a weekend of “firsts”

Greetings from the car ride home from Elysburg, PA! This weekend was one of many Firsts Since Pre-Pandemic Days, such as: FIRST AMUSEMENT PARK(S)!! But we’ll get that in a later blog post.

The other firsts: EATING INSIDE A RESTAURANT. I realize that both of these things were technically possible before but none of us felt comfortable pushing our luck with no vaccine and soaring numbers.

Things are finally starting to seem like they’re getting better (hopefully??) so we’re making our entrance back into society I guess.

This whole weekend was set in motion several mths ago when one of my oldest Internet friends (as in – we met in the late 90s on Darkchat!) Eresbet sent me an IG message and asked me if I wanted some of these awesome antique carnival toys that her mom collected. Of course I said yes because that’s my aesthetic but mostly because it was an opportunity to finally meet her! It’s crazy because I remember we had even talked on the phone occasionally back in the day, as in: the days when I wasn’t scared of talking on the phone!

We met her at the Soda Jerk diner after leaving Hershey Park yesterday and I was so nervous because hello, I haven’t had to be social in a long time and even before that, my social muscle does not flex very often.

But I feel like it went swimmingly!! She brought her daughter Lana with her and we got to sit in a big round booth which I love and the waitress was so nice (I missed waitresses!!!) and I got to chug diner coffee and eat my veggie panini as soon as it was brought to me instead of driving around and looking for a place to sit outside and eat, and I got a stomachache from a delicious chocolate milkshake and the conversation was easy and comfortable! I am typically the living embodiment of the sweating emoji in these circumstances but this time I felt like the sunglasses face.

Why do the people I get along so well with aways have to not live in Pittsburgh??

Chooch accused me of saying “yeah I’ll meet you but you have to bring me toys.” Also, he claimed the carousel.

Then we drove for a bit to accomplish another First since the pandemic happened: CHECKING INTO A HOTEL!

Henry came out to the car after checking in and gave us the room key and presumably directions to the elevator and we were like Yeah Yeah Ok Mmm and walked away from him. Inside the lobby, we assumed that we had to walk down the hallway because we didn’t see the elevator anywhere.

“Oh this door must be for the stairwell,” I said when we reached the end and still had yet to uncover this mystical elevator. But when I pushed it open, it just went out into the back parking lot.

As we Tweedled our way back toward the lobby, we saw the elevator just as Henry oafed his way through the doors with all the bags.

“What are you two idiots doing?” he asked suspiciously.

“We couldn’t find the elevator,” I said.

“I told you where it was!” Henry cried, and now we had the attention of the ladies at the desk.

“Oh, I stopped listening before that,” I shrugged.

“We didn’t know where they were going or we would have helped!” the one lady said.

“I told them to come inside and turn left,” Henry sighed.

“No left turn was made,” the one solemnly lady said and I am still internally cracking up over this. NO LEFT TURN WAS MADE.

Meanwhile, Days Inn is in the process of remodeling this property and im not sure if anything is going to be added but our room had a gigantic area of open space, it was really crazy. For our first hotel since December 2019, I have no complaints! It was clean & comfortable and the way that lady at the front desk so seamlessly inserted herself into one of our signature family squabbles made it way more memorable.