New Year’s Eve, Erin-Style

holidays

Jan 022014

My New Year’s Eve might have been mellow, but it was still pretty fun. I was off work that day, so Chooch and I walked to Tom’s Diner where I substituted tomatoes for potatoes as my omelet side. It pained me, you guys. It pained me. But it was OK, because I like it when Chooch and I get to venture out on our own and I can prove that I’m capable of getting us somewhere in one piece without the aid of a police escort or bread crumbs. We do turn a lot of heads, though, when we’re on foot.

Back home, I made Chooch do some book reports. He has to have 25 of them done by the end of the year and his teacher didn’t tell us this until the middle of October at the parent teacher conference. Apparently, he was supposed to be doing them during free time at school, but hadn’t been, even though he reads books all the time.

So, that was a nice communication breakdown.

Anyway, after he did a report on one of his chapter books, I cut him a break and let him do the next one on a smaller book: Neil Gaiman’s “The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish.” I was telling him that Neil Gaiman also writes books for adults.

“OMG did he write Fifty Shades of Grey?!” Chooch cried in earnest. He is fucking obsessed with these books and I have no idea how he knows about them! (Unless Henry really does have a secret library of mom porn…)

****

Later on, when most normal people were probably just starting their night of wild debauchery at the corner bar, I discovered that a workout video from one my favorite aerobics instructors, Jacki Sorensen, is on YouTube! Thank god we can watch YouTube on our TV, so I quickly changed into my workout clothes (unfortunately, this ensemble does not include belted pastel leotard) and made Chooch and Henry watch me essentially dance like Pee Wee Herman. Because what else could I possibly do on NYE that would be more fun?!

(Fun fact: Frankie Avalon sings this in one of my favorite movies, Back to the Beach, in which Pee Wee has a cameo!)

Chooch and Henry sat on the couch looking positively miserable, eyes glazed over, wishing for a shotgun.

“Why are they all smiling?” Chooch asked in disgust. “Why aren’t they laughing at her?” And then he pointed out every thirty seconds that I was “doing it wrong.”

The worst part for Henry was that the workout video was split into 14 parts, so when one would end abruptly, he would sigh heavily and search for the next one on my phone while I stood there, sweating and screaming at him to hurry up.

Then Henry and I had a mild argument over whether or not one of the exercisers was Morgan Fairchild.

“THAT’S NOT MORGAN FAIRCHILD,” Henry shouted and then laughed without mirth, which is what he does when he finds something incredibly appalling. SORRY if my only brush with Morgan Fairchild was some shitty 1980s Lifetime movie (oh, redundancy!) and “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.”

….I’m sensing a theme here.

I am now wildly obsessed with that man in pink shorts, by the way. Making fun of him (and me) was the only enjoyable part for Chooch.

Then we played this shitty Scooby Doo game that made no sense and I lost, which makes me think it was defective because I never lose.

And then Chooch twerked to D.R.U.G.S. and made up scarily good stories on the spot with these Story Cubes he got for Christmas while we tried to avoid Miley Cyrus on all of the NYE Countdown shows. (We settled for the Carson Daly one—where was MTV’s?!?!)

And as far as resolutions go, I don’t normally get into that, but this year I decided that:

I want to learn more life skills
- things like “learning how to cook rice”
- and “making paper cranes”
I will put forth the effort to avoid any predicaments which could:
- find me falling into a hole
- and/or hearing Mackelmore’s “Thrift Shop.” Other Mackelmore tracks are OK, but that one in particular makes me want to put on ear muffs made of working power drills
I will finally get Henry to:
- wear something from Drop Dead Clothing
- and/or get a throat tattoo