A Pocketful of News

 

This just in! Yes, I am writing Part Two to yesterday’s post about parenting and banned books. No, I’m not done yet. Check back tomorrow and, in the meantime, read Part One if you missed it the first time around.

A few things this morning:

On the extremely local front, we have kids back in our neighborhood again. It has been quite a while. When I first moved here we often lamented that there would be no sleeping in on Saturdays due to the activities of what we jokingly called the Oakland Mills Auto Club - - a handful of young boys who sped up and down the sidewalks in those plastic Little Tykes cars at the crack of dawn on the weekends. Later their forces increased and we called them the “Stick ‘Em Up!” Club because their main activity appeared to be finding cool sticks and running up and down the grassy hills of the neighborhood with them, inventing games as they went.

No one put an eye out but it was close.

For a long time now we have had no kids and so their appearance of the scene has been refreshing. Sure, they haven’t learned to pick up their snack wrappers yet and they leave their scooters any old place. But they bring a kind of life that has been missing. I’m glad they are here.

I bumped into an old aquaintance on Thursday night at Happy Hour in the Park, someone who I saw fairly frequently in the old HoCoBlogs days of yore. Our conversation centered pretty much around Columbia: what’s going on and what we thought about it. I loved his insight that the Columbia Association is particularly good at providing experiences that you can share with your neighbors. When I left I was full of new ideas to ponder.

I’ve really enjoyed the Happy Hours in the Park this summer. In fact, my first “venturing out” of my pandemic protections was at the first Happy Hour of the season. Having a chance to be social, enjoy some music and a beer outdoors (where it’s safer to be around other people these days) has really been a blessing for me. Turnout has been pretty solid so I guess I am not alone in that assessment.

On the way home from Happy Hour I made my first visit to Whole Foods since the Before Times. I’m probably projecting but it felt sad to me. Perhaps it was the realization that the salad bar and prepared hot foods areas have been eliminated due to COVID. The baked goods area seems to be offering far less choice. They’ve added self checkout, which is probably for the best but of course I managed to mess that up and needed assistance.

It’s funny because I think of Whole Foods as the New Big Thing and I left on Thursday night thinking, “It’s not like the old Whole Foods!” We humans are such creatures of habit. I should add that everything I bought (all three items) have been perfect in every way and the service I received while I was there was exceptionally good.

It’s possible that I just don’t feel the same about Whole Foods. It’s hard to know. I’d be interested to hear your opinions on this topic.

Update: a kind reader just informed me that the salad bar and prepared foods bar are open at Whole Foods as she purchased food from there as recently as yesterday.   They must close it down early evening.

And that is why I almost always ask, “What do you think?”

Speaking of opinions about Columbia, have you looked at the Columbia Conversations page on Facebook? I finally got around to taking a look this week. I am looking forward to exploring the website more fully and participating in the conversations on Facebook. Over the years CA has tried a number of initiatives to solicit community engagement. It will be interesting to see how they use the information once they have it and what methods they will use to encourage buy-in to the project.

As I noted on Thursday, there’s a lot going on around town today. I completely missed the boat on promoting Wizarding Weekend on Main in Old Ellicott City, which began last night and continues through Sunday. 

Saturday and Sunday fun starts at Flower Barn in parking lot D at 10am with free games, giveaways and a costume contest.  For $5 donation to National Federation of the Blind grab a map, fly through town and compete in the trivia contest to win magical OEC gift baskets.

I wonder if there’ll be a Quidditch match to top it all off?