Got a Case of the Mondays?

 

Mondays are, well…Mondays. (Especially when it feels like darkness is falling earlier every day.) I’ve got an idea for you. 

Actually, Tribos does.

Images from Tribos Peri Peri social media 

Tribos Peri Peri, located at 6010 University Boulevard in Ellicott City. That is to say, the part of Ellicott City which is a stone’s throw away from Waterloo Elementary School. (I’ve never understood that.) They opened in January, 2023 and we discovered them in July of that year. 

Every October since then they’ve had pumpkin nights. You call to let them know you’ll be there for pumpkin carving and decorating, and when you come for dinner they’ll be ready with everything you need. 

I mean, you’d be eating dinner anyway, right?

Yes, I’ve written about Tribos before. Have you been there yet? 

Every once in a while you discover a restaurant that always seems to have exactly what you want no matter what your mood. It’s not a fancy, five-star, white tablecloth place but a homey retreat from the craziness of the outside world. The owner and the staff and welcoming and the service is attentive. 

Friends, if you find a restaurant like this you commit to it. You root for it. You find yourself having an emotional stake in its success. 

That’s how we feel about Tribos. The owner has been so kind to us. We don’t go out much since COVID but if we do, nine times out of ten it’s here. They always make us feel welcome.

Maybe you are not the pumpkin type. That’s fine. You might know someone who is - - spread the word. Or just pop on over for some peri peri chicken or a lamb pita and enjoy watching other people ‘pumpkining’ away. 

It might be just the thing for a case of the Mondays. 

Village Green/Town² Comments

Facing the Music: Thoughts from the Festival

 

I read this sentence this morning and I can’t get it out of my head:

We have lost the joy of celebrating the success of fellow Americans.

There’s something true and very sad in there. But I’d probably write it differently: We have lost the joy of celebrating the success of people who don’t look like us. Or talk like us. Whose cultural expression is not identical to ours. 

In fact, what I find so deeply troubling is that many people’s response to seeing that success is that it takes something away from them. Let’s face it: there’s an entire swath of white folks who see anything that doesn’t replicate and validate [their perception of] white culture as alarming, degenerate, even un-American. 

Not only does this rob them of an essential element of being human, it’s also a motivating factor in some of the most hateful, authoritarian behavior this nation has ever seen. It’s not just damaging hearts, it’s breaking laws and crushing government.

If you’re wondering how this is going to end up being a local post, well…

I went to the Oakland Mills Fall Festival yesterday and soaked up the performance of the Oakland Mills High School Band and Poms. I am grateful for them. They brought me a lot of joy. 

I went away thinking that, as a whole, they didn’t particularly look like my high school classmates back in suburban Connecticut in the 1970’s. My school was brand new and opened using a new bus/transportation plan to make the local schools more integrated. Perhaps they were on paper. In reality there were many tiny worlds of separation under one roof.

What a wonderful thing it is that I have been able to live in different communities since then and meet different kinds of people and experience different kinds of excellence. And joy. This isn’t because of any special qualities I have - - I don’t know how I came to feel this way.  Having these life experiences has been a gift. I am joyful because I am still learning. 

What a sad, angry world it must be for those who look at their neighbor and feel that they have nothing to learn and nothing to celebrate. 

Of course, having the capacity to learn also means understanding things that enrage you and break your heart. Being open to the success of others also means being open to their pain and suffering.

That’s not fun or inspiring or heartwarming. It awkward and uncomfortable and upsetting and I hate it. I  am not that great at it, either. But maybe the one gift must accompany the other. 

I am still learning. 

Village Green/Town² Comments

Real Life, Fantasy, and Festivals

 

Aliza Worthington of Baltimore Brew has written a piece about the Main Street TARDIS. Sure, I wrote about it a month ago but hers is one hundred per cent cuter. Enjoy.

Who is up for a mystery? Tardis appears on Main Street in Ellicott City 

The possible connection to Wizarding Weekend on Magical Main cannot be ruled out, methinks. And it might explain why we haven’t heard any loud complaints from the Historic Preservation Commission.  (Perhaps they know it’s temporary.)

There are so many things going on around town today that my head has just about exploded. A quick look at the Columbia Inspired calendar reminds me that The Longest Table is this evening. It looks like there are a few tickets left, if you’ve been wavering on signing up. 

Longest Table is more than a meal—it's a movement. Join us for an evening of food and connection, where neighbors from all walks of life come together to explore the power of curiosity.

If you are interested in The Longest Table concept, there’s a website. 

The Longest Table is a free, community event that brings people together for a shared meal and conversation. It's a simple way to create moments of joy and build stronger neighborhoods.

It’s outside this year, in case you have immunity concerns. This means, of course, that I should go, but there is no protection against shyness. Maybe someday.

Of course I’ll be stopping by the Oakland Mills Fall Festival and possibly the market at Clarksville Commons, since it’s one of the weeks where the amazing sticky buns will be available from Rob & Sons.

What’s on your agenda for the day? Any other local event(s) you’d like to boost?

Let me know.

Village Green/Town² Comments 

F ³: Heroes

 

Learning about Jane Goodall was a part of my growing up. There’s a sort of a golden glow around her in my childhood memories. I’ve been sifting through those wisps of images and facts since I learned that she was gone.

I grew up in a house with books, and not just story books and fairy tales. We had “great men of science”, and “men who made history”. My mother owned a Funk and Wagnalls encyclopedia set circa 1948 which recounted, more or less, the history, knowledge, and accomplishments of mankind.

And then there was Jane Goodall - -  doing something no one had ever really done and learning things no one had even been curious about or valued. 

There was no one like her in my books at home or on television shows or in the movies. I was fascinated by her. 

Truth be told, I wasn’t all that interested in her field of study. I didn’t imagine myself doing what she did. But the essence of her spirit - -  her gentle, persistent curiosity - - made all of it more interesting to me. If she thought it was worth knowing, then it was. 

Women in my childhood world were wives, mothers, teachers, secretaries, stewardesses, nurses. (A few were models or Hollywood sexpots.) Women who strove for excellence in any other sphere were often mocked and painted with the brush of being bossy, unattractive, and unfeminine while also derided as categorically inferior to their male counterparts.

And then there was Jane Goodall. In a world of immovable objects she was an irresistible force.

If you had asked me who my heroes were when I was little I don’t know what I would have said. Heroes were men, possibly cartoon characters in tights and capes. I wanted to grow up to sing like Julie Andrews and Judy Collins. I guess they were my heroes.

What does it mean to be a hero? What does it mean to have heroes who are truly worthy of your admiration? Women have long been encouraged to live vicariously and dream vicariously through men. It is frustrating to me that I might have had many worthy heroes and role models as a child if the stories of women had been shared and valued equally.

Were there women heroes before Jane Goodall? Plenty. Were they largely invisible to me? Yes.

In this year’s Alan Turing Lecture at King’s College, Cambridge speaker Sandi Toksvig addresses how prejudice can skew and mar academic inquiry. (Cutting Discovery on the Bias) Toksvig’s knowledge of and passion for the subject crackles with brilliance throughout. She has, as they say, brought the receipts. But underneath her well-educated and carefully modulated speech I sense the crackling of something else: the dry, almost brittle crackling of quiet rage. 

Rage at the exclusion, omission and erasure which perpetuate both ignorance and oppression. 

Maybe the rage isn’t there. I don’t know. Maybe it’s my rage bleeding through.

And now we have lost Jane Goodall.  She managed, somehow, to cut through the patriarchal world of scientific study and show us something revolutionary: a woman fully committed to her life’s work with determination and joy. 

She was a great light. I didn’t realize until this week how much she has meant to me.

Village Green/Town² Comments

This Is Your Invitation

 

Once upon a time it was an International Festival. After that I believe it was a Cultural Arts Festival. Now it is a Fall Festival. One thing remains the same: It’s an annual tradition in Oakland Mills and it’s my favorite Columbia Village event.

Oakland Mills Community Association Fall Festival

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4 11:00 AM TO 3:00 PM

Oakland Mills Village Center 5851 Robert Oliver Place Columbia, MD

Free! Rain or Shine!

• Craft & Community Vendors
• Yards Alive Native Plant Giveaway
• Bike HoCo Bike Corral
• OMHS Band & Poms
• Live Entertainment
• SFES Hot Dog Stand
• Food Trucks
• Children's Area

I love this bit:

If you have a bike to donate, bring it to the Bike HoCo bike corral, and they will give it to Free Bikes 4 Kidz. The OMHS Food Pantry will also be taking non-perishable food and monetary donations at the festival.

This festival even has its own website where you will find that everything you need to know has been  organized and laid out beautifully. 

My favorite part of my village’s yearly festival is the kickoff at 11 am led by the Oakland Mills High School Marching Band.

Fair warning: if you talk while the band is playing you will probably feel my eyes burning a whole in your body. 

Festivals like this are purely community-building ventures. They take months of preparation and require coordination between OMCA professional staff and village volunteers. Every community celebration you attend that feels easy and fun and almost effortless is the result of an amazing amount of invisible work. 

It’s not a fundraiser. Not selling a product. Not promoting a political candidate. 

The Oakland Mills Fall Festival is a celebration of community. We value connections. (Really. It’s embedded in the website.)

There’s a ton of stuff going on around town this Saturday. You will have plenty to choose from. I hope you’ll consider stopping by my village for a bit of the old-school Columbia vibe. 

Bonus content: If you’d like to see a truly dopey photo of me and proof that my enthusiasm for this festival has deep roots, just click this link.

Village Green/Town² Comments

Fragments

I’ve just finished five days of steroids for an asthma flare and I suspect I have more in my future. This was probably brought on by the fact that my insurance has stopped paying for one of my maintenance inhalers and I made the foolhardy decision to see if I could get along without it. 

I didn’t have to do that. 

My doctor will find me a reasonable equivalent and I should have been on top of that.  I am so fortunate to have health care coverage. I’m not complaining. But sometimes following up on and tracking down all that stuff is exhausting. I don’t know how people can work full time and still jump through all the health insurance hoops. I don’t know how people cope when they don’t even have access to the hoops.

In light of my prednisone brain I bring you today’s edition of Fragments.

My husband and I were invited to a school event the other evening which involved a visit from the Mike’s Gelato truck. We noticed the sky getting darker as we headed down the road and made the usual seasonal remarks. And yet it was still warm enough to be eating gelato outside at the end of September. As I stepped up to the window to place my order, the truck radio started playing “Summer Breeze” by Seals and Crofts and for just one moment the world felt like a good and trustworthy place.

I had mint chocolate chip. It was delicious.

*****

I had a visit recently from two very nice fellows who came to get my chairs. 

They’re part of an old kitchen table set. Very good condition! No one wanted them on Buy Nothing. I followed a suggestion I’d seen on Facebook and reached out to a group called Home of Our Own. They wanted them!

For reasons unknown to me, they sent two gentlemen with two different trucks on the pickup run. They looked as amused as I did when they realized I only had two chairs. 

I’m not sure, but it might have been the men pictured below. It looks like they are recruiting!

HOOO Transportation volunteers Pat and Steve need your help! They - and their other team members pick up donated items and deliver a houseful of furniture & household goods - and smiles - to our clients. 

Duties include moving furniture - from dressers to sofas to tables, placing items as directed by the clients and assembling pieces as needed.  It’s a good workout, and truly a worthy effort! 

Get more information and sign up at tinyurl.com/HOOOHelpWanted

*****

A quick trip to the East Columbia Branch library yielded an excellent book on children’s art and a discovery.

Join the fun at our social engagement stations! Find Booker!

I found Booker. Apparently Booker likes bunnies.

Though less hyped on social media, this is also an engagement station. If you know how to use it.

Are you vote ready?

*****

Speaking of social engagement, I found myself headed to Touché Touchet yesterday because of one photograph on Facebook. Apple cinnamon rolls.

It can’t have been much after eleven am. They were already sold out. They did have one apple turnover so I wasn’t completely bereft. I also had a lovely discussion with the clerk about gingerbread, which I love. They don’t carry it and this nice young man had never even tasted it. Horrors!

What can I say? Steroids make you hungry.

*****

New sign up at the Medical Arts Building next to the hospital.

Masking in this facility remains mandatory for anyore with fever or upper respiratory symptoms, or who thinks they might have COVID. For most others, masking is strongly recommended.

They only post these when they have good reason. Just saying. 

Have any good local fragments? Let me know.

Village Green/Town² Comments