Bullets Go to the Soda Shop

What’s a week without a blog post full of bulleted bullshit? Bulletproof, I guess. OH!

Behold, a list of things that don’t matter, but will they still be there if you don’t read them? DEEP THOUGHTS.

• This is a story about cherry cider, which will be relevant to those people who like cider and/or have eyeballs that like to look at letters no matter what words they fashion. On Memorial Day,Janna, Henry, Chooch and I went to Living Treasures in Donegal (THAT WILL BE ITS OWN POST, FEAR NOT FANS OF AMATEUR ANIMAL PICS). Once we hit a certain point, we began seeing handmade signs along the road boasting your typical indie fruit stand wares, like LOPES! and PEACHES! but then we saw one that said HOMEMADE CHERRY CIDER!Janna and I, in tandem, enthusiastically read the sign out loud in case Henry missed it, so that now he would know without us actually coming out and saying these exact words that we wanted to stop and get us some jugs of this sweet elixir. “On the way back,” he mumbled. And he actually remembered!
  • The fruit stand broad was not very personable. Perhaps because it was a beautiful day and she was stuck sitting alone on the side of some shitty road, staring at baskets of peaches that her dad probably made her pick the day before instead of going to the alley behind the soda shop to have sex with Billy. Henry and Janna quickly handed over their respective $7 and we rejoined Chooch, whom we left in the running car because he’s 9 now so who cares. “You took a picture of her, didn’t you?” Henry asked me when we pulled out onto the road. “What? No. Why?” I stuttered. “Because you should have seen the nasty look she gave you.” Technically, I took a picture of her…peaches. That made me hope that the cider was awful so that I could go on the dumb roadside fruit stand Facebook page and leave a scathing review.
  • But it was delightful.Goddammit!
    • Although Chooch’s review was a  shrug coupled with, “Eh. It’s kind of strong.”

• My group at work had a “global” meeting the other night with our Australian counterparts (we have a sister department in the Melbourne officein case you care), so our manager thought it would be fun for everyone to go around and say a fun fact about themselves, since we don’t really know much about the Australian team. When it was my turn, I totally panicked and blurted out, “I like clowns.” Which, OK, that’s a fact. But not a really fun one. And then immediately afterward I had major fun fact regret and why didn’t I tell them about the time I went to their dumb country to see The Cure? Why am I so stupid?! I had a fun fact that was actually relevant to them and I BLEW IT.
  • I thought for sure Glenn’s fun fact was going to be about bee keeping, but no. It was just that he has two old kids and one baby and then everyone APPLAUDED. WHY?! He doesn’t deserve applause. He deserves to be gonged. (You know, LIKE THE GONG SHOW.)
• Henry took me to work today. When we were walking to the front door, I noticed a pencil on the floor so I kicked it under the coffee table. “Why wouldn’t you just pick it up?” he asked. “Why should I?” the 13-year-old in me spit out. “Why should I,” he repeated, and shook his head.
  • The pencil is still under the table. AND THAT’S WHERE IT WILL STAY.
    • Until Chooch picks it up. It’s HIS pencil.

• ^^^^Kurt Travis, you guys. Heart eyes for days.
• Chooch had his spring concert last night at school (he’s in the chorus) and it was OK. I mean, of course it was great seeing my kid on stage, go kid,rah rah, but other than that, it was pretty boring. Henry’s mom came with us and she seemed to really enjoy it because she didn’t get the memo about it being uncool to enjoy these things. This is all neither here nor there. I’m only mentioning it because afterward, we were strolling around the school looking at student art and eating cookies (that’s all I cared about), when some tinybroad shouldered past us and gave Chooch A Look that I know quite well because it’s the same look I give people to this day when I want them to think that I hate them but I secretlylovethemsomuch/amstalkingthem. Anyway, it turns out it was some girl inChooch’s class that he used to love but now he’s paying attention to a different girl and can’t understand why first girl “hates” him. Oh Chooch. SO MUCH TO LEARN.
  • Henry still has to deal with this, but he’s on the scorned woman side of things.
  • Hot Naybor Chris was there! I took a picture of the back of his head and posted it on Facebook (Henry won’t let me post it anywhere else because Henry is the one with A Brain), and my friends Matt and Alyson were very excited about this, because they were the only two people who used to read my fake Henry diary on LiveJournal (mehoover) back in the day. Alyson hashtagged it #ABMHNC as a sarcastic nod to how A Beautiful Mess tacks ABM onto the front of like 78 different hashtags, like #ABMlifeisbeautiful #ABMcolorfulanalbeads and on and on. #HNC will be one of the few things I’ll miss if we ever move. He is awesome.
  • Speaking of #HNC, I told you guys a few mths ago that he has been gifting Henry with loaves of bread. Today, Henry’s mom was here and he gave her bread too! According to Henry, it was OLIVE LOAF. I started DRYHEAVING and Henry said in its defense, “hey, it’s hipster artisan bread! It’s baked with Wigle Whiskey.” <–suuuuuper trendy local whiskey company. 
• I use the various desks/cubes I’ve had in the last 5 years at The Law Firm to help me remember certain timelines. For instance: my Ernie’s Esquire obsession happened back when I sat where Icurrently sit for the first time, because I can picture myself talking to Barb about it and seeing her head from that vantage point, which is how I know it was 2012.
  • The whole point of this is to tell you that I am re-obsessed with Ernie’s Esquire for no reason and I googled it last night when I couldn’t sleep and saw that Ernie himselfwas interviewed in 2013 but I didn’t know that since I hadn’t researched since 2012. Anyway, you guys will never believe this: there was an auction there LAST WEEKEND. All of these old chairs and artwork from the 70s that I could have bid on and then lost, and I would have known if I had only re-obsessed over this a week earlier, UGH.
    • Ernie’s Esquire was A SUPPER CLUB that I had never heard of until, obviously, 2012, but all of the locations are closed now and Henry said that it was one of those “special occasion” places, but that it was pretty sordid behind-the-scenes and the picture I have painted in my head makes it look like the Playboy Mansion circa 1968. There are barely any pictures of this place online so I started asking old people questions about it and all people will say is, “Yeah…I ate there once or twice” but then NOTHING MORE. No details! It’s like Ernie’s is a set from a bad sci-fi flick where everyone has their memories (and palates) zapped clean upon leaving.  I find this very disturbing and I want more information so if you have any, spill.
• I started compiling a list of all the trouble my blog has gotten me into over the years and then I had to stop because…wow. It’s usually because I post a picture of an innocent stranger and then make wild accusations that they go to the alley behind the soda shop to have sex with Billy.
• When I was walking around on my break yesterday, I stumbled upon a flock of Hope Mennonites standing on a corner and singing church songs. YOU GUYS. I sincerely love these sorts of things (I mean, you obviously know all about my Amish obsession). There is just something exciting about side-stepping homeless people and junkies and then walking straight into Heaven’s gate, you know? I love the juxtaposition of “pure” religious sects (no, fingers—not “sext”; nice try) with the filthy urban Pittsburgh landscape. I didn’t want to blatantly Instavid them, so I went the creepy covert route and pretended to casually stroll by but I probably looked like T-Rex what with the way I was holding my phone into my body and stomping past suspiciously. In addition to the gaggle of singing Mennonites, pairs of them were strewn about the city, handing out Jesus literature and FREE CDs. All of these people were like NO! as they walked past, but when it was my turn I was like YES I WANT THAT STUFF. As soon as Henry picked me up from work, I slid the CD in and it played for about 5 minutes until I realized the entire thing was just some male voice narrating a fake Bible story about DIRK whoever the fuck DIRK is. Just kidding – #Dirk4L (Barb, that means DIRK 4 LYFE, or DIRK FOR LIFE.)

• I was recounting my Mennonite run-in to Henry and told him that one of the women was holding a BAG FROM CVS! “Well, they’re allowed to BUY things, Erin!” he cried all defensively so now I’m wondering if he dated a Mennonite run-away when he was living in BUNKER HILL during his SERVICE YEARS.

• You know at least 8 of those chaste, bonneted girls I saw yesterday have a future going to the alley behind the soda shop to have sex with Billy.
•  Glenn was talking about how hermit crabs are worthless so I told him that I once had two hermit crabs, Dijon and Tabasco. “I was going through an intense condiment phase,” I explained, and Glenn was like, “Wow. I can honestly say that’s something I’ve never heard before….and probably never will again.”
• Yesterday’s top search on my blog: “vanilla ice creammidgets on trampolines with aklondike bar shove it up your dickhole.” I think Henry has something like that on VHS from his SERVICE days…
  • That search was probably performed by one of those little Hope Mennonite boys, sneaking off to a filthy INTERNET CAFE.

Ummmm….I think that’s all for now. I feel so relieved to have gotten all of this off my stupid chest.