Village Green/Town²

  Before I delve into what is becoming an annual exercise in HoCoLocal Halloween silliness*, let’s hit the important stuff. The Clarksville Farmers Market has a Halloween theme today.  Howard County Pride is tomorrow, having been rescheduled due to inclement weather.  And now…drumroll, please…The Village Green/Town² tongue-in-cheek Fearfully Frightful listing for 2026: The Young People Who Might Be Empowered By a Community Center. There’s no telling what might happen if disenfranchised teens have opportunities to have better lives. Imagine the horrors! The New Restaurants That Don’t Open When People Think They Should.  Don’t they know the clock is ticking? The sheer audacity of keeping local foodies waiting for a new experience! The trauma!  The Deadly Threat of Solar Power Out West They didn’t think that anything could be scarier than New Housing until they witnessed the ungodly harnessing of the Sun’s powers - - - right in their neighborhood.  Village Bo...

  Baltimore, 1987. The top floor of a Bolton Hill rowhouse. Two young people with more hope than sense. An infant. A second-hand television. The debut episode of the “new” Star Trek.           Star Trek The Next Generation intro,  owned by Paramount Skydance Corporation  Oh, I forgot. One marmalade cat with white paws (named Biscuit after Powdermilk Biscuits) who we rescued as a kitten from the playground where I worked. Yes, I was allergic, but - - he was tiny and starving and alone. We made the best of it. I soon learned that I should never leave butter out on the kitchen counter and that twist-ties and the plastic rings on milk jugs were precious playthings to be hoarded and hidden. We paid the rent. Biscuit ruled the roost. Even with a baby in the mix, he held his own. On the night of the The Next Generation premiere he must have felt that our attention to the television was inappropriate. With exquisite timing, Biscuit jumped up on the tv tab...

  This one takes us out of The Bubble - - but just barely. About a year ago I received a message on Bluesky: Hello! When I go to your blog on my phone, it does desktop version. Very hard to read. Can you please see in the settings to create a mobile version too? I hadn’t realized this was an issue. This very nice person talked (non-tech-savvy) me through the steps to fix it. If you have found it easier to read the blog over the last year, it’s because of her. And, since I naturally felt gratitude for the tech assistance, I started paying more attention to the helpful person on the other side if it. She’s an artist . She has her own YouTube channel where she shares a bit about her artistic process and features current projects. May I introduce you to Adrienne Price: Adrienne Price is an illustrator and creative artist. She enjoys traveling, spicy foods, and doodling whenever nobody is looking. Based in Maryland. Adrienne does not condone the use of generative Al art. (All rights re...

  Friends, I overslept. I’d apologize but it’s honestly a rare delight. In the meantime, may I recommend to you: Something I Miss , Mike Hartley, Threw Mikes Eyez blog  It begins with a close up photo of a sandwich and then it takes you places. In your mind’s eye. Think Marcel Proust but without the madeleines.  Definitely worth the read. ***** Facebook reminded me of this experience at the polls on this date in 2016: I experienced my first Halloween parade at SSFS. Really sweet. Afterwards I popped over the the Bain Center to vote. Everyone smiled at me. Then I realized I was still wearing my cat ears and tail from the Halloween parade.  Have you voted yet? Village Green/Town² Comments 

  File this under things you probably knew. I didn’t.  Photos by @goofeballe.bsky.social  “Some of the locks on the bridge over the Patapsco river in Ellicott City, MD.” I knew about the phenomenon of attaching locks to bridges - - France, maybe? I didn’t know it happened here.  Well, yes. It does. And it’s not all that new. This video, made by Jamie On A Quest, was shared on Instagram in July of 2024. Padlock Bridge, Ellicott City Maryland  The act of attaching padlocks to bridges is part of a phenomenon that has come to be known as Lovelocks. Wikipedia traces its origins to stories in Serbia during WWI. The placing of the locks on a bridge is connected to an intention of long lasting love.  This reminds me a bit of the old-school habit of proclaiming one’s love by carving it into a tree , such as the one I discovered in Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods a few years back. Oh, we are full of love and also deeply flawed, we humans. Taking a knife to a tre...

  The cupboards are bare at Columbia Community Care. Food prices have gone up, up, up and donations have been waning. Everyone is feeling the pinch. Image from Columbia Community Care social media  We are also painfully aware that ever-increasing food costs and inflation in general are affecting everyone's household budgets. If you are able to, please consider picking up some extra pasta, cereal, peanut butter and jelly, tuna, canned veggies, etc. Every jar, package, can, container will help. Thank you so much, as always, for your caring and compassionate hearts.* Did you know that you can bring donations of non perishable food items with you to early voting? Food Donations Collected At Early Voting Centers Through Oct. 29, Kristin Danley-Griner, Columbia Patch The Howard County Board of Elections has partnered with the Community Action Council of Howard County to host the Harvest of Hope Food Drive benefiting the Howard County Food Bank. Most Needed Items: Big announcement f...

  “Maker.” You may think you know the word. In recent years it has added another definition. Here’s an example from Merriam Webster: e. a person who experiments with creating, constructing, modifying, or repairing objects especially as a hobby With 3D printers and sewing machines, laser cutters and hand tools, makers are innovating and revolutionizing the creative process of turning ideas into tangible objects. —Record Observer (Centreville, Maryland) Maker culture is about … learning by doing, taking an idea from paper to reality. —Peg Mawby The concept of “maker” has its origins in a magazine created in 2005 by Dale Dougherty.   Make: magazine, a quarterly publication, was intended to be:  … a guide for a new generation of hands-on enthusiasts he would come to call “makers”. As the editorial team profiled fascinating individuals, from rocket hobbyists to kinetic sculptors and DIY mavericks they realized that their vibrant, eclectic energy they were capturing in print c...