Thursday, February 20, 2020Entertainment Value
There is nothing in this world quite as entertaining as a neighborhood Facebook group. Or is that just mine? Because mine is definitely popcorn-worthy nearly every time someone posts, and that's coming from someone who deleted Facebook everywhere and only goes to it occasionally for the neighborhood Facebook page.
It's so good.
A constant theme is the fact that nobody reads what other people write. As in, someone will post that they found a dog wandering the neighborhood. Then, half an hour later, someone will post asking if anyone has seen a dog. Comments will go back and forth between both posts and it usually takes an hour before everywhere catches up and realizes the whole thing is resolved.
I don't know why I find it so funny when the lost/found dog thing happens, but I do.
It might be because I'm a terrible person.
There was a point when someone took to the page to rail against a bad driver in the neighborhood who ran over her cat and took off without stopping. Her black cat. That was crossing the street after midnight. I know those details because someone posted video of the cat getting hit, which is AWFUL. TRULY. But, still, I am a terrible human who was all, "Maybe don't let your black cat out at night if you don't want it hit by a car? Or maybe don't ever let your cat out because THERE ARE COYOTES WALKING THROUGH OUR NEIGHBORHOOD ALL OF THE TIME. LETTING YOUR CAT ROAM FREE IS DUMB."
I told you I'm terrible.
The latest drama has to do with the garbage pickup. One company used to be in charge of it, but it changed January 1st, and legit the new company is SO bad. They speed through the neighborhood, skip entire streets, and are so sloppy. There is literally trash strewn all over the place the day after pickup. It's been bad since day one and just keeps getting worse. This week they stopped picking up in the middle of a street and just left. Like, the workers decided they were just done and took their ball and went home.
BOY HOWDY are the comments about it great. The garbage picker uppers have been called lazy, uncaring, all sorts of names. My favorite, though, is that someone called them liberal. As in, "They should only hire republicans because damn liberal trash does stuff like this."
I couldn't breath for a minute after reading it. A real person typed those words, with their name attached to the comment, and thought it would be an excellent post to share with their neighbors.
Presidents Day Shenanigans
It's been a few years since the company I work for went from being a family-owned business to owned by A Very Giant Company. It is mostly an upgrade for a ton of reasons, but comes with some quirks. Like, our holiday schedule is still in flux. Each year we lose a weird holiday, but gain another that is at least somewhat more normal. For example, last year Good Friday became no longer a holiday, but we gained a floating holiday instead. Nobody has Good Friday off, so that makes sense.
This year we lost New Years Eve. Again, I don't think many people have that as a standard holiday. It doubly doesn't make sense because it is MADNESS at my office at the end of the year, so having one less day at the end is just plain nonsensical.
We gained Presidents Day instead. I can't say that it makes more sense, but I will happily take a holiday in the middle of February. As a bonus, it aligns with one of the girls' days off from school. Sure, they have New Years Eve off as well, but I take the last week of the year off always and forever because MADNESS at my office. I'm in the way if I'm there.
The plan for my first ever Presidents Day off from work was pretty straight-forward. I was going to sleep suuuuuper late, like all the way to 8:00, and then work. I know I just said it was a day off, but I've been drowning lately so the allure of a day of working when others weren't was SO attractive. Do you know how many emails I could have deleted?
Alas, my children had another plan.
Somehow, they managed to gang up on me and talk me into driving to Cleveland to go to the zoo. I can't explain how they pulled that off, but it possibly had a little to do with the thought that I could grab Swensons for lunch. Mmmm .... egg salad and fries with a milkshake.
Yeah, that was probably why.
So we picked up one of Alexis' favorite people, drove to Cleveland, wandered around the zoo, and returned in time for Alexis to go to her usual Monday dance classes. With that whirlwind trip, three things were confirmed:
1. The Cleveland Zoo is a million times better than the Pittsburgh one. Possibly a billion times better. It's not that big, but every inch of it is well done.
2. Mila is a delight. I know I've said that a few thousand times before, but it's true. She is so aggressively happy about everything, including every single itty bitty animal at the zoo. She spent half an hour being excited about ants. ANTS. It was adorable.
3. I need to go to Cleveland more often. There's a lot of good stuff there and we don't spend nearly enough time exploring it. We especially don't spend enough time driving through Cuyahoga Falls on our way there so that Swensons lands in my car.
