Much has transpired since last year and now I have many, many (positive) reasons to get back to regular blogging.

For those who have left comments, I’ll be going through those this weekend.

Happy Fourth of July Weekend to all!

I see another parade vehicle approaching from behind. I pull over to let it join its compatriots. All good so far.

I see no other parade vehicles. I start to move forward again.

I pull up to where I can turn onto my street. Blonde mother of a Brunswick child is frantically waving her arms and screaming something unintelligible at me that I cannot hear because my windows are closed.

I open my window to say in an encouraging manner “I live right here!” gesturing to make a right turn. What I am intending to convey is “Whatever ya’ll are doing, I am about to get out of your way and turn right here so you can keep going without my interference.” My intentions are good.

What do I get from blonde Brunswick Mommy in return?

Yells angrily at me: “Well, we’re trying to have a parade!”  [Then in snotty sarcastic upset exaggerated tone] “Way to go Brunswick!”

Way to go indeed. Yes, let’s all have a parade but fail to put up any public signage about it so that we, the general public, are totally clueless about what is going on and thus we are rendered unable to support our town’s kids.

Way to go Brunswick, indeed. Fail to provide enough escort vehicles so that the parade gets fragmented, then blame it all on citizens who had no forewarning that a parade was going to happen at all.

Way to go, Blonde Brunswick Mom! Assume the worst intentions of your fellow neighbors when they are saying they actually want to get out of your way; you go ahead and do your civic duty and give your fellow townsfolk a snotty attitude and tongue-lashing instead to reign them back in line. Yes, let’s all think the worst of each other, because that’s what builds a real community!

You know, this is not the only reason, but for a whole host of reasons: Brunswick Maryland, eight years of you is enough for me.

If I was rich I would have moved out of here a long time ago. But I’m not, so I am stuck here, presumably for another eight years or more until I can afford a house someplace else.

I came to live here with the best of intentions back in 2002, but instead I get:

• Rude Brunswick Moms screaming at me for no reason even when I am trying to be helpful to their cause
• Never enough parking on my street
• Drunk teenagers trying to kick my door open late at night because they are too drunk to find the right house to go home to
• My son physically assaulted by another teen in the railroad parking lot–who literally breaks my son’s face
• Psycho next door neighbor constantly trying to sue me and harass me over the crepe myrtle tree that was planted here years before I even lived here
• No fluoride in the water
• No yard waste curbside trash pickup
• Favorite shops closing downtown
• Speeding ticket for driving 3 miles per hour over the limit (and yet no one ever seems to catch the people who speed down my one way street…driving the wrong way)
• Hearing loss from the fire siren

I am sure now that I have lodged this blog complaint, this sort of behavior against me, my family and my property is only going to increase… So maybe in a day or so I will remove this blog post entirely and go back to pretending that all is well here, go back to hiding my head in the crowd, hoping to go unnoticed so that at least rather than being attacked here I will be left alone instead… But right now I am upset and sad.

Sad that people here automatically think the worst of me…and sad that even though I started out wanting to see, believe, and think only the best of them, I’m losing my faith in this place that was supposed to be my forever home. I don’t want to feel this way.

I guess right this minute I am doing the same thing the Blonde Brunswick Mom just did to me: assuming the worst of this town and the people who live in it. I know in my heart it can’t be right to do that.

But you know, I am tired. Tired of various forms of harassment, theft and rudeness. Tired of not having enough money to escape from it, or even enough money to fix the house I live in. Tired of fighting for parking spaces.  Tired of the 3 AM siren waking me up so that I perform badly at work the next day.

I used to be the biggest fan of this place. I would talk about it positively to everyone I met everywhere. I would blog about the positives to emphasize them publicly and to try to generate more interest in them from people outside Brunswick. But I don’t find much here to blog positively about these days.

Now, there are some good things here still…the farmer’s market and its sweethearted vendors; some of my closest neighbors (not the psycho tree haters, of course, but the others who are genuinely wonderful people); the sound of the train in the middle of a cold winter’s night; Officer P who truly cares about kids and animals and people; the riverside… But are these things enough for me now to make me stay here?

Probably not anymore. I stay here only as long as forced to do so by the constraints of my finances. When money allows, I am off to some other corner of the county. It saddens me, because I had such high hopes when I first got here.

I want to change my mind. I want to feel better about this. I want to see things turn around. I want to try to contribute to make things better here.

But tonight, I am tired, and I definitely have a long way to go to get to where I need to be.

I guess because I am a Scandinavian with Eastern features (I’m not one of those blonde Scandinavians at all), I feel a sort of kinship with people in the Baltics and the former Soviet States, because I share some of the same roots (at least if you go back hundreds of years through the cultures and the bloodlines; the Finnish language is Finno-Ugric, after all). Maybe this is why this news story has affected me so much.

For the people of Poland I wish for healing, for strength, for peace, and for stability.

All of these dogs have been cleared for adoption by being tested for both temperament and general health.

Did you know that 1 in 4 dogs in American shelters are purebreeds? Often these poor pups have been given up by owners who have been forced to move into properties where pets are not allowed, or else the owners have faced significant financial difficulties. In other words, these are NOT “reject dogs” at all. These are dogs who were loved and wanted very much, and now they need caring new homes.

In Frederick County, many animals are given up when their owners are deployed on military missions and there is no other option available for their care.

Even if you cannot adopt one of these wonderful dogs, perhaps you could volunteer at the shelter to walk them and play with them? These dogs are accustomed to a lot of socialization and play, so being at the shelter can be a bit of a downer for them. These dogs crave your attention.

For those of you with high school kids who need to fulfill community service requirements, the Animal Control shelter would be a great place for them to help care for the animals to earn volunteerism credits.

Photos of the available adoptable dogs are currently online on Petfinder.com here:

http://www.petfinder.com/shelterSearch/shelterSearch.cgi?&shelterid=MD103&Animal=dog&sort=Identifier&preview=1

If you adopt a Frederick County dog, please leave a comment here–with photos if possible. I’d adopt a dog myself if I didn’t already have so many cats!

Back 2 Work Brunswick

Job Fair for Brunswick Area Residents

Saturday, March 20^th, 2010

10am-2pm at Brunswick City Park Building 

Employers: Have positions to fill?  You must have at least 2 positions open to fill and attend ready to interview or accept applications during the job fair 

Unemployed or underemployed: Looking for work?  Come dressed to impress with plenty of resumes and / or dates of employment ready to get in front of real employers! 

To attend the job fair, employers call:

301-712-4137 or send an email to kbjohnson_1@comcast.net

* This is a free event *

Media reports call for anything from 12 to 30 inches of snow in the DC area.

All was calm at the fairly well stocked Superfresh in Brunswick this afternoon; the only snow casualty was the banana section in produce, where I was forced to buy overpriced “baby bananas” in a bag because there were no normal ones left except for lonely, isolated green ones and brown bruised ones.

Sorry, I don’t know bird species at all!