Happy Friday!
Isn’t it crazy how time works? Like, here’s a day, then very quickly, it becomes the next one of those, and then once you get seven of them, a week is gone and you blink and a month is gone and before you know it, it’s September and you haven’t published your newsletter in a month and a presidential candidate is on your TV screaming “THEY’RE EATING THE DOGS” right at your face. Whew!
Let’s talk. Oh, wait. First … BOOM! Politics!
Okay, now let’s talk.
1. Put my youth in the time capsule, while you’re at it
Speaking of time, let’s talk about time capsules. When I think about opening time capsules, I’m imagining pulling out things like a newspaper about the moon landing, or a reel of old film or a set of faded black and white photographs, or a matchbook from the Eisenhower administration or a collection of things that look like Richie Cunningham* once owned them, like high tube socks. Really old shit.
Well, recently, Youngwood opened a time capsule to celebrate their 125th anniversary and one of the things they pulled out was …
Grab your cute cottage cheese butt and hold on for dear life …
Some paper items … were damp and worse for wear when they were revealed to those attending the capsule’s opening and other festivities at the borough complex timed for Youngwood’s 125th anniversary. The item that was a true puzzle was a VHS tape sealed in a plastic bag.
Excuse me while I shrivel up and just die.
A time capsule with a VHS tape inside?! Am I that old?! Granted this was only a 25-year time capsule, but still. My gut instinct tells me that no time capsule in existence should have something in it that was a part of MY ADULT YEARS. I don’t know if this is an indictment of my age or of Youngwood opening their time capsule way too early, but either way, I won’t stand for it.
Regardless, attending the ceremony was Marilynn Beck Brown, Class of 1949, who is in her early 90s. She said:
At high school dances … “They played songs where you could understand the singer.”
Marilynn, I get it, girl. ENUNCIATE YOUR WORDS, right?
In grade school, Brown dreaded fire drills, when the students practiced escaping from the second floor using a tunnel-like chute.
Excuse me?? Do you mean to tell me that we could have been launching ourselves out of second-story windows via chute all this time instead of running down stupid stairs in a spiral?
How far we have strayed from the light of God.
Regardless, the real moral of the story is this: The minimum number of years I say a time capsule should be closed before it may be opened is 50, otherwise you didn’t create a time capsule, you just boxed up some stuff for a while. I should not have plastic storage totes from Hills Department store in my basement that are older than your “time capsule.”
That’s church. Leave an offering on your way out. And by “offering” I mean “several cookies.”
*If you had to Google Richie Cunningham, I hate you a little bit. Damn yutes.
2. It’s a bird. It’s a pla— Oh, shit. No. It’s a huge bird.
I need to show you a picture. Please look at this. It is vitally important.
I think I speak for everyone when I say …
Just scream-laughing at this because THAT is an emu on the loose in … no, not Fayette County, but, man, that was a good guess, you!
McKeesport!
An emu. Wandering. In McKeesport. Here’s another screencap:
That is one determined emu. Walking like, “Damn it, Shiela. I am late for the bus. This is serious. I have bills to pay.”
Dawson did what almost everyone would do when confronted by a large Australian bird: "I had my son get my phone and I instantly started recording," she said.
“Almost everyone”? Dear reader, I know the pictures and video make me laugh, but, were I, your trusty news correspondent, to encounter a stray emu in the wilds of McKeesport, in my brain I would say, “Gin, that is an emu. Emus are not cassowaries who will literally knock you over just so they can claw out your intestines before stomping your brains out of your ear.” But in my heart, I would say, “Girl, it’s too big a bird to find roaming outside of Sesame Street. Run screaming or kill it with fire before it eats your innards.”
The biggest bird I’m willing to encounter outside of the Aviary is MAYBE a wild turkey and even then I would be calculating the best way to murder it using everything I learned from Kung Fu Panda when it came flying for my eyeballs.
The McKeesport emu was eventually reunited with its owner. So that’s a sentence I just typed.
I am already at a dilemma here. Is my new band Richie Cunningham’s Tube Socks or McKeesport’s Wandering Emu? And we’re only on item number two! This city is crazy.
3. [Whips open trench coat] “Can hizzoner interest you in a 13-inch Macbook?”
Bill Peduto’s Twitter account got hacked a week ago by someone who is now using it to sell laptops supposedly autographed by him for charity.
People really do suck.
Now, part of the blame here might rest with Twitter because you can’t even get cell phone text two-factor authentication unless you pay for it. Ick. But also, do you think his password was MayorSanta412 or BikeLaneBilly or DarleneHarrisRodeAnElephantLOL?
I still can’t believe that was real life. Put THAT picture in a time capsule, my God.
4. A Death Stare Under the Death Stairs: The Virginia Montanez Story. Coming soon to Lifetime TV*
Fodor’s has a lovely article praising our historical and numerous city stairs, which the author refers to as “death stairs.” It really is a nice look at our city and our character, enough so that I’ll forgive the writer for saying we call it “the ‘Burgh.” We are certainly not so fancy as to use the apostrophe (aka “God’s comma” h/t Psych) before the B. Hell, you’re lucky we even capitalize the B.
Moving on. My first reaction to the term “death stairs” was to say both “valid” and also “hyperbole much?” But then I attended my first official Allegheny Cleanways volunteer cleanup with my sister a few weekends ago. Along with other volunteers, we were to spend two hours cleaning beneath and around the Watt Street steps in the Hill District. I grabbed my gloves, grabbed my garbage bin, headed up the overgrown hillside alongside the stairs, bravely pushing aside plants that I was at least 82 percent sure weren’t poison ivy, and got to work.
Hi-ho! Whistle while we work! Hi-ho-hi-ho-hi-ho! Wonder if that’s poison oak? Hi-ho!
The third thing I went to pick up was a plastic water bottle under the stairs. I reached down, grabbed it and HELLO. THERE WAS A SNAKE NEXT TO THE BOTTLE AND I NEARLY TOUCHED IT. Not a tiny little garter snake, mind you. An actual snake, coiled up, with ARTWORK ON IT. Patterns. I don’t know much about snakes, but what I do know is that snakes that have tattoos want me to die via their toxic venom.
My exact reaction to the snake, which I swear flipped me the finger before hissing and meandering away, was to give my soul permission to vacate my body. “Go toward the light, baby girl. It’s over for us.” Then my corpse screamed.
My sister, who was deep in the brush on the other side of the steps, popped her head up like a suddenly alert meerkat all, “We runnin’?” and I had to force myself to calm down as the other volunteers looked over to see what the hell I was carrying on about. I bravely called, “Just a snake. I’m okay! All good!” But inside, for about an hour, I said …
That is a direct quote, btw.
But! I powered on and we left the stairs and the surrounding area much cleaner than we found them (hauling away bottles, cans, glass, shoes, tires, etc.), during which I only encountered one other little danger noodle too small for tattoos. My sister and I then went to our homes, showered, checked ourselves for ticks (none), and decided we definitely want to keep helping with the cleanups.
Man, did I digress. Why do you read this nonsense of mine? Anyway! Let me sum up. Fodor’s called Pittsburgh’s steps “death stairs” but in a good way. I almost got murdered by a snake underneath a set of those stairs, in a bad way. And finally, you should help by volunteering for a cleanup soon, in the best way!
If I can do it, you can do it. And maybe I’ll see you there. I’ll be the one all…
* If you’ve not read my debut novel yet, I use this joke more than once except it’s “ABC Afterschool Special” and it still makes me laugh. Buy my book, jags, since I never make you pay for this nonsense of mine. 235 reviews at 4.56 stars when not a one of them was a giveaway book means I can promise you it’s good and you’ll love it.
5. Random n’at
Let’s wrap it up with the short stuff!
Paul Skenes has his own Garbage Pail Card now and it’s a delight!
The lanterflies are so bad they’re showing up on the radar which explains what last week my weather app said, “Possible drizzle” and I looked outside, saw the sun and said, “Definite bugs.”
KDKA set up a camera near a specific playground-adjacent stop sign on the South Side and of the 33 cars that passed by, only 3 stopped. The city stated they are aware of the issue, but, "We don't do things emotionally; we do things based on the data," said Olga George, the press secretary for the mayor's office. Okay, here’s the data: 30 out of 33 cars rolled through the intersection. I am so good at math, and you should see me do data. The best they’ve ever seen. They say.
Mars Area High School got a new mascot and it’s not a Martian but rather is … did you already let go of your butt? Get it in hand again …
It’s a boxing planet, you guys. For the team name which is The Fightin’ Planets. And yes, they’re using God’s comma because they’re fancy. Go watch the whole video of the planet doing its thing. I think I love it.
6. That’s all!
Have yourself a fantastic week or two or three on purpose! Enjoy the beautiful weather that is September in Pittsburgh! Be kind! Don’t litter! Stop parking in the bike lanes! Slow down in construction zones!
And most importantly, watch out for emus out in these city streets.
I heard they joined up with the city snakes with one goal in mind.
To make me cry.
Bye!