Recent Things.

Here we have a collection of things that have been happening.

I’m in a bitter battle with a HAWK. We had a showdown two Fridays ago. Let me set the scene: I was sitting at my desk, dutifully doing my job, when I heard a weird animal cry. The squirrels will do a chitter every now and then, but this wasn’t that. This sounded like a distress call. I got up and went to look out my front window just as A HAWK came swooping down from across the street, straight at my window, at which point he dropped down at the last second to the area under my window. “OH FUCK NO!” I roared in my guttural battle voice and I went barreling out of the front door like one motherfucking pissed off Kool-Aid Guy.

The hawk looked at me like, “the fuck is this?” and he flew a few houses down and landed in Jackie’s (Jackie the Witch, if you’re Chooch) yard. I stomped my ass over there, hollering “Go! Get out of here!!” to this piece of shit predator. Some dumb old man (a random one, not Henry) interrupted my full-body SHOOING and STAMPING and asked me what was going on. I didn’t want to be like SQUIRRELS!!! so instead I cried, “PEOPLE LET THEIR SMALL DOGS AND CATS RUN AROUND OUT HERE AND I DON’T WANT THIS HAWK TO GET THEM.” This seemed more reasonable and less “I am the neighborhood squirrel protection society president.”

“He must be hungry!” the man laughed, rooting in his pocket for his ancient cell phone to take pictures of this stupid asshole bitch bird. “WELL HE CAN STARVE BECAUSE HES NOT FEASTING ON MY BLOCK!!” I hissed in response, but it was more like a wail in the key of Sally Struthers.

Oh, this man was PISSING me off. I just wanted him to fuck off so I could continue stalking the hawk who was now perched menacingly on a light pole across the street, but he was just doo-wah-diddling about, smiling at the dumb thing and struggling to work his phone.

My squirrels were DISTRAUGHT and I never want to have to see my favorite Girl Buddy cry and shake the way she was as she hid between HNC’s garbage cans.

This bitch fucked with the WRONG CRAZY LADY. I bought this ugly fake owl thing because hawks are stupid and supposedly will think it’s real and go somewhere else, and I’m about to hang several disco balls in the back porch because they hate…dance parties? Sike, I guess they hate reflective things.

COME AT ME NOW, BITCH BEAK.

(Henry, somewhere in the background, reminding me for the 87th time that they’re federally protected while Chooch is like “I swear to god if you end up in the emergency room…” This is my new life, in case you have been wondering what I’ve been up to. My Google searches are all variations of HOW TO FIGHT A HAWK at this point.)

I am now in the market for chain mail, a potato gun (to hopefully get it hooked on veggies) and a SHIELD. When I say that this has consumed my life…I mean, you read this dumb thing so you know how I am.

(Also: how do I get crows to live at my house. They came out at one point to help and all that was missing was KIM CARNES “I NEED A HERO” playing in the background.)

Henry and Chooch got me this kombucha when they were at the store together (I’m sure that was fun) simply because it has a squirrel on the bottle. I am a kombucha addict though so I would have drink/drank/drunken this even if it had a hawk on the bottle.

J/K, I have standards.

Chooch has been working at Dunkin’ for several weeks now and has still not been trained, lol, ok cook on Dunkin’. No wonder their coffee drinks taste different from one location to the next. No one even showed him how to work the register but he said it was similar to McDonald’s so he just started using it. At least we know that Chooch can persevere when left to his own devices.

Also! This is the kind of Dunkin’ that’s split with Baskin Robbins so I might be asking him to bring me a milkshake home at some point, even though I recently started Noom again. Did I tell you that, Blog Diary? It’s not a big deal but after so much traveling and eating amusement park food all summer, my jeans were starting to get a little tight. I have to go all in when it comes to “dieting” – I know, in the Year of Our Lord 2022 we should be celebrating our bodies and not dieting but look, my weight directly affects my mental well-being – so I can’t just “eyeball” it or whatever. I need to be honest with my food logging and you know what holds me the most accountable? Knowing that I paid for the goddamn program and hoo boy do I hate wasting money. So yeah, when I’m doing Noom, I am DOING NOOM. Plus, I like Noom because it’s realistic and doesn’t restrict or deprive you. It relied heavily on the psychological part of weight loss and teaches you how to identify and combat (or compromise with) triggers.

I’m doing it in tandem with my beloved Jillian Michaels’ Body Revolution and I’m already getting my muscle definition and waist back!

Oh and the best part about Noom is that it teaches (and ENCOURAGES) you to treat yourself so I was able to share this pumpkin cinnabun sundae from Sugar Spell Scoops with Henry yesterday without feeling like a failure. <3

This was not sponsored, lol. I just really swear by Noom! If you want to try it, I can send you a referral link thing!

I was thinking about when we saw some of Seoul Fashion Week the first time we went to Korea and looked it up on YouTube just for fun and found myself in the background of someone’s video LOL.

I’m positive people mock me behind my back. “Did you know that Erin Kelly has been to Korea?! *huge eye roll*” I can’t help that it’s pretty much all I want to talk about 24/7. It was never a “vacation” to me. It was like a legit pilgrimage, and I have never in my life felt this way about a place before, like I had been there extensively in another life or timeline. For instance, before we ever went there, I would (and still do) watch vlog and vlog on YouTube of people living in Seoul, or travel vloggers taking a train to Jeonju. I’d watch K-drama and variety shows and feel this really crazy sense of familiarity in my heart?? And I know it’s some special weird-ass thing because I have been doing research for our summer coaster trip (NOT in Korea, sadly) and while I am VERY EXCITED AND STOKED for this, everything obviously looks so, well, foreign, to me and I am very interested in everything I’m watching and reading into, but it doesn’t feel the same? It doesn’t feel like a warm, cinnamon-and-persimmon scented embrace?!

I don’t know what it means. But both times I left South Korea, I quite frankly felt I was going to die. OK that was dramatic, I just felt like someone cut into my chest, removed half of my heart, and left it in Seoul.

:D

You guys, I recently found out that Chooch not actually did academic shit in Mexico, but he did it well! Yay, Chooch!

Oh yeah speaking of Noom!! They color-code foods: green / yellow / orange f/k/a red but that made people feel like red meant STOP DON’T EAT or BAD BAD BAD but really it just means that it’s the most calorie dense food and should still be enjoyed, but just in moderation. I accidentally discovered that Kemps froyo (green food) and Olipop Root Beer (yellow food) makes the best “diet” root beer float! Of course after discovering this, every store Henry has gone to since then has not had Olipop in the root beer flavor, sigh. 

The childs, enjoying one of the last warm days on the porch :(

What else have I been up to?! Here are some shows I watched:

• Watcher (loved it)
• Midnight Club (liked it)
• Derry Girls final season (mildly disappointing, but love the show overall)
• The current season of The Crown (almost finished, thoroughly depressing, Diana Forever)

OMG I have to go. NCT127’s Killing Voice (which I have seen 87x) just came on YouTube so now I need to go and watch this and smile like a deranged person.