December 24th Haps

For the first time maybe ever, both Henry and I had the day before Christmas off of work! We definitely wanted to take advantage of that so we left the house late that morning and hit up our favorite Asian market because even though we went to like 4 different stores over the weekend, we only bought party food and ended up not having any actual groceries so that was cool once I realized how much money we spent on novelty food items.

Ugh, I hate grocery shopping.

But I loooove the Asian market! And they had cherimoya which is one of my favorite fruits so it was like a Christmas present for me except that I didn’t know Henry bought one until the day after Christmas because I pay attention to nothing.

Also, pro tip for my fellow meatfree friends in Pittsburgh: the Asian market we go to in the Strip (WFH Oriental) has a great selection of soy-meat products that’s a nice reprieve from the Boca stuff or whatever that you find in most freezer sections.

#NotSponsored

After grocery shopping, we went to Korean Garden in Oakland for lunch, but first, we drove past the Busnegie Museum which totally made me crack up and also means nothing to you if you don’t live in Pittsburgh but it’s a play on the nearby Carnegie Museum, and this just tickles the bitterness right out of my body, I’ll tell you what.

I love stuff like this and the world needs more of it, that’s for sure.

When we’re at Korean restaurants, I do not have time to arrange the table for an aesthetically-pleasing picture. Although, it probably would behoove me to actually groom the background so that my food will have some time to cool off – I can’t remember a single time I ate at a Korean restaurant and didn’t singe off layers of my mouth.

WORTH IT.

Anyway, I got soon dubu jjigae, Chooch wussed out and got stir-fried vegetables, and I don’t know what Henry got because who cares. The owner’s daughter was working and she was playing Kpop which enhanced the dining experience, of course. “Fiance” by Mino came on and I wanted to ask her if she was going to see Winner but I wussed out, so I guess that was my stir-fried vegetable moment.

Sigh.

After lunch, we were going to check out the Christmas decorations at the Cathedral of Learning because that place always gets me amped for the birth of Christ or whatever, but it was closed! For some reason, it never occurred to me that the Cathedral would ever close, lol. I thought it was like a gas station.

I was starting to get whiny about this because I didn’t want to spend the day at home but I also didn’t want to spend a bunch of money since I accidentally bought those aforementioned Winner tickets with the regular account instead of PayPal Credit like I thought I had selected and that, um, really changed the narrative for Christmas, let me tell you. (Sorry, Henry!)

But then Henry, who usually has nothing to offer, suggested that we GO TO THE ZOO because admission has been free for the holidays! It’s  been a minute since I was last at the zoo, and the weather wasn’t too unbearable (don’t worry, I still complained constantly about being cold), so we went for it and it was the best decision! Barely anyone was there and it ended up being the best time I’ve had at the zoo in years and years.

We even got along with each other the whole entire time! Even though Henry told me that the animals probably looked at me like I was prey because of my coat, because the fact that I’m a walking meatsuit wasn’t already enough to make me prey-esque.

Don’t worry, I’m not the type of person to take a picture of every single animal and then post it on the Internet like National Geographic amateur hour, but this little bebe was too cute to pass up!

This was definitely the best Christmas Eve I have had in YEARS. It was really nice getting to spend quality time with the fam, free of obligations, doing fun outdoors shit! The rest of the evening was super mellow and lowkey, which is just what I needed.