7 Quick Takes about Social Media Content I Do Not Care About, Dressing Like Your Favorite Condiments for Church, and Finding Travel Agents in Unexpected Places

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

Spring is here! Earlier this week it was in the 70s and 80s, and I threw all the windows in the house open for the first time. Of course, that euphoria is always closely followed by the despair of seeing all the work that needs to be done in your yard and hoping it just snows again and covers it all up.

And then, inexplicably the temperature dipped back into the 40s, we turned the heat on again, and I'm not sure what happened.

But I did at least put some mulch on the flowerbeds.

—2—

Why does Facebook keep showing me side-by-side photos of a celebrity at a young age and at an old age looking basically identical?

First of all, what is telling the algorithm that I'm interested in receiving this content?

Second of all, what is the purpose? To suggest that it's normal (or even desirable) to look like you're 27 for the last 50 years of your life? 

I don't get it. Unsubscribe. I want my wrinkles.

—3—

I've been looking for a specific style of jacket for years, and I finally found it! (I always get my coats on clearance after the winter is over, because coats are expensive.) 

I asked my 16-year-old to take this picture on the way home from church, and after handing the phone back to me she said, "You look like a hot dog. In a good way."

When it was clear I had no idea what she was talking about, she explained that the skirt and jacket together were giving her strong ketchup and mustard vibes.

"But like a classy gourmet hot dog, right?" I asked.

—4—

We hike a lot in the forests around where we live, but Phillip had a day off work and wanted to see something really different, so we took a day trip to hike a through a marshland on the coast of the ocean.

I wasn't really sure what "hiking through a marshland" entailed. It sounded like it could be ugly, boring, and carried the possibility that one of us would get sucked under like Atreyu's horse in The Neverending Story. But Phillip assured me it would be fine.

There were fiddler crabs here that we all stopped and watched for a while.  

It was actually more than fine. It was amazing. The overcast, misty day plus the unfamiliar landscape made it feel like we were exploring an alien planet.

When we got to the ocean, we stopped for granola bars and then walked home along the beach.

I was really impressed with my kids for walking all 6.8 miles without too much complaining, especially after the little ones loaded their pockets with about half their body weight in cool-looking rocks and shells at the beach.

—5—

Did I mention that our entire day from the last Take was planned by ChatGPT? 

Phillip is obsessed with A.I. technology, so he naturally turned to it for help planning a family day out.  He explained to it exactly the kind of hiking experience we wanted (difficulty, length, the overall atmosphere and purpose of the hike,) and this is what ChatGPT recommended. I'm fairly certain we never would've found it on our own, even after hours of Googling.

After the hike, Phillip asked ChatGPT what authentic local food we could try before we went home. It suggested a New England colonial dish called Indian pudding so we went to a nearby restaurant and did that, too.

Basically we let artificial intelligence tell us what to do for an entire day and it was an amazing time. What even is life in the 21st century??

—6—

The next day made up for the previous day's lack of annoyance. On the way to the 16-year-old's violin lesson, I dropped the 14-year-old off at work and then he called me five minutes later saying that he wasn't actually on the schedule and we had to go back and get him. Which made us late for violin.

Then on the way home from the lesson, we got stuck behind a massive accident on the freeway. We sat at a dead stop in traffic for a while (you know it's bad when people get out of their cars and just start wandering around) and after watching about 10 other cars do it, we illegally exited the freeway by making a U-turn on the grass median because I desperately needed to pee.

The next 10 miles home took 45 minutes to drive because of all the other cars avoiding the freeway, so we were all late to everything for the rest of the day. I never wanted to drive again.

—7—

To my dismay, Phillip doesn't share my love of lists. He has a digital to-do list that he avoids like the plague, and every once in a while I'll ask him to power through a few items — which he dutifully does even though I can tell he hates every minute of it.

The other night he was working through a few items on his list, when he suddenly ran to the bathroom and started vomiting with a pretty violent (although brief) case of food poisoning.

And I didn't make the joke, I swear it. I was sensitive and understanding. But for real, that man will do anything to get out of his to-do list.

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