Your Weekly Antics...Did You Fall Off the Mountain Edition 1-19-24...

Well kids, hope you're keeping warm. I don't have to tell you, but I will anyway, that it - is - cold. So cold has it been in fact that I spent most of my time writing The Antics this week under a blanket and an over sized weighted heating pad while sipping my coffee. If I'm sticking around here in this God forsaken cold I'm going to make sure that I'm blissfully toasty. And when out on home visits spreading cheer and doing the work of the people, I have been doing so with my pockets filled with hand warmers courtesy of Sue Miller and her big box store shopping. Here's what I've got...

1. You regular readers out there know I love to order things up for delivery. Things large and small, ordinary and out of the ordinary. Since the Pandemic it has become the norm to see delivery trucks of all shapes and sizes tooling around our neighborhoods delivering a little bit of everything. Big boxes, small boxes. Tiny itty bitty items packaged in gigantic boxes making your neighbors think you just ordered yourself up some power tools...when in fact, there’s a tiny container of dental floss being thrown around inside that huge box. If you think about it, we can order just about anything online. I’ve ordered live houseplants. I have hand soap delivered once a month because that’s something I always forget to pick up at the store. We can have food delivered, household products, clothing. We think of something we need, and to the internet we go, anything we could possibly think of for purchase at our fingertips. We’ve become spoiled and impatient, assuming because we hit submit payment, everything will arrive in one piece, in a day or two.

2. Imagine the surprise when the youngest Kap kid ordered herself a new pair of Birkenstocks with her Birthday money way back in July, to be told they were on back order until October. She peruses the internet as well as a local store here and there deciding if she wants to wait for this back order or if she'll go with a different style Birkenstock or another shoe all together. An exercise in patience would be a must if she decided to continue with that order -  did she want to wait it out or move on an pick something else? How bad did she want them? Would they be worth the wait? Ohhhh the choices…she finally decides she'll hold out, deciding, how bad can a three month wait be? Assuring herself it'll be a nice surprise when they show up - assuming they'd arrive in one piece and to her liking.

3.  October comes and goes and no Birkenstocks. She finally gets the email that they are on back order yet again, expected delivery sometime in January. Seriously? Okay, no big deal, they'll be like a late Christmas gift to herself. The day finally comes when a notification is sent stating that they shipped and they're in the mail with a tracking number. Next notification comes saying they're making their way from wherever they were shipped from and are headed her way. A day later she gets a notification that they're out for delivery. Finally...UPS is rounding the corner, is it stopping at our house? Nope. It stopped at a house up the street. Gibson alerts us to the UPS trucks second visit to the hood later that day, only to go to the window and watch it drive by again, taking a sharp left and stopping at the house across the way. Finally, all the dogs go berserk and by the time we get to the door, the UPS driver has beat feet off the deck, hopped in his truck and is squealing away from the curb on two wheels. Maybe it's a new guy who's afraid of dogs we thought...until we see the package that was dropped off.

4. Exhibit 1. The long awaited pair of Birkenstock clogs 6 months in the making. Clearly they, as well as the box in which they were carefully packed and shipped in, has seen better days. This poor LL Bean box looked like it had fallen off the back of the UPS truck and then run over not one, not two, but possibly three or four times by a fleet of tractor trailers who may have been travelling too close behind it. Perhaps once it was retrieved from the street after being run over, it was then thrown in the back of the truck and then had something much larger thrown on top of it, crushing it and its contents completely. A call to LL Bean was made, the situation explained, and as their reputation of stellar customer service has it, another pair were ordered at no cost to the kid and would be rushed right out to her...in April, nine months after the original order was placed. At this rate she may have better luck heading on over to Sue Miller's house to dig out my old Birks dating back to 1990. I bet they're in a box of old college stuff Grammy's been threatening to throw away for years.

5. Leaf blowing in the woods, that’s a thing folks, and not practiced by the one and only Leaf Blower Joe. Driving up Lovell Street recently, obviously before the snow began to fall, I witnessed someone on the side of the road, leaf blowing in the woods. This wooded area referred to as Hadwen Arboretum, was willed to Clark University in 1907 and has been under its care since. Clark does an excellent job maintaining and caring for the trees and other plant life that live there, as well as having established and maintaining various walking trails to be enjoyed by the public. I know this because I live in the Woo and learned these fun facts while chaperoning a walking field trip with May Street school a few years ago. This guy was leaf blowing the walking paths they worked hard on establishing for people to use and enjoy. I’m thinking the driver behind me didn’t know this, because I could see him slowing down to get a better look most likely wondering what the hell that guy was trying to accomplish, literally blowing in to the wind.

If you'd like to read more about the history of the Hadwen Arboretum, click here...

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/e55e244303494e1dae78838314fdbef0

6. Fun fact. The new Mill Street is stupid. If you’ve driven Mill Street lately, you are now familiar with its new parking and bike lanes. The driving lane is now one lane, not two, to accommodate the parking lane and bicycle lane. Apparently, the city has a large bicyclist population that required such changes in traffic to accommodate their bicycling activities while traveling between Tatnuck Square and Park Ave, who knew? Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but for someone not familiar with driving that area, the parked cars look like a line of stopped traffic. This has served as free entertainment for those of us who travel Mill Street now and then and while doing so, see some poor slob waiting behind a parked car thinking they’re in a line of stopped traffic. Another tid bit, parked cars have already been rear ended in these designated parking spots. Another well thought out plan and win for our fine city. 🙄

7. The Worcester Public School kids had another snow day this week and everyone had something to say about it. They called off school by 6:00 pm the night prior, and to that, I say thank you. I hate those 5am morning of calls saying school’s been cancelled. For those complaining about the calling off of school earlier this week for inclement weather, I encourage you to volunteer to drive a city school bus full of screaming children up and down the many icy untreated hills and streets of Worcester while the wintry mix hits the windshield. Do this for one day and report back to us how that worked out for you. Get it together.

8. Last Friday night Bunco was held at The Knights of Columbus to benefit the 365 Z Foundations Sneaker Drive. In addition to the many acts of kindness this organization partakes in all year round, they provide brand new and gently used sneakers to Worcester high school kids who otherwise can't afford to purchase them for themselves. As is customary at Bunco, baskets of all sorts of goodies are donated and raffle tickets sold, all money raised to go back to the cause. The raffle baskets were plentiful and Sue Miller being the best and always overly generous Grandmother, of course purchased raffle tickets to test her luck and see what she might win. Off to the raffle sale table she sent me to purchase tickets and then sent me on my way to place the tickets in various raffle baskets on her behalf. Task completed, I returned what I thought were all the matching stubs that went with the tickets I put in the baskets. I'm choosing now to publicly admit to my Mother that the main reason why she didn't win a damn thing in the raffle drawing last week is because I put both sides of the tickets in the baskets. The stubs I gave her were of no use because their match never made it in to the baskets. Get it? Neither did I. It's the seemingly simple tasks I can manage to mess up.

9. This week in biochemically engineered fruit, much like looking in ones side or rearview mirrors, this strawberry in Exhibit 2, is larger than it appears in this photo. This delectable looking piece of fruit was actually closer to the size of a small plum. Call me crazy, but I don’t think it’s normal that your store-bought strawberries are that large, but what do I know?

10. The youngest Kap kid decided to embrace the cold and the snow and try out snowboarding. Despite her well intentioned attempts at conquering the mountain, she was no match for Mother Nature or the mountain, returning home to report she had attempted to take on the mountain and the mountain won. Moving forward, she plans to designate all future hilly adventures to Green Hill where she can comfortably defend herself from the random stray turkey and poorly shot golf ball, via golf clubs and golf carts. She plans to avoid snowboards, ski lifts, ski's and any other snow and ice type activities all together.

And last but not least, should you choose to partake in wintery activities this weekend, bundle up, wear a helmet and stay on your feet!

Have a great weekend!