Back-to-school worries

This will be more of a purr, than a meow. A happy, contented purr. I write this as Disney falls down to sit down next to me.

Last night, Luke & I attended the Wilde Lake back-to-school night. As I left the building, I had tears in my eyes.

Lil had come home from her first day a couple of weeks ago, saying how awesome middle school is and how awesome her teachers are.

After last night, I agree. A bunch of us from the elementary school chatted after meeting the fifth teacher. "They have so much energy." "It's just as great as Running Brook." "They are all such characters!"

I had thought about not going...Tuesday had been a very long day and I couldn't fall asleep until after 2 so I was struggling after 4-5 hours of sleep. I really, really, really need seven. I figured it would be another weird schedule with BTS. But I thought about the PTSA meeting the night before and wanting to see the awesome teachers.

In all honesty, I did not meet her health and French teachers. But her chorus, geography, science, math and English teachers were AMAAAAZZZZING.

So my tears were mostly of happiness, but there was a twinkle of sadness. That some people in this county say mean things about this school. But it was the same way at Running Brook and I saw through that. It's all about parental involvement and I'm going to try to be and stay involved during our three years at Wilde Lake.

But I am taking tonight off from any community involvement. It's my birthday!

Columbia's Main Street

My mall is sad.

There is tons of parking available most nights of the week.

It's easy to get a seat at popular restaurants with little wait.

Stores are easy to navigate.

There's no line at the carousel...because it's not operating.

This is the state of affairs 10 days after a seemingly unhappy young man shattered the bubble that we Columbians inhabit. The belief that we lived in a friendly, happy utopia where most crime was petty theft and "didn't happen to us." We are the community of "Choose Civility." (One twit on Twitter claimed "Does a possible love triangle gone wrong do enough damage to the choose civility brand that HoCo officials feel denial is the right approach?" I won't link to that because I'm disgusted by his feed.)

But it did happen. It seems random, although we'd feel better if it was explainable. The randomness, though, should not make us stop living life.

I was struck by this because when I arrived at one of the mall restaurants, I had my choice of tables. The group of 20-somethings with the loud, obnoxious guy who knows something about everything and pontificates on it continually wasn't there for their usual happy hour. There were 2 bartenders when I arrived and 1 was cut by 6:30. There were 2 servers when I arrived and again, 1 was cut by 6:30. A large restaurant was operating with 1 bartender and 1 server and a manager. Because no one was coming in. The manager decided on which bartender to keep because his rent is due. She decided on which server to keep because her car payment is due. The manager has been making decisions like that for the last 9 days. Because no one is coming in.

And this is for folks who weren't there that day and didn't witness or experience the terror and fear - because that is going to take time.

Please - come to Columbia Mall. Have lunch at Panera, see a movie, visit the new Athleta store. Meet friends for happy hour at Champps. Play trivia at Uno's. SPEND MONEY - support college kids who are working their way through school, support single moms who have a second job, support people who are working HARD and may lose their jobs if the situation doesn't improve.

Please - come to the mall.

#HoCoBlogs