Since installing FreeTime, I noticed that when I try to make a Sim "Ask to Leave" the cow mascot, the cow will pull out a book and start walking around the lot while reading. What is this? I've never seen this animation before.

It means the Cow has some enthusiasm in Film and Literature. There are a few different hobby idle animations, though I'm not sure if each hobby has one. Cuisine has one where they rub their belly and Arts and Crafts has one where they make a little "frame" with their thumbs and pointing fingers. Gaming has one where they act like their hand is sore. I think there's a mod to make the idles play less often by raising the minimum enthusiasm points a sims must have to do the animation.
Edit: Yes, Hobby Idle Animations Fix by twojeffs.
Also available: No Hobby Animations by Cyjon for those who want to remove the animations entirely.
I use the twojeffs mod and it works perfectly for me.

That's called the book walk. It's an idle hobby animation. I believe Cyjon's Sims 2 mods/hacks has a no hobby animation mod which prevents that.

Two things:

The Windows 10 pink flashing Sims is the creepiest thing I have ever seen. The way their body is posed and how they just float around... No surprise why people won't just deal with it and keep playing. The Graphics Rules Maker saved my life- I haven't experienced any problems in my game since.

The Surprise Engagement interaction! I completely forgot about it until I had two Sims on a date eating at a restaurant. There was an option to Propose -> Surprise Engagement while the Sims were eating. I don't think I've used that interaction in 6 years or so. I'm a slow player and haven't had many engagements in my custom hoods, so I forgot about it. It was really cute though. I wish there were more "alternative" big interactions - different first kisses, marriages, births, etc.

I've been toying with an idea of a way to avoid the randomization of townie names when they are added through a subhood, and I've now tested my idea and it works fine as far as the process and check in SimPE is concerned. I simply change the FAMI for the groups of townies and NPC in the subhood before adding/deleting to a main hood, then change them back once they are in the hood. It's simple and far faster than changing the names back looking at their pictures and such. I haven't play tested the sims, but if anyone would like to, I can pass along a subhood to try out. If anyone else tries this idea or has done it, I'd like to hear about it.

That everyone in Viper Canyon has their ages set to the beginning of their age bracket. Or maybe it's just not working with the ageing mod I'm trying out and the age-correcter...although everyone in linked subhoods got corrected ages just fine. Oh well, guess it's time to put the stealth hoods back in and give up on that brilliant idea...

That dancing by yourself raises the social motive

That male dogs can get quite jealous and aggressive of their female owner's suitors. Mahatma, (Sally Bond's dog) just would not stop barking and growling at her boyfriend while he was visiting her.

What do you change in the FAMI things? Do you change the name from like "Townies" to "TowniesNamed"? Or do you move them to different "households"? I tried doing the former and it didn't work, but also couldn't find anything I could change that would seem harmless yet a change that would have this effect.

I discovered that a Sim can apparently Try For Baby with a Sim who's not the spouse. I didn't think it was possible, due to gameplay reasons. What happens if, say, Don Lothario gets the maid or some random townie pregnant?

Sims who aren't part of the current family can't get pregnant from woohoo. Some mods allow visiting playables to get pregnant from woohoo, but you can't get townies and NPCs pregnant (how would the pregnancy even progress?)

Do you have ACR? I think there's an option that enables you to get other Sims pregnant that aren't in the household you're currently playing, as long as they're in one of your playable households (Don could get Nina Caliente pregnant but not the maid).

I've never seen such an option on ACR. I know the YA maternity mod and the RCC both allow you to do that, though.

I don't have any mods like that. Just wondering why I got the option to try for baby.

The only other thing I could think of is if you had made the sim selectable. But I'm not 100% sure if making a Sim selectable from outside your household enables the Try For Baby option either.

I've seen some posts that indicate that it does. I need to test it anyway, since the surrogate interaction won't work unless the surrogate can get pregnant through woohoo, and they might be living in another household.

That Homecrafter Plus is much more addictive than making clothing or objects...seriously...I was not warned!!!!

I discovered two things. First, the game console can break and turn into a pile of electronic trash if used for too long. Second, the lie detector career reward can also be broken but is repairable.

I discovered that there are neighborhood sound effects! I never noticed them before because I almost always play with music on, but I've building a lot lately and have been listening to my own music while building. I opened my neighborhood and with no music I could hear what sounded like water moving, birds chirping, and cars driving

Today I learned that when you move a household in, they will appear in alphabetical order of first name on the panel, as I discovered with some of my male Sims.

Top to bottom: Algulor, Callaetus, Carlos Fernando Alvarez, David Kenji Lissilour, Hayden Rose, Jack King, James Chaffield, Joe Collins, Miraltus, Xavier Florinda, Zachary Beaumont, Zepharia Olatjuni

You almost had me there! Thought it was Sims 3 for a second. Your profile pic and the clean User Interface mod threw me off. That is useful information, does this refer to Sims of the exact same age?

The Music and Dance idle animation is my favorite; your Sim's just standing there, and suddenly she starts doing that ballet warm-up pose and puts the "knife edge" of her left foot against the arch of her right foot. Simmy dancers are flexible like that.

Does Sports have any idle animations? Sports has to be The Worst of the ten hobbies, so it could at least give us a neat idle animation or two, but I've never seen one. And I'm wondering if that "clasp your hands together and look around all happy" animation might be Nature's idle animation; I might have to pay more attention to which Sims are doing it. For as often as my Nature hobbyists get attacked by bees, plagued with poison ivy itchies and sprayed by the occasional skunk, one might expect them to have a less romanticized view of the natural order. :p

They have to be the exact same age or students at uni (who are the exact same age by default).

One Sports animation is where the sim does boxing animations. This is particularly noticeable in my game because the Sports hobbyist is invariably either just starting or just finishing a conversation and looks like they're about to punch the other sim in the face. I've also seen cashiers do this on community lots (cashiers and baristas have a lot of free time to do idle animations).

The other Sports animation is the sim pretending to dunk a basketball - they'll hop up slightly and pretend to push a basketball into the hoop.

I don't think that's a hobby idle. Good witches do that all the time and I think sims with high Nice will also do it.

Ah, how soon I forget the boxing and basketball idle animations....

(And seriously, is Sports good for anything besides Fun-filling (which all hobbies do), Body-building and Relationship-building, including the almighty Kicky Bag? At least Fitness lets my Sims meet new people while jogging and get some wonderful "turbo snacks" out of the fridge!)

And the idle animation with the "Rubik's Orb"...is that from high Science enthusiasm, or is it from high Logic? Many of my high-Logic Sims are also big on Science and have spent many hours at a telescope, so I forget.