After we surrendered Don to Fallen Timber (his burial is this Thursday), I went straight to my room and basically bathed in a body wash of my own tears for the next two hours. But even I can only take so much sulking and despair, so I demanded that Henry take us to the park. I needed to get out of the house and keep busy.

Of course I still cried at the park too, which perfectly accentuated a ridiculous argument Henry and Chooch were having about his scooter and Henry being the worst dad ever. Hopefully someone recorded that for child services. That and when Choochie Knoxville LET GO of the swing, flew through the air backward, and landed in a perfectly painful bellyflop, at which point he protected his pain into anger, slapped my arm and said, “THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!” (Literally, right now he just reminded me of the centimeter-size scrape on his elbow and said “Wah.”)

Hating us. And that was BEFORE his swing stunt.

I don’t know anything about the reproductive process of bees, but these two were either fornicating or fighting, and they even took it airborne after awhile. It was a nice distraction.

Henry bought us ice cream afterward but was all grumpy about it.

Seriously, he makes the innocent act of ice cream cone indulgence look like gay porn EVERY TIME. Look at his total “caught in the act” expression!

Watching Chooch wear his ice cream makes me ill. I hate food messes.

After Chooch went to bed, Henry and I sat outside with Marcy. He had some beer, I had some wine, and we talked about Don. I think Henry is sadder than he is letting on.

After Corey’s commencements on Saturday, Henry and Chooch rejoined us and we all went out to dinner, which was nice because I don’t think Henry has ever gone out to dinner with me and my dad before, plus this was his first time meeting my grandma Kelly.

Even though I asked the waiter to put me, Chooch and Henry on a separate check, my dad picked up the tab.

Danielle was prepared to give him cash for her dinner but he waved her off.

“If I had known you were paying, I would’ve ordered something cheaper!” she said.

“I’d have ordered something more,” I mumbled, like the brat that I am.

Chooch didn’t swear it all! I guess my pep talk of, “PLEASE DON’T SWEAR PLEASE DON’T SWEAR” really got through to him. I can only imagine how fast my grandma Kelly would hold a crucifix to his forehead if he let an obscenity rip. To his credit though, he’s really good about his word choice in public.

He got to sit by Corey, who is like a bright, shiny toy to him, so that helped keep his most monstrous antics recessed.

Bread was a hot commodity at that joint.

My grandma Kelly is such a sweet old woman. When we were sitting on the bleachers at the Sports Center, she told Danielle and me that women should never poop in public restrooms because it’s shameful and then segued right into asking me if I go to church every week. I always feel like she can see my black, ashy aura.

At dinner, she slung her purse over the back of her chair and said, “It’s bad luck to put your purse on the floor.

Henry looked over at my purse, discarded in a heap next to my chair under the table, contents beginning to seep out like entrails, and said, “Well, that explains a lot.”

Bill, Jessi and Tammy drove in from Detroit last Saturday afternoon; it was the first time we’ve seen each other since our Tennessee vacation last summer, so we were all beyond stoked! I thought it would be fun to take them to the Toonseum downtown, and to sweeten Jessi’s pot, we took the trolley. Jessi loves trolleys and I’ve been promising her a ride on ours for years now. (And no, that’s not an euphemism for me and Henry’s Siamese penis.)

Way to bang two town whore with one condom, I guess.

Laura came too because she has never done either of these things yet in her first year living in Pittsburgh. (The trolley and Toonseum, not town whores, although I don’t really know what she does on her own free time.)

The ride there was relatively anticlimactic, but at least it was dry, which is more than I can say for the shitty weather we were having that day. And of course, NONE OF MY UMBRELLAS WORKED, not even the one I got from The Law Firm, which rivals the wingspan of a pterodactyl.(A few weeks ago, I clotheslined myself with it while walking down the street when it wouldn’t fit between a wall and a telephone pole. Thank god there was an endless line of cars stuck at a red light when it happened; how wasteful if it had happened for no one  to see.)

Awhile back, I was trying to coin the phrase “Erin’s Umbrella,” as in:

He couldn’t get his dick up — what an Erin’s Umbrella moment.

Seriously, all of my umbrellas are like limp dicks and I can’t stand it. Why is the average umbrella lifespan approximately 3 months once it’s in my possession?!

On this day, I was using an umbrella missing a handle, making it awkward to hold. Also, the actual umbrella part isn’t mounted onto the stick very securely, so it wobbles around precariously like a bobblehead, and also is prone to being blown inside out every 30 seconds.

I had to keep screaming for Laura to help me, but the way I was acting, you’d have thought it was the train of my wedding dress I needed her to fix.

The Toonseum is a nice little place to check out of you’re looking for something on the cheap side to do downtown, and have at least a mild interest in cartoons, which is where I fall. However, Bill owns a comic and gaming shop, so it was a no-brainer to take them there. Even with my limited knowledge of the genre, it was still really interesting and visually stimulating, plus the amount of time necessary to spend there was perfect for an almost 6-year-old. He didn’t even have a chance to fidget or break anything, but he did sniff out the bathroom immediately, so I can’t make any promises for what he did or didn’t do in that part of the gallery.

As if one window-creeping Henry wasn’t enough.

Afterward, we walked to Market Square for a late lunch at Moe’s. I was tempted to lead the way since Carey just taught me how to walk there a few weeks ago, but since our starting point wasn’t in the back of The Law Firm’s building, I was extremely disoriented. Plus, it was cold and raining, so I felt it would be best to follow the ex-SERVICE member.

<3

This guy was on the trolley with us on the way back and I was not-so-silently hoping he would vomit on his boots. Henry thought he was probably high on heroin and then suggested he was probably friends with Jonny Craig.

Later that night, we all hung out at my house, watching Chooch and Bill play Wii Sports. Chooch kept getting pissed off because Bill wasn’t letting him win, so he would storm off and cry on the steps.

“God, he’s just like his mother,” Henry grumbled.

“No he’s not,” I said thoughtfully. “I would have broken something by now.”

Later, we put on the Music Choice 80s Hits channel and were serenaded by an angry shot of Phil Collins singing “Sussudio.” [THIS IS FORESHADOWING.]