Last Friday, when I tried logging onto Facebook, the following message popped up.
Your Facebook account has been suspended. This is because your account, or activity on it, doesn’t follow our Community Standards on cybersecurity.
In short order, I: a) panicked, and 2) filed an appeal. A permanent ban wouldn’t be the end of the world except for the fact that I manage CheeseGov’s Facebook account, and a business page can only be set up/accessed through a personal account.
“Just over a day,” my ass. It’s been four and counting (though the holiday weekend might have something to do with this). Wondering what I did to earn this suspension? As much as I’d like to say it was for inciting a riot or something badass like that, the truth is much more benign:
Not a damn thing.
Seriously. The only things I use Facebook for are to crosspost my blogs, look at my memories, and wish people a happy birthday. I rarely even comment, and when I do, it’s never anything objectionable. This is either a mistake (probably thanks to an AI bot) or my account was somehow hacked.
To say I’m annoyed is an understatement. Social media comprises the majority of my job, so these guys are messing with my livelihood. Not cool, man. So I sit, and I wait. There’s nothing else I can do at this point.
I feel like an innocent man on death row.
And the winner is…
On a lighter, brighter note, thank you for your votes on our kitchen paint! Turns out there was a pretty clear favorite:
Despite that, we’re going with the Blue Bayberry.
Trust me, I’m just as surprised as you are. Blue was my choice, and Tara liked the red. Ultimately, I left the final decision up to her…and was shocked when she came back from the hardware store with a can of Blue Bayberry.
Turns out the copper molds on the wall were the deciding factor. “Check this out,” I said to her a few nights ago, and held one up against both paint samples. Even Tara could not deny it looked way better against the blue. I don’t think she’s completely sold on this color choice, but she was swayed enough to give it a try. That’s the nice thing about paint: it’s never permanent. If we decide, six months from now, that the Brick Dust might look better, we can always redo it.
But I think the blue will look great. It creates a better contrast with the cabinets (I feel like the red would have been too much warm-on-warm), and the stainless appliances are really going to pop.
Not to mention those copper molds!
And we’ll have a barrel of fun.
It’s been a fantastic weekend…and it’s not over yet. Tara and I both took a PTO day today. We thought it would be nice to relax and recharge after a very full three days, but that won’t be the case after all thanks to the kitchen project. Today, we have to remove a cabinet above the fridge to make room for the taller new one; strip off the wallpaper y’all detest; and paint the ceiling and walls. Oh, and we have a plumber coming by at 3:00 to install a new kitchen faucet so the clock is ticking.
About that wallpaper. It’s tacky and dated, sure. But in a weird way, it sort of grew on us. Not enough to keep up permanently, but we decided we could live with it for a while.
Does it scream ‘70s kitchen? Absolutely. Do I love the ’70s and kitchens? Unabashedly. Maybe we’ll frame a strip of the wallpaper and hang it up in the newly painted kitchen.
How meta.
Busy as today will be, I can’t complain too much. Sunday, we ventured to Capitol Square for Taste of Madison, an annual two-day event that features 80+ food vendors, beverages, and live music. Portland used to have a similar event called The Bite; we went every year, but they eventually cancelled it. We went to Taste of Madison in 2022, three days after arriving in Wisconsin, but hadn’t been back since, either because of the weather or visitors.
This year, we had no guests and the weather was damn near perfect. It’s been on the cool side, in fact, and there are already signs of fall popping up.
Between the cheese curds, dumplings, pork belly adobo, Korean BBQ chicken, and Dubai chocolates – most plates are sample-sized and cost $7 – we did not go home hungry.
Then on Monday, we went to our first-ever Brewers game. Tara had actually never been to a MLB game before, and it had been over three decades for me. Luckily, some things never change. We still sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the 7th-inning stretch, but this being Wisconsin, we also sang “The Beer Barrel Polka” and cheered on the famous racing sausages. The hot dog won – not surprising, given the $1 hot dog Labor Day promotion.
The Brewers, sadly, did not win. But the game certainly wasn’t lacking excitement. The lead changed hands several times, with the Phillies eventually securing a 10-8 victory (the result of a very questionable umpire call that had the home crowd in an uproar and got our manager thrown out of the game for protesting).
Regardless, it was a ton of fun, and we’ll probably try to go to one game a year.
Gotta go; the kitchen isn’t going to paint itself blue!
Mark My Words 
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