I forgot to share a humorous anecdote from Springfield (which was already a week ago; wow!).
Friday morning, after checking out of the crappy motel, I was in need of coffee, so I stopped by Starbucks. Sadly, one thing the PNW lacks is Dunkin’, which in my opinion is superior. I didn’t look up Starbucks on Google Maps; they’re pretty ubiquitous, so I figured I’d just take the first exit off the freeway and stumble upon one.
Sure enough, I took the first exit off the freeway and stumbled upon one.
Y’all know I like to give a fake name when ordering. My current go-to is Dexter, so after ordering my Iced Brown Sugar Oatmilk Shaken Espresso (god, I’m fancy), that’s the name I gave the cashier.
“Hey, just like Dexter Holland!” he replied excitedly.
This was not the response I was expecting. Kudos to the cashier for knowing the name of the lead singer of The Offspring—that’s some impressively obscure pop culture knowledge there, buddy—but really, that’s the first association that popped into his head?!
“Or Dexter Morgan, the serial killer,” I replied, fixing him with a steely-eyed glare. Really gettin’ into character, if you will. That’s Method Acting, baby.
“Oh, yeah,” he replied, somewhat sheepishly. “I guess that Dexter is a lot more popular.”
No shade on The Offspring—I owned several of their CDs back in the day, and am probably one of only a small percentage of the population who even knows who Dexter Holland is without Googling the name—but “Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)” came out in 1998, so yeah, the Bay Harbor Butcher is considerably more relevant nowadays.
The coffee hit the spot, by the way (even though a medium Dunkin’ iced coffee is like twice as big as a Starbucks grande…sorry, I’ll quit being a coffee snob). My mom wrinkled her nose over the idea of iced coffee, but I love it. It’s become my go-to; I occasionally order a hot latte, but more often than not, I prefer iced. Even when it’s snowing and below zero. I would say 75% of the time I get an iced coffee, and the other 33% of the time, I order it hot.
You might want to double-check my math ‘tho, ’cause I was never great with numbers.
Fixing a broken Memory Lane
I’ve been slowly but methodically rereading my blog from the start. My first post was December 2009, so this has been quite the undertaking. I started years ago, not so much to relive the past (though that was fun too), but mainly to fix the many broken links I had—mostly internal, but some external, too. I switched URLs twice over the past 16 years, which meant many of my backlinks were one-way tickets to nowhere. My friend Ashley, who is considerably more SEO-savvy than I (and unafraid to pull any punches), explains why broken links are no bueno:
Broken links provide a shitty user experience (UX) as you’re telling people you’ll provide more information (or something useful) and then you don’t, and you essentially leave them hanging. It also signals to Google (and other evil overlords) that you don’t maintain your website regularly.
So, as you can imagine, this was a laborious and time-consuming process. I took advantage by also deleting excess media files and responding to occasional comments I’d failed to acknowledge back in the day. This confused more than a few of you, but what can I say? I’m a completist and I hate leaving people hanging…even if that means you get a response eight years later. Better late than never, amirite?
Last night, I finally finished. For years I’d had two WordPress windows open, my latest post and whichever old one I was fixing. At 8:15 p.m., worlds collided when the past caught up to the present. Hallelujah!
Ashley said my blog traffic has almost doubled in the last six months and sent me this handy screenshot proving it, so I guess my hard work has paid off.
She also threatened violence if I ever changed my URL again. Hey, lesson learned! Much like Wisconsin, THIS. IS. IT.
Even the weeds are growing like weeds
Hard as it is to believe I was in Springfield a week ago, the fact that we had a blizzard a little over a month ago is nearly unfathomable. Spring is in full swing, yo. Check out this shot from our front yard.
Does that photo just scream Spring! or what?
Tara planted roughly half a million bulbs last autumn, and we are reaping the rewards now. The nice thing is, the alliums haven’t even come up yet, and they’re my favorite.
It’s been well into the 70s and the grass is growing like weeds. Unfortunately, the weeds are also growing like weeds. Sigh. But at least this means I’ll be busting out the John Deere soon!
First order of business though? Clearing up all the debris in our yard. There are more downed branches from last week’s storms than I can shake a stick at (ha!)—enough to fill a wheelbarrow several times over, I’m sure. I plan to tackle that project on Saturday. We’ll also have to break out the chainsaw to attack the tree that fell on our garden fence. The tree that is in our neighbor’s yard. The tree that our neighbors did not pay a tree service to clear, despite clearing the other fallen trees on their property. Neighbor Brian had a similar problem with these guys last year, when a tree of theirs fell on his property. It was like pulling teeth to get them to do anything about it. It’s not worth the hassle IMO.
Saturday is going to be laborious, I can tell already.
But Sunday we’re going to a new-to-us supper club for my birthday dinner, and Monday is my actual birthday, so I’m taking a PTO day. If I must celebrate another foot closer to the grave, I sure as hell won’t be lifting a finger to do any work. Depending on the weather and my existential state of mind, I will do one of the following:
- Go hiking
- Watch movies in the basement
- Ponder my looming mortality with a sense of dread
Sure hope it’s one of the first two.
Do you like iced coffee? Have you ever reread your entire blog? Starbucks, Dunkin’, or someplace else?
Mark My Words 
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