Village Green/Town²

  It’s Monday. Bring on the coffee. Here’s a coffee suggestion from @visithocomd on Instagram. First off, I kind of like “How do you HOCO?” It’s catchy. And the thought of meeting up with a friend at Lake Kittamaqundi for coffee and conversation, especially on one of these gorgeous fall days, is very appealing.  And yet. Something was bugging me. Can you guess? Here, in the center of the map, is Lake Kittamaqundi. Map from HoCoGov And here, from Google maps, are the distances to Roggenart and Little Market Café. Maybe it’s because I’m far too literal, or maybe it’s because I have been reading too many detective mysteries, but my first thought was: why would you get coffee there if you were going to Lake Kittamaqundi? It’s counterintuitive. Years ago I saw the film “Diner” with someone who had been born and raised in Baltimore.  What I remember is that the filmmaker’s use of Baltimore locations really bugged him. The film is driven by the friendships of a group of young m...

  Last night I got it into my head to put together a Halloween-esque post. What I had in mind was a compilation of Columbia-HoCo Horror Stories of years past. With a twist. I just may have been inspired by the Spirit Halloween costume meme going around.  So, here goes: the scariest tales in town (since I’ve been here, anyway.) The Mysterious Disappearance of the Garlic Knots.   Some say their disappearance marked the beginning of the end for a popular Lakefront restaurant. The Dreaded Aquaplan.  Columbia Association’s proposed overall of the local pool system caused nightmares and gnashing of teeth.  The People Who Might Move Into Your Neighborhood.   This horror story has grown ever more powerful in recent years. Some say it came from out of town. The Bad Element.  Residents of one Columbia village lived in fear of The Bad Element that a new Walgreens would attract to their neighborhoods. The Colonel Who Hated Geese.  What motivated that strange ...

On September 17th the Harriet Tubman Cultural Center marked its official opening after decades of hard work by determined graduates and former students. I visited the Center in late September and posted some snapshots, although I did say I’d be writing more about the experience. (It’s on my to-do list.) One of the sights I wanted to preserve from my visit that day was this visual representation of the school’s history. Every young person deserves the opportunity to learn.  The Harriet Tubman School was the first facility built new - - from scratch, as it were - - which was dedicated to providing the opportunity to learn for Howard County’s Black students. As you tour the building today, you are struck with two things:  1. What an incredibly joyful experience it must have been for these students and families to experience something brand new that was made for them. 2. How deeply committed Howard County was to preserving school segration.  Every young person deserves the ...

I use Twitter all the time. Most people I know don’t. I hear people say “Oh, Twitter is a cesspool!” and I wonder if they’ve never watched a finely tuned Facebook group club dissenters like baby seals. It’s all relative.  Yes. Twitter can be a dangerous place - - for women especially - - if they dare to use their voices and take up more space than their detractors think they have a right to. I’m reminded of that every time I reply to a national figure and suddenly become “visible” to a host of armchair critics. Like it or not, women are safer on Twitter if they keep their heads down. The platform has never fully addressed that. But over the years I’ve been able to get information on Twitter that I couldn’t get anywhere else. The use of hashtags allows me to see specific slices of the flow of conversation that pertain to my interests. That’s especially true for local topics. That’s why, every morning and evening, I search: #hoco hocomd #columbiamd Howard County Howard County M...

It seems like everywhere I go on social media, people are encouraging me to vote. My friends, local public  servants, even the newspaper: Here’s what you need to know as early voting begins in Howard County , Sherry Greenfield, Baltimore Sun They don’t need to worry about me. I received my ballot by mail, completed it, and placed it in the drop box at the Board of Elections on Monday.  How about you? This isn’t an election you want to sit out. Decisions will be made from the United States Senate all the way to Howard County Board of Education and your voice should be a part of that. For Heaven’s sake, don’t assume that your one vote doesn’t matter.  Image from Good Housekeeping I find that the driving political themes these days, from the national races to the most local, boil down to this:  Encouraging participation in the political process and in voting vs restricting it Extending civil rights to all vs elevating a select few and censuring the others Advocating for...

  Welcome to The 3rd. The 3rd is a 501(c)3 non-profit, co-created, community of Women of Color entrepreneurs. We believe Women of Color need a space to build, execute, and thrive. We need access. We need skill building. We need funding. We need collaboration. We need accountability. We need sister friends. We need a community that understands our unique gifts and the unique challenges we face. We need The 3rd.   - - “Our Story”, The 3rd website Yesterday was one of the soft opening events for The 3rd, a venture I’ve been following for a while now. It’s been fascinating to see them move from concept to their brick and mortar location at the Columbia Lakefront. They’re located where Lupa and Petit Louis used to be. I was fortunate enough to be invited and especially grateful to have a friend to bring along with me. There were signs to read and things to learn. There were delicious treats and hot drinks to try. And, most of all, there was the beautifully designed and decorated sp...

  "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants, so long as it is black.", Henry Ford And you can have a new high school as long as it has Quarry in the name. Think I’m joking? The possible names for High School 13 which made it through the naming committee process are as follows: Gabbro Quarry High School* Granite Quarry High School Quarry Field High School Quarry Heights High School Quarry Hill High School Quarry Ridge High School Quarry Rock High School Quarry Run High School Quarry View High School Rock Quarry High School They have been submitted to potential students for their feedback. As for parents… For some this was particularly irksome because of their concerns about the school being built near a quarry in the first place. Naming it after said quarry felt like adding insult to injury.  Yes, this caused a bit of a buzz online as parents expressed a sense of disbelief that nothing but “quarry” names were being considered. I learned that over 1400 names...

  Today, October 24th, local nonprofit Columbia Community Care is kicking off its first-ever restaurant week. From CCC founder Erika Strauss Chavarria: Hope to you see you! And please encourage everyone you know to participate in our restaurant week! Make sure to mention that CCC sent you! So, here I am. I’m encouraging you. In fact, I’ll be adding a reminder to every post this week to let you know which restaurant will be participating that day.  CCC is a new kind of model in our community for meeting needs and lifting up those facing barriers to resources. Most of us know that it began in the early days of the lockdown. I don’t think that it’s as widely known that Ms.Chavarria based the initiative on long-established practices: community care and mutual aid. Mutual aid is an act of solidarity and care between neighbors. It stands in opposition to charity and top-down giving, because it is planned and executed by a community, for a community to not just provide food and esse...

I was introduced to the word “spoopy” by my daughters, who are closer to the heartbeat of current internet-driven popular culture than I am. Of course, there’s nothing “current” about spoopy, whose origins can be traced back to 2009. You know, eons ago. Essentially it means something which is both funny and spooky at the same time. At this time of year, that’s about my speed. I’m not a horror movie fan, and I wouldn’t be caught dead in a “Field of Screams” experience. Give me a chance to walk in the dark, on sidewalks of crunchy leaves, with some excited trick-or-treaters and a chance to watch the Charlie Brown Halloween Special. That’s more my cup of tea. Ellicott City has Ghost Tours , which you’ve probably heard about. I don’t know if they’re pleasantly eerie or terrorizing in a way that keeps you awake for days. I suspect it’s the former. I bet they get a lot of business this time of year. But did you know about: "The spooky van in the Hmart parking lot" should be added ...

I have some good news and some bad news. Let’s get the bad news over with. It’s 2022 and I still hate this photo. Well, photos. The photos were taken on election night four years ago: Incumbent Allan Kittleman, left, congratulates Calvin Ball on his victory for Howard County executive at Kahler Hall in Columbia during Election Day in Howard County on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018. (Brian Krista / Baltimore Sun Media Group Many people lauded Kittleman’s gesture as seen in the photo. He went directly to where Ball and his supporters were awaiting the election results to publicly concede and to give him, more or less, a hug. I say “more or less” because we all know this was not a genuine hug, but a public, for the cameras hug. In real life it is unlikely that these two would ever hug. And I say that knowing that County Executive Ball is a confirmed hugger. Such things happen in politics all the time. I don’t have to like them. I’m not ascribing any ill intent here but I just don’t see it as the e...

  Social media has made it possible for us to view carefully curated slices of other people’s lives and provides us with many opportunities to feel that our own lives are inadequate. I’m far from the first person to say this. It happens to be on my mind this morning because I found myself looking with longing at a photograph of someone enjoying their morning coffee at the beach.  A little voice inside of me reminded me I’m never going to be that cool and well-to-do person that is having their morning coffee on the beach in the middle of October. It’s a belittling sort of voice. A long time ago a friend of mine quipped that people put mirrors on the ceiling over their beds “so they can see what they’re doing wrong.” Social media can be like that kind of mirror. We use it, whether we realize it or not, to see what we are doing wrong. Or, more precisely, to be overwhelmed by a million tiny slices of how other people are doing it better. Facebook and Instagram are full of career s...