Forbes

I swore I'd find something to blog about other than driving, but it's like Pittsburgh is just begging me to do so.

We all know that Forbes and Fifth are two way at CMU and eastward, but at Bigelow they change to one way streets. Forbes goes away from downtown, and Fifth goes to downtown.

So, if one were in downtown and wanted to leave, one would take Forbes out.

Now refer to picture.




...my parents wondered how I got us lost downtown.

Beechwood Boulevard

A month after moving to Pittsburgh, we were getting furniture on Craigslist. The people we were getting our couch from said they lived on Beechwood Boulevard and provided an address. "Great!" I think. "I know where Beechwood is! I don't need to get directions!" So we drive to Beechwood (a few blocks away) and start looking at numbers. I didn't get directions because:

1) I believed this was either the fastest way or fairly close to it.
2) I believed this to be the simplest way to get to their house without getting us lost.

Both were false.

1) Fastest path.
Here's my starting location (green), and the location where I knew Beechwood to be at (blue). Presumably, the fastest way to get to our destination would be to drive to the known spot on Beechwood and turn the car in the appropriate direction, as indicated by the house numbers.



Here's the map of Pittsburgh with Beechwood highlighted. WTF. I bet you can guess where my ending location was.



Here's the actual shortest path to the destination, as provided by Google Maps.




2) Simplest path.

Ok, so maybe it's easiest though to get on Beechwood and go, so we don't get lost. Let's zoom in on the map.



That's right. That's TWO intersections with a street that turns 90 degrees. Guess how easy it is to miss those turns....Actual path taken by me and Saul:



It's hard to see, but that is us backtracking three times.

And finally, some sample directions provided by Google Maps, to help you navigate this #!&*#@! street.

Special Kitty

Puppy the Cat has been diagnosed with "anxiety induced petite mal seizures". Basically, every time something upsets him, his little brain fires off a few random neurons and causes him to become lost in our house. Literally, he walks in circles downstairs. So he meows loudly until we find him. At 2 am. And 4 am. And 7 am...

So our vet prescribed Paxil so that he won't get anxious over stupid things (like a leaf falling from a tree). Kid you not, my cat is now on anti-depressants. He even has an account at Rite-Aid now for his prescriptions. I have to cut this itty-bitty pill into fourths. He eats his 1/4 pill with some kitty food off a spoon every night before dinner. He actually really likes "spoon food" now and comes running over when he sees the spoon.

On the plus side, we've been able to sleep every night this week because he actually goes to sleep at night now. Sleep is good.

Bunny the Cat, however, is now upset because Puppy won't chase her through the house 8 times a day. Now that he sleeps, the chasing-clawing-knocking-over-of-vases was cut back to 4 times a day. Darn