Aug 17 2018
Friday Fives Are Better Than Friday Hives
At some point today we will be in Indiana, and I promised to do part of the driving so I won’t be able to liveblog. So instead, I guess have a Friday Five featuring things I’m currently into or thoughts that are glomming onto my brain. It’s a Friday free-for-all.
1. Jonghyun Pins & Making Friends
I saw this Jonghyun tribute pin a few weeks on Instagram and immediately bought one. In some small way, it makes me feel comforted to have it, you know? Anyway, I noted that the seller is also from Pittsburgh so I got really excited and messaged her that I am also from Pittsburgh, hoping that she would read the invisible words that trailed after which said in desperate font PLEASE BE MY FRIEND. She did not pick up on this though and simply replied with, “haha small world! Enjoy the pin!” So I was like HENRY WHAT SHOULD I DO because my social skills are about as dried up as the remnants of my dead plants that I still haven’t thrown away. Henry of course was no help because he doesn’t care about making friends so I waited a few days and messaged her again with a hopefully-not-psycho-sounding suggestion of meeting up for coffee & Kpop talk sometime and she was like “Cool! I’m actually leaving to go back to college soon but I’ll let you know when I’m back in town again” and I don’t know why I’m surprised that she is probably nearly 20 years younger than me, sigh.
But then, while I think about how nice it would be to have a friend here in the city who shares my interests, does it really matter all THAT much? I like all my friends here whether they like the same shit as me or not. And I think it’s kind of cool that all of my friends are so different from me when it comes to interests and hobbies.
2. The new Hands Like Houses single
I can’t tell you how many alerts I get about new music from bands I used to love, and I’m like “I’ll check that out later” and do I?! NO! Just like when friends are like “You should watch [insert American Tv show]” and do I? NO! Because I have reached a point where I almost despise hearing the English language, how messed up is that?! I made it through one episode of Sharp Objects and it was fine but I never went back because it felt strange to not be reading subtitles or hearing that certain Korean dialect that has become more familiar to me than my own language. Anyway, my point is, when I saw Hands Like Houses had a new video, I actually did watch it right away and, not surprisingly, I loved it because I have loved everything that HLH has ever done. Some of the reasons I love them is because:
- They sound like no other band
- Trenton manages to keep his Australian accent while singing and I LOVE that
- They’re from Canberra which is where I went to see the Cure for the first time!
- One of the guys in the band bears such a strong resemblance to a young Tim Curry and has always looked so overcome with joy every time I’ve seen him on stage and it just makes me so happy!
https://youtu.be/BUp03PaFIkU
3. Cats Are Movin’ On Up
Remember sometime last winter when Chooch constructed a shoddy cat condo out of a bunch of cardboard boxes? And we had to beg Henry not to throw it away every Garbage Day? Well, that thing was so busted after awhile that even I was starting to turn against it. And then, the actual cat tower we had BROKE which really isn’t that shocking because it was nearly 20 years old. I bought it for my Original 4 Cats when I was going on the aforementioned Canberra, Australia trip because I was trying to make them less sad that I was leaving (they didn’t care at all in reality) so it ended up just sitting in the basement for years until we got Drew and Penelope and wondered if they would use it. Drew ended up loving it! Penelope notsomuch. So when it broke two weeks ago, Drew was like WHY DO YOU HATE ME.
I talked Henry into buying this fancy cat tower from Chewy and he did but ONLY because he had a coupon for it, he is such a tightwad. When it was delivered last week, Chooch and I begged Henry to assemble it straight away and he was like DO YOU NOT WANT DINNER THEN and I was like OH LOL I MEANT AFTER YOU MAKE DINNER.
At first, Drew was hesitant but now she is like “I can’t believe you guys had me loafing in that cat shanty when this palace was out there all along.”
Even Penelope plays on it! (though it’s harder for her to get on it since she is a jumping dunce).
And made a special Jimin VIP room! Henry was like WHY IS JIMIN IN THERE because he has no imagination and doesn’t believe in cat tower interior design. Cool. Cool cool cool, Henry.
(Hive five to anyone who read that in Melissa Joan Hart’s voice. CLARISSA EXPLAINS IT ALL VIBES!)
4. Pittsburgh Jesus
A few months ago, I was walking past the Steel Plaza trolley entrance when I looked over and I swear to god I saw Jesus Christ himself emerging from the little park area next to it. He was illuminated by rays of sunlight, even. This was Jesus, for sure, and not even the emblazoned-on-a-grilled-cheese version.
But then my eyes adjusted to the blinding light and I realized it was just a homeless guy.
I suppose this is something I could have sent a Greetings from Erin’s Lunch Break about but the truth is that I haven’t SENT A SINGLE ONE because I lost all motivation and also because I spend almost all of my lunch breaks on the phone with my therapist (lol, his name is Henry) because I am a crazy person who needs help and Henry lets me yell.
Anyway! I saw him again one time when I was leaving work after one of my late shifts and as I got in the car I hoarsely whispered to Henry, “There he is! The guy I thought was Jesus!” and Henry was like, “….that fat black guy?”
Ugh no behind him!
Luckily, I saw him again the other day and had the perfect opportunity to snap a pic because he was just casually standing on the steps right by my building.
Honestly, I felt blessed.(FRIDAY FIVE INTERLUDE: We just left Loving Hut somewhere outside of Columbus and we are ragging on Henry to the point where Chooch just barfed up a mouthful of Strawberry Smoothie To Go and I just screamed because Pawn Shop is closed and I had fake-convinced myself that I wanted to stop there after we ate, and Henry just called us assholes.)
5. COCO where’d you GOGO
Hey guys Chooch and I helped a guy find his lost dog while we were on our nightly neighborhood walk the other night. Just another day being hometown heroes, no biggie.
We first saw Coco leering back at us from the end of the sidewalk we were walking down. I got scared and turned around at first because you never know what you’re gonna get with a leashless dog! But then she ran around the corner and we were like LETS SEE WHERE SHE WENT and then some older man was all COCO! COCO! Ugh Peg left the GATE open! I’m going to YELL at her!
We were like SIR ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A DOG CUZ WE SAW ONE and he was like YES WHERE and Chooch put on his Dog Detective hat and pointed the way. We kind of stood there helplessly for a while and then I was like “This is awkward, Kid. Let’s split.”
But when we walked up to the next street, we saw some teenage girl slowly chasing a dog through her yard, yelling things to a man on the porch like “It has a harness on!” And I was like THAT MUST BE COCO so I had her and Chooch Lee an eye on her while I ran through the alley to find the man who looked like Harry Potter’s uncle, and I frantically yelled, “Mister we found your dog!” And he asked his neighbor lady if he could hop in her car and they took off to the street I pointed to and I ran back through the alley to find that Chooch and the girl were still blocking Coco but then right when the car rolled up, she bolted deeper into the bowels of Brookline and the girl screamed PAP, GET HER! So now the girl’s pap was party of the search party and the owner got out of the car with the leash while the neighbor lady (who I thought was Peg at first and wondered if she had already gotten yelled at but turns out she was just a nice neighbor who was helping Harry Potter’s uncle who was in NO SHAPE to be trying to lasso Coco on his own) crept slowly after Coco in her car while the rest of us walk-ran in order to not spook Coco into running faster.
OH FRIENDS it was a whole ordeal. But we finally cornered her and the girl was able to grab onto Coco’s harness while Harry Potter’s uncle clobbered over to us with the leash, panting and on the verge of a coronary.
We all bid each other a jovial adieu and then Chooch and I ran home and walked Henry up to tell him that we were hometown heroes once again and he mumbled “I’m so sure” and then fell back asleep.
Last night during our walk, I pointed things out to Henry like the bush where the girl was first trying to catch Coco and the alley where I ran down to tell the owner I found her and Henry was straight sneering on the backseat of a bus to Frown Town.
“It was a really big deal, Henry. You had to be there,” I huffed.
“I doubt it,” he muttered.
“If Brookline had a newsletter, it would have been in there!” I yelled haughtily, but by then his bus had reached its miserable stop at the corner of Scowl Street in Frown Town so he was no longer listening.
And that’s all for this week’s Friday Five! It’s 9:04pm and we’re still in Ohio, to the point where I’m not convinced that Henry hasn’t turned around at some point without me knowing and we’re actually headed back to Pittsburgh.
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Homeless Jesus guy also kinda looks like Zach Galifianakas. The cat tower is really nice!!!