It’s that time again. Weekend recap!
I spent the morning finishing my Golden Girls Valentines and crying tears of joy while watching video clips of Taeyang’s wedding. The disgusted sneer Henry kept giving me was so perfect.
So, all week I was thinking about how I wanted to go to Nak Won Garden on Saturday for some soondubu jjigae (look, Henry is a marvel at Korean home-cookin’, but there is just nothing like that bubbling ttukbaegi of kimchi & tofu that comes out of a real Korean kitchen sorry Bae Henry).
(That’s what I call him because I like to pretend that he’s in love with Bae Suzy, a Korean singer/actress.)
(He doesn’t get it.)
Right. So all week I’m enduring this shitty cold weather and thinking about the soondubu at the end of the frigid tunnel, but then Chooch had to go and get stupid straight A’s so there went my Korean lunch out. Instead, we went to Blue Flame, which was fine because Blue Flame has a forever spot in my heart and everyone who knows me knows that!
As soon as Henry parked the car, Chooch was out the door and running over to the wall at the side of the parking lot. On the other side is a creek which, to most people, is not noteworthy in the slightest. But ever since I was really little, it was tradition to peer over that wall at the creek below, especially in the warmer months when tadpoles could be seen. I’m not sure who started this or why, but it was one of the things that I did with my Pappap so it’s always been special. And of course I taught Chooch about it when he was super little, so it’s just like a thing now. It feels like we’re honoring my Pappap every time we look down into that shallow, burbling water, so I’m going to keep doing it until the day I die, fight me.
I posted about this on Instagram and one of my friends who also grew up in this area said she used to do the same thing when she was a kid so maybe it really is A Thing!
(Also, a Bae Suzy video just came on as I’m typing this and now I’m laughing alone.)
Creek peek.
Inside Blue Flame, all Chooch wanted was one (1) blueberry pancake. For as outspoken and independent as he typically is in most situations, this kid is AWFUL at communicating with waitresses. I don’t know what happens, but he fucking shuts down as soon as they ask him for his order and then LOOKS AT US while he’s mumbling his order, like we’re his FUCKING KIDNAPPERS and he wants our approval.
It is beyond awkward, like these waitresses probably think he beat him at home or something, the way he acts all nervous and skittish, and then sometimes he doesn’t know how to answer their questions so we have to do it for him! Like, honestly, WHAT KIND OF FUCKING BREAD DO YOU WANT FOR YOUR TOAST?! YOU ONLY LIKE WHITE BREAD SO JUST SAY THAT.
Jesus Christ!
Or when he acts like ordering a drink is the hardest question he’ll answer all day when he literally only ever gets one of two things: chocolate milk or lemonade.
It’s so uncomfortable.
My favorite is when the waitress explains his options – and you know most places have the same standard canon drink menu – and he looks at US like “Which of those do I like?” which I always feel looks like he’s seeking our approval so he won’t get whipped when we leave for ordering apple juice instead of milk.
The rest of our Saturday was full of card-making tension and at one point Chooch mumbles, “My parents are literally fighting over serial killer Valentines.”
It was a hard lesson in supply & demand that day. But we persevered. Barely.
~~~~~~~
Sunday was cool too! Chooch’s piano lesson was canceled so we got to just relax that morning without needing to run around. After lunch, we went to Oakland because Chooch is doing a report on Crispus Attucks and can barely find any solid info on him. The Brookline branch of the Carnegie library ordered a book for him and then failed to tell him that it was never even put on the truck yet until a week later when Henry called to see what the hell was going on, and we had to buy a book on Amazon, which ended up being some children’s story. Chooch’s teacher was all pissed off at him at first, until other kids also were like, “THE LIBRARY FAILED US” so she said she was going to rough them up, or call and complain. One of those.
So we took him to the main Carnegie Library on Sunday and the librarian who helped us totally redeemed all librarians in Chooch’s eyes, and now he’s like, “MAYBE IT’S JUST THE BROOKLINE ONES WHO SUCK” and yes son that’s surely it because the Brookline library is pretty dumb. Chooch has beef with three of them.
He likes the security guard there though.
Sunday was a wet snow kind of day and Henry muttered a lot about how it was just the type of day where you should stay home. LOL.
I wonder if Trump knows that libraries are free…?
But anyway, Henry was miserable because there was some broad singing in a room near the front of the library and it seemed like every person standing around watching the performance had bathed in patchouli that morning, so we had to walk through that and it was unpleasant. Henry REALLY hates it even more than me so he complained about it off and on for the better part of an hour.
Almost immediately, we enlisted the help of the aforementioned librarian and she was incredibly helpful and invested in Chooch’s project. Unlike waitresses, he was actually able to communicate to her what he needed so she took us to the right section and kept coming back with more books that she found elsewhere. She was a savior.
Chooch wants to only go to that library from now on.
Dork alert.
Sometimes it’s hard for me to comprehend that he’s gifted. Especially when I watched him struggle to smear jelly on his toast at Blue Flame, or observed the way he uses a fork to pile bites of pancake onto the blade of a butter knife instead of just, you know, taking the fork all the way home with the pancake bites.
“Who eats like that?!” I cried, and he was like, “What? What am I doing wrong?”
I mean, nothing I guess. It just seems like it takes so much effort to balance food on a knife, that’s all.
And then we made Chooch pay his own library fines since he was unable to check out his book otherwise.
“GO ON, TELL THE MAN ABOUT YOUR FINES,” we said as we nudged Chooch toward the librarian at the check-out counter.
I mean, we live three blocks away from a library, so there’s really no excuse.
And then we went back to working in a knock-off Hallmark sweatshop for the rest of the day/night.
That’s all for now. I have shit to do, food to eat, vids to watch.