October is off to a good start, I really have to say. I was looking for something in this piece of Internet trash and saw that I kept alluding to the fact that things felt of last October, I didn’t feel right, it was different, etc. I’m happy to report that the October vibes feel right over here in the Oh Honestly shanty. Different since Chooch isn’t here, but still alright. I can’t explain it.

This past week was pretty good. I won’t count Monday since that was still September and lots of college administration errors came to light and had me feeling like I was on the precipice of a heart attack, but luckily, Tuesday October 1st was therapy day so that provided a solid start to the month, honestly.

Wednesday was weird but ultimately OK. Let me tell you about it. I went for my typical morning walk, which generally takes me down Brookline Blvd. It’s always early enough in the morning that the Pitaland guys are in the process of baking and sometimes I will see them coming outside for a walk. So, there is one guy in particular who I have become AM Friendly with (aka – it’s still early enough that I’m in a good mood and therefor more apt to say words to strangers). I used to always exchange morning salutations with the Pitaland proprietor, which was why I took his recent death so hard, but this guy was always my back-up – a familiar face I could count on to accept my probably-weird sounding hellos since I’m always wearing headphones and can’t hear myself.

Anyway!! On this particular morning, after I said hello, it looked like he was saying something with more syllables, so I actually PAUSED MY AUDIO BOOK FOR HIM (don’t worry, I wasn’t enjoying it anyway) and when I pulled down my headphones, he asked me if I wanted pita!!

Who am I to deny a fresh slab of pita?? Of course I said yes, and he came out with this puffed-up piece of a hummus vehicle and I felt like the motherfucker mayor of Brookline. Dead ass like I was in a Hallmark movie about a girl who finds love through baked goods in a small town but then I had to sidestep maybe-vomit on the sidewalk and some Yinzer screamed something indecipherable at me from across his Steelers-stickered truck and I remembered that nope, I’m still just in Brookline :) Anyway, I sent this picture to Henry and he was jealous because he’s the only one allowed to have Pitaland friends I guess.

My morning got weird for a minute though because I had ISSUES logging on to work – apparently my keyboard was glitching and I didn’t realize it so I kept putting in my password incorrectly and then I got LOCKED OUT and had to call the HELD DESK and got a guy who was either new or just one of those people who works the same position for years and just never gets it, because he was whispering things to himself like, “Recovery….recovery….where is it…..oh there—no, that’s not it….” and it took him about 15 minutes to get me helped when someone else probably could have done it in less than 5….

Anyway, then I was logged on and realized that my keyboard was totally effed – usually if I restart, it will correct itself, but even when I switched over to my home PC side, it was still acting a fool. So I called Henry screaming and he was like, “I WILL LEAVE WORK NOW AND GET YOU A NEW KEYBOARD, DO NOT CRY” and he really did it too, in less than 30 minutes!

But then, I got a delivery from Nooworks, one of my fave small, independent clothing lines and it occurred to me that the last time I had dreadful Help Desk issues and then got a delivery from Nooworks, Drew died. Literally, this same series of events. I was panicked, running around the house, looking for Penelope. I found her in the attic, curled up on the couch and looking pissed that I disturbed her. But you can best believe I had my eye on her all day after making that connection.

The rest of the day was fine! After work, I wanted to go and find something fun and non-alcoholic to bring to a cheese class I was doing the next night with my friend Lindsey. She doesn’t drink and I didn’t want to roll up with a bottle of wine because it’s kind of like if someone was hanging out with me and brought like, a slab of ribs – I wanted to bring something that I could share with her and I don’t really drink that often anyway, she types right before showing you a picture of a beer she bought at Giant Eagle and actually likes:

Henry said he doubted that I would like it, but I did!

Anyway, Giant Eagle didn’t have any mocktails or anything of that sort even though Henry, who is ALWAYS there, claims that they had a display near the wine section, so went to this place that I have heard of but never visited called OPEN ROAD, which is ALL non-alcoholic beers, wines, liquors, etc. It was unchartered territory for me so when the salesperson came out of the back and asked if I needed help, I said, “YEP. Guide me.” She was WONDERFUL!! Henry kind of slunk away into the shadows and ALL THE ATTENTION WAS MINE, MINE, MINE. I like being helped. Also, I need to be helped. Constantly. I was thrown into the world with no life skills.

I ended up getting a non-alcoholic Riesling to take the next night and prayed that it would be good!

This brings us to THURSDAY. I went into the office on this day. Here’s what happened. Margie and I had previously planned to meet in the office on Wednesday so I could go over some engagement letter stuff with her (doesn’t that sound fun? aren’t you jealous of my fun-sounding job!?) but then the whole Pgh office, not just our department, got invitations to an iManage training (ugh) which was IN-PERSON ONLY and NOT being recorded (wtf) so we were told in our dept meeting that while it wasn’t mandatory, it was seriously recommended that we attend one of the sessions. So, Margie and I shifted our in-person day to Thursday in order to birds/one stone, etc.

It’s weird, I used to get those “ugh, school” nerves in my stomach before going into the office, but now I’m just numb to it, I guess and in some sick way, I actually enjoy it in a sense?! It’s nice to see who will be there and go through the motions, I guess, I don’t know.

As soon as I walked in, I saw Jordan and Ethan at Margie’s desk and practically in unison, they said, “THE TRAINING WAS CANCELED.” The email went out at like 8:20 when pretty much everyone was already en route so people were pissed. I was happy about it! I didn’t want to go to the training, but needed to be in the office anyway, so it was actually kind of a blessing for me!

And it meant that I got to go on my lunchtime walk and literally run into a FERRIS WHEEL on one of the bridges, without having any prior knowledge of this thing being there! Henry said it was only just recently erected (lol) for Oktoberfest because apparently Pittsburgh does Oktoberfest now, who knew.

I didn’t bring my wallet with me so I had no money but this is also my LEAST favorite kind of Ferris Wheel because they remind me of janky church carnivals and I won’t ride them. However, I highly appreciated the color palette. It was so vibrant and fun to look at!

We saw it lit up last night and it looked so pretty.

Anyway, getting home from work was pandemonium because both tunnels had accidents so Henry was late picking me up and then we were even more late getting home because of the second accident in the other tunnel and I was mildly panicked because I could see inbound traffic and it was TRASH so Henry was like, “You will have to go The Scary Way” which is a route that requires going over a different bridge with loads of chaotic merging and that’s not for me, son. So, Henry drove me to Chantal’s, the cheese shop, and dropped me off hahahaha I’m a baby and I don’t care.

OMG this cheese class though. I knew that this was a thing, and I have driven past the shop so many times and always say, “Why don’t we ever go there?” to which Henry just grunts or ignores me because he lives in fear of the unknown being expensive, I don’t know with him. So, I was really excited when Lindsey suggested that we do this AND bought my spot as a wedding gift (LOL I love when wedding gifts are just for me and not Henry – this made that much sweeter!).

The class was small and intimate – just 11 of us plus Anais, the cheesemonger and owner of Chantal’s so I expected her name to be Chantal and am really glad I didn’t ask her that when I arrived (I was only the second person there and that person was having a convo with her and I wanted to butt my way in). Can you imagine?! After giving her my name, “And you must be Chantal!” Ugh I’m so glad my social anxiety prevented that from happening. Sometimes it goes the opposite way where it tears down my filter and I become TOO chatty and then dumb shit comes out of my mouth. Just sit there and smile, stupid.

But then Lindsey arrived and we had some time to chat before the class started – it was really nice to catch up and realize that we are all going through it, man. WTF is up with this year? I told her that at one point, I wondered if the moon was doing a thing but I don’t have enough interest in that stuff to figure it out. It was like, cheese therapy, though. Good company, good drinks (the Riesling and the fancy grape juice that Lindsey brought were delicious and worked so well with the cheeses!), and an informative class led by one of the most charming, charismatic, and passionate people I have ever met in this city. When you meet someone who is proud and excited about what they do, it is the epitome of inspiring! The cheese was actually just the cherry on top at that point!

This was a class to teach us specifically about Pennsylvania cheeses, by the way. It is really hard to pick a favorite – I enjoyed them all tremendously, no one enjoys cheese better than me, I am bigly cheese, made of it – but I will you that the pairing of the St Malachi with the apricot jam was incredible. They were made for each other. It was like a Disney wildlife symphony in my mouth with every bite.

I literally couldn’t offer up anything more eloquent than, “Wow.” And, “That was so good.” Maybe an occasional, “I know, right??” It was like “Erin’s Quiet Time.” Shh, Erin’s eating cheese, right now. Leave a message. Preferably on top of a wedge of cheese.

Afterward, we went down to the shop – it was my first time there and Anais said that it was mandatory for all first-timers to go look at the shop because it is cute and she loves it and she would drag us down there forcibly if needed. She was amazing. She could have served me Kraft slices and I would have been like, “Tell me how to buy more from you. This is my new favorite cheese.”

Down in the shop, I had intended on buying the Witchgrass or the Wild Rosemary, but then the couple we were seated with was asking Anais’s husband about some other kind of cheese called CHALLERHOCKER and we were wildin’ out over the creepy design of the wheel casing so everyone was calling it the demon cheese:

NOT MY PHOTO.

All four of us ended up buying some of it! I didn’t want to go hogwild on the cheese-buying because we truly don’t eat that much of it so I stopped while I was ahead and just got the demon cheese and a package of malt balls after Lindsey’s gushing over malt balls in general had me sold. I now associate with her Whoppers.

The next time I have a party though, it is Chantal’s cheeses or GTFO. I want to support this shop forever! And you should too!

I am so grateful to Lindsey for this experience, it was the perfect end to what was really a pretty hectic work week.

This brings us to Friday! I had the day scheduled off because I am at that point as usual where I need to use my PTO so that I don’t wind up in December with too much time leftover to fully roll over.

I initially had nothing planned, but the day before, my friend Maya messaged me out of the blue to tell me that it turns out we have a mutual friend in common because Pittsburgh, and then said we should grab coffee sometime because it has truly been years upon years since we have seen each other and we legit live within walking distance of each other.

“Actually, I’m off tomorrow….” I said, because I am actually not that much of a hermit – if you ask me to hang out, I will! Sometimes I just get lazy with initiating on my end. It does feel nice to be asked, though! Anyway, this is how Maya and I ended up at Potomac Station Coffee for THREE HOURS talking our faces off over muffins and coffee.

Literally – three hours and it felt like MAYBE only one, tops. It was so nice to see her, catch up, talk about life. I SHOULD HAVE MADE HER TAKE A SELFIE WITH ME because I am all about preserving these things the older I get (did we even have coffee if no one at least snapped a pic of their coffee cup), but we were really in a gab-zone that it didn’t even occur to me. It did crack me up though that the reason she realized we have a friend in common is because the friend in question – Brian – posted an old picture from my pie party and she commented and said, “That looks like one of my friend Erin’s pie parties!” and he said, “It was!” Apparently, their kids go to the same school and are besties! Small city, man. You can always count on these kinds of connections in Pittsburgh.

(P.S. Maya is my friend who made all of my special Warped Tour-era dolls, like Jonny Craig, Vic Fuentes from Pierce the Veil, and Christofer Drew for Chooch! OMG and also a Ju-On for Chooch, lol!)

I am going to make an effort to keep in better touch with her because, especially with this transition into Empty Nester Land, I need to make changes. At first I thought maybe I needed a new job, but I do genuinely like my job even when it’s annoying and stressful, and starting over in that realm is only going to add more stress to my life and I am FRAGILE RIGHT NOW, PEOPLE. So, Henry and I have been talking about just getting out and doing more things rather than sitting on the couch all night looking at our phones while half-watching whatever is on TV. We do have some “double date” nights planned for this month though so I’m looking forward to those!

And then I ended the night with a new-to-us haunt in Ohio with Henry and it was really a great night where I accumulated some new monster boyfriends,  but I will have a separate haunted house recap post.

I feel OK! I am still crying every day about Drew (Penelope’s and her birthday was yesterday, so that felt raw). I had a dream about her last night, so I woke up this morning and cried first thing, but it’s OK. I feel like I have reached “normal” grief levels and you know, the more I talk to friends (and my therapist, I love her so much, she is the perfect match for my screwed-up head), the more heard and understood I feel. It’s the people who don’t get it who are the weird ones!