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Don't go out, it's scary out there
Sep. 22nd, 2020 03:01 amToday was an oddity. Mums and I headed out to Halloween Hunt officially and it's a damn good thing we didn't head out to North Charleston as uh, holy shit. I saw a video of someone driving by the wreckage and yeah. They were not kidding when they said the vehicles were nearly unrecognizable. I'm not sure nearly is even the word but since I'm not a car person, I don't know. In any case, daaaaaaaaamn. Normally I'd link to Live5 but their write-up was shitty and whoever did the writing and left it up all day like that should feel bad. I get trying to rush the news out but when I checked at 10pm or so? You had all day to fix that. Anyway, pettiness aside, the onsite clean-up took all day. We're talking until after 8:30PM for an accident that happened before noon. I'm still not sure why the initial driver managed to continue driving instead of, I dunno, pulling off or stopping but HOLY SHIT.
My actual reason for heading out was to switch my e-library card to a physical card and I wasn't looking forward to it simply due to the social anxiety mixed with COVID twitchiness. Yeah. I'd forgotten that one of the big reasons I stopped going to the actual library was because I always find the unhelpful librarians. I'm not sure if something about me brings it out in them or I'm just lucky, but I walked in and the lady by the door who was probably counting heads was nice. She read my shirt (My weekend is all booked. *pic of a pile of books* ) Then I couldn't figure out where one was supposed to stand for help. There was a librarian sitting down at the far left side of the counter and then nothing. But they also have super helpful plastic or glass shields and um, where do I stand because there's a table in front of where she's sitting.
This woman just looks up and then back to her computer as I'm standing there, visibly confused, and the door lady asks what I need help with. I make it over to T. and realize she was the same person I spoke to on the phone. Sigh. Why do cold people choose to be librarians? Eventually I figure out where to stand and get my form and fill it out (basically I signed it) and got my new card. Ooh. Ahh. I'd been a little worried since apparently I had a massive fine on my other card (Mom thinks it was a case of me having lost a book, paid for it, and then finding the book and when I went to get my money back, they wanted the book and to keep the money) but nope. Not a peep. I did have to be sort of walked through using the self checkout and yeah. That was ... weird. The entire reason someone would be in getting a card transitioned like I was is because they hadn't been in the library in MONTHS and you expect me to magically know what the hell I'm supposed to do now that you've set up something new? Seriously? I'm not looking for actual hand holding but maybe not expecting me to magically know all the ways my childhood library has changed might be nice. SIGH.
The worst thing about all that was that this library? This used to be the nice library. ;_; Whenever I talk about going to the library as a kid and getting all the SVH books I could physically carry? That library. The one with storytime and thunderstorms and the hurricane flooding it out? That one. The one I could spend hours in or where I discovered Dracula's Daughter? Yup. It's one of the smaller branches without being tiny (Folly is tiny) but it always had the nicest librarians and I suspect they've either all retired or um *retired* and been replaced by the librarians who make the library suck on a personal level.
Enough of that ramble. To make up for the shitty library experience that only took as long as it did because of confusion, Mums and I stopped at Tuesday Morning. They didn't have much, though I did fall in love with a Halloween owl. I also overheard that they won't be one of the ones closing (yay) and that their shelves were emptier than usual simply due to COVID.
Then we headed out to Home Goods, which had a really cute Stitch Halloween mug that I was good and didn't get, and TJ Maxx which had multiple kitties I was searching for last year and the year before that. Both of these stores drove me insane, though. They had little red signs on the floor and they were actually useful and easy to read/see and kept you going throughout the store. ONLY NO ONE ELSE USED THEM. I was forever being run over by people going the wrong way down an aisle. I could understand a quick double-back if someone was blocking an area (like the woman who set up camp along the back wall in the TJ Maxx) or realizing that nope, you really did want to grab something you just turned the corner on. But noooooope. Even employees were just ignoring the signs. Which was particularly annoying in TJM because clearly they had a a new girl who was being shown the various areas only her tour seemed to involve them wandering VERY SLOWLY down the main walkway and blocking the entire aisle. STEP TO THE SIDE. DAMN.
I didn't buy anything, but it was nice to see the Witch's Brew vending machine thing in person. I ducked in at the Teeter for some groceries and it wasn't as awful as I thought it would be based on my last couple of visits.
Mostly the day was really staggeringly beautiful. It was sunny and breezing and surprisingly cool. It felt like you always want autumn to feel but it never does here. Honestly, it was probably cooler than most of our Christmases turn out to be and looking at the weather for last Christmas? It was a high of 64 and when Mums and I set out, it was 57. So... yeah.
I did laugh when I went for my walk Sunday morning and realized someone had decided to start a fire in their fireplace. It was like 60-something, dude. Did you really need a fire? :P Apparently yes, yes they did because you could smell it again that evening. Oh, Charleston.
And now that it's fall, here are the last of my summer bears:
Peach arrived a day early. She's very cute and cuddly Bambino, alas, has perfected the art of the 1000 yard stare.
I believe I once waxed poetic about the ghost, so here's my small votive holder that's got the 2020 ghost lit up. He gets it.
I started some of my Halloween decorating yesterday but won't go full madness til next weekend as my uncle is supposed to visit mid-week.
This one will definitely change, though I like the set-up. I just don't think where it's set up (in the hallway) is the best idea. I still love the hell out of that little ghost atop the Ferris Wheel just having the best damn time.
The bar. The bag hanging off one of the handles is one of my GG bags (yay!) and I really love a tiny little section of this you can just barely make out and I will later take a picture of: in the scene by the little haunted house (to the left of the second BBW ghost), the witch is in the graveyard trying to raise the dead. I amuse myself to no end. Honestly, other than lighting and having to distribute the fake candles that are hidden behind the castle, I'd probably leave this mostly as is and be just fine with it. As it is, I think it'll get scattered to other surfaces, but we'll see. It's kind of serving the same idea as the Halloween mood table at the moment.
My actual reason for heading out was to switch my e-library card to a physical card and I wasn't looking forward to it simply due to the social anxiety mixed with COVID twitchiness. Yeah. I'd forgotten that one of the big reasons I stopped going to the actual library was because I always find the unhelpful librarians. I'm not sure if something about me brings it out in them or I'm just lucky, but I walked in and the lady by the door who was probably counting heads was nice. She read my shirt (My weekend is all booked. *pic of a pile of books* ) Then I couldn't figure out where one was supposed to stand for help. There was a librarian sitting down at the far left side of the counter and then nothing. But they also have super helpful plastic or glass shields and um, where do I stand because there's a table in front of where she's sitting.
This woman just looks up and then back to her computer as I'm standing there, visibly confused, and the door lady asks what I need help with. I make it over to T. and realize she was the same person I spoke to on the phone. Sigh. Why do cold people choose to be librarians? Eventually I figure out where to stand and get my form and fill it out (basically I signed it) and got my new card. Ooh. Ahh. I'd been a little worried since apparently I had a massive fine on my other card (Mom thinks it was a case of me having lost a book, paid for it, and then finding the book and when I went to get my money back, they wanted the book and to keep the money) but nope. Not a peep. I did have to be sort of walked through using the self checkout and yeah. That was ... weird. The entire reason someone would be in getting a card transitioned like I was is because they hadn't been in the library in MONTHS and you expect me to magically know what the hell I'm supposed to do now that you've set up something new? Seriously? I'm not looking for actual hand holding but maybe not expecting me to magically know all the ways my childhood library has changed might be nice. SIGH.
The worst thing about all that was that this library? This used to be the nice library. ;_; Whenever I talk about going to the library as a kid and getting all the SVH books I could physically carry? That library. The one with storytime and thunderstorms and the hurricane flooding it out? That one. The one I could spend hours in or where I discovered Dracula's Daughter? Yup. It's one of the smaller branches without being tiny (Folly is tiny) but it always had the nicest librarians and I suspect they've either all retired or um *retired* and been replaced by the librarians who make the library suck on a personal level.
Enough of that ramble. To make up for the shitty library experience that only took as long as it did because of confusion, Mums and I stopped at Tuesday Morning. They didn't have much, though I did fall in love with a Halloween owl. I also overheard that they won't be one of the ones closing (yay) and that their shelves were emptier than usual simply due to COVID.
Then we headed out to Home Goods, which had a really cute Stitch Halloween mug that I was good and didn't get, and TJ Maxx which had multiple kitties I was searching for last year and the year before that. Both of these stores drove me insane, though. They had little red signs on the floor and they were actually useful and easy to read/see and kept you going throughout the store. ONLY NO ONE ELSE USED THEM. I was forever being run over by people going the wrong way down an aisle. I could understand a quick double-back if someone was blocking an area (like the woman who set up camp along the back wall in the TJ Maxx) or realizing that nope, you really did want to grab something you just turned the corner on. But noooooope. Even employees were just ignoring the signs. Which was particularly annoying in TJM because clearly they had a a new girl who was being shown the various areas only her tour seemed to involve them wandering VERY SLOWLY down the main walkway and blocking the entire aisle. STEP TO THE SIDE. DAMN.
I didn't buy anything, but it was nice to see the Witch's Brew vending machine thing in person. I ducked in at the Teeter for some groceries and it wasn't as awful as I thought it would be based on my last couple of visits.
Mostly the day was really staggeringly beautiful. It was sunny and breezing and surprisingly cool. It felt like you always want autumn to feel but it never does here. Honestly, it was probably cooler than most of our Christmases turn out to be and looking at the weather for last Christmas? It was a high of 64 and when Mums and I set out, it was 57. So... yeah.
I did laugh when I went for my walk Sunday morning and realized someone had decided to start a fire in their fireplace. It was like 60-something, dude. Did you really need a fire? :P Apparently yes, yes they did because you could smell it again that evening. Oh, Charleston.
And now that it's fall, here are the last of my summer bears:
Peach arrived a day early. She's very cute and cuddly Bambino, alas, has perfected the art of the 1000 yard stare.
I believe I once waxed poetic about the ghost, so here's my small votive holder that's got the 2020 ghost lit up. He gets it.
I started some of my Halloween decorating yesterday but won't go full madness til next weekend as my uncle is supposed to visit mid-week.
This one will definitely change, though I like the set-up. I just don't think where it's set up (in the hallway) is the best idea. I still love the hell out of that little ghost atop the Ferris Wheel just having the best damn time.
The bar. The bag hanging off one of the handles is one of my GG bags (yay!) and I really love a tiny little section of this you can just barely make out and I will later take a picture of: in the scene by the little haunted house (to the left of the second BBW ghost), the witch is in the graveyard trying to raise the dead. I amuse myself to no end. Honestly, other than lighting and having to distribute the fake candles that are hidden behind the castle, I'd probably leave this mostly as is and be just fine with it. As it is, I think it'll get scattered to other surfaces, but we'll see. It's kind of serving the same idea as the Halloween mood table at the moment.