Village Green/Town²

I have a confession to make. As a child I came to the conclusion that drinking coffee and drinking beer were sure signs that a person had given up and become a Grown Up in the worst way. To my mind, both coffee and beer smelled terrible, and must taste terrible, too. So drinking them was a sign of this insidious change that happened to grownups where they did things they didn’t really want to do but insisted that was just a part of life and someday you would, too. See also: going to school when you didn’t want to and eating vegetables. Not me, I insisted. I was never going to cop out and drink those vile-smelling liquids and pretend I liked them. You probably know the end to this story.  I did eventually drink coffee  (and beer) and inexplicably like both. I did learn how to make myself go to work when I didn’t want to and - - horrors! - - eat far more vegetables than I ever expected.  It happens. All of this is but a momentary detour on the way to the heart of today’s po...

 This is today and I completely forgot to give you advance warning. My apologies. CAMOM Consignment Sale  , 6700 Cradlerock Way, 8:00 am - 11:30 am. (See image for more details.) I wrote about this group in April of 2023 if you’d like more background information about who they are and what they do.  The Big Come-Back! Village Green/Town² April, 2023 ***** Congratulations are in order for Columbia Community Care director Erika Strauss Chavarria on the publication of her book, Practicing Restorative Justice by Myers Education Press. Chavarria was also a recent honoree as a Community Star by local nonprofit Just Living Advocacy. ***** The folks of Community Ecology Institute are celebrating the arrival of a new fridge and freezer for Freetown Farm. The purchase was made possible a BGE Green Grant. The new appliance will be used to store produce before community distribution and to freeze some of the farm’s harvests as well. Speaking of harvests, I believe that tickets...

  I notice that in discussions of women's childbearing or childlessness, the choice not to have a child is always framed as a pursuit of professional success—often characterized in sneering, judgmental terms as "girlboss"-style ambition. But there are other things women might want. What if there were vast swaths of human interest and endeavor beyond reproduction and capital accumulation. What if I were neither mommy nor girlboss but a secret third thing. - - Moira Donegan, Opinion columnist covering gender and politics @guardianUS. The conversation around the meaning of women’s existence has become increasingly more narrow as the war on reproductive freedom marches forward. One is either reproducing or selfish, reproducing or owing free labor to those who are. This is, of course, the point. A world that accepts and supports reproductive justice allows choice.  Those who worked to destroy Roe want a world in which choice is limited - - largely to white, affluent Christian...

Maybe I’m just too old,  or maybe my search techniques are lacking, but I rarely find anything on TikTok that I can use for the blog. However, this one is right in my wheelhouse. Follow my grandad’s YouTube Channel!!! Recognize any of these places? Leave a comment on the YouTube Video! Awww…the young folks stepping in to support their elders’ hi-tech ventures. I love it. So I went to YouTube. Here’s grandad. Doc the First Responder Description: My name is Don Howell. I started my journey with the fire service when I was 18 and have continued to do so to this day. I started as a volunteer for the Ellicot City Volunteer Fire Department at 18. Since then I have been a Fire Fighter, First-Aider, EVO, Medic Unit, Station Officer, District Officer and Chief of the Medical Division. Starting in 1974 to date, I have been an EMT Psychomotor Evaluator for the State of Maryland. Over the years I have collected 65,000+ photos, documents, etc. of Howard County and would like to share my photos ...

Congratulations to Oakland Mills High School student Mai-Anh Nguyen who was named Howard County’s first-ever Youth Poet Laureate yesterday at an event held at Busboys and Poets. This appointment will provide Nguyen with the opportunity to act “as an ambassador for literacy, arts and youth expression in Howard County” and comes with a modest stipend. Nguyen is a student at Oakland Mills High School, active in the Youth Climate Institute, National Art Honors Society, National Spanish Honor Society, tennis and theater. Nguyen won the Jack Chalker Young Writer’s Contest and was a finalist for both the Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest and Bennington Young Writers Awards. She received unanimous support from the Review Panel to become the first Youth Poet Laureate. - - www.howardcountymd.gov/News092424 In its first year, the Youth Poet Laureate program is a joint venture established through the collaboration of the County, the Howard County Arts Council, and local literary nonprofit HoCoPoLitSo....

  Five days ago: This morning, crews extinguished a small fire on a dock on the Lake Kittamaqundi Trail at the Columbia Lakefront. The Office of the Fire Marshal is investigating the cause of the fire. The affected area has been roped off, but the trail remains open. - - Howard Country Fire & EMS Image: Howard Country Fire & EMS Two days ago: Police are investigating a suspicious circumstance at Rocky Gorge Reservoir in the area of Scott's Cove Recreation Area. If you recognize these clothing items contact police at 410-313-2200. An extensive search was conducted in an attempt to locate a person that may have been wearing the clothing, but no one was found. Preliminary, there appears to be no signs of foul play. UPDATE: The pictured clothing was found near the water.   - - Howard County Police Department Image: Howard County Police Department I’m not familiar with Scott’s Cove so I looked it up. Image: Jamie Turner Photography  What these events have in ...

  Did you know that this is  Banned Books Week ? It runs from September 22nd - 28th this year. From the American Library Association: In a time of deep political divides, library staff across the country are facing an overwhelming number of book ban attempts. In 2023 alone, the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 1,247 efforts to censor books and other resources in libraries—an increase of 65% from the year before. In total, 4,240 unique book titles were targeted, many of them representing LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC voices and experiences. As we gear up for Banned Books Week 2024 (September 22-28), with the theme "Freed Between the Lines," we’re reminded how much is at stake. The freedom to explore new ideas and different perspectives is under threat, and book bans don’t just restrict access to stories—they undermine our rights. Now is the time to come together, celebrate the right to read, and find freedom in the pages of a book. Let’s be ...

There are those whose fantasy Sundays involve lying in bed with good coffee, fresh bagels, and the New York Times. But you can have it better than that. Today’s Sunday came in with a splash with the newest edition of The Merriweather Post blog: TMP September 2024 Development News Roundup , Jeremy Dommu, the Merriweather Post  Depending on your views on Downtown Columbia development, there’s lots here to enjoy, be concerned by, exclaim over, or just consume like popcorn (which is what I did.) I’ve just done a quick preliminary read through so I’m not attempting any serious analysis. But it’s definitely worth the read.  It’s a whole heck of a lot of Columbia information in one place. I will say that it sent me googling one particular Dutch word which rang a bell but isn’t part of my everyday vocabulary. There is one topic I will wade into this morning and that’s Dommu’s description of The Jerk Wars.* With all due respect, no serious discussion of Jerk cuisine in Columbia/HoCo i...

I know I said I was going to lay off the Saturday event thing but today is rather exceptional. As per usual, this is only sampling. Weather predictions look perfectly acceptable, which is to say: not too hot and rain unlikely. Howard County Out of the Darkness Walk , Merriweather District  2024 Autumn Eve Mini Endurance Skate , Blandair Park Festival of the Arts of Africa , African Art Museum of Maryland  Harpers Choice Community Yard Sale , Joseph Square Jamaican Day , More Than Java Café (Savage Mill) Korean Festival , Wilde Lake High School Main Street Music Festival , Old Ellicott City Bike Around Downtown Columbia Block Party , Merriweather District  And, again - - Market Season is not over: you’ve got your choice of Clarksville Commons, Freetown Farm, and Maple Lawn. I probably wouldn’t have written this post at all were it not for the eye-catching photo attached to the Mini Endurance Skate Event. Recognize the location? Image from Washington Area Roadskaters Have a...

No one is perfect. More than that, everyone will eventually let you down if you insist on holding them to impossible standards. Yet we all have moments of hero worship, I suspect. Whether it’s someone we know in real life or a public figure or celebrity, we sometimes feel a sense of connection and admiration that makes us feel good: about them, about ourselves, even about the world at large. For the purposes of today’s post, though, I’m really talking about people we know from afar. Personal relationships are entirely different kettle of fish.  Here’s the thing : it hurts to discover that the trust you placed in someone was ill-founded. Even if they’re just “someone on the internet.”  And yet it feels like it’s bound to happen. We live in a world where the 24 hour social media machine continually reveals things about people that we didn’t necessarily want to know. Sometimes those revelations are true, sometimes they are baseless. It’s a letdown when someone you admired turns o...

  Why yes, I am going to piggyback on an article from the Baltimore Banner this morning. I’ve been awake since four am and, alas, it has not made me more brilliant nor improved my work ethic. We set out to find dumplings in Howard County. We found a new obsession . Abby Zimmardi and Jess Nocera, Baltimore Banner. Photography by Eric Thompson  This piece reminded me of that brief era when we thought that Patch was really going to be a dynamic, ongoing part of the local scene. Remember when David Greisman and Lisa Rossi did a series dedicated to the best local chocolate chip cookie ? Those were the days.  We're David Greisman and Lisa Rossi, Patch editors who work "in the field" each day all around Columbia, eating cookies along the way to fuel our efforts at journalistic muckraking. At this point, after covering everything in our part of Howard County from crime and catastrophe to cute and cuddly—fueled by coffee and, well, you know—we think we know what we're talking ...

Hispanic Heritage Month begins on September 15th and runs until October 15th. I’ve been planning on devoting some space to it here and have begun the process of collecting information. And then a funny thing happened. I got sidetracked. My husband was treated to a special lunch yesterday by a coworker who explained that his family was celebrating what he described as Korean Thanksgiving. “Oh!” I thought. I wonder if that’s related to the announcement I saw for an event at Wilde Lake High School this Sunday. Korean Society of Maryland  Chuseok (or hangawi) is one of the biggest holidays in South Korea. It’s a time when families gather together to give thanks to their ancestors for an abundant autumn harvest. Sometimes called Korean Thanksgiving, Chuseok is celebrated with good food, wine, and family  gatherings. It typically takes place in September or October, according to the lunar calendar. - - Everything You Need to Know about Korean Thanksgiving  , 90 Day Korean web W...

  In honor of yet another morning of the ol’ Car Switcheroo at my house, let’s take this show on the road. I received a message yesterday with the words:  There’s got to be a blog post in this! Clarksville Cow Cuddling! And they’re on Instagram . Their website indicates that they’re an independent business that operates out of Mary’s Land Farm (technically Ellicott City?) Meet Snap, Crackle, Captain, Crunch, Pebbles, and Little Rock for cuddles, brushing, and feeding. Great for toxic stress relief and animal assisted therapy activities. It’s not just about the cows, though. You may book sessions with cows, calves, bunnies, and…unicorns? It was my understanding that cuddling with a unicorn was possible only if one possessed certain personal attributes.  Anyway, this looks like another one of those activities which could be fun if you are not allergic to everything. Stick this in the file along with Goat Yoga. Or Cat Cafés. Next up, these on the road photos were taken (b...

  I’ve meaning to tell you about this. The weekend’s events jogged my memory. Dan and Claudia Zanes performing at the Chrysalis, June 18, 2022, IAT Musicians Dan and Claudia Zanes, seen above performing at the Chrysalis in Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, have released a new album. It’s called Pieces of Home. Image from Dan & Claudia Zanes social media The duo, who moved from Brooklyn to Baltimore in 2019, describe themselves as: Haitian-American music therapist / jazz vocalist Claudia Zanes and Grammy award winning performer Dan Zanes. We play electric folk music for all-ages. One of the deciding factors in moving to Charm City was an invitation to become a part of a Baltimore nonprofit called “Our Joyful Noise.” Our Joyful Noise Offers Happiness and Healing Through Music , Max Weiss, Baltimore Magazine Our Joyful Noise is a network of area musicians who bring their talents to traditionally underserved audiences, such as women facing incarceration, autistic children and t...

I want to tie up some loose ends from yesterday’s post because I seem to have unwittingly given some folks the impression that the County took away the basketball court permanently. Not so. It was moved to a different location nearby. In this image you can see where the old one was (in orange) and where it was moved (blue). Image from hocogov  You see below that the basketball court was moved away from the residences on Early Spring Way and rather closer to the apartment complex. (Though not right on top of it.) Images taken from a Google search This has apparently been a solution that everyone is happy with and when you add in the new bicycle park it looks like the county has done everything in its power to meet the needs of the community. That’s great. It still doesn’t change the fact that there’s a very real trend to remove basketball courts and not just in Howard County. While the usual reason given is that they are “too noisy,” the underlying attitudes often lean more towards ...