Skip to main content

Miscellany



Yesterday I had lunch at the White Oak Tavern with some amazing women I haven’t  seen for a long while. The uniting force was our community involvement in Oakland Mills. We’ve all had varying leadership roles in OMCA. Now we’re busy with other ventures. When a friend reached out to suggest a “reunion” of sorts, everyone said yes.

A shout out to the White Oak Tavern is in order. I don’t think I had ever had an actual sit down meal here, just attended cocktail events a while back. The food I ordered (French toast and bacon) was amazingly good. So was my pre-meal cocktail and my coffee at the end. The service was attentive but not suffocating: smooth and well-timed.

We talked some about Oakland Mills, but mostly about our lives. Children, grandchildren, trips, current job challenges/career shifts, things we’d read recently. For me this was rather like traveling in a foreign land. I don’t do social events much. So I felt more like an observer in some ways than a participant.

As I often feel the older I get: I have much to learn.

*****

A few other shout outs are in order this morning: a big thanks to (honorary) HoCo blogger and dog-mama extraordinaire Mickey Gomez for snapping a photo at Wegman’s for me when I wasn’t able to pin down permission for another one I had spotted on Facebook. That was definitely going above and beyond.

A different sort of shout out to the former local candidate who took a tweet about sexism towards women in politics and 1) made it all about himself and 2) took a potshot at me. Kind of a one-two punch of hubris. I’ll leave it at that.

One last thing: HoCo Pride is sponsoring a Gay Day at Savage Mill next Saturday, January 26th from 4 to 8 pm. Proceeds will help support Howard County’s first ever Pride Celebration on June 29th, 2019. Go here to learn more. 








Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...

Columbia Chance Connection

  Last night, as my husband and I were about to sit down to dinner, our front door swung open and a cheery voice announced, “I’m ba—ack!”  We weren’t expecting anyone. Clearly the only people who’d walk right in to our house would be one of our offspring. I had my reading glasses on so I wasn’t seeing too clearly. It seemed too tall for our youngest, but we knew our eldest was at work. I took off my glasses to see a friendly but confused face scanning our living room. When her gaze landed on us we all had a sudden realization. We didn’t know eachother. “Oh I’m so sorry! I’m in the wrong house! My daughter just moved in and she needed hooks for the kitchen so I ran out to get them.” She waved the package. “All these houses look the same and I don’t know the neighborhood yet. I thought this was my daughter’s house.” We were all getting a bit giggly. “That’s okay. For a quick second we thought you were our daughter,” said my husband. I told her our names and said she should defin...