a long weekend in january (see also: doug & julie)

In addition to Saturday’s Blue Flame trip down a grilled cheese-greased memory lane, here are some other small happenings.

Chooch, leaving for college in less than a year, has suddenly decided that his bedroom needs a makeover so he made us take him to Ikea because he wanted a small bedside cabinet thing. He saw this giant bear and bought it with his own money – Baby Chooch is still in there somewhere after all!

(Actually, I’m pretty sure the impetus for his cleaning spree is A GIRL NAMED KYLIE, aka from whom the bracelet on his wrist came.)

On the way home, I got a news alert that BILL HAYES died, so I screamed.

“Who?” Henry and Chooch asked in unison, Henry sounding moderately concerned but Chooch? Not so much as expected.

“Doug Williams? HOPE’S FATHER??” I cried in agony.

No response. Blank stares.

“OMG OK, wow. Well, he’s from something near and dear to me, something that I reference almost every day,” I coaxed.

“I don’t know, your blog? Days of Our Lives?” Chooch mumbled.

Yes, Days of Our Lives, good job!

A few nights later, I subjected Henry to approximately an hour of Doug and Julie DOOL clips on YouTube while screaming about how “JOE COCKER’S LOVE LIFT US UP WHERE WE BELONG WAS THEIR SONG!” but GUESS WHAT?? My ironclad DOOL memory bank failed me because that was actually covered by MARILYN MCCOO at MARLENA AND JOHN BLACK’S wedding?! How did I mix that up?! Why do I have such a vivid memory of this song playing in a Doug & Julie scene??

It’s really hard for me to get out of the DOOL loop once I start spinning. I never thought I’d be participating in this, but it occurred to me the other night that my Roman Empire has GOT to be when Hope was supposed to marry Larry but when Larry lifted the veil, it was actually HOWIE because Hope, previously Holding Out For a Hero, was riding off into the horizon on the back of Bo’s hog.

So then, lounging in bed with this clod-stomping through my mind, I pictured Howie with a fat cigar in his mouth which made me then hearken back to the time in my life, senior year of high school specifically, when I decided that I wanted to be a cigar aficionado – I was about to say inexplicably but now that I’m slipping back into 1997 during daylight hours I think it must have been because my dad was a pipe and cigar smoker and I just thought it smelled good and imagined – now near me out because this makes no sense and it’s also hypocritical to my newly formed vegetarian lifestyle back then – that it would taste meaty?! Like a thicc Bob Evans sausage link!?

I was about to question my thought process with this next part, but then remembered that I was an idiot teenager, but in any case I thought it would be a great idea to steal some of my dad’s cigars and then wait to attempt to smoke one while riding around in Psycho Mike’s silver Omni from the 80s (named Elliott because one day after he got the car, he asked what he should name it and we were on Elliott Drive, so…). First of all, I’m fucking certain I didn’t light it properly – I mean, aren’t you supposed to clip off the end first? I cannot picture myself doing that. Man, I took a big manly drag and then PROMPTLY screamed EW OMG while accidentally inhaling the plumes of decidedly NOT breakfast meaty smoke, and, as a reflex, I chucked the flaming cigar not out MY window, but ACROSS THE CAR and out of Psycho Mike’s window WHILE HE WAS DRIVING and OH BTW his window WAS NOT DOWN.

Now Psycho Mike’s screams had joined my own in hysterical unison as the STILL LIT cigar ricocheted off the closed window and into his lap, which was now smoldering. He had to veer off onto the shoulder of the road (we were on Waterman, which was super windy and made for a great setting for CIGAR-IN-THE-CAR ESCAPADES) and let’s just say this is one of the many moments I look back on and wonder how I walked away from that relationship alive.

Henry just came home from work and I had to sadly admit to him by DOOL gaff, and instead of just leaving it as “I was wrong about that Joe Cocker song,” I instead opted to reenact the clip I watched with Marilyn McCoo mccooi’ing her cover of it at whatever Doug’s lounge was called  (maybe that’s why I associate it with him and Julie??) while John Blake creepily whispered “I love you” to Marlene with a wink, and over at another table, Patch was intensely glaring at Kayla  (to be fair, he always looked like he was ready for a murder party) while Kayla breathed heavily in response.

What is my fucking life.

Sunday was pretty chill. Drew got pissed off at birds. I fed the squirrels.

Sent Henry out to Allegro for their BBQ oyster mushroom “chicken” sandwich and it was absolutely so divine. I gave myself a big stomachache though because I ate it like it was the only food I was given all weekend.

Oh!! Also, I finished watching This Is Us. Look, listen Brenda. I was an OG-viewer of that series. I watched it in REAL TIME most weeks, even! But when we cut cable, I was having to watch it on On Demand. Then something got screwed up midway through the final season and the next episode I needed was gone from On Demand and I didn’t want to keep watching it without that one. Henry and people of his ilk can do these things, but not me. I need order.

So then I just gave up. Meanwhile, my mom had JUST DISCOVERED it right after that and was like “OMG have you heard of this show” and I’m all “yeah I was watching it for 6 years of my life and now everything is ruined” and she watched the entire series in like a month somehow and I had to beg her to not talk to me about it.

Anyway, hail to Netflix, I finally got to pick it back up (it took a while to figure out where I left off!) but then once I did, I tried to drag it out so I could savor it but I ended up finishing the season and the series in less than a week and needless to say, I am wrecked. That show was pretty close to perfect, honestly. (I know it was the point, but I really fucking hated Toby there for a minute, I forgot how dreadful and unbearable his character had become! Glad he was tolerable at the end at least.)

Chooch and I both had the day off for MLK Jr Day so we walked to 802 for some local coffee. I had a mediocre banana chai (it was fine but I really like Crazy Mocha / Yinz Coffee’s chai lattes the best – everything else just tastes so watered down to me) and then I accidentally chose the wrong kind of donut (again – fine but also underwhelming) BUT!!! Chooch actually acknowledged me the entire time and that is the whole point so who cares about the rest! There was a large Mexico coffee table book in the nook where we were sat (LOL I wanted to know what it would feel like to word it that way; like the coffee and donut, it felt fine) and Chooch was actually flipping through it and showing me places he had been when he studied there in 2022! I was trying to play it cool but it truly felt being noticed in a positive way by one of the mean girls, you know?

Well, I think that’s all. It was a long weekend, and also a LONG WEEKEND if you know what I mean. I’m over winter. Ready for March. Let’s go.

P.S. Back to Doug & Julie, I had NO IDEA ABOUT THIS but they started secretly dating in the 70s and then proceeded to also secretly get married, and when people found out they demanded that their characters, who weren’t love interests at that point, get together on the show and that is how Doug & Julie became a soap opera power couple and ALSO, in my Internet travels today I learned that they were the only soap couple to be featured on the cover of Time! Sit down, Luke and Laura. Pfft.

The passing of Bill Hayes has donkey-kicked so much information into my brain. It’s crazy.