Water

If the Black Eyed Susan were a race horse, it would be a sprinter. It makes one strong move, then fades quickly. The strong move occurs this weekend when the cocktail will be in demand at Pamlico Race Track, during both the running of the Black Eyed Susan Stakes on Friday and the Preakness Stakes on Saturday. Over these two days, about 25,000 servings of the libation, poured into commemorative glasses, will be sold at $8 apiece, track officials say. But as soon as Preakness weekend ends, so does the does the local thirst for the Susan.

Customers of Baltimore's water system would see their water bills go up 15 percent — more than expected — under a proposal the Department of Public Works announced Monday. The projected rate hike follows years of increases and will bring a typical customer's annual bill to nearly $800, up from about $500 a decade ago, city officials said. Public works officials had previously said an increase of about 12 percent might be needed for the year that begins July 1. They said Monday the 15 percent increase is necessary to meet state and federal mandates, accelerate plans to replace aging water lines that frequently break and update meter and billing systems.

Company's coming to Pimlico Race Course . For the throngs expected at Saturday's Preakness, the hospitality team at Pimlico Race Course is bringing in 7,000 pounds of crab meat and 3,000 pounds of aged tenderloin. Did someone remember to get ice? Yes: 30,000 bags of frozen water are already in place. Those were just a few of the items on the Preakness list of Tommy Inzer, director of hospitality for the Maryland Jockey Club, which has been hosting the Preakness since 1873.

He's back ... unless he's not. Rumors that Michael Phelps, already the most decorated Olympian, is planning to come out of retirement sent the swimming community abuzz Friday night. Phelps, the Baltimore native who retired with a lifetime 22 medals, 18 of them gold after the 2012 London Games, threw some water on the notion that spread after a blogger and a Florida television station said he was headed back to the pool. "Why do I keep getting texts about coming back? Do [people]

Around the house* When going on vacation, remember to stop delivery of the newspapers; have someone pick up your mail; set timers for lights, radios and TVs; lock all doors and windows and hide empty trash containers.* Remove mineral deposits that have accumulated at water level in the toilet. Try rubbing stain with "wet" sandpaper available in hardware stores. Or, pour one cup of bleach into bowl; let sit for a few hours and scrub off stains.* Strain fat from broth by pouring through a paper towel into container.

To understand the impact meditation can have on the human mind, picture a glass of muddy water. If you stir it, the water stays cloudy and anything that might sink to the bottom is instantly sucked back into motion. But if you allow the glass to become still, slowly the dirt settles to the bottom and the water begins to clear. Meditation means different things to different people, but most agree that it is a means of quieting the mind, of stilling the parade of daily distractions and becoming less reactive to the stimulation that assaults our senses and emotions every waking hour.

The wake-up call came at 3:15 a.m. Tuesday, but Midshipman Alberto Salabarria was ready well before then. Anticipating a grueling, thrilling, muddy day of Sea Trials at the Naval Academy, Salabarria and some of his classmates couldn't wait. "Everyone was listening to music, trying to motivate themselves," Salabarria said. Staying upbeat is a key to surviving Sea Trials, a 14-hour test of strength, endurance and will that marks the end of the freshman, or "plebe," year at the Naval Academy.

Editor: I am responding to the news of yet another drowning in Deer Creek. Many such deaths can be avoided by an awareness of how they occur and of what to do. A person standing on rocks in moving water that is only as high as their knees can easily lose their balance and as their foot slips it can wedge into a crevice in the rocks. The enormous power of the moving water will push them down and hold them down, resulting in a drowning death. To avoid foot entrapment, one can fall backwards into an imaginary inner tube, drawing up the knees and feet out of harms way. Then the hands and arms swing the feet downstream to meet obstacles, protecting the head.

Water ought to be treasured, not wasted Water is the lifeline of all creation. We humans are the conscience of life; therefore, it falls on each of us, the responsibility to care for, share, and save water. For people to water their grass — a poor habitat site that usually bounces back after a shower — is totally irresponsible. It shows a lack of knowledge, or a flaunting denial of the importance of safeguarding our water. If people won't stop watering their grass, then let's make a law forbidding such blatant waste of our precious resource.

For nearly a year, I have been trying to re-immerse myself into the sport and skill of swimming — more specifically open-water swimming, in which one entrusts the body and mind to a lake or bay of some unknown power and depth. This is more terrifying than that calm sentence implies. Sure, I have been swimming in pools — clear, visible, well-demarcated lanes of civility — for nearly 40 years. But this hardly prepares one for murk, chop, tides, wind, waves, passing vegetation that wraps the feet and legs, cold spots and warm currents.

The wake-up call came at 3:15 a.m. Tuesday, but Midshipman Alberto Salabarria was ready well before then. Anticipating a grueling, thrilling, muddy day of Sea Trials at the Naval Academy, Salabarria and some of his classmates couldn't wait. "Everyone was listening to music, trying to motivate themselves," Salabarria said. Staying upbeat is a key to surviving Sea Trials, a 14-hour test of strength, endurance and will that marks the end of the freshman, or "plebe," year at the Naval Academy.

Wedding date: March 23, 2013 Her story: Nessa Klein, 33, grew up in Arbutus. She is a human resources consultant for St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore. Her mother, Linda, works for Baltimore County public schools and her father, Charles, is retired. His story: John Mimm, 35, grew up in Columbia. He works in sales and estimating at Eastern Waterproofing and Restoration in Jessup. His mother, Helga, is a stay-at-home mom, and his father, John, works in sales for Durrett Sheppard Steel.

Pink flamingos peer down from the dining room walls of Mink Stole's apartment -- playful reminders of the notorious 1972 film that helped launch Stole's career as an actress, alongside Divine, John Waters and the rest of the Dreamlanders. While Stole says she has a copy of "Pink Flamingos" "somewhere," she hasn't seen the film -- or many of the other Waters' productions she co-starred in -- for some time. The past few years, Stole has been focusing on her budding career as a singer.

Have you ever just messed up? I'm not talking about leaving your coffee on the roof of your car. I mean a major, life-altering mistake. Think fiscal cliff-level personal disaster. Now imagine paying for the mistake with jail time - then continuing to pay for the rest of your life by being shut out of every new opportunity to reestablish yourself. That's the life of Marylanders with prior misdemeanor convictions right now, and the General Assembly appears to want them to keep living their nightmares, while taxpayers foot the bill.

A 100-foot tugboat sank off Pier 3 in Locust Point on Saturday night. The tugboat Kaleen McAllister sank before 10 p.m., Mike Reagoso, the vice president of Mid-Atlantic operations for McAllister Towing, said Sunday. No one was injured in the incident, Reagoso said. Everyone had left the boat by the time it sank, said Petty Officer David Marin, a Coast Guard spokesman operating out of Baltimore's Curtis Bay yards. "It is too early to determine what the extent of the damage may be, but the submersion of the tug is not expected to interfere with any harbor operations or any port operations," Reagoso said in a statement.

It was just after noon Saturday and a large blue-crab-mobile was drifting out into the harbor with four students from Arbutus Middle School aboard and unable to steer. The problem? A thrown sock puppet that had damaged their controls. The absurd moment captured the spirit of the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race, now in its 15th year, even down to the puppet as the source of mischief — carrying one is a requirement of the competition. School principal Michelle Feeney watched anxiously from a pier at Canton Waterfront Park as a pair of kayakers paddled out to tow the middle-schoolers back to shore, so they could continue on their way. "All they care about is who threw the sock puppet," Feeney said.

Monday, Aug. 9, for about the fifth time in the last year, the water main at the corner of Back River Neck Rd and Old Eastern Ave. broke. I arrived home (after being rerouted due to road closures again to find out there was no water. Possibly The Baltimore Sun has an investigative reporter that can look into this situation. One lane has been closed at this location for months, and traffic backs up. That area of the road is lower than the rest and is full of potholes. Why hasn't this main been fixed properly and the hole closed?

In his recent column ("'Occupy movement got America wrong," Sept. 23), Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. illustrates the denial of economic reality in America that is continually propagated by the 1 percent. At the heart of his argument is the idea that the American Dream is alive and well, the happy meritocracy is humming along nicely, and that Occupy Wall Street is a group of slackers who devote their energies to trying to derail this bedrock concept upon which he and the 1 percent perch. Either he wasn't paying attention and completely missed what Occupy is about, or simply will not admit that he does know.

Stormwater is the only source of pollution to local waterways that is growing. There has been much talk lately of stormwater fees as a "rain tax. " While catchy, the moniker really doesn't tell the story. The story begins when those raindrops hit parking lots, roads and other paved surfaces. As they flow downhill, they pick up pollution - oil and grease from automobiles, fertilizer from our yards, and dog waste that wasn't picked up. That pollution flows into storm drains, then into local streams and creeks, then into local rivers.

I think people should try to conserve water and not pollute it. Water is the primary resource people and animals need to live. Only about three percent of the water on Earth is fresh and there are about seven billion people. If we're not careful, the water could go down the drain. Everyone has seen pictures of oil and other pollutants in water, but I don't think they take them seriously. In the past, DDT was a pollutant that damaged the food chain. It kept working its way upward, starting with small animals, then getting to bigger ones.