Spiny orb weaver neighbors

On our pool deck, we have a spider species who love to spin webs in the most inopportune places like on the chairs and in the path of getting to the chemicals. These spiders are beautiful, small, and don't prove to be a bother other than their choice of where they set up their homes.

Recently, they have multiplied, or so it seems. It could be I'm outside by the pool more than in the past. I use my net to remove them from my path, and although I relocate them outside the pool deck, they are back the following morning or worse, outside the door where I need to exit.

Jim Stafford said it best when he sang the song, Spiders and Snakes. I don't like spiders and snakes.

We each have our places, and as long as we don't cross paths, I'm good. If these spiders would not build houses where I need to place my butt or where I need to walk, I'd be happy with them sharing my pool deck. And I've told them this.

Recently, I cleaned the windows in my Steelers room--in and out of the house, up and down on a ladder--navigating furniture on the patio and pool deck. As the sun peeked and the heat got to me, I thought about sitting on a chair outside one of the windows I was cleaning. Until I noticed something odd. On the back of the chair was a lime green circle. Upon closer examination, I took it to be a cocoon of some sort. Needless to say, I did not sit down.

My first thought was to squish it, but my older daughter--the one who captures and removes all living things from our house--has obviously gotten to me. I left it alone.

A few weeks later, I noticed another lime green cocoon on the underside of my umbrella on the pool deck. I did what anyone would do.

I Snapchatted it to my peeps and asked if anyone knew what the hell this thing was. Most of the responses were along with my own thoughts.

"Ugh."

"Whoa, what is that?"

"Whatever it is, can't be good."

Only one person responded helpfully. This came from my Snapchat streaker Emily--711 daily SnapChat streaks!

As soon as I saw it, I was like...why didn't this occur to me? While spider sac did pop into my head, it didn't look like what I'm used to, and so I didn't venture further in my thoughts.

Me: "Holy crap, it's the spider on my pool deck! Of course, this is it."

Boss: "What kind of spider?"

Me: "Spiny Orb Weaver"

Boss: "Oh, those are great spiders. They will keep areas free of insects. Like mosquitoes."

Me: "I don't have an insect problem on my pool deck, and I do not have mosquitoes."

Boss: "Exactly."

Yeah, okay, but a whole new crop of babies? In my pool deck? I turned it over to my husband. He relocated the sacs. Then I worried for a few days that the mothers were frantically searching for their babies.

Finally, I gave up. Knowing my husband, those spiders weren't relocated far. A reunion on my pool deck is most likely inevitable. In the scheme of spiders, I could do worse.

Social media queen

We recently got together with some parents and kids from Darcy's class at the school she attended from preschool to 8th grade. It was a small group, and as we caught up, the parents talked about different social media options. Most were on Facebook. A few were on Instagram. None SnapChatted or Tweeted. 

WHAT?

It was a good thing I was sitting between the kids' section and the parent section because obviously, I fit in with the kids. I mean, these parents didn't SnapChat. Or use Twitter. I had nothing in common with these people!

The kids, however, were impressed I was on all of these sites. One added me on his Twitter following. He wants to see my football tweets over the upcoming NFL season. I willingly gave that to him and followed him in return. Then I showed them my SnapChat streak.

That's 1000 days in a row with my SIL—a thousand days of sending pictures and updates to one another.

Those kids were blown away, and my cool status with the youngsters is still intact.

Darcy: (rolls her eyes) "Yeah, okay, mom."

But deep down...she knows. I'm cool. I'm a social media queen. Follow me, people.

#Takedownthebuffalo

I started out this post with "My cousin," but is that the correct term for someone who marries your cousin? Is she instantly related to me via marriage? Is she my cousin? I researched it, which is how many of my entries never come to fruition because I'm too damn busy with the research angle and likely forget the original topic. Need proof of that? See the post below this one where I write about almost burning down my house.

"My cousin" is actually no relation despite marrying into the family because there is no blood relationship. I looked into that term since it sounded yucky and discovered blood relationship is a relationship with a common ancestor. So while my cousin's wife isn't related to me, her children are because we share a blood relationship. 

Thank you for making these kids so we could add them to our family tree, but sorry you aren't part of it. 

But then I found Familytree Expert, a website that stated, "Most people would refer to her as "my cousin's wife" or "my cousin." BAM! Validation from the Internet and the Familytree Expert.

So...

My cousin, who used to be my number one blog reader, got on her high horse and started her own blog. It's called A Simple Life and can be found here. I check in once a week because her life is hilarious, and she is a decent writer. 

Recently, she had an experience she blogged regarding her terrible customer service with Buffalo Wild Wings. Because I know awful customer service--hello Amy from Home Depot--I related. At the end of the post, my cousin added the hashtag #takedownthebuffalo, and had we died laughing.

But the article itself is not funny.

So, in helping her go viral, and because she does not have Twitter (My god, why do people not have Twitter?), I tweeted it out to my 92 millions of followers. 

I am a firm believer in using social media to voice pleasure and/or displeasure regarding companies. I mean, they make apps for this sort of thing and hire employees to monitor these sites, so absolutely, I'm going to do it despite my kids rolling their eyes. I looked for the @buffalowildwings, but there wasn't one that wasn't specific to a store, so I couldn't send it to the Twitter handle. It didn't matter. Buffalo Wild Wings (@BWWings) reached out to me, asking for more information. They sent a link to a form, and my cousin took the time to fill it out. She is on a mission to #takedownthebuffalo.

She put the link to her blog post on Facebook so that her 100,000 friends could read it and pass it on to their 100,000 friends. Within a few hours, she'd heard from quite a few people, including some with great information. She discovered the manager had recently asked for a transfer to another store, and so that store received a call. She heard from someone who had forwarded her post to her son, who oversees the district. He wasn't happy and plans action. On and on it went with people telling their own stories and passing information on--hello, the power of social media. 

Of course, it can also go against you, which is what my cousin was teaching her children from this whole experience. Watch yourself. Treat people as you want to be treated. Don't act in a way that will not look good on social media because this is the world we live in now. We're all just a misbehavior away from ending up as the lead story on Yahoo or YouTube. My cousin is very aware of her anger and her own response to the Buffalo Wild Wings manager, and she knows the people in the line behind her might've videotaped her behavior. 

Welcome to the other side of the coin.

It is now in the hands of Buffalo Wild Wings. How they chose to handle it will go a long way in whether we dine at that establishment. I've boycotted quite a few places due to things I've read and witnessed via social media. Let's see how the buffalo responds.