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Relevant Roundup


 

It has been a while since I’ve done a collection of miscellany. Today’s the day.

Not local, but almost: U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin has announced he has competed his current course of treatment and is in remission from cancer. I’m a big fan and, like many of us, have been rooting for him. 

In the same category: U.S. Senator Ben Cardin announced his intention to retire at the end of his current term. This has prompted anybody who is anybody to post nice things about him and include a photograph of the two of them together. It’s funny how people save those things for a rainy day. I had to double-check to make sure Senator Cardin was still with us. 

Getting more local: who will run for Cardin’s senate seat? Anyone can play this game, and there was certainly some preliminary speculation yesterday. I was happy to see recommendations that this position should be held by a woman, and, more specifically, a Black woman. Maryland is seriously lacking in this kind of representation and I hope that we will get it right this time. 

Absolutely local: they’re going to be having a pre-Memorial Day Barbecue in Dorsey’s Search. 



What I love about this is how carefully one must host a Columbia event in a village which is truly a hybrid. (Columbia/Ellicott City) Everyone can come, but the cost depends of whether or not you are a CA lien-payer. (I have been told by people who ought to know that it is not a lien, but, that’s another story altogether.) True confession: the words “CA lien” ran together for me and I originally read this as an event for “aliens and non-aliens.” UFO aliens. Little green men aliens. 

That would be some picnic.

From Patch, the story that 10 (TEN???)  disability placards were stolen from parked cars in Howard County is just mind-boggling to me. Why would anyone do that? You’d either have to 1) really want to hurt the people you were stealing from or 2) believe there was a substantial resale value. Is there a black market for disability placards in Howard County? 

This really ticks me off.

The most recent issue of the Long Reach Village “Reach Out” newsletter is promoting a series of new events called “Trashy Hours”. I think this is delightful. Alas, it is simply a cool name for picking up trash for an hour. I feel they could have added a more engaging twist to this somehow. 

I’m all for picking up trash and possibly meeting new people in one’s community. Maybe it could be a new Columbia movement: Trashy Hours all over town. Trashy Hour swag. Quirky T-shirts that announce: I survived Trashy Hour or Let’s Get Trashy Together.

Over at the George Howard building, word on the street has it that the Dunloggin Dragon mascot showed up at a council budget work session. No quote from the Dragon but it is presumed they were there to lobby for improvement/replacement of Dunloggin Middle School. What an interesting process of citizen engagement we have here in Columbia/HoCo. 

I thought that matching T-shirts and professionally-printed signs were the max. Apparently not. I suggest having all the mascots get together and participate in a quasi “Battle of the Network Stars” event. Do we draw the line at mascots? If not, what’s next? Skywriting? Airplanes trailing message signs à la Ocean City? Drones? 

If you’ve been following the surge in pickle ball popularity, you might be interested to learn that the  Bravo show Real Housewives of Potomac was recently seen filming in Columbia. Playing pickle ball? I don’t know for sure, but they seem to have been modeling Pickle Ball Chic.



I have not double-checked this yet, but I will. It seems silly enough to be true.

The Howard County Conservancy is hosting an Outdoor Yoga event on May 13th. 



I have to admit that even when I was young and flexible, I could not have achieved the yoga pose demonstrated in the photo above by…a caterpillar? Hanging upside down is probably the dealbreaker.

Have any good local stories to throw in the mix? Let me know.

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