Henry and I did one of our whirlwind drives to Philly last Sunday to spend the day after Chooch’s birthday with him. Then drive there was relatively quick and painless unless you count the DOUBLE ROCK to the windshield that happened immediately upon entering the turnpike. It cracked the window in two places but luckily was small enough that it was completely covered by insurance so that is what Henry did Monday morning (good thing we both had the day off lol ugh).

A few months ago, Chooch and his friends did a little day trip to some historical British town in NJ – Haddonfield, I think? He had texted me that day to tell me that they wet to crepe place that he thought I would like, so that was what he suggested we do on this day. It was only about 25 minutes more of a drive once we collected him from University City and this was also good because:

• we were all hungry and didn’t want to deal with parking and then taking SEPTA into Philly (I hate SEPTA);
• I didn’t want to see any of the Pens rage-bait that was allegedly up throughout the city (fuck the Flyers forever)

But then I looked up the crepe place and it’s a freaking CHAIN and we have one in Squirrel Hill (a part of Pgh that we go to A LOT) so I was like, “Bro, are you sure this is what you want to do for your birthday lunch?” and he was like, “I only suggested it because I thought you wanted to go there.”

!!!!

What a nice sentiment but we didn’t drive 4 hours to eat somewhere we could eat at home, LOL.

And of course, Chooch was wearing a Wolfman’s Got Nards  t-shirt (it was like 50 degrees out), sweatpants, and his Minions Crocs so we couldn’t go to any of the cute little bistro-type places we walked past. We settled on this odd Italian cafeteria thing??

It’s called Passariello’s and was SO CONFUSING. I think this is also a chain BTW but you walk in and they give you a card and then you go around to all the different stations (pizza, pasta, etc), order that you want and hand over your card for them to scan your order onto so that after you eat, you can just hand over your card to the cashier and pay. But I felt like I had ordering paralysis. First, I knee jerk-ordered a piece of pizza that I didn’t want only to walk farther down and discover a stating that had arancini and some kind of eggplant roll thing. So I got those and Henry said he would eat my pizza in addition to his pizza because that is why we bring him to restaurants with us. Henry “Leave No Scraps” Robbins.

(WHOA HOLD THE PHONE, when I was investigating this Passariello’s place, I saw that in addition to Haddonfield, they also have a location in VOORHEES. Guys: Haddonfield = Halloween, Voorhees = Friday the 13th. What the HELLLLL.)

The food was decent but wow that whole process was insanely confusing to a stoop like me, honestly. Chooch pointed out a couple that came in after we sat down and they also looked terrified and frozen in confusion, so that made me feel better.

Price-wise, it ended up being a lot less than I guessed! We got like 3x as much food as we did at Busch Gardens in March (sorry but this is my new basis of comparison for food prices) and it was like $50-some dollars as opposed to over $90-something at BG not including the two beers we got for like $30!!!

Afterward, we strolled around Haddonfield like the quaint, loving, nuclear unit we are. Henry even bought us books at an indie bookshop! (Great Expectations for Chooch, two blank journals for me.)

Totally a cute little town!

Then we each got a cookie at this cute cookie place. They were good but NO SNICKERDOODLE?? I thought it was a requirement for all cookie shops to have snickerdoodle as a permanent selection in the case BUT OK.

The next part was boring. We drove down the street to a Home Depot so Chooch could get plant soil. So, he and Henry were discussing boring plant and potting things that I was not interested in.

The bridge back into Philly.

We parked the car while Chooch took his plant crap up into his room, and then we reconvened to walk through the little flea market thingie that was set up in the street next to his building. There was this giant painting of a nude broad reading a book that I meant to go back for but we ended up walking back to the car a different way UGH. Anyway, no one bought anything.

Chooch was like, “Oh there is a new cafe that opened recently. It’s Yemeni. We can go there.” So we did and it was REALLY NICE – I got a date latte which was just totally delectable. Chooch got some traditional spice tea latte that was similar to chai and immediately hated it because he thought it was going to be sweet. I tasted it and LOVED IT. Henry liked it too so he swapped his pistachio latte for it and everyone was content.

 

Henry heavy-panting and fogging up the dessert case.

There was something on the Henry expressed interest in and I said that maybe the new Yemeni cafe that just opened in Brookline has it but Henry didn’t see it on their menu. Then I remembered that there is also a Yemeni cafe in Oakland so as I was Googling it, I realized that it was the SAME PLACE AS THE CAFE WE WERE AT.

“What is up with you taking us to places we can also go to in Pittsburgh?” I cried and Chooch just cracked up. Seriously though, it was really good there, the drinks were high quality, and the people were so nice. Plus, it sort of smelled like an airport (in a good way) so it made me feel like I was on vacation.

Instead of going back the way we came, we walked one block over so Chooch could show us the place he’ll be living in next year since the last time we took him back, we only got to do a drive-by in the car.

No, this isn’t where he will be living, I just liked the mural LOL. No photos of his new place because I may do stupid shit on here but let’s not add doxxing my own son to the list.

I will say that there some charming houses on his soon-to-be new street! It was such a pleasant walk. And we saw squirrels and cats, can’t beat it.

Sadly, it was around 5PM by then and Chooch had shit to do, plus we had to start our drive home. It was such a nice day, I love getting to see Chooch so much! Even though he is still very annoying and frustrating to talk to at times, LOL. 20 isn’t the magic age, I see.

The drive home was actually kind of fun because we just chatted about the Midnight concert and listened to a playlist for the “summer school” tour concert we’re going to in July which is mostly female-fronted pop punk bands. Just a really nice time together in the car, awwww how cute, how presh.

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