Friends

The middle school years are the most mystifying time. They enter middle school in the sixth grade as little kids and exit in the eighth grade well on their way to becoming young adults. In the years in between, they try to figure out their own identities, including who their friends will be. What do you do when you don't like the friends your child is hanging around with? I've been wrestling with this question. On the one hand, I think it is impossible to dictate to my son who his friends should and shouldn't be. He'll probably want to do the opposite of what I say anyway.

The junior midfielder, a second-team All-Metro selection last season, is a dominating two-way player in her third season starting for Friends. Last week, she made her biggest impact at the offensive end with five goals and two assists in two wins that puts the Quakers at 5-2 this season. Last Wednesday, Harris scored twice as Friends defeated Garrison Forest in its Interscholastic Athletic Association B Conference opener. On Friday, she finished with three goals and two assists in a 7-0 win over Chapelgate to put the Quakers at 2-0 in league play.

Friends and family of Ellison McCall Jr., who was brutally beaten and set on fire after earlier intervening in a bar fight in Northeast Baltimore, held a vigil Sunday to celebrate his life and press for answers on the year anniversary of his death , The Sun's Tricia Bishop reports. "This was a good guy," said friend Floyd Benton Jr. "He had no enemies. " McCall, 30, was working as a bartender at the New Haven Lounge a year ago and got into an altercation with some patrons, friends told The Baltimore Sun at the time.

What girl doesn't love a sleepover with her friends? It's all about giggling and being silly together. It's a time for sharing secrets, painting each other's nails, and munching on cheese curls and chips while watching the latest Disney princess DVD or teen romance. So it also is for the young women of the ARC of Howard County, the nonprofit that supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Twice a month, they gather at the ARC's respite care house in Columbia for their own version of a sleepover, Ladies' Night Out. And while the girls are mostly 20-somethings, with a variety of intellectual and physical disabilities, they are, in many ways, typical girls who love to hang out with their friends, away from their parents.

Nick Markakis said during yesterday's news conference that Brian Roberts is one of his best friends and he hopes he can help persuade him to stay, so Orioles fans have that going for them. Which is nice. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.com/schmuckblog)

Washington.---"HOW LONG do you think it will be before one of the Stinger missiles we gave the mujahedeen in Afghanistan will be going up the tailpipe of an American commercial airliner?'' asked the man across the table from me at dinner the other night.''Not long,'' was my guess.''Not long,'' he said. The man knows more about these things than I do. James Schlesinger has been both secretary of defense and director of Central Intelligence.Afghanistan was the last real battle of the Cold War. The invasion and long defeat of the Red Army there probably speeded up the unraveling of the Soviet Union and communism itself -- as the American entry and defeat in Vietnam probably extended the twilight struggle for a decade or longer.

At Sykesville's Merry Main Street holiday celebration early in December, Burke Holbrook and his buddy Benjamin Skalka seemed like just two of the many kids that night enjoying the sights and sounds of the holiday season. The two 5-year-olds attended the festivities with their parents, walked along the decorated Main Street, enjoyed the town's Christmas tree and visited Santa Claus as part of their preparations for Christmas. But Christmas 2011 has a special meaning for these two, who started their lives a world away, literally, in an orphanage in Nepal.

Will our traditions change once we're “the married couple”? Every year Sam and I, along with a group of friends (some single and some dating) go to Ocean City, Md., for New Years Eve. As we started planning for this year's adventure I realized this will be our last year as Mercado and MacNichol: Next year we'll be the only married couple to attend the trip. Will that be weird? Do we still go? Simple answer - Yes! It didn't take long for me to think about this one. Our friends are amazing and love us both, together and individually.

Hesston, Ka., population 4,000, is just one small town among others on America's Midwestern plains. But the town left an indelible impression on John Windsor and Jonathan Zorn after their short stay there during a recently completed 73-day transcontinental bike trip. "It was the one town that stuck out," said Windsor, who like Zorn, is a 2007 graduate of St. Paul's School. "The people in Hesston were the nicest we met along the way. We were in a grocery store, and so many people wanted to know what we were doing.

It was Stephen Pitcairn's 24th birthday Tuesday, and his friends marked the occasion with cake and flowers. On the Charles Village block where the young John Hopkins researcher was killed Sunday night, his friends and fellow lab workers built a makeshift memorial honoring his memory. Pictures of Pitcairn, wearing his signature grin, were bound to a tree with red ribbons in the 2600 block of St. Paul St. At its roots rested chocolate cake, red licorice whips and three oysters on the half shell — each with a dollop of cocktail sauce.