TEA

The River Hill High School POMS squad invites students in grades two through five to its POMS Clinic from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Nov. 17 at the school. POMS squad members will teach dance and techniques. The cost of $35 includes a T-shirt, a snack and participation in the halftime show during a River Hill High School varsity boys basketball game Dec. 5. Early registration is recommended, but walk-in registration is available if space permits. Students should take a bag lunch. Information: Christie Ficke, 443-831-9525; or Diana Alvarado, 301-706-9412.

Founder's DayThey're all fired up at the Fire Museum of Maryland in celebration of Founder's Day on Saturday. A day of festivities includes a display of miniature fire apparatus, an antique car show and interactive magic and juggling with Robert Strong. Visitors can also get a close-up look at the 40 pieces of firefighting apparatus, dating from 1806 to 1957, on permanent display. A food vendor will be available.The museum is at 1301 York Road in Lutherville. Festivities run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

Being sick is no fun anymore.There's no one to bring you bubbly ginger ale with a bendy-straw. Remember the sound of a freshly cracked bendy-straw? The straw contorted itself so the healing waters of the ginger ale entered your lips at a most sympathetic angle.Those were the days when Campbell's Soup meant something, darn it. Saltines were at your beck and call. And the Kleenex! Enough to wallpaper the house! Plus, you got to miss blocks of school days.Your ailment was household news. Loved ones tiptoed into your room to receive updates on your condition.

Meet Greg MadduxGreg Maddux doesn't look like a great pitcher. He isn't tall or powerful. But Greg works magic with a cool head and pinpoint control. He gives hitters fits. They shake their heads on the way back to the dugout after Greg makes them look bad."There are only two things you have to do to pitch well," Greg says. "Throw your fastball in the right place and change the speed of your pitches."Greg's smart pitching has helped him win the Cy Young Award four times.Sports Illustrated for KidsQ.

FOR MANY YEARS, the ladies in Jean Bates' circle at Baldwin Memorial United Methodist Church in Millersville have enjoyed preparing for the church holiday craft sale. Meeting each week, they would sew, crochet or knit crafts for the sale.Last year, one of the members proposed a new idea -- offering a recipe and suggesting they produce a soup mix, with layers of ingredients visible through transparent packaging, as an attractive and practical gift for the holidays. So the ladies in the circle chose that as their project.

CELEBRATE WITH Us -- 60 and Still Going Strong" is the theme of the annual Opening Tea for the Woman's Club of Linthicum Heights.The tea will be held Tuesday at the clubhouse, 110 North Hammonds Ferry Road. President Virginia Kuhn will open the program at 10: 30 a.m., and Shirley Beck, the hospitality committee chairwoman, will serve the tea.The tea has become a tradition since the club's inception. This year it features six vignettes highlighting the club's accomplishments in its six decades.

FINE CHINA, crisp linens, dainty sandwiches and delicious cakes are some of the tea-time accouterment adding ambience to a special party coming to Linthicum.The Woman's Club of Linthicum Heights is presenting an "Angelic Tea Party" and a vintage fashion show April 10 at St. John Lutheran Church, 300 W. Maple Road, Linthicum. There will be two seatings, 11 a.m. and 2: 30 p.m. Tables may be reserved.Club members have collected clothing older than the century and as recent as World War II from members and friends for what should be a nostalgic show.

THE DAILY PACE of the Guilford Avenue house where I grew up was governed by a dawn-to-dusk routine marked by distinctive noises. These comforting sounds reoccurred day after day, each in its place, providing some auditory punctuation to the day.The first one, generally sounding about 6: 55 a.m., was an exclamation point.The Croswell Ring -- It consisted of three sharp, deliberate peals on the house doorbell, a brass cylinder that could have been heard a block away on Calvert Street.Dorothy Croswell, our next-door neighbor, took many a meal with us, especially a cup of coffee and piece of toast before leaving for her job. She announced her early entry with her calling-card triple ring, the same in 1990 as it was in 1950.

WHAT A YEAR it's been! And now for the last of the 1900s.In 1999, we can begin to resolve to help usher in a better millennium.What to resolve? There's creating world peace, of course, but that's a tall order.What about a modest goal -- one that's achievable? How about according to everyone the benefit of the doubt?It's an old principle, enshrined in our laws and part of the groundwork of most religions. If the deity can be forbearing, how can we not be?By withholding judgment about the actions of our neighbors, what will we lose that compares to the civility we'll gain?

As if he didn't have enough on his plate, Loco Hombre owner Edward Dopkin - who recently bought Alonso's next door - will be taking over Jasper's in Pikesville, probably in August. To be more precise, Dopkin is a partner both in the Classic Restaurant Management Group, which will be running the restaurant proper, and a separate entity, Classic Catering People. The catering company will take over the multipurpose banquet room, which will now be called the Classic Room.By late August, after some renovation, Jasper's should reopen as a second Loco Hombre.

So much tea, so little hot water. No, it was a cold rain that soaked the tea bags decorating various umbrellas and handmade signs Wednesday on Annapolis City Dock, one of hundreds of rallies held across the country to protest ... well, it's a pretty long and not entirely agreed-upon list. Taxes, first and foremost, given that this was April 15, the day income taxes were due. President Barack Obama, for another, even though the legislation he signed in February will reduce taxes for most Americans, at least in the short term.

Demonstrators filled Annapolis City Dock - one of hundreds of anti-tax tea parties held Wednesday across Maryland and the nation - to toss tea bags into the water in protest of the economic policies of President Barack Obama and Gov. Martin O'Malley. Articles, Pages 2, 3, 12

For years, Betsy Lehmann worked at Ladew Gardens as a tour director. During those years, Lehmann, a resident of Phoenix, built associations with people and organizations in Harford County. So when she was asked to take over the gift shop at the Hays House in Bel Air, she agreed. "I love old homes, I love Colonial America, and I love teaching young people about our history," Lehmann said. "So I took the job." Later she became the co-chairwoman of Hays House. In that capacity, she helps organize and works at various activities throughout the year.

Baseball is as American as ... tea and crumpets? That may be case, according to a diary uncovered in southern England last year but only now being made public. Julian Pooley, the manager of the Surrey History Centre, said yesterday that he has authenticated a reference to baseball in a diary by English lawyer William Bray dating to 1755 - about 50 years before what was previously believed to have been the first known reference to what became the American pastime. "I know his handwriting very well," Pooley told the Associated Press, adding he believed the game wasn't very common at the time.

Harbor East's Teavolve (1401 Aliceanna St., 410-522-1907) has opened, and it's so much not a traditional tearoom. First of all, by the time you read this, Teavolve should have a liquor license. Co-owner Sunni Gilliam says she applied for one because she wanted to serve tea-infused and fresh-fruit-puree cocktails. "We have to have it by Friday," she adds. "We have a party of 200 coming in for cocktails." The new place is more of a lounge and much bigger than the first location, which is now open only for private parties of 20 or more.

On a sweltering day in 1904 a tea huckster, India Tea Commissioner Richard Blechynden, was having a hard time convincing visitors to the St. Louis World's Fair to sample his hot tea. So he put the tea in large bottles, flipped them upside down and let the tea flow through iced lead pipes. Iced tea, minus the lead pipes, has, according to the Tea Association of the United States of America, been a part of American summer ever since. Teavolve Address --1705 Eastern Ave. Phone --410-327-4832 Hours --10 a.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday- Sunday I picked a blended black tea, sweet orange and honey, from the impressive selection of loose teas.

This week's hot spell made me think of some of the hot-weather culinary customs my family observed. On a brutal Baltimore afternoon in July, my mother would roast a turkey or pork loin in a nonair-conditioned kitchen. She would say, "Don't think about the heat." After all, she'd probably been shopping earlier in the day on Howard Street, on foot, and carrying her shopping bags home. Her mother, my grandmother Lily Rose, who grew up with a wood-fired stove, did not like to light her Oriole gas oven after this time of the year.

SARATOGA COFFEE 222 Saratoga, 222 E. Saratoga St. / / Open 7 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Sunday / / 410-332-7155 ........................ THIS NEW, QUAINT COFFEE SHOP IN THE recently renovated 222 Saratoga condominum building has a charming setting. The shop carries both an assortment of deli sandwiches and natural beverages. "We carry Italian sodas, natural juices and teas," says Maria Tembra, assistant manager. "We pulled away from the Coke and Pepsi kind of thing because no one here drinks that stuff."

The Rosebud Tea was about to begin, and the crusts were still on the cucumber sandwiches. Rita Fayall wiped her brow - the school basement was warm - and raised an electric knife that buzzed like a chainsaw. The brown edges fell away. If a middle school boy were very, very lucky, he might get a few scraps of crust. The sandwiches themselves, though, were for the Rosebuds. So were the shrimp salad wraps and the trays of chocolate-dipped cookies. Earlier in the week, some boys, hearing rumors of exotic snacking to come, had inquired why they couldn't be Rosebuds, too. "Do you look like a Rosebud?"

The South Laurel Recreation Center will offer a class exploring the basics of tea from noon to 2 p.m. March 9 at the Montpelier Carriage House on the mansion grounds off Route 197 in Laurel. The class will be held upstairs above The Little Tea Pot Gift shop at 9652 Muirkirk Road. Topics include the varieties and history of tea, how to brew tea and tea tasting. The cost is $18. Information: South Laurel Recreation Council, 301-776- 2805. Egg hunts planned for March 15 Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks will hold its annual Spring Egg Hunts from 10 a.m. to noon March 15 at two locations.