It’s February 17th and a local business is shouting: SUMMER IS PRACTICALLY HERE!!! I look out the window. I disagree. But the business is Maslow’s Loom and they are selling summer camp experiences for school children. I think what they mean to say is, if you haven’t already planned all your kid’s summer camps already, you’re in trouble. Many folks try to get all that squared away in January. It’s February, for Heaven’s sake. Time is running out! I remember realizing that I would never get to be at home in the summer with my first child. It was a bitter moment. I was divorced. I had to work. Luckily I worked at the school summer camp so we got to be closer together than most. But there was absolutely no choice, no agency in how we spent our summers. On the other hand, my mother was saddled with three children in the summers back in the day as my father headed off to work. No one asked *her* what she’d rather do. I remember an endless string of days filled with outdoor play, running...
I promised myself that, if I got my piece on the Talbott Springs Pool written and posted, I would treat myself to some local pizza from a place I had never tried before. And I did. Last Thursday’s lunch from Pupatella I was driving home from a friend’s house and had the idea. I stopped at the Giant Palace 9 parking lot, perused the menu at nearby Pupatella on my phone, and placed an order. By the time I drove down 108 to the restaurant, my order was just about ready. Wowza. Pupatella has 11 locations in Maryland, D.C., and Virginia. They specialize in authentic Neapolitan pizza. “It’s chewier,” the woman at the restaurant hastened to inform me when I came in to get my order. (I wonder if this means that some folks don’t understand differing styles of pizza and expect it to be something else.) The service was friendly and welcoming and I would definitely feel positive about coming back another day to eat-in. (At an uncrowded time, of course.) I wasn’t there long enough to take in how ...