Kitchen Table

Martin O'Malley said on the campaign trail that he was "fighting for hard-working Maryland families." He accused Bob Ehrlich of heaping "$3 billion in taxes, tolls and fees on the backs of everyday Maryland families." And now that he's in office, O'Malley wants to jack up the sales tax, one of the most regressive ways to go. But the 1-cent -- that's 20 percent -- sales tax increase is part of a larger package, one that is also supposed to cut income taxes for 95 percent of Marylanders.

Q. For two weeks our 2-year-old daughter has been telling me that one night a stranger came into her bedroom. Without prompting, she described the intruder as wearing a black outfit and white sneakers. She said she woke up during the night and he was sitting in a chair in her room, watching her.When questioned, she said he did not touch her in any way, speak with her or touch anything in her room. I asked why she didn't call for help and she said she did, but we didn't hear. She said the stranger left by way of her door.

IT WAS AN ordinary day in the workweek, but I didn't go to work. Instead I stayed home, taking medicine and naps, going through the winter ritual of recovering from the flu.For some reason -- maybe it was a break in the normal routine, maybe it was a side effect of the medication -- I became keenly interested in the rhythms, sounds and aromas surrounding a day of household meals.Meals struck me as the main event of the family circus, the nerve center of the domestic enterprise.The day began with the aroma of coffee.

MOSCOW -- While Igor and Tatyana Myshkin were taking off their boots and putting on their hosts' slippers, the family was clearing the supper dishes from the kitchen table, making way for the operation.The family's two children went into a bedroom and turned their music up loud. They said they didn't want to hear the cat's screams.There was only one scream. It came from Tatyana. A moment before the little gray cat succumbed to the anesthetic, terror descended and she tried desperately to escape, badly clawing Tatyana, who had been gently holding and stroking her.An hour later, the cat had been spayed and the Myshkins were packing up their instruments, heading for their next appointment.

There are two styles of cooking at our house: weekend cooking and weeknight cooking. On the weekend, meals are planned, recipes are followed, and culinary standards are high. On weeknights, time is short, ingredients are missing, and often supper just happens.The other weeknight, for instance, I was the first adult to arrive on the home front and that made me responsible for putting a meal on the table.It was a school night, the kids had homework, and my wife and I were in the throes of the workweek.

Police said they had a suspect almost immediately after 81-year-old Milton Stiekman was fatally stabbed in his Park Heights home in 1988. But they couldn't match fingerprints to the woman they were questioning.A decade later, city police said they have finally made the link. Yesterday, they arrested the original suspect in the case and charged her with repeatedly stabbing the elderly man as he ate dinner at his kitchen table.Marvina "Peanut" Spriggs, 31, of the 900 block of Chauncey St. was arrested at her home yesterday morning by members of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force and charged with first-degree murder.

I GOT HOME from work the other night, and there, resting on the kitchen table, was a car part. It was a piece of a side-view mirror. It should have been attached to the side of the station wagon, not resting on the kitchen table.As I stood in the kitchen holding the broken mirror, I sensed I had entered a new stage of family life. For a little more than 25 years, I have been holding the post of Protector of the Family Vehicles. Until recently those duties had primarily consisted of asking my mate, in a kind and loving way, "Dear, did you happen to 'bump' into anything lately?"

This time around, let's relax and enjoy Tom Miller's painted furniture, currently on view at Steven Scott Gallery.Since about a decade ago, when the work of this Baltimore artist began to find an audience first locally and then on a national scale, it's been scrutinized, analyzed, solemnized quite enough.And all because it's so much fun. The old furniture that Miller finds and paints in his trademark Technicolor style has an immediate appeal that people tend to resist. Afraid somebody will think they're calling it superficial, they emphasize instead its serious side.

KITCHEN RE-ENTRY was interesting. After being away from our kitchen for a little over two weeks, I found myself going through rituals to re-establish my footing in my favorite room of the house.One was the drinking of cold beer at the kitchen table. This was part celebration, part habit. I had brought the ship, the family station wagon, safely into its home port.Whether we are returning from a trip to the Eastern Shore or, in this case, a vacation in Italy, I consider it my responsibility to successfully transport the troops.

WEEKDAY BREAKFAST at our house is more functional than conversational. I suspect it is like that at many households. You get some grub and get out the door.Last Monday morning, however, was a waffle-making morning. It was different. The weather was unusually warm. The sky seemed brighter. Even the whine of the city trash trucks as they made their Monday morning rounds, seemed less plaintiff, more lyrical.The household benefited from having waffle batter leftover from a big Sunday breakfast.

Thomas cannot read or write. He lives with his mother in a two-story house in Hamilton, purchased with rolled change and savings from working as a groundskeeper at the Johns Hopkins University. He has longed to escape Baltimore and buy a ranch house in the country with a fenced yard and a room large enough for a pool table. Now, Thomas, 43, knows he'll never get that - because two people he trusted stole his entire life savings. Two weeks ago, Joseph L. Moody, a groundskeeper who worked with Thomas for a decade, and Moody's girlfriend Janet Gilmore pleaded guilty to stealing more than $150,000 from Thomas.

I was sitting on an examining table, waiting to meet the new doctor my insurance company had assigned me to, when she blew in the door, offered her hand and shook mine energetically. Then the new doc sat down on a chair in the corner of the room, put her feet up on the seat of another chair and clasped her hands behind her head like somebody who planned to be there for a while. "Tell me about your life," she said, and suddenly a routine physical became a cross between a job interview and a high school reunion.

Shelly Mandell, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women, introduced Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at a rally recently by saying - in an echo of Gloria Steinem a generation ago - "This is what a feminist looks like." As a women's historian, I would have to disagree. Mrs. Palin, despite her membership in the organization Feminists for Life, is not really a feminist. She is, rather, a "maternalist"- a woman who accepts the gendered division of labor but uses her assignment to home and family to claim the right to public participation.

A Park Heights man shot and killed a 45-year old man who was attempting to burglarize his aunt's home early yesterday morning, a police spokeswoman said. Police did not release the name of the man who was killed because next of kin had not been notified. They also did not release the name of the shooter yesterday. Several people at the man's house yesterday declined to speak with a reporter. Police received a call reporting a shooting at the 3800 block of Hayward Ave. about 1:10 a.m. yesterday, said police spokeswoman Nicole Monroe.

Our dog, Moose, has many talents. He can dribble a half-cup of water from his mouth after just the briefest sip from his bowl. He can howl a very irritating high-pitched tone whenever anyone sings above middle C. He can sleep soundly for long periods. You may not have considered this last one a talent, but that only indicates that you are not yet eligible for membership in AARP. Still, the most unusual talent Moose has is an affinity for surreptitiously snatching items that are top-of-mind to a family member, and carrying them around in his mouth until he hears the "Drop it" command.

It's not just because he's getting married today or because he's the funniest outdoors writer in Seattle ... OK, in the country. Even if those things weren't true, Ron Judd's new paperback, The Blue Tarp Bible, ($12.95, The Mountaineers Books) is the definitive volume on the things you can do with the "fabric that binds America." In one thin volume, a reader can learn how to make a matching redneck area rug (to go with redneck drapes), an emergency weekend kite and a man purse. Judd also solves the problem many of us face - "So let's say you've got a hindquarter of a large moose laying on the kitchen table" - with this blue tarp solution: "Industrial-strength zipless freezer bag."

Martin O'Malley said on the campaign trail that he was "fighting for hard-working Maryland families." He accused Bob Ehrlich of heaping "$3 billion in taxes, tolls and fees on the backs of everyday Maryland families." And now that he's in office, O'Malley wants to jack up the sales tax, one of the most regressive ways to go. But the 1-cent -- that's 20 percent -- sales tax increase is part of a larger package, one that is also supposed to cut income taxes for 95 percent of Marylanders.

With two episodes down, the suspense is mounting: Where oh where is that $1.7 billion going to be found? Gov. Martin O'Malley has turned the looming state budget deficit into quite the reality show. It's part Amazing Race, with the governor, pie charts in tow, traveling the state and uncovering clues to that elusive pot o'money that will balance the budget, and part Deal or No Deal, as he tries to sell a plan laden with trade-offs to citizens, businesses and legislators alike. I haven't seen any pretty models bearing briefcases full of bucks yet, so it's still something of a mystery where all the new revenue is going to come from to balance the budget.

Sociologists call it "emptying the nest," but I like to think of it as cleaning out the basement. It is that milestone in family life that occurs when your youngest child moves out of the homestead, taking -- you hope -- many possessions with him. It is a bittersweet experience. You know you will miss his company, but you also don't want to miss the opportunity to get rid of that old rug and those stacks of dinner plates, and perhaps an "interesting" lamp or two that have been dwelling in the basement.

Sara Totushek loves Halloween. One glance at the outside of her Carroll County home compels the casual observer to look for an admission booth. The gently sloping lawn is peppered with life-like headstones while "bats" hover inches below tree branches. Tiny, lighted skulls line the walkway to the large, covered front porch, where two large columns wear mantles of corn stalk. More bats dance ominously around the porch eaves, their eyes glaring down at various "human bones" and stuffed "body parts."