We Love Durham NC

Durham Kids’ Theater

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Rags To Riches theatre for young audiences will be presenting,”Caught in
the Web,” a collection of Ananse Spider Tales from Africa, on Friday,
April 25th at 10:00am at Duke Memorial United Methodist Church in
Whitford Hall, 504 W. Chapel Hill St., Durham, NC 27701. Tickets are on
sale now $5.00 for everyone 2 and up. For ticket information please call
Melody Peters at 919-423-8696 or by e-mail at mpeters4@nc.rr.com.

Also, We will be performing at all of the libraries in Durham, NC during
the week of April 14-19. Please let me know if they have sent this
information already. If not I can send you the specific show titles and
branches and specific dates.

For the beginning of May you might want to highlight a few dates as you
usually do. We will be performing,”The Paul Bunyan Tales,” on Sunday,
May 4th at 4:30pm at the Broad Street Cafe, 1116 Broad St., Durham, NC
27705. Tickets $5.00 at the door. For information call 919-416-9707 or
www.TheBroadStreetCafe.com. For more information on Rags To Riches
theatre for young audiences please call Melody Peters at 919-423-8696 or
by e-mail at mpeters4@nc.rr.com.

National Crime Victims Week 4/13-19

from the inbox…

The Durham Police Department Victim Services Unit invites the community to observe 2008 National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, April 13-19. A forum on Youth Violence will be held Wednesday, April 16 at 6:30 p.m. at the Hayti Heritage Center (804 Fayetteville Street). Saturday, April 19 a registration for a March Against Violence and Candlelight Vigil will begin at 7:00 p.m. at Police Headquarters (505 W. Chapel Hill Street). March will begin at 8 p.m. followed immediately by the vigil. For more information, call Victim Services at 560-4951 ext. 259.

Please come out and represent your Organization in Durham’s March Against Violence. Our victims need your support and your voice. This is a family friendly event we will have activities for the children.

Robot Day at NCMLS 2008

Lost in Durham Trying to Find Beer

Couldn’t find the Triangle Brewery. I think I must have gotten there 5 or 10 minutes past 6:30, but all I found was lots of TROSA moving vans, a big open warehouse with Southern States feed bags but no people, and lots of chain link fences. Did see the SEEDS kids working in the garden. No local brew for our friends this time. I saw some photogenic silos but, sadly, did not have a camera. Maybe next time.

And many more!

We celebrated a birthday at El Rodeo tonight. The birthday girl got to wear a giant bejeweled sombrero while being serenaded with a birthday song and eating an ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate combo. What a treat!

More Durham restaurants here.

Downtown Dinos

The “Parents Night Out” feature at the downtown YMCA is changing formats. It will no longer be merely babysitting, but rather a theme-based program. The cost will increase from $7 to $12 per child, and I believe the hours are expanding–they will be 5:30 to 8:45pm. The next theme is Dinos, and will be held on April 11th. Open to Y member children from 3 months to 10 years of age, preregistration required (cannot register the day of the program). Rawr!

Members Only

This is the weekend for the 20-30% off members-only sale at The Regulator on 9th Street. Lifetime memberships are only $10, worth it for this kind of deal.

Play to Learn II

I finally took the correct child to the new 6-and-under spot at the science museum in Durham, so we got to play.

New things:

- veterinary area with a stuffed horse you can groom, give shots to, or ride on.
- kitchen area with lots of goodies like cloth fried eggs and a sprayer on the sink
- natural-log blocks and kinderkram wooden animals
- book nook with board and picture books, about fairy houses etc.
- textures wall
- rock climbing wall with number and animal “rocks”
- bear cave tunnel
- large infant & toddler area — we could only peek in
- regular block building area
- bench nicely placed for nursing
- books for the adults; I saw “Einstein never used flashcards”

Old things gone:

- swamp mural with stick puppets of fish, butterfly, turtle
- bubbles, and the icky sticky rug under the bubbles
- light table with primary color triangles to overlay
- light table with magnifying glass and nature specimens
- light table with magnets and steel filings
- wacky carnival mirrors
- bubble windows? (I think)
- primary color light stairs? (I think)
- pumps with shampoo, water, and corn syrup… that always leaked
- big bubble pump

Old things remaining:

- high ball drop with the overhead track and zigzag tracks, although one of the towers was made into the book nook
- the ski slope ball drop
- water painting on a chalkboard (this was added when they put the play area in its temporary location)

There is good play to be had in Play to Learn. It was very packed after 10am (members get in the museum at 9am, everyone else after 10am), with at least one playgroup meeting.

Something else: the NCMLS bathrooms smell like cinnamon red hots.

Smoke in Durham

The smoke that has settled in the low spots of Durham, including the woodsy areas of SW Durham and also downtown, is apparently coming from a controlled burn in Chatham County. Relief that nothing is on fire!

Taverna Nikos is open again

Okay, that’s not new news. But it was closed, and that was sad, and now it is open again.

I think in the past I always had the appetizer platter or the lamb/orzo (I don’t know if either of these is still on the menu). I couldn’t eat a whole appetizer plate, and I’m off the lamb at the moment, so I had the horiataki (what I think of as “Greek salad”–feta, cucumber, olives, and tomatoes) and the spanakopita. The spanakopita was huge, and oddly came with a salad, so that I was awash in salad. I brought the whole spanakopita home for lunch today.

Did I mention we just adopted a dog?

I put the spanakopita on the stove while I tended to The Girl. Turned around and the dog was UP ON THE STOVE EATING MY SPANAKOPITA!

Anyone want a dog? (Kidding, poor thing was given up 4 times so we wouldn’t do that… but dang.)

Campus Hills Preschool Play

This morning, the Durham Mothers Club’s open playdate led us to the Campus Hills Tot Time. Tuesdays and Thursdays through May 29th, free, 10:15-11:30. Lots of balls and mats, and lots of fun!

The complete Parks & Rec “Play More” guide is here (this is a large PDF): http://www.durhamnc.gov/departments/parks/pdf/play_more.pdfÂ

Gourmet Grocer in Southwest Durham

This is exciting news: the University Marketplace developers have selected an anchor tenant for the project on University/Shannon, Poppies, a gourmet grocer with outdoor seating and garden space. A gathering place that the SW Durham folks could bike to! The grocery will be LEED-certified, apparently the first of its kind in North Carolina.

The Ark

We visited the open house at the Ark houses on Martin Luther King on Sunday.

I was surprised that:
- The two houses don’t seem too close when you are inside them.
- The floor is heated with water flowing past the solar panels on the roof, quite warm to the tootsies.
- The house can very easily be off the grid for most of the year, with the solar panels, angle of the roof against the windows, and air flow.
- The bottom level could easily be free-standing and rented out to help with the mortgage payment.
- Very few trees were cut down on the lot, with the small footprint of the house and building materials.
- The walls are well-insulated, made out of something that looks like styrofoam encased in two pieces of drywall.

Elmo’s Kid Friendly

Lots of places claim to be kid-friendly, because getting those family dollars is good business. But Elmo’s Diner (no, not that Elmo, silly-billy) in Durham really is kid-friendly, from the kid menu down to the brand-new crayons, from the school donations every Tuesday to the waiters and hosts who don’t snarl at kids like at many restaurants. Comfy booths with clean boosters, clean bathrooms. And coffee while you wait–bonus for mom.

I’ve Been Squeeged!

We called in Mr. Squeegee for the dirty work today… and by dirty I mean the work that has to be done at the top of a scary ladder. The Mr. Squeegee window cleaning team swooped in to both thoroughly and professionally clean our gutters and windows, all of which are sparkly shiny now. Thanks, Mr. Squeegee!