Mary Lehman will be at the Beltsville Academy (the elementary school) on Wednesday, March 7, from 7 - 9 p.m. The title of the meeting is "Planning 101." She will review several projects in District 1 which are currently under review by the Prince George's County Planning Department. Have you ever seen those orange and white signs announcing an upcoming planning board hearing? Those are the kinds of things she will be talking about.

If you are interested in planning and zoning matters, I recommend visiting PGPlanning.org . I think it is nicely organized. I saw a sign for an upcoming planning board hearing about a property across the street from High Point High School, so I visited the web site to try to find more information. I was able to find it easily. It turns out the American Legion owns the property and they want to build 17 townhouses on the site. Three acres will be set aside for a new building in which the American Legion and the homeowner's association for the townhomes will meet.

I recently read an article on Lifehacker.com about a browser add-on called Do Not Track Plus. I decided to go ahead and install it, just to see what it is all about. I've kept an eye on the little box on my menu bar that shows how many trackers have been blocked. Guess what web site has a high number of trackers? Livejournal.

I'm still not sure if I'm going to keep the add-on installed. I just revisited the Lifehacker article this morning. There are several good suggestions in the comment section for avoiding trackers. The main change that I have made in my Internet use lately is that I sign out of web sites, instead of staying logged on to them as I surf the web.

My cat is sick.... again. We came home from work today and he had barfed all over the place. We regulate how much food he gets, so I'm not even sure how he managed to hit so many different places. We have made the decision to keep him downstairs, basically for the rest of his days. It's a large area and we are down there a lot of the time, so it's not like we are shutting him in a closet. He's 15 years old and we're not sure how much longer he will be with us. He made it through a vet appointment last Wednesday, at which Dr. Prowell gave him a shot of anti-nausea medication. She said he didn't have a fever and she didn't feel anything unusual in his abdomen, so that was that. I feel terribly guilt for thinking this, but I wish she had felt something. I can't justify euthanasia if he's just an old cat with an upset stomach.

The decision of when to "let go" of an older pet is so hard.

Greenbelt Metro Station --> Gallery Place / Chinatown Metro station --> Metro Transit Sales Office, 600 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 --> Absolute Thai, 521 G Street Northwest  Washington DC 20001 --> The National Building Museum, 401 F Street Northwest  Washington, DC 20001 --> Gallery Place / Chinatown Metro station --> Greenbelt Metro station.

Online restaurant review web sites often have to be taken with a grain of salt. What one person finds interesting and special, another person will find boring or obnoxious.

There are some negative reviews for an Italian restaurant called Graffiato in Washington, D.C. The reviews noted that the place was loud, including one review that said the music was blaring. I decided to call to make a reservation, anyway, because the food there is supposed to be excellent and the location is convenient. When the person picked up the phone I could barely hear her because of the music in the background. That was during lunch time. I ended up not making the reservation. Wanting a party type of atmosphere is understandable, but is 115 decibels really necessary?

The temperature was almost 70 degrees in Beltsville yesterday. We enjoyed blue skies and sunshine for most of the day, until some clouds and wind arrived at 3:30 p.m. We went out around lunch time to go to California Tortilla, in Laurel, MD. We took Van Dusen Road to get there. As we were approaching the Konterra Model Air Park, we noticed there was a model up in the air doing some great maneuvers. We pulled in to the park and were pleased to find that lots of people were there with many different types of planes and helicopters. We were delighted to watch the plane that was up in the sky while we were there. The flying was the best I have ever seen. There were several times I was sure he was going to stall, but he never did. We stayed until he landed the plane.

The park is maintained by the Freestate Aeromodelers. They have taken care of the park for years. We didn't have our camera yesterday, but I found the pictures my husband took when he went to the park with his father for a show on June 23, 2007.

Anywhere that has a tag line of Where Fabulous Lives must be an interesting place.

That is certain true of Hillwood Estate, Museum, and Gardens. Hillwood was the home of Marjorie Merriweather Post in her later years. People from this area will most likely recognize the name because of the music venue called Merriweather Post Pavillion. Perhaps anyone who was a boy scout around here will recognize the name because of Lake Merriweather at the Goshen Scout Reservation.

Reading a biography before visiting really enhances the experience of visiting her beautiful estate neighboring Rock Creek Park. The book American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post explains the fabulous part of her, as well as the human part of her. She was a daughter, a wife, and a mother.

Her home is fabulous.

Completely coincidentally, I drove by a sign today mentioning that the Beltsville VFD is going to have an open house tomorrow from 12 - 3 p.m. It's a pizza party for which adult tickets are $7.