February 4, 2019

Gripes and Grievances---January



*We're renting out our Laramie house. We went with a company that a coworker of Scott's recommended because they use it. That's fine and all. This company, however, didn't give me the impression of being on their game. The house was available for rent on January 1st. They listed it on their website on January 2nd. We met with them to fill out all of the paperwork around December 15th. Then they took a week off for Christmas (literally, they closed down), so they house wasn't listed in a timely manner. They spelled "fourth" wrong, in regards to a "forth" bedroom. It was also written up as a paragraph with no punctuation. They told us, originally, that it likely wouldn't rent until May.

Also, we initially were going to go with "no pets" but then we thought better of it and I asked 3 times over 2 weeks if they could please change the listing to "pets on approval".

But they did show the house many times and vetted all the potential tenants and found us some people, so we'll call this a half-grievance.

*I spent a lot of December trying to get rid of things we didn't want or need anymore, including some old furniture. I had dozens of people email me about free end tables. You'd be shocked how many weren't interested in driving 30 minutes for something free though (Cheyenne to Laramie, as Wyoming only has a statewide Craigslist). And then, when I finally nailed someone down, she emailed me 8 hours before pickup time to ask if she could get them the next day instead. Scott had to be in Laramie for a few things on this day and was not going to be there the day after. I was in Pennsylvania so I couldn't be there myself. My response back to this lady was something like No. You can get them at 9am or my husband is throwing them away. I'm so tired of people not caring about expectations and not holding up their ends of any sort of bargain. SHE had suggested Friday. SHE had said before 11am would be best for her. I set up Scott's plans for the day to fit HER plans because I really wanted this stuff to go to someone who wanted it, not to the landfill or the Goodwill. My first thought, after this exchange, was that I need to get back into a professional environment where things are expected of people and standards are held. I usually had more luck dealing with children than I did with all of these people I talked to through Craigslist. I expected things of kids and parents, they expected things of me. I would like to think that I possess some follow-through. Dealing with the general population, I've learned that follow-through isn't commonplace.

She went to pick up the furniture. When Scott told me she showed up, I said Yeah, she probably did after I "yelled" at her.

*Being back in Pennsylvania, I got myself a Sheetz card again. I stopped to get gas a few weeks ago and, while I'm used to a Starbucks on every corner in Colorado, it's not like that here. I decided I'd try an MTO latte instead. It was awful. So, so terrible. Therefore, Sheetz is 110% overrated. Every time we'd come back to PA over the last 10 years, we would get less and less impressed with them. Disappointing.

*I've spent the last few years living out west. Actually, 9 of the last 10 years. And I could never understand why people on the east coast, in the cities, were constantly complaining on Twitter or whatnot about "prejudice" or "unacceptance" and that ridiculous word "woke". The west is NOT perfect, but people out there are generally really accepting. You're from somewhere else? Cool. Everyone else is too. "Wokeness" is kind of built into the culture of military towns anyway. And if people are native to the area, they're used to being around people from other places because everyone who moves to Alaska or Colorado or Wyoming is generally going there for a reason. It's absolutely commonplace to see license plates from all 50 states, and some foreign countries, around military bases. I've had the chance to work with parents and kids and colleagues from all over the world, and definitely from all over the country. I could easily name someone I know in every state of the U.S. at this point.
However, before coming to Pittsburgh, I've never experienced the prejudice of being from somewhere else. I mean, thank goodness that I'm originally from this state or I might really assume there was something wrong with me: it's not a place full of open minds.
Our out-of-state license plates got us ticketed in our own neighborhood while we were moving into our house, because they thought we weren't residents. They didn't even ask. And there was a giant moving trailer in the driveway and someone had just taken the "for lease" sign down. Yet, one of the neighbors felt the need to call the police.

*I had to unfollow a teacher blogger/podcaster I had liked for a couple of years. She sent out an email with this in it:


Politics aside, I thought we could just continue to talk about teaching, for goodness sakes, and how we can encourage kids to be life-long learners. When you irresponsibly send off factually inaccurate information to thousands and thousands of followers, we can't talk about teaching anymore. You not doing your research makes my head hurt, Cult of Pedagogy. (And then she referred to Trevor Noah as an example of knowledge on the event...whatever he said on his show...so I can't trust her sourcing either. She might as well have linked to Jimmy Kimmel.)
And she ponders what she would've done as a teacher. She says she would've reprimanded her students.
I, as a teacher, know that my students' safety was always priority number one. I would've herded as many of them away as possible.

Your responsibility is to your students, Cult of Pedagogy. If you would have reprimanded them instead of moving them away from or apologizing to them for the racial slurs being hurled their way and having a conversation about that, I wouldn't want my kid in your class.

Let's end there.

January was a long month.

And another Patriots' SuperBowl was just the grievance on top of the grievance cake (or the aluminum pole). I mean, I'm ready to admit that Tom Brady is a GOAT because no one accidentally wins 6 Superbowls. It's just getting to be annoying.

10 comments:

  1. It has been a long January...February will HOPEFULLY be filled with more positivity and love!

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  2. i tried to get rid of a few things for free on craigslist and people are ridiculous with their requests. now i just put them out front of my house and someone eventually takes it.

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  3. I have never sold anything on any sites because all my friends say people agree to a price & when they met, they "accidentally" leave money at home & then say, "All I have is ____ - will you take that?"... so dumb. I just donate & take the tax write off instead.

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  4. I'm doing my best to go through stuff too. Unfortunately keith isnt game. I finally just piled his stuff and was like go through it or I will trash. He ended up putting it in trash. Wife win!

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  5. Selling stuff online is such a joke sometimes. Here it’s always one of three things: A no show with no communication, people showing up with less money than the agreed upon price and then acting like “oh shoot, I only have X amount, will you take that??” or people who claim they have no car and no transportation and want me to bring things to them. I told Isaiah when we move I want to have a garage sale, first come first serve, and whatever doesn’t sell gets donated. I’m not sure if that will work out but that’s my preferred method of selling our belongings after 10 years of trying to streamline secondhand sales in this town and getting nowhere.

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  6. I experienced that prejudice when I lived in North Carolina. We had a section in our college newspaper where people could send in “rants.” Multiple times people wrote in that the “damn Yankees” shouldn’t be allowed below the Mason-Dixon Line. People were extremely rude to me when they found out I’m from “up north.” But I’m really not. I’m from out west. Where NO ONE CARES! You’re right. People are much more open out there because most people aren’t from there. Whereas in Ohio, everyone has been here for generations upon generations. Except us.

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  7. Selling stuff is online is absolutely frustrating!!! People really are inconsiderate.

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  8. i watched the PuppyBowl instead..way more interesting and fun.

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  9. I always tend to feel like selling stuff online/incessant Craigslist contacting is majorly not worth the hassle (although my friend here, with the baby that I take care of, told me to just throw away her son's clothes when they get too small because she doesn't want to store them or do anything with them...and I was like, no...these are nice baby clothes, somebody will be able to use them and will appreciate them, not throwing away perfectly nice clothes....so I'm also on the side of putting at least a little effort into getting stuff that you won't use anymore into the hands of people who could use it). We bought our camera from someone in the Facebook selling group for our state, which I was very skeptical about buying expensive electronics from some random person but I have really loved that camera for the past 3 years!

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  10. The part about military towns being "woke" because we're used to adapting to other people being from ALL over the place. YES!!!

    And I have learned that people from "back home" get SO defensive if you say ANYTHING that might talk bad about "back home". I once shared an article about how different it was after being away for years and the only thing about "home" it touched on was something along the lines of "home just isn't the same anymore after you've been gone for so long" - NOTHING negative. And a friends dad dropped a reply about how "the kids who stayed here are good good people" or something along those lines and I just rolled my eyes at it. Couldn't even bring myself to reply because it was SO off topic and you could tell he'd gotten sort of offended by it. *eye roll* To this day, I still can't see what offended him from the article, but *shrug* People....

    And, I can NOT believe (but I totally can because, PEOPLE) that someone called the cops on you when you were moving in. WOW.

    Oh and the craiglist lady. HAHAHA! Not surprised she made that time frame work for her.

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