Village Green/Town²

It has been a while since I have linked to Columbia Patch. But, here goes: Wilde Lake Mansion Listed for $1,150, 000 Why? Why, why why? Why is this house in Columbia? I’m not going to go on a rant and say it’s an outrage but it is kind of ridiculous. Maybe it’s actually in an outparcel? It’s not my position that all houses in Wilde Lake (or in Columbia, for that matter) should be exactly the same. But it would be nice if they were mildly harmonious. One wonders what Kate Wagner of McMansion Hell would think of this particular example. The article says that this house was built in 2005, so that would be before the recession. It would be interesting to know (but none of my business) who has actually lived in this house and how active they have been in the Wilde Lake community. Does one buy a house like this and send one’s children to the public schools? Leave the light on for trick or treaters? Go to the Wilde Lake Old Fashioned Picnic? It isn’t a requirement to live i...

Yesterday morning I sat downstairs while everyone else was asleep and I gradually became aware that the upstairs toilet was flushing. And flushing, and flushing. I didn’t hear any footsteps, so it didn’t appear that anyone was actually in the bathroom. But it was odd. Why would the toilet keep flushing itself? Did I go upstairs to check on it? No. It was annoying and weird but it didn’t really seem like a big deal. Eventually my husband got up and did something and the perpetual flushing ceased. There are some sounds that cause you to spring into action. The sound of breaking glass, for example, or a crying child, or the sound of a pet beginning to wretch (so I’m told). The sounds connect to a place in our brain that this is an emergency and we must act now. Other sounds, even if unexpected, don’t rise to the level of immediate action. I have read a lot recently about how everyone agrees that over-development and school overcrowding are the main issues that voters in Howard C...

Today’s post comes to you from the musical “The King and I”. We’ll talk tomorrow. When I was a boy, world was better spot What was so was so, what was not was not Now, I am a man, world have changed a lot Some things nearly so, others nearly not There are times I almost think I am not sure of what I absolutely know Very often find confusion In conclusion, I concluded long ago In my head are many facts That, as a student, I have studied to procure In my head are many facts Of which I wish I was more certain, I was sure Is a puzzlement What to tell growing son? What for instance, shall I say to him of women? Shall I educate him on the ancient lines? Shall I tell the boy as far as he is able To respect his wives and love his concubines? Shall I tell him everyone is like the other And the better of the two is really neither? If I tell him this I think he won't believe it And I nearly think that I don't believe it either When my father was a king H...

I got some great responses to my post yesterday about Opus. Two stand out. From Philip Dodge, Executive Director of Downtown Columbia Partnership: Good morning - I saw your blog post re: OPUS. Here's my response. Short version: Yes. You should attend. Long version: We're trying to explain that while OPUS is cutting edge and brings artists from all over the world to Columbia, it isn’t intimidating and it has something for everyone. OPUS provides a forest-full of opportunities for discovery, including seven new commissions and an array of dynamic art installations and stages spread across the entire fifty acres of Symphony Woods. It’s like visiting the MoMA, Guggenheim, Bilbao, and Venice Biennale all in your back yard: • Explore the wonders of art, technology, and music • Dance under a piano drum canopy • Walk inside a laser cathedral • Taste your way through the expanded Culinary Village • Bask in a soul cleansing bath of color • Behold a sixteen foot tall ...

So, this October 13th might be dubbed “The Return of the Thing” in Columbia. What thing? This thing: Opus Merriweather I had tickets last year but as I recall we couldn’t find parking and went back home. I’m wondering if it’s worth trying to go this year. Did you go? Did you enjoy the experience? Would you recommend it? Convince me.

A few words today about my new most unfavorite four-letter word: smug. smug adjective having or showing an excessive pride in oneself or one's achievements. "he was feeling smug after his win" synonyms: self-satisfied ,  self-congratulatory ,  complacent ,  superior , pleased with oneself,  conceited "he was feeling smug after his win" We are all worn out by the angry rants and accusations in the political arguments of campaign season, and rightly so. There’s just only so much venom and bile one can either generate or endure. Or both. But my personal pet peeve right now are the folks who proclaim their superiority by arching one eyebrow, a tilt of the head, perhaps, an artfully intellectual turn of phrase. A gif or meme that only the cool kids will get. Even if your political views have merit, that’s no reason to succumb to smugness. For one thing, it’s repellent. For another, it’s a deterrent to taking in ...

Yes, I am wearing black today. No, I cannot walk out because you can’t actually walk out on four year olds. Weather permitting, we will already be outside. On the playground. Sexual harassment and sexual assault may be in the national news right now, but the response from all over the country speaks of how local these problems really are. Right here in Howard County  there are #MeToo stories. Even in our school system. Highly recommended is this thread from Kim Weeden which concludes: I t’s a telling statement about the prevalence of sexual violence in America that women who have never been raped feel like we won the damned lottery.  And that would be me. Sure, I’ve been catcalled and harassed but I’ve never been the victim of sexual assault. And that is not because I’m a nice girl, or a good girl, or wore “appropriate” clothing or made sure to only engage in “appropriate” behavior. It’s just luck. It’s nothing I did or didn’t do. What kind of a life is that, ...

My husband brought me a bit of Delft-ware. The small and perfect piece was wrapped carefully in his suitcase and made it home from the Netherlands in one piece. He made a side trip to Delft from Den Hague. To see old churches, he said. And, knowing him, old churches were definitely on the agenda. But somewhere on that day he found the time to think of home, and of me. And to find a perfect treasure to bring back. Today all the controversies will have to wait. The Board of Ed race, HoCo development, school redistricting, a fix for Old EC. They’re not going anywhere. They’ll be there tomorrow. At the end of what has seemed like the longest week ever I’m savoring the feeling that we are all here. Everyone is home safe. A perfect piece of Delftware is a treat. The greater treasure is that my husband made it there and back again unbroken. In perfect condition, one might say. Sightseeing and souvenirs add much to our views of life outside the bubble. But, to my mind at least...

Two unrelated things on my mind this morning: I was surprised to see a thread written by the venomous Twitter troll account “mjm not super” turn up word for word on Facebook as written by a gentleman named Thomas Edward Garb. For one brief second I thought our troll had revealed himself. No dice. Thomas Edward Garb appears to be a made-up account that doesn’t link up to a real identity, so our school system’s toxic troll remains a mystery. This blog post which focuses on BOE candidate Sabina Taj left me scratching my head. The blog itself, entitled RoCo in HoCo, is described by its author as follows: So it’s meant to be satire? Or it’s meant to be informative using a fictional premise? It has been hard for me to ascertain the sweet spot that the author is going for. The piece about Ms. Taj is cloyingly sweet and, if I were she, I’d be embarrassed. In fact, it borders on being creepy. We sat down to chat about Sabina’s bid for a spot on the BOE. I feared it would be h...

Weekend. I need one. Several, in fact. Do yourself a favor and go see one or both of these local events this weekend. “Into the Woods” at Oakland Mills High School, Saturday night. Info here . This production is a fundraiser for the OMHS Fine Arts Programs. The String Queens performing at the Chrysalis on Sunday.      3:00 Chrysalis Kids performance for kids and families      7:00 Chrysalis Cabaret for the grownups More info here . Be sure to watch the video ! See you here tomorrow after a good night’s sleep.

I’ve been in school a few weeks now and I’m still struggling with crushing fatigue. That’s certainly having an impact on my writing time each morning. Thanks for sticking with me. I should be hitting my stride any day now. I’ll tell you something else I’m tired of: the Old Boys Network. Watching the events unfold in Washington around Kavanaugh’s SCOTUS appointment hearings drives home the relentless power of men covering for men. Closer to home, UMBC is facing a crisis in how it has handled rape and sexual assault on campus. It feels like more of the same to me. I am beyond exhausted under the weight of how little women are valued in our culture. Their word is not valued. Their experiences are dismissed. Their losses are counted as nothing compared to the potential of men who have harmed them. Every time I bump up a group of men crowing over their superiority or demanding that women change to accommodate male directives I feel that familiar wave: first anger, then exhaustion....

No blog today but some food for thought. (a bathroom in my school library) BOE candidate Vicky Cutroneo shared this report yesterday on Facebook. It’s about the American Academy of Pediatrics report on Transgender and Gender-Diverse children and adolescents. https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/Pages/AAP-Policy-Statement-Urges-Support-and-Care-of-Transgender-and-Gender-Diverse-Children-and-Adolescents.aspx Let’s talk more tomorrow.

It’s Monday morning. Thinking about the weekend yet? Make your plans for next weekend by treating yourself to a trip outside the Bubble. Pay a visit to historic Dickeyville for a one-man art show and an all-weekend arts event put on by Sam and Joan McCready. On Saturday there will be activities for children and on Sunday there will be music from HoCo’s Ian Richard McCready. (Yes, it’s a family affair.) All proceeds from the sale of art will go to local charities. It’s worth the drive just to see Dickeyville, an old mill village which came back from near extinction to become a lively and supportive community. And the arts event is the kind of thing that Dickeyville does so well. Who knows? You might come home with a new painting for your home.

Today is my older daughter’s sixth wedding anniversary. Yesterday her cousin announced his engagement. Somewhere I have photos of the two of them playing together as toddlers but I’m going to restrain myself. Today is apparently Wife Appreciation Day. If you have one, you know what to do. Not all women are wives or mothers. It seems you must be one or the other or both to have a Day named after you for the purpose of appreciation and gift giving. To be a woman is to be defined by one’s relationship to others. When we set defaults and choose what is the norm there will undoubtedly be those who are left out.  What if we didn’t.? What would that look like? If marriage or singleness were appreciated If childbearing or not were valued states If bathrooms were for everyone If schools welcomed and lifted up everyone equally If the powers that be called dads as much as moms when a child gets sick If different household incomes were accepted amongst HoCo residents What wo...

I have one more dance party at the Chrysalis this season. It’s today, from 10-12. It looks like my wish that it not be as hot as the last one will come true. If you have young children or grandchildren, pay us a visit. Come on over to the dj table if you have requests. (Clean language, please.) I’m thinking a lot about how much I hate politics and election shenanigans. This week was a prime example of just about everything that I loathe. I know that the political process is crucial to a healthy democracy. Participation is vital. I just wish that participants would make healthy rather than toxic choices when stepping into the arena of free expression. But often they don’t. There is anger, and selfishness, and there are conspiracy theories and an overall lack of seeing a bigger picture than one’s own backyard. There is the firm belief that one’s side is so right and the other is so wrong that it becomes permissible to use any means to achieve the desired end. There is plenty of t...

Food for thought: In wealthy Howard, 25 percent of families struggle to make ends meet, survey finds   There are some inteeeting numbers and comparisons in the Baltimore Sun article by Jess Nocera. It’s really kind of amazing that the cost of living here requires a basic, no-frills income of $85, 500 merely for survival. The Federal poverty level for a family of four is $25,100 but in Howard County you’d need more than three times that amount. This information comes from the ALICE report from the United Way. ALICE stands for  Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed — the working poor. Next time you are in a group of HoCo residents, look around. Just think, one in four of these folks don’t have enough to get by.  And yet, it isn’t as simple as that. How often to we find ways to surround ourselves with people like us, so we don’t see those one in four? We can easily live in bubbles where our daily lives insulate us from seeing the poverty in our community. O...

“I, (Name), Take you, (Name), To be my (wife/husband); To have and to hold, From this day forward, For better, for worse, For richer, for poorer, In sickness and in health, To love and to cherish, ‘Till death do us part.” (or, “As long as we both shall live.”) —Traditional Wedding Vows   Yesterday when Council Representative Jon Weinstein, a Democrat, endorsed Allan Kittleman, a Republican, for County Executive, armchair analysts on social media soon turned the talk to... ...his wife, Margaret Weinstein. Being a wife in the world of politics continues to be a constricting and diminishing role. The assumptions people make about political wives just floor me. I wrote a bit about this topic during the last County Executive race.  It must be a hard life to be a political wife, (or husband, although there's still much less of that) indeed, harder than I can imagine. Finding the right balance between supporting one's spouse and yet retaining on...

Thanks for all the responses to yesterday's blog post. It’s going to take me a while to get  through them! I must say I’m disappointed that no one had any information/opinions about septic in Western HoCo. Oh well. The transition between summer vacation and full time preschool teaching is a struggle. Nope, let’s be honest: it’s kicking my butt. I should be fine in a couple of weeks but, right now, when my alarm goes off, my first thought is “when can I go back to sleep?” I want to give a shout out and a full-scale HoCo Holler to everyone who has chipped in to help this family in Western Howard County who lost their home in a gas explosion Friday night. Members of the community have reached out to donate money and gift cards to help replace what was lost. Books With A Past has served as a drop-off hub to assist in the process. It’s pretty amazing what the community has done in such a short amount of time. A special tip of the hat to the folks who run the Facebook Group “We...

It’s a typical Monday morning where I’ve got more questions than answers. So I’m just throwing them out there. The movie theater promo film (“welcome to the theater”) in Columbia is deliberately diverse. Do you think they use that in all theaters or do you think they make multiple ones for different markets? Do you think there’s any value in an individual citizen concocting their own school redistricting plan? Does this help or hurt? What does this language about BOE elections mean to you? Extra credit: what does the law itself mean? How would we find out? How does Western Howard County’s reliance on septic affect the county as a whole?  Do you think that could ever change? Why couldn’t the County Council agree on giving residents of mobile homes some tax relief?  Enjoy your Monday. Send me your own local questions, if you have any, and I’ll do my best to find out.

Apparently it’s Fall Back to Sleep Sunday. My apologies for the lateness of this post. Rainy days are great for oversleeping. Yesterday I read a comment online from someone I know about how moved they were by experiencing the Undesign the Red Line exhibit now on display at the Howard County Library’s Central Branch as a part of their Choose Civility initiative. I agree that the exhibit can be life-changing, especially if the information it contains was unknown to you. It’s definitely eye-opening, no matter what. Bringing the Enterprise Community Partners exhibit into the library was, in some ways, a bold choice. Yet it’s also a natural for the library’s mission: to provide free access to knowledge and a place to learn. (I’m sure they have a fancier mission statement, I just made that up for this purposes of this post.) I think that most folks nowadays know that libraries are about more than borrowing books and consulting reference volumes. I don’t know how one could live in H...

The other evening I attended a meeting at Historic Oakland but I almost didn’t make it because I couldn’t find it. It turned out it was in a room in the basement. Until that moment I didn’t know that the building had a functional basement. It started me thinking about how Columbia and Howard County must have more than a handful of largely unknown places and mystery haunts that most of us have never laid eyes on. For example, if you’ve ever wondered if there’s anything under The Chrysalis, there is. Most of it is room for storage and I have actually been there because that’s where I store my materials for the Chrysalis Kids Dance parties. (The last one for the season in next Saturday, from 10-12.) I don’t know if this truly counts as a mystery space, but it would definitely elicit the envy of Ohio’s John Kasich: I’ve been inside the teachers’ lounges in over 20 Howard County Schools. And they’re  nowhere near the hotbed of labor revolution that he thinks they are. I think ...

Yesterday the alleged killer of WLHS teacher Laura Wallen was found dead in his cell on the day his trial was to begin. According to the account in this article in the Baltimore Sun, he used the bedsheet in his cell to hang himself. Our local news was filled with this story yesterday. This quote bothered me. “Today was his reckoning,” State’s Attorney John McCarthy said at a news conference Thursday afternoon at the county Circuit Courthouse. “He took the cowardly way out.” In recent years our attitudes about those who die by suicide have evolved. We have learned that the process in the brain that convinces the victim to end their own life is not at all rational. Old ideas and old terminology are beginning to fall away. We don’t say “committed suicide” anymore. We challenge the assumption that suicide is a selfish act. As we gain more understanding of the mental illness which brings people to suicide, we gain more empathy. But then there is Tyler Tessier. Althoug...

Good evening. My name is Julia McCready and I live in Oakland Mills. I’m an early childhood music specialist and for the past two summers I have been donating my time and talents to facilitate children’s dance parties at the Chrysalis for preschoolers and their parents. Our last one for this season is next Saturday. I hope you’ll join us! Today was my first day of school with thirteen four-year-olds with some very hot playground time and absolutely no rest time. I want to make it clear that there is almost nothing in this world that would motivate me to leave my home, sit through a meeting, and get up in front of people and talk when I could be at home in a bubble bath with a cold drink. But I’m here because I want to thank Nina Basu, President of the Trust, and all of the Board Members for their time and dedication in growing and sustaining Merriweather Park in Symphony Woods and the programs it is bringing to the community. I also want to thank anyone involved with the Co...

There’s an open meeting of the Inner Arbor Trust tonight at Columbia’s Association headquarters. I’ll be there.  I’m hoping for a vast improvement in the behavior of certain CA Board members who have done nothing but try to undercut and sabotage plans for Merriweather Park in Symphony Woods, and harangue and insult the president of the Trust, Nina Basu. This year’s season at the Chrysalis has been wildly successful, and it isn’t even over yet. So many people are coming out to events and enjoying the park. It is truly becoming a beloved community space in Columbia/Howard County. I’ll probably prepare something to say this evening. I usually do. Or maybe I’ll just ask the CA Board members a question: How many events have you attended in the Park this summer? And, if you haven’t attended any, how can you be in a position to have an educated opinion about the Park and it’s future? How can you know if it is fulfilling its mission if you haven’t taken the time to see the Par...

Today will be the last First Day of School for my daughter as she begins her senior year of high school. Sure, there will be a first day of college but that will not be the same. She will be off on her own. There will be no first day photo as she rushes out the door. There will be no pained moaning sound as I pat her gently to rouse her from slumber. I’m not sure if this marks the last of the firsts or the first of the lasts. I’m not awake enough at this point to parse that. All I know is that I so enjoy the young person my daughter has become and today I am facing the reality that the day when I have to let her go is approaching. I used to worry about whether she would be ready. Today I am wondering whether I will be ready. But it’s only the first day of school, you think; there’s plenty of time before that. There will be college applications and concerts and plays and a host of senior-oriented events. There will be Homecomjng and the Prom. Yes, there will be time, and I inten...

And now, a brief interval contemplating the words of Meghan McCain. “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great,” Meghan McCain told about 3,000 mourners at Washington National Cathedral on Saturday morning, a raw mocking of Trump’s slogan that elicited an unusual burst of applause. Those words made many of us feel good, if only briefly. They pushed back against the current political regime unapologetically.  There’s just one problem. Those words aren’t true.  If we are completely honest with ourselves, we know this. America has always been great for white people, white men most of all. America is not great for: people of color women the disabled the poor LGBTQ people  non-Christians The lofty ideals of “liberty and justice for all” that stir our hearts and make us want to believe in the greatness of America were based on assumptions made by white men for white men. I know we want them to be bigger ...