Village Green/Town²

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F ³: My Wild Goose Chase to a Place Called Greenleigh

I couldn’t resolve the bill by phone. I couldn’t resolve the bill by mail. So yesterday I got in my car and drove forty-five minutes to the place where they generate the bills. They call what they do there Customer Service. When I arrived I discovered that the building is locked to anyone who doesn’t work there and that customers are never allowed in the building. Surprise. It’s a long story and I won’t trouble you with the details. The upshot is that I found myself in Middle River at around eleven am and I was too mentally exhausted to hop right back in the car and drive home. I was in a place that reminded me a bit of Maple Lawn. Very, very new. Mixed use - - offices, a cute little retail center that was mostly restaurants, a few office buildings. Oh, and a hotel. Welcome to Greenleigh .* Image from Greenleigh.com Greenleigh is Baltimore County's fastest-growing mixed-use community. The master-planned, 1,000-acre project features commercial office, flex, and r...

This is Columbia???

The dramatic photographs just won’t stop coming. Vultures flock to a Columbia neighborhood where woman won’t stop feeding them raw meat, Lillian Reed, Baltimore Banner Image from Baltimore Banner includes this caption: In a photo provided by a resident, black vultures are seen standing on a deck in the Glenmont neighborhood. As per usual, my attention has been drawn somewhere else. I don’t care about the raw meat. Why has this woman thrown her teddy bear to the vultures??? Who would do that? I guess you can be tenderhearted enough to want to care for birds that revolt and scare everybody else and somehow not tenderhearted enough to care about…teddy bears. I have feelings about this. Anyway the story is not about teddy bears and if you want to follow the entire saga, it’s here . You will never feel the same way about raw chicken again. I find it wild that this could have been going on so long in a community where we have so many restrictions on what...

She Gets Around

The girl gets around. Photo credit Jessie Newburn, HoCo Blogs No, not me. Her. Ginger Breadgirl, AKA Pink Gingerbread Girl Gingerbread Girl became a bit of a HoCoLocal celebrity as a spokesperson for Howard County Tourism in the early teens. She made her big comeback in conjunction with the movement and restoration of many of the old Enchanted Forest figures to Clark’s Elioak Farm on Route 108. For a time you could take a selfie with her at the Howard County Welcome Center on Main Street in Old Ellicott City. Not sure if she’s still there. She had her own Facebook account documenting her travels.* Ambassador at Large at Visit Howard County, Maryland Former Farm Hand at Clark's Elioak Farm This girl was everywhere and (seemingly) all at once. As you can see from the opening photo she turned up at a blogtail party at the Second Chance Saloon. (She didn’t drink.) I even bumped into her at the Inn at Norwood in Sykesville once. Apparently Pink Gingerbread Girl was a well-...

Smokin’ in the Boys Room ?

Welcome to the world of the beyond weird. Wait, what? Those are not book bags and school supplies. Those look like cigars. 2nd Annual Back to School BookBag & School Supplies Drive Public Event by Beck and Becky LLC Savage-Guilford Wednesday, August 5, 5 - 9 PM When you want to show people you’re community-minded but really want to promote your cigar business… Yikes. CIGAR LOVE, big and little, it's a Lifestyle brand... #unisexsmoke #couplesmoke #singlesmoke #sexystick. We are a lifestyle brand that intensely focuses on providing a premium cigar and accessory experience to each client. This started out being a weird photo that made me laugh. Now it’s giving me The Ick. Big surprise, the flier they’ve posted for this event on their own Facebook page is unadulterated AI slop. But, wait. There’s more! We will be supporting students in gorgeous Prince George’s County, and Washington, DC!! We will also have limited Back to School care packages for teachers, more to com...

Vacations and Nostalgia

I love photographic images. I’m not so good at taking them myself. For example, the things I catch while on vacation aren’t exactly picturesque: The view out of our hotel room window. Breakfast at the Robin Hood in Rehoboth. Reading by the pool. Absolutely required dinner at Go Brit: Room service? One sight that draws me in, time after time, is this: It’s a wall of retro candy in a little toy store along Penny Lane in Rehoboth. I return to it like a pilgrim to a shrine. It’s not because I eat any of these sweets. It’s because they speak to me of my childhood. People and places change or even disappear. Looking at those familiar wrappers brings it all back for a moment. Look what I found from ten years ago: Something Sweet, August 23, 2016 I can't visit Rehoboth without stopping in to Fun For All! Toys on Penny Lane. Something about paying homage to the candy and toys of my childhood gives me a sense of reassurance. My childhood is still there. It hasn't been forgott...

Lock Out, Lock Up, and Push Away

You go in a store and see that the product that you want to buy is locked up. What do you do? I won’t buy it at that store. I’ll buy it in a store where they don’t treat customers like criminals. Maybe I will buy a different brand that isn’t locked up if that will work for me. Some folks will leave the store and purchase the desired item online. Locking up merchandise is meant to reduce theft but it also reduces sales. It introduces an atmosphere of ill will with customers. It says we don’t mind inconveniencing you and making you feel like you are worthy of being under suspicion in our store. One of the most effective ways to reduce theft is to hire, train, and pay enough human employeees both to help customers and to reduce environments that make it easy to steal. But paying workers costs money. Reducing labor costs is one of the first things that big companies do these days. Putting barriers between what you are offering and the people who actually want it is counte...