for the house and get them repaired. This is a first for us. He chose the upstairs hall light, I chose the kitchen faucet. Woo hoo, you’re thinking. What could be more romantic. Yes, I know. O. Henry it ain’t. But for us they are pretty thrilling. Both have probably been broken for over a year and we have just been accommodating to deal with it. No upstairs light? Turn on your phone to light your way in the dark. No sprayer on the faucet? Run the water really slowly and step back in case of possible attack. Or get a towel. Or two. I chose professionals that I had seen recommended on the Clarksville Happenings Facebook page. Eric Fries (Eric’s Electric ) and Ehrhardt Plumbing . In both cases they fit me in right away, and did excellent work. I’d definitely hire both again. And it’s rather embarrassing how excited I am about having a functioning kitchen ...

Let’s begin today with this quote, from a Columbia native, returning home for the holidays from his first semester in college: How can I be expected to plan for my future when the literal apocalypse is going on? He’s got a point there, even if the use of the word ‘literal’ is not assured in this case. And I really hope it isn’t, I hasten to add. Any young person who is paying attention to national and world events must be feeling the onslaught of challenge that their generation is facing. While there’s nothing new about older folks making decisions that fall most heavily upon the young, right now the speed and gravity of those decisions are breathtaking. I noticed that members of the Stop the Bleed initiative recently came to River Hill High School to teach “life-saving battlefield-injury techniques” to the ninth grade class. I’ve also noticed that the Howard County Police Department held a presentation on Safety and Security for Houses of Worship that was so well-attended tha...

I try to limit the occasions when I reach into my ‘back catalogue’, but this popped up today and it still makes me smile. I hope you will enjoy it as well. SUNDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2014 Staff Meeting Santa and Santa's helpers have been taxed to the max in Howard County this year. It seems that every holiday season brings more opportunities to see the Man in Red. I can just imagine a staff meeting at the North Pole... "Okay everybody, let's get this show on the road." "Aw, c'mon man, it's only Halloweeeeeen!" "You know the drill. It gets earlier every year. Gotta keep up with the times." "Everybody have their calendar?" iPads, phones, and Blackberries are pulled out. Santa himself clings to his beloved Day-Timer but his Head Administrative Elf double-checks everything and enters it into the Main Schedule on his MacBook. "Herb?" "Mumph?" "Herb, w...

Today’s post comes from Oakland Mills Village Board Chair Jonathan Edelson. He wrote it in response to recent coverage of Oakland Mills High School in the Columbia Flier/Howard County Times. This  piece  by Andrew Michaels was originally posted online on December 11th, then appeared in the December 14th print/digital editions. Interestingly, it first ran under this: Howard County school leaders look to parents, training to combat violence Then, in print: County teachers training in conflict resolution Mr. Edelson raises some excellent points here. Recent discussions in Howard County about possible high school redistricting have exposed some ugly generalizations if not downright racist attitudes about “those students”from “those neighborhoods”. It’s extremely concerning that this article appears to feed that line of thinking rather than do the research necessary to place recent incidents in context. ***** Open up today's Flier. There is an article titled, "County ...

What kind of news do you need to know daily? Weather? Traffic? In the Summer, do you check air quality reports? Road construction? I’ve noticed a new daily report in Howard County. This one was tacked on to the end of the police blotter, but ordinarily, they are publishing these as stand-alone posts on Facebook. Almost every day. Opioid overdose Since the Friday, Dec. 15 daily crime bulletin, police responded to four non-fatal overdoses. In three of the overdoses, Narcan was administered and the person was transported to the hospital. 2017 YTD Total Overdoses: Fatal: 55* Non-Fatal: 166 *In fatal cases, some deaths are pending autopsy results for opioids and/or other substances. Numbers may fluctuate. Of the 166 non-fatal opioid overdoses, life-saving Narcan was administered in 148 incidents. If you or someone you know in Howard County needs help with an opioid issue, call 800-422-0009, 24-hours a day. #HoCoHelp Have you noticed? Has it sunk in? Have you thought, “what ...

I’ve just finished listening to this week’s Elevate Maryland podcast. Co-hosts Tom Coale and Candace Dodson Reed have been working their way through the ample field of Democratic hopefuls for Governor in the next election. This episode features the County Executive of Baltimore County, Kevin Kamenetz. There are so many good podcasts out there these days. I have found that I really need to focus when listening to Elevate Maryland because it’s too easy for me to get mentally distracted and let my mind wander. This is not something you can just let wash over you, like an amiable human interest story on NPR. You need to pay attention to get all the good bits. So, good teacher that I am, I created a listening hack for myself. Okay, it’s an auditory car bingo. But it works. I need a visual to keep my brain on track so it doesn’t hare off into the land of multiple to-do lists. Call it an educational support, if you will. About Mr. Kamenetz. While I found his stands on most of the...

The day the naysayers predicted has happened. The Walgreens at the corner of 175 and Thunder Hill has finally attracted “a bad element.” Me. The holidays present unique challenges to those of us who crave gingerbread. We know we ought to be able to find it in plentiful supply, but, year after year, there seems to be less and less of it. I stopped by Touché Touchet one afternoon recently. They had already sold out for the day. The clerk suggested that I call ahead next time. Call ahead? As though I know in advance when I am going to have a gingerbread craving? I need gingerbread men. Or gingerbread women, reindeer, stars—whatever. Why do we not have vendors on every corner at this time of year? Why do I find myself skulking from one possible supplier to the next when the Christmas season should be the gingerbread zenith of the year? And so I found myself, late on a Saturday afternoon, standing in line at Walgreens clutching a gingerbread house kit from the Clearance display. N...

And now a few words about medical marijuana. Yeah, I never thought I’d write about it, either. In what may be the slowest roll-out ever, Maryland is finally getting their medical marijuana program up to speed. Kind of. More than 20 medical marijuana dispensaries in Maryland approved, drug supply low   by Erin Cox The good news: they’ve increased the number of places that medical marijuana will be available. The bad news: they’ve got very little to sell, at least until March. My goodness. Could we have made this any more arduous? I became convinced of the case for medical marijuana by observing the lack of it. My mother suffered for quite a long time due to occluded blood vessels that led to her brain. For many people that would mean having a stroke. For her, it meant increasing dizziness, nausea, and fearfulness over loss of balance and equilibrium. Doctors were no help. They admitted that most people who had her condition never lived as long as she had. It just outright ...

This is one of those mornings where I can think of a variety of things to write about, but my brain is just not awake enough to perform the intellectual operations necessary to do them justice. The good news: tomorrow starts my Winter Break and I will have much more time to write. A little plug this morning for the Breezy Willow Farm Country Market.   I stopped by on the way home from work to pick up some Neat Nick Preserves to give as gifts. I highly recommend this place. In addition to all kinds of locally grown/made foodstuffs, they are offering a variety of lovely holiday gifts. They’re on Frederick Road across from the Rita’s. You can park right next to the store. Service is friendly and helpful. I’d tell you more about what I bought but some of the gift recipients might be reading this post... I discovered last night that Home Slyce delivers, and I am now in serious trouble. They are the only place in Howard County that makes a decent baba ghanouj. I ordered onli...

As we move into the winter season, there is one thing you can be sure of. If it snows in the evening, students will be on Twitter begging hcpss for a delay or a cancellation. This is the first generation who can use social media to petition for such a favor, and they haven’t been idle. They send photographs, video clips, anecdotes of slipping and falling, and generally do their best to wheedle and convince. I could be wrong but I don’t think that their wild protestation of weather woes have any impact on school closures. None whatsoever. But, as long as they aren’t outright rude or threatening, it’s pretty much a harmless pastime. I suppose all those tweets remain out there for future employers to search and evaluate, so maybe you don’t want to make a complete fool of yourself. Just a thought. This will be Interim Superintendent Michael Martirano’s first winter season at the helm. I wonder how he will take the sudden onslaught of interest in his twitter account every time the fla...

This morning my Facebook feed is full of black women from Alabama with “I Voted”stickers and white people from all over the country celebrating. My Twitter feed is full of information that makes it clear that black women truly made the difference for Doug Jones in Alabama. And that this is not a new thing. @ShamekaErby: Don't just thank Black women. Respect Black Women Protect Black Women Hire Black Women Pay Black Women Local writer and sometime blogger Candace Montague responds:  @urbanbushwoman9: Let the church say...? #Amen The time to be celebrating the talents, widom, and persistence of black women is long overdue. But it seems to me that we’re more comfortable celebrating their successes when they happen somewhere else. What about right here in Howard County? Since the presidential election a number of groups have sprung up locally to promote Progressive causes. Local activist Maureen Evans Arthurs caused some uncomfortable self-reflection for (almos...

One year, I believe it was in 1966, my mother put her foot down and said no more messy Christmas trees. I was in the second grade and I was not happy about it. I loved the smell of pine in the house, the feeling of hanging ornaments on the prickly, bendy branches. But my mother was tired of being the one who had to water the tree and pick up the falling needles. Or she was tired of nagging her three children to keep up with that chore. I guess we forgot. A lot. It was our first year in Columbus, Ohio, in a newly-built house, in a newly-built subdivision. Everything in my world was changing. The fancy holiday dresses with scratchy petticoats that tied in the back with a big sash were pushed aside for slim, sleek mini-dresses. Popular culture was obsessed with the Beatles and the British Invasion.  Aluminum trees were new and daring and my mother somehow got a bee in her bonnet that we were going to have one. At the time I felt that this put us at odds with Charlie Brown and ...