Autumnal Things I’m Looking Foward To

 Bullet Point Thoughts
Sep 012021
 

I know it’s only September 1st and still very summer (although today it’s rainy and with just enough chill in the air that I can comfortably wear SWEATPANTS, yessir thank you very much) but I am already getting the tickley sensation in my belly thinking about upcoming FALL stuff. I’m not a super holistic person but keeping a tidy stack of things to look forward to in the near future is something that has been helping me cope with depression, burn-out, and just general life malaise. It’s not a fail-safe of course and this is not me  telling you to flush your anti-depressants and fire your therapist. But this is something that has been helpful for me for a long time now, even though I do have set-backs and sanity slips just like everyone else.

OK anyway, The Doctor is Out. Entertainment Director is In.

  • The third season of YOU is dropping on Netflix is October and I am so fucking ready. I haven’t been having much luck with TV shows lately but I know that another season of YOU is going to deliver the creepy goods. Who knew Dan Humphrey from Gossip Girl would be so perfect in a role like this??

  • Who knows where we will be with covid this fall, thanks to all the SELFISH ASSHOLES in this country. But if haunted houses are safe to attend, I am so ready. It was very sad for me to sit out last season. Yes, some of them were open, but without a vaccine back then, I couldn’t fathom how safe it could possibly be to run through cramped spaces with people screaming all around you. I feel moderately better about it now that we are all vaccinated (bring us the booster though plz we’re ready, stick us good) and will happily wear a mask. I’m hoping to at least go back to Rich’s Fright Farm this October, maybe with Corey and Janna too?? Here’s a blog post I wrote several years ago about my love affair with haunted houses!

Haunted House History

  • I had toyed with the idea of reinstating the PIE PARTY this October, but that was back when everyone was skipping around in a dream-state after getting vaccinated. Now I just don’t think it would be a good idea. I don’t have the balls to be like SHOW ME YOUR VACCINATION CARD OR A NEGATIVE COVID TEST before allowing my friends to enter the park pavilion. And I know, it’s outdoors and it’s not like the pie parties have THAT many attendees, but…would you really feel comfortable helping yourself to a buffet of pies being loomed over by dozens of people who might be strangers to you and even if they’re not, just because they’re your friend or cousin or priest, doesn’t mean you want to eat pie that they breathed on!! So, this pie’s going on the back burner. BUT! That doesn’t mean that Henry still can’t bake ME a pie. Maybe something like THIS FRESH FIG AND LEMON CREAM TART or THIS KOREAN COTTAGE PIE WHICH COULD EASILY BE MADE VEGETARIAN??
  • I haven’t been to the MOVIES since February of 2020 when Janna and I went to see Jojo Rabbit but the Hollywood Theater down the street from me is showing the new Candyman remake and I am considering going to see this, as the Hollywood NEVER is crowded.
  • Looking forward to nice, crisp-weathered cemetery walks where I can listen to audiobooks without having sweat stinging my eyes. Also NATURE-Y HIKES WITH HENRY which always feels like a great idea until we get to the NATURE and then Henry starts identifying birds and giving me facts about TICKS and I become fearful of getting shot at by HUNTERS. Maybe sometime in November I would like to explore some West Virginia shit. Who knows.
  • Speaking of November, I am excited for THANKSGIVING and I am going to ask/tell Henry that we should host a small family dinner here with his mom and my family? SHOULD WE DO THIS? Maybe? All I know is that I am pressed to go to Dollywood that weekend like we did in 2018 and ISTFG that was the best weekend ever, we had so much family fun that it was actually kind of gross??
  • I’m not knocking pumpkin because I do like it even though sometimes I think we get a lillllllllll overboard with the PSL screaming, but what I’m really excited for this season is apple-flavored drinks! I’m not a Starbucks fan by any means but Henry and I had the apple macchiato (their macchiatos are not real though and I will scream this from my self-constructed mountain top until the day that I die!) and it was OK! But the real apple hero is the seasonal chai latte that Black Forge is currently touting, called Hexen. It has cinnamon, honey, violet, and apple in it and it’s SO FUCKING GOOD. It’s so hard to find a good chai latte in Pittsburgh but Black Forge gets it right and I hope that they have a good fall chai latte….brewing. OH!
  • Amusement parks during spooky season are so much fun! We don’t even really do the haunt stuff that they have going on but it’s such an atmospheric boost to walk around theme parks decked out for Halloween.

King’s Dominion Weekend!

  • Oh! I’m looking forward to putting pumpkins on the porch and then watching them rot when Indian Summer’s second wind kicks in!
  • I guess I’m looking forward to trick-or-treating? It’s kind of sad now that Chooch is grown and doesn’t want to participate in this shit anymore and also because we live on a street that doubles as a busy thoroughfare so most kids skip us in favor of the streets more embedded in the bowels of Brookline so we don’t get very many kids AT ALL. But I guess I will still put on the spooky music and prop Trudy-in-a-pig-mask near the door.

Halloween 2019: Highs & Lows But Mostly Lows

Welp, now that I’m looking back on this list, I guess I have a lot to look forward to, and I hope you do too! And you! And you and you and you. Maybe not you, though.

 

 

Friday 5s are still alive

 Friday Five
Aug 272021
 

Yeah, I’ve got very little in me right now so let’s see if I can actually dredge up five whole things from the swamp that is my mind.

1. Hubcap Heaven

I saw this picture of Clarissa Explains It All on Instagram the other day and cracked up because for some reason back when this show was on TV, my mom had really latched on to the fact that she (Clarissa, not Melissa Joan Hart, certainly not the Nickelodeon set designers) had hubcaps on her wall.

So then my mom was like HUBCAPS AS DECOR? LET’S DO IT TO YOUR ROOM. And for some reason, I was like, “Sure let’s” even though I can’t imagine why middle school me would have been into hubcaps.

Even though we were $$$$, my mom decided that in lieu of purchasing shiny new hubcaps, we would just collect them from the streets. “You know, they’re always falling off of cars. If we see one, we’ll just grab it,” she said, like we were some fly-by-night design team.

Do you know how many we collected?

ZERO.

But to this day, every time I see a fucking hubcap on the street (LIKE YESTERDAY ON MY WALK HOME FROM THE DENTIST), I think of this and how excited my mom was to turn my room into an auto body shop.

My room was actually way more awesome than Clarissa’s, now that I’m really looking at it. Ew.

2. Speaking of the dentist….

I went to the dentist yesterday and for the first time since the whole DENTAL DEBAUCLE started back in…2016? 2017? when my childhood dentist retired and I went on a tail spin, I had a GREAT exam! The hygienist first of all loved my dragon fruit purse and we had a great chat about accessories and she told me that my gums looked great and then the dentist came in and was like WOW WHAT AN IMPROVEMENT LOOKING GOOD and I had to look around for the hidden camera because usually he is very doom & gloom and telling the hygienist things like, “WE HAVE TO KEEP AN EYE ON THIS” and “I DON’T LIKE HOW THIS LOOKS” and then he will make grumble sounds under his breath and I panic.

“I HAVE BEEN WORKING REALLY HARD,” I blurted, and he said that HE CAN TELL.

Friends, let this be a warning: do not lapse on your dental exams because you will end up having to get TWO deep cleanings (one by the regular dentist and another ULTRA INTENSE PROFESSIONAL DEEP SCALING by a real life PERIODONTIST). This is what happened to me. I switched dental insurance and my childhood dentist didn’t accept the new insurance and instead of looking for a new dentist, I fell into a FIVE YEAR dental hiatus and that was enough to cause damage even though I was vigilant with brushing and flossing on my own.

3. Henry’s Blue Bunny Honey

Ok let me try to rewrite in a more thrilling manner the story that Henry told me last week about his new WORK BEAU.

Henry has been back on the road, making FAYGO deliveries while they’re short a driver at Faygo Factory. He happened to be making a delivery at this one store last week at the same time as a Blue Bunny ice cream delivery guy. While Henry was in the store, the Blue Bunny guy was going through the store’s order and came upon a STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE popsicle that had the stick protruding from the wrapper. Unable to include damaged product in the order, the guy told the store owner that he would write it off. Then he turned to Henry and said, “Here,” AND GAVE HENRY THE DAMAGED BUT STILL EDIBLE FROZEN DELIGHT.

Honestly, I find it hard to believe that Henry didn’t call me to tell me this straight away, as receiving a free popsicle seems like something that would be worth a telephone call by Henry’s excitement standards.

But no, I didn’t hear about this at all until later that same week, when Henry and the Blue Bunny guy crossed paths AGAIN at another store. This time, Henry overheard the Blue Bunny bro telling the customer that he would credit them for a smashed ICE CREAM SANDWICH. Hearing this likely gave Henry a hard-on, to be honest. Sadly, he did not present Henry with the day’s damaged goods. OR SO HENRY THOUGHT.

Because after it was Henry’s turn to talk to the customer, he went back outside to leave and saw that BLUE BUNNY BUD HAD LEFT THE ICE CREAM SANDWICH ON HENRY’S TRUCK!!!!!

Oh shit son, I was sweating with the giggles at this point. Henry has an admirer!!

(he just walked past me and said that he hasn’t seen him since then. FUCK. What if that guy moves on to a Pepsi guy in Henry’s Faygo-scented absence?)

4. Siblings at Cedar Point

My mom texted me this picture from I believe 1993 and wants us to recreate this and I’m like, “Wow, go back to Cedar Point? Twist my arm.” I can confirm that these…what do you call these things? I can’t remember!! are still there so it’s a viable plan. Both of my brothers say they’re game so let’s see what’s up, fam.

Also, I think it’s funny that the height order is now reversed, almost 30 years later. My brother Ryan said, “I’d still be in the middle though” and this is true. Somehow the youngest sibling has become the tallest – Corey towers over both of us!

5. Let’s End On a Hot Note

I was super into Andre Agassi when I was a YOUNGIN’ so I decided that I need to incorporate this picture of him into my 1980s kitchen somehow and then I fell down the rabbit hole and ended up buying a tennis racket from the early 80s from eBay and Henry was like, “the fuck we doin’ with this now” and I guess I want him to hang it up in the kitchen too!? My cats have never seen a tennis racket before and were NOT INTO IT when I was using their cat toys as tennis balls and serving that shit all around the house.

Man, I miss playing tennis. I was so good at it as a teenager but am willing to bet that I’m a pathetic frump at it now. Also, tennis is the reason my back is EFFED for life. Still love the game though!

***

Well, on that note, I’m going to sign off because the humidity is making me ooze down my chair on a sheath of sweat. Maybe something exciting will happen this weekend but I doubt it. CIAO FOR NOW.

Just some things unrelated to roller coasters and vacations

 Bullet Point Thoughts
Aug 092021
 

In an effort to cleanse the eyeballs of rollercoaster-related word overload, here is a round-up of bullets featuring the latest bullshit in my life. Wow, such self-importance.

  • Over the weekend, I had this dream where Henry turned out to be some sort of immortal entity, it had something to do with apples like he was an Orchard Overlord or some such bullshit, and therefore told me that we could not be together since I was merely a flesh-sack with an expiration date. I got SUPER hysterical in my dream, could actually feel my heart splintering, and I was following him all around this…ORCHARD?? I JUST REALIZED IT WAS ACTUALLY AN ORCHARD…begging him to “turn me,” god only know what THAT would entail. Anyway, I woke up Sunday morning and was proceeded to oscillate between extreme clinginess and Tourettes-like barrages of insults which obviously is me flirting. HE PLANNED THIS.
  • The first weekend we were home After Vacation, I was sitting on the couch reading when suddenly I heard HNC’s wife-thing shouting from her porch, “HNC! COME GET YOUR FRIEND!” and then she was Yinzer-shrieking, “Shoo! Shoo!” Sure enough, I looked outside and saw that BUDDY (my favorite Buddy at that: GIRL Buddy) was sitting in her yard, noshing on a peanut. Literally, HNC’s wife had to call HNC up from the backyard just to have him walk toward Buddy so that she would come back to our yard. Then he proceeded to stand there, shaking his head and staring at her as she helped herself to more peanuts on our porch WHICH SHE HAS EVERY RIGHT TO DO SO. I am so sick of these people taking offense to every little goddamn thing that happens on this block. KINDLY SIT ON A DICK, THANK YOU.
    • who the fuck SHOOS a squirrel, amirite?! Jesus Christ, what a miserable human.
  • Hello, some vegan treats we’ve had since we’ve been home are as follows: the pandan horchata of my dreams and tamales from Onion Maiden, and donuts from Valkyrie Donuts. Something about the square shape of them makes them even more fun to me. And they were so fucking delicious! I mean, Henry and Chooch didn’t even wait for me to come into the kitchen before they were already hacking away at them.

  • Chooch was cutting the grass the other day (what a shocker, that kid does the bare minimum around here). I was in the house and noticed that there was a loud noise and then silence. Then I hear Wife of HNC say, “DIDYA HIT SOMETHING?” and then a male voice joined in so I looked out the window just in time  to see one of the guys who lives several houses up walking toward our yard with something metal in his hand OH OK IT JUST PART OF THE FUCKING BLADE THAT’S ALL. Whatever Chooch mowed over SNAPPED PART OF THE BLADE OFF and sent it cruising up the block where it struck a telephone pole right next to the neighbor guy, who happened to be working on his car on the street. The sidewalk on our block almost always has pedestrians on it so the fact that no one was there when this happened was so lucky, otherwise it could have been a FINAL DESTINATION scene. Henry Dearest went running outside to pretend like he was there the whole time and hadn’t left his incompetent son unsupervised, and Chooch was like, “Cool I guess that means my lawnmowing privileges’ are revoked, bye.” Meanwhile the neighbor guy was fixated on the fact the blade could have hit a nearby parked BMW, never mind the fact that his fucking head was inches away from becoming a Dario Argento wet dream.
  • Olympics thoughts: while I am depressed that they’re over, I think it’s fair to say that they just weren’t the same. I mean, obviously. I miss Michael Phelps SO MUCH and I hated all the negativity toward Simone Biles (but was also pleasantly surprised to see that she was getting just as much support too!). The whole thing was so underwhelming, just like Jade Carey and her mom:
      • I got super into rhythmic gymnastics this time though  but felt that the Italian team’s routine would have been so much better if they used Goblin’s theme for Suspiria, whoa two Argento references in one post DO I SMELL A MOVIE NIGHT COMING UP?
  • I finally chased down that elusive 365 streak on Duolingo after years of being thwarted by time changes or thinking I had a streak saver thing WHEN I DIDN’T ACTUALLY HAVE ONE.  Literally, one time I lost a huge streak because I was ON THE PLANE HOME FROM THE COUNTRY WHOSE LANGUAGE I AM TRYING TO LEARN.

  • At least once a week I rant to Henry about how much I hate the song American Pie, like I truly fucking want to punt it straight back up into where it came from: Don McLean’s puckered asshole. The radio station Henry has on in our bedroom plays it so fucking much that I truly hear it about once a day. THAT IS A LOT OF AMERICAN PIE. Was it even played that much back in the day when the choices were slim-pickins?? Anyway, this latest time that I heard it, I felt inspired to smash a dish against my face, but instead I texted, “AND I HATE THAT HE RHYMES DOORSTEP WITH STEP, WHAT LAZY FUCKING SONG-WRITING.” Oh, just fuck off!!!
  • MY MISTER SOFTEE SHIRT IS HERE!

  • And let’s end on a bright, positive CAT NOTE:

And as always: COOK ON, MOTHERCHEFFERS!

F-r-i-d-a-y 1-2-3-4-5

 Friday Five
May 142021
 

Another emotionally exhausting week, coming to a close. Let us celebrate with a photo-dump from my phone and WELL I DON’T KNOW, five things!?

  1. In the Words of My Dad…

I think about this a lot, but it’s funny how similar I am to my dad considering he’s not my biological father. I guess living under the same roof as him for…14 years I think (???) really influenced me. Nature vs. Nurture. Etc etc. He gets super obsessive about things, little things like certain ice cream flavors that will have him pulling a U-y to tail a Reinhold’s delivery truck culminating in an UNDER THE COUNTER ice cream deal in the parking lot of a school.

But now that I am an Older Person, I find that I am also talking like him, in that I sound like a dorky 1950s white man drinking a dorky egg cream in a dorky soda shop not realizing the enormity of his dorkitude.

Except in this case, it was not a soda shop but a cafe in Brookline that I swung by on the way back from my morning walk on Monday. I’m very contrary in the fact that while I usually savor silence in a public place, sometimes I also feel frantic about filling it. And on this particular day, the silence was overwhelming as I stood there waiting for the barista to finish making Chooch’s latte (sometimes I’m a sweetheart of a mother and will bring something back for Chooch depending on how I feel at that given moment, like: did he piss me off at all yet that day, did he use a tone I didn’t appreciate, did he make me FEEL LIKE AN UNCOOL MOM….you know the drill). I needed to say something, and FAST.

Behind the counter is this giant glass contraption that looks like someone was assigned the task of making a four foot tall Days of Our Lives hourglass but then ate some shrooms and wound up with a swirly mess of beakers and tubes instead. I always look at it when I’m at this joint, but on this day I felt INSPIRED TO INQUIRE.

“Do you guys actually use that thing or is it just decoration?” I asked, jutting my chin toward it because I had no idea what it was called.

The barista glanced at me to see what I was referring to and said, “Oh, we use that. It’s how we make our cold brew.”

And then, in the most DORKIEST, THIGH-SLAPPING, CHOKING ON ENTHUSIASM VOICE OF ALL, I exclaimed, “MAN, I’d like to see that in action!”

Man. I’d. Like. To. See. That. In. Action.

Such a Dennis Kelly thing to say. So over the top.

Then she said, “Oh it’s not very interesting. It moves very slowly.”

I just stood there awkwardly, wind sucked out of my sails, and she asked, “You asked for almond milk right?” And life went on.

I still don’t know what that thing is called.

2. Chooch the Half-Vaccinated!

When the vaccine was approved for ages 12-15 this week, I kept refreshing all the various pages waiting for appointments to be available. I was able to snag one for Chooch for yesterday!

He was annoyed that I wanted to take a picture BUT IT IS A BIG MOMENT, OK. Note that he got the worst band-aid out of all of us. I got that weird UFO thing and we all know that HENRY got the best ones out of everyone.

Chooch sincerely didn’t care though. He basically showed no emotion at all because he’s 15 and has none, although he did express mild interest in watching the vaccine being pushed into his arm. I sadly wasn’t there to witness this though because I was working motherfucking LATE SHIFT which hopefully will be over for me at the end of summer but who knows.

Anyway, I posted this picture of Chooch on Instagram and ONE OF MY FAVORITE BANDS LIKED IT because OH YEAH THEY FOLLOW ME.

Yes, I screenshot this bitch 5 seconds after it happened. I live a very full life.

Anyway, we are going to the first amusement park since 2019 tomorrow so I feel better knowing that Chooch is at least 1/2 way to ClubVaxx.

3. The Subject of Selcas

To the horror of many, I am trying to post more selfies and also attempting to stop being so rigid and averse to having someone else take my picture, which is why I have been asking Chooch  to take some of me occasionally if I’m wearing a cute shirt or whatever. I’m doing this because there are YEARS UPON YEARS where I shied away from the camera in general and only shared very curated selfies because I am/was so self-conscious and vain, but now there is like….no evidence of my existence.

First of all – I’m not perfect. I’m not a model. But…that’s not a secret?! So, I’m trying to have fun and live my life and share more so that one day Chooch can show his family pictures of GRANDMA having fun at an amusement park or whatever instead of being like, “Here are 8734984739823 pictures of me and yr granddad (GrandHimMan??) at Kennywood but none of PRINCESS GRANDMA because she wouldn’t let us take any of her because she FELT FAT that day or HER GRAY HAIRS WERE STANDING OUT TOO MUCH.”

Like, get over it, Erin.

P.S. Selca is Korean for selfie OMG I TEACH YOU GUYS SO MUCH.

4. WHEN WENDY MET BUDDY

Wendy stopped by my house yesterday to drop off Chooch’s birthday present and of course she had stuff for me too, LIKE  THIS ACCURATE COFFEE CUP!!

It was exciting because aside from Blake & Haley (who had no reaction to the changes to the house) and the Landlord and his appraiser (SEE #5), no one has really been here to see the changes we made! I was very happy to show Wendy all of the stuff we did around here in the past year, especially the kitchen! BUT the best part was right as Wendy leaving – she opened the door and said, “Oh! The squirrel is here!” And sure enough, Girl Buddy was camped out in front of the Bistro, noshing casually on her peanuts. She adjusted her position slightly so that she could look up at us.

“She’s not even running away!” Wendy said, “this is so cool!”

“Yeah, she’s very accommodating,” I explained. “She lets us use the porch as long as we don’t get in her way.” And then I got to show Wendy how I hand-feed her walnuts! In my head, I was like, “COME ON BUDDY, TAKE IT – DON’T MAKE ME LOOK LIKE AN ASSHOLE” and thankfully, she took the walnut from my hand because if she hadn’t, Wendy certainly would have reported back to the rest of the group at work that I’m a liar.

What I think is the funniest though is that both of my cats were at the window, watching Wendy get out of her car and as soon as they saw that she was walking up our sidewalk, they bolted at breakneck speed. Yet Buddy was just like “‘Sup” when she saw Wendy. Lol.

Brief intermission to drool over the latest batch of Sugar Spell pints: Funfetti Chip, Mother’s Day Mudslide (POSSIBLY MY NEW FAVORITE?), White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake. OMG.

5. THE HOUSE TOUR

On Mother’s Day, HNC called Henry to see if he got an email from the landlord re: BRINGING AN APPRAISER OVER. Henry was like OMG OOPS MISSED THAT EMAIL and yes, it’s true, an appraiser was scheduled to come over the very next day and I started panicking, not because the house was a wreck because it’s almost always presentable now that we essentially started from scratch during the pandemic and uncluttered the fuck out of it, but because DOES THIS MEAN HE IS GOING TO TRY AND SELL AGAIN??

This happened a few years ago and it was so scary because we were 100% in no position to buy a house and you guys, our rent for half of a house is ridiculously cheap. Like, I had no idea how cheap it was until people around me started looking for apartments to rent in the city and told me what the average rent is and I was like OMFG I COULD NEVER AFFORD THAT, WE HAVE TO LIVE HERE FOREVER.

Now we ARE in a good position to buy a house but I don’t FEEL LIKE IT right now??? I’ve talked about this before and it’s super boring so let’s skip this part of the story.

I wanted Henry to ask the landlord what the meaning of this was but he was all calm about it and said HE IS PROBABLY JUST TRYING TO TAKE OUT A LOAN OR SOMETHING CALM DOWN but hahaha do you know me? The next morning, I had my monthly check in with Wendy at work and instead of saying hello, I blurted out I AM SO STRESSED OUT. Anyway, Henry had to come home during his delivery route and park his big ass Faygo truck across the street in the church parking lot because I threatened to not open the door for this lady, so per usual, Henry had to come home and be the adult for both of us.

The LANDLORD was in tow and I was like OH THIS IS FUCKING GREAT because he hasn’t been in this house in actual years so he didn’t  know that it looks like a literal clown car of interior decorators came in here and turned the joint into a Crayola box.

I took refuge in the bedroom, pretending to be ON A WORK CALL, while Henry waited at the front door. I knew JUDGEMENT DAY had come when I heard a woman scream, actually scream, “OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS!!!!”

Chooch, who was in his room “in class,” poked his head out of his door and made a face like, “and you were so worried.” Henry said the landlord didn’t really say anything, but also didn’t seem angry that we painted so much (we’re technically not supposed to paint) and if anything, he was probably happy that we made his dumb property look so good and impressed the appraiser.

She did have to come into our bedroom while I was on MY WORK CALL and I am such a bad actor, I just stood there in the middle of the room with a dead phone up to my face, while she waved and mouthed, “YOU’RE FINE I JUST HAVE TO PEEK, I’M NOT TAKING PICTURES!” She seemed really nice and now I’m kind of sad that my weird reclusiveness prevented me from actually talking to her and enjoying all the compliments she was apparently SHOWERING HENRY WITH.

When I heard her ask him, “Are you the artist of the house?” I almost dropped my WORK CALL act and slid down the steps headfirst to insert my ACTUALLY….into that moment.

Then I heard Henry ask the landlord, ever so casually, if he’s trying to sell the places again and Landlord said, “No no no! I’m just looking to get some seed money to acquire more property.” THANK FUCKING GOD. I did not want to be looking to buy a house with a landlord-lit fire under my ass.

And I will leave you with pictures of THAT BABE WONHO because he has really been flourishing since we brought him home in January!

Look at those new leaves!!

Friday Five: vive le vendredi*

 Friday Five
May 072021
 

*(Is this even right, I don’t FRENCH. I KOREAN. Barely.) This week has really been an emotional whirlwind and I am glad to have reached the end. Here is an assortment of FIVE THINGS that happened or are just ON MY MIND (what little I have left of it!).

  1. Unmasked Entitlement

Chooch and I went to Target on Saturday and, more than an entire year into the global pandemic/Great Face Mask Debate, I saw my first display of anti-mask’ing entitlement in real time.

SCENE: Front of Target, at the bargain bins (SOMETIMES THEY HAVE CUTE CONTAINERS THAT I CAN USE AS PLANT POTS). 

Some Broad, sans mask, breezes out of the bathroom. She could be anywhere from her late 20s to late 30s – it’s hard to tell with all the FAKE TANNING and BRONZER seared to her puckered face. She is wearing MARBLED LEGGINGS and a t-shirt, PROBABLY EITHER COMING OR GOING TO A SPIN CLASS. Her hair is a choppy bob, BLEACHED AND CRISPY. She has the gravely voice of someone who has been smoking since puberty and screams at her husband a lot. Not white trash, but more…fake rich trash.

Target Lady, middle aged and looks pretty NO-NONSENSE, like she has put in her time of raising numerous children over the years and is not trying to TAKE SHIT from anyone, especially ENTITLED TARGET SHOPPERS WHO PROBABLY ROOTED FOR THE INSURRECTIONISTS. “Excuse me, you need to put a mask on,” she says to Some Broad.

“I’m just going to be in here for a minute,” Some Broad fires back as she strides past Target Lady and me, heading straight for the Starbucks kiosk. The way she said it was coated in sardonic friendliness and I was like OH SHIT because I know that passive aggressive masked-belligerence tone, usually paired with a stiff smile and GLARING, SQUINTY EYES.

Don’t mind me, just standing here smelling the $3 candle jars….

“Well, you still need one,” Target Lady called after her, standing akimbo behind her sanitation station.

“Then bring me one,” Some Broad shouted snottily over her shoulder as she entered the Starbucks kiosk.

I’m standing there, barely putting any effort into my candle-sniffing ruse at this point and openly spectating, wondering how this will play out.

At first, Target Lady looked like she was going to concede defeat, but then mostly to herself she said, “You know what, I WILL,” and she snatched one of the blue disposal masks from her cart and marched over to the entrance of the Starbucks area. “Here you go,” she said, holding out the mask. But SOME BROAD would not budge from the Starbucks counter. She simply held out a limp hand, standing 15 feet away from Target Lady, forcing Target Lady to enter the Starbucks area and bring the mask ALL THE WAY TO HER.

Then we had the strained “THANKS” and “MMMMMM” exchange, at which point Target Lady turned and stormed away. We made eye contact as she walked past me and I said, “I am so sorry that you had to deal with that” and she was just like “YOU KNOW” with an eye roll. Meanwhile, SOME BROAD (who, now that I play this back in my mind, I’m not even sure she even put the mask on?!!?) proceeded to ask the Starbucks barista, “what kind of iced coffee do you have.”

Are you fucking kidding me. But, I guess getting people to read menus for her helps her achieve the next level of Ultimate Entitlement.

I just really hate people like that. Even if she is fully vaccinated (to give her the benefit of the doubt), we are still required to wear masks inside and this is not an attack on any fucking freedom, I’m so goddamn sick of it. Like my friend Todd said after I told him this story, we were told forever ago that we have to wear shirts when we go in stores, and that has been  going just fine. What’s one additional TINY PIECE OF FABRIC even matter in the grand scheme of things? Is that what you really want to expend energy fighting for? I’m just so sick of selfish Americans.

Imagine the life Some Broad probably leads. I bet she got into her FORD EXPLORER and went home to her suburban McMansion, put on some Kate & 8 reruns, heated up a Lean Cuisine. and trolled her ex’s Facebook. Dumb bitch.

2. Genesis Sibling Night

My bro Corey texted me last week to tell me that GENESIS is coming to Pittsburgh and thank god he told me because I am so disconnected from the Western entertainment world that I honestly had no idea. We both signed up for the verified fan presale and were both selected, so we got the opportunity to purchase tickets three days before the general sale and BOY WAS I NERVOUS. Big concerts are so fucking stressful to buy tickets for, I hate it so much. And I haven’t had to do this since the SuperM concert in 2019!!

But I like that Ticket Master is all “let’s fuck those bots up their stainless steel assholes” by having legit fans verify themselves and use special links and codes in order to get tickets. IT WAS STILL STRESSFUL THOUGH!!

I took one of the team and offered to do the purchasing since Corey wasn’t going to be home when sales went live, and I was sweating gumballs, to quote my grandma. First, it was saying my code was invalid then it was mad because I was leaving single seats stranded or something and that was a new thing to me, and then when I finally secured two seats and went to pay, it stayed on that “HOLD TIGHT WHILE WE VERIFY YOUR SEATS” screen for like 10 minutes before TIMING OUT and dumping me back into the seating chart page.

I was screaming!!

BUT. I was able to get two slightly better seats because of that.

Floor seats were outrageous, but this was the next best thing, as far as I could tell from the tiny dots I was looking at!

So, five years after THE HOUSE ON GILLCREST drama, my brother Corey and I will be seeing for the first time the band that I think we both grew to love from all the time we spent at our grandparents’ house growing up. The “Invisible Touch” album is definitely the soundtrack to my kitchen! When I listen to that while muddling through my breakfast preparation in the mornings, I feel like I could conquer the world.

All I know is that if/when Tonight Tonight Tonight is performed, I am going to lose my fucking mind.

3. Buddy & the Babies

Remember when I mentioned the other day that we discovered Girl Buddy wasn’t actually pregnant but that she HAD ALREADY HAD THE BABIES? Well, she’s been bringing them around every day now and they are so fucking cute. They look more like pre-teens because they apparently don’t  leave the nest for several months, so she likely had them sometime last fall maybe? Beginning of winter? I don’t fucking  know, I didn’t go to college for Squirrelogy! (Though it feels like I’m currently enrolled.)

Ignore the mess – I have to sweep the porch like 87 times a day because of these brats. They are so messy!!

4. More Vintage Vacation Journal Fun

Literally no one requested this but here is ANOTHER PEEK INTO 10-YEAR-OLD ERIN’S VACATION JOURNAL.

The brother in question was not Corey, but my other brother Ryan. I no longer hate him, don’t worry!!

5. SAY IT AIN’T SO, KWANGSOO

Lee Kwang Soo To Leave "Running Man" After 11 Years On The Show

Henry and I don’t watch Running Man regularly anymore (my ADD is off the charts these days)  but when I saw recently that Lee Kwangsoo is stepping down due to health reasons, I actually cried real tears. He is one of my favorites! Henry and I were just recently watching some clips on YouTube and laughing our faces off – that show is so fucking funny, even if you’re not Korean, the humor still comes through and Henry and I have both laughed until our stomachs hurt while watching some of these episodes, and it was largely because Kwangsoo IS SUCH A FUCKING CHARACTER.

I’ve mentioned it on here so many times, but Running Man was one of the first shows I started watching when I got into Korean culture and it will always be so special to me. During both of our trips to Korea, there were numerous times when Henry and I would be like DIDN’T RUNNING MAN FILM HERE?!? and get so giddy over it. (Well, I would get giddy Henry would just say “heh” and move on with his life.) And when I taught myself the hangeul alphabet, watching Running Man was like unlocking so many doors in my mind because suddenly I could read the names on the name tags, and even some of the words on  the screen!

For those who don’t know, Running Man is a variety show with a fixed cast (Kwangsoo was one of the OG members) and usually they will have celebrity guests on, too. The ones with BIGBANG are the BEST, obviously! It’s called Running Man because in the beginning seasons, the shows would culminate in a huge game of tag, essentially, where everyone would have to try and rip each others’ name tags off.

Anyway, Kwangsoo was the “maknae” (youngest) of the cast and the abuse he endured was hilarious and also painful to watch at times! This show really takes a physical toll on all of the members and I hope that Kwangsoo spends his Running Man-less time taking care of himself and getting some much-needed rest. But oof, he will be missed. :(

And for your Friday Night Viewing Enjoyment, here’s a compilation of some of the best tag elimination / chases over the years! Seriously, this show makes me laugh so hard. America could never have a show like this.

Friday Five: AAPI Music that Will Enhance Your Playlist

 Friday Five, music
Mar 262021
 

When I first started to listening to Kpop in 2015, I was surprised for several reasons:

  1. I don’t know what I was expecting Kpop to sound like, but my first impression was to think: “Holy shit this music is better than anything I’ve been hearing on American radio.” I was TOTALLY part of the problem, you guys. I had subconsciously written it off in my head as “lesser than” because the majority of white Americans, whether we know it or not, are programed to think this way unless presented with an opportunity to deviate from the racist norm of this damn country and come up with their own damn opinion. And as annoyed as I am when I share a Kpop MV with a work friend and they say “That’s actually good,” I can’t be too critical because I was once that person, too.
  2. There are a lot of Kpop idols who are actually Asian American. (Also: not all Kpop idols are Korean.)

In America, AAPI is invisible to the music industry. Think about it: how many Asian Americans can you name that are currently on rotation on Top 40 radio stations? Now go back several several decades and think about it. The more I started learning about Kpop and getting into different groups, I learned that the Asian American members left the US (Canada too) and moved to South Korea in an effort to have a better chance at a music career. And these artists, you guys, they have more talent than most of the shit we are being forcefed in car commercials, the grocery store aisles, etc.

Imagine, as a kid, knowing that you were born with this beautiful voice, or the body to dance like no other, and realizing at a certain point that your odds of breaking into the US whitebread market are pretty abysmal. So now you have to leave your family and home behind and move across the world to South Korea in hopes of building a career off your natural talent.

Imagine that.

When I first got into BIGBANG and realized how huge they are around the rest of the world, I was naively shocked that I had never heard of them before, and also perplexed at how they hadn’t managed to crossover to the US market like Psy had (btw Psy is not a one-hit wonder, and I always have to laugh when people here think that Gangnam Style was just some gimmicky one-off – Psy is insanely popular everywhere else and has his own label now). And when BTS’s ambitious fans aggressively pushed them into the ears of America, I was really excited at first but then realized, “Wait, this is America, this could be bad” and sure enough – the racists proved me right. The comments I’ve seen on articles or Instagram posts about them have been heartbreaking, infuriating, and just plain disgusting.

I was having a conversation once at work with my friend Regina about BTS, and when I said that they aren’t even the best Kpop group, just the ones who got lucky enough to make it big, she was like,  “I wonder why it hasn’t happened to more groups yet.” I looked her dead in the eye and said, “Because America only has room for one.”

So today, I want to put the spotlight on some of my favorite Asian American singers who deserve so much more recognition here in the US and I am BEGGING you to listen to at least one or two, please, show your support to these hardworking and talented people!!

  1. Jessi

Born in New York, Jessi is so goddamn badass. Not only is her music fierce, but her personality is HUGE! Henry and I love watching her on Korean TV shows, making everyone uncomfortable, lol

Why isn’t this on the radio here?

2. Amber Liu

Amber is probably my favorite from this list. Once a member of the beloved SM group f(x), she is now back in LA pursuing a solo career and we NEED TO SUPPORT HER. The CRJ vibes in this one, tho:

And if you’re looking for something to add to your Peloton playlist, this is one of her older solo songs, when she was still in Korea:

I believe f(x) was actually the first Kpop group to ever perform at SXSW, which is a fun Amber-related fact. (Yes – it was in 2013!)

3. Bobby

Bobby is a Korean rapper from Virginia. He moved to South Korea, won a bunch of music survival shows, and went on to become one of the most prominent rappers in the scene. He’s currently the rapper in Ikon, but he has some solo stuff as well:

I also want to include this track he did several year ago with a side project of his and Song Mino’s:

4. Eric Nam

Eric is from Atlanta, and before we get into his music, I want to leave you with a link to the Op Ed piece he wrote for Time in the wake of the Atlanta spa shootings. 

This is SUCH AN ICONIC SPRING JAM FOR ME.

5. Tiffany Young

Tiffany was born and raised in California and moved to Seoul as a teenager to become a trainee at SM, where she subsequently became a member of one of THE MOST LEGENDARY KPOP GIRL GROUPS IN THE WORLD: Girl’s Generation. She opted to not renew her contract a few years ago and has since been working on her US solo career.

Every time I hear this song, I mourn the fact that it wasn’t around in the 80s for me to request at my rollerskating birthday parties:

You know what guys? Fuck Friday 5! Here are some more!

6. Ailee

HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS GIRL’S VOICE COULD BE A WEAPON. Every time I listen to her, I lament the fact that she’s not rubbing elbows with Beyonce at the top of the charts. How!? This is a travesty.

I’m posting this but I can’t watch it because this song is from my favorite Korean drama, Goblin, and just hearing the opening notes guts me, but this is an excellent example of Ailee’s live vocals:

But yeah, keep putting Taylor Swift at the top, America.

7. Henry Lau

Henry is actually Canadian-born but I’m including him here because he’s Henry and this list would be remiss without him because he is a DELIGHT and also a classically trained violinist.

^^^^ This is from another FANTASTIC Korean drama: While You Were Sleeping, and now I’m crying lololol.

My Henry also loves Henry, lol.

8. Chungha

Chungha is another bonus/exception because she was born in South Korea and then spent a chunk of her childhood in Texas. But when she decided she wanted to pursue a career in entertainment, she moved back to South Korea. America, we could have had this:

You guys know she’s one of my faves so I had to fit her into this list!!

****

I know that sharing some music videos isn’t revolutionary or a game-changer in the grand scheme of things, but I really am trying to keep this #StopAsianHate conversation going. I’m saddened at how little I have been seeing across my social media on this topic. Where are all the white allies?! White influencers have also been suspiciously quiet (but you go ahead and post those photos of your Starbucks match latte!).

I hope that you will take some time to watch some of these. Maybe you will find something you like! It’s beyond time for the American music industry to start being more inclusive. I personally have had enough of Halsey and all the other girl singers that do that weird fake baby vocal fry. Let’s make room for the Ambers and Ailees of the world, thank you.

(I am also donating 100% of March sales over at Hello Hanguk to AAPI organizations, and Henry and I also signed up for a Bystander Intervention training webinar. There is so much more work to be done, so much more education we need to seek out, and so much more self-reflecting that we can do. Don’t be ashamed to admit that you need to work on adjusting the lens in which you see others, because I definitely have a long ways to go! I can’t, as a white person, sit here and say that I am 100% perfect because I clearly am discovering hidden biases within myself that I never knew existed until it had the opportunity to be exposed. (Case in point: my “shock” that Kpop music was “actually good.”)

Friday 5: From Pelicans to Fudge Factories

 Friday Five
Mar 052021
 
  1. Henry’s Pelican Rescue Club

Did you guys know that the Greek island Mykonos has a pelican mascot names Petros? I didn’t either until I was watching a YouTube video about Mykonos and there was this big ass friendly bird  hanging around a cafe/bakery-ish place and all of these people were treating him like he was a local and he was going inside the place and back behind the counter like he owned it and no one even did a double take. At first I was screaming “WHAT KIND OF BIRD IS THAT” because I am le Dumb at times and Henry calmly said, “That’s a pelican.” I guess I have only seen cartoon pelicans before because for some reason that would not have been my guess.

Anyway, now my curiosity was piqued so I started researching this pelican and ALLEGEDLY as the story goes, back in the 50s a fisherman rescued a pelican and then he became a mainstay, like a tourist attraction, just chilling and being super adorbs to all who passed by. THEN IN THE 80s HE DIED (some people say he was hit by car, I will fucking murder that car if it’s true) and Jackie O., who adored the OG Petros, gifted the island with a new one. NOT SURE if this pelican is still Petros v2.0 but they do apparently have quite a long lifespan, so maybe?

Totally out of the blue, or kapchuggi as one would say in Korea, Henry offered a bit of his SERVICE life to me (these always come in pieces at the most surprising moments.). EVIDENTLY, when he was in PANANA (I can’t even type this without hearing Van Halen in my airy head), HE TOO SAVED A PELICAN!!! According to Henry, he and his SERVICE bro-skis came upon a pelican that was caught in fishing line so they (probably emphasis on “they” and not “Henry”) untangled the pelican and took it to a vet.

“OH MY GOD, WAS IT OK!?!?!?” I cried in horror.

“Well, yeah, I wouldn’t have brought it up otherwise,” Henry scoffed, like I should have known better than to ask.

Of course, days later, I’m still thinking about this shit and I’ve got questions. Like:

  • How did they know where that was if they didn’t have an iPhone to google NEAREST VET IN PANAMA THAT WILL ACCEPT A PELICAN?
  • Who was the actual hero
  • WAS TIM THERE
  • Who carried the pelican?
  • IS HE CERTAIN THE PELICAN WAS OK????
  • Did he get a badge or medal for these heroics?!!?

So I texted Henry just now and demanded that he give me more details. His response?

“That was over 39 years ago and we had been up all night drinking. That’s about all I remember other than what I told you.”

Wow, way to keep a diary, Henry.

(He did confirm that there was no reward for his extracurricular bravery, though.)

He provided this picture of his bro-skis en route to the beach that day! Wow. Those shorts.

MORE INFO: The only other detail Henry can provide is that the guy in the blue shirt is EARL and he got KICKED OUT OF THE ENTIRE SERVICE FOR SMOKING WEED.

The rest of the blog post is all downhill from here, I’m afraid.

2. Actual Ice Cream Sandwich

I have kind of started letting myself watch travel vlogs on YouTube again even though it hurts because BITCH, WHEN but I’m bored and there’s nothing else to do but dream, you know how it is, we’re all in this together! Watching these travel vloggers makes me think back to when I was younger and going on trips with my family, and I honestly can’t remember STREET FOOD or NOVELTY SNACKS or anything like that being “a thing” for travelers to experience in the 80s and 90s. Granted, we always went on chartered tours, but you would think that after visiting Amsterdam like 4x back then, I’d have eventually partook in a stroopwaffle!? You know what I mean? But it was never a thing that was offered to us! Just cheese! So it made me wonder if the whole “foodie” part of traveling just wasn’t as popular then as it is now?

I mean, of course we had regional food in every place we visited, it’s not like we were eating, I dunno, taco salads in Italy or whatever, and we definitely gorged on gelato. But I don’t remember any of the “tourist destinations” being food-based. I’m not making sense, I know. In my slush-brained head, I know what I mean, but life is eroding what semblance of coherence I have left.

The only thing that stands out to me, and I was so excited when I remembered this the other night, was this one time when we were in Taormina, Sicily. We had free time one night so my aunt and I were strolling around, she was probably trying to pick up men and I was probably trying in vain not to look fat, when we stumbled across this street vendor who lured us over with the promise of ice cream. What he was selling ended up being Sicily’s version of the ice cream sandwich – literally ice cream tucked inside a bread bun. I remember thinking, “THIS IS PROBABLY NOT GOING TO BE GREAT” because I was 12 and basically a hormonal monster who hated everything on principle.

But it was motherfucking fantastic. Sharon and I were OBSESSED with it and I couldn’t wait to go home and tell everyone about it and by that I mean that I scooped some low quality freezer section vanilla onto your basic Wonderbread hamburger bun and made my family try it.

Of course they were like, “This….ain’t it” and I was so mad because HOW COULD I GET SO FUCKING WRONG.

I felt inspired to look up videos about this delicacy and made Henry watch it with me.

“Oooooh, brioche! They use brioche, yeah that makes sense,” I said, because I’m sure I didn’t know THE FUCK a brioche was when I was 12, ok.

“Yeah, that would make a big difference,” Henry sighed.

3. Fudge Factory 

Speaking of ice cream, Henry was perusing some ice cream shop on Instagram and salivating all up in his face-fur. But then he angled his phone to show me the pictures and suddenly I too had drool pooling in my face-fur….wait.

The name of the place is The Fudge Factory, which I’ve never heard of, so I asked him where it’s located, and before he had a chance to answer, I screeched, “UP YOUR BUTT!!!!!” because that is my standard response anytime Chooch or Henry asks where something is, and this TIME IT ACTUALLY MADE SENSE!

I was wheezing!!!! Now I had tears of laughter commingling with the Homer drool in the nooks and crannies of my chins. Even Henry KIND OF laughed, the type of laugh that he tries to stifle lest he encourage me further. So then I had to run upstairs and replay the whole scene for Chooch, who laughed out loud and then quickly tried to take it back because, you know, teenagers can’t think their parents are funny.

4. SHINee video

Probably no one will watch this but I’m still sharing because it’s FUCKING HEART-WARMING. The part where the one girl asks, “Why are there only 4 of you now?”

OUCH MY DUMB HEART.

Even aside from that though it’s fun to watch them relive their journey from debut to now. Their career has been legendary. SHINee for-fucking-ever.

5. I Saw a Person!!

I bought Girl Scouts from one of my old high school friends, Felicia. She mentioned on IG that her daughter was selling them, thank god, because I didn’t have any cookie hook-ups this year! Of course, her daughter wasn’t selling the ones I really wanted (the maple ones that Kara texted me about and got me all hyped for!!)

Funnily, Felicia and I were also in Girl Scouts together and her mom was our troop leader. I’ve only really seen her once since high school (she came to one of my pie parties – AND HER MOM DID TOO!) so it was nice to not only see a real life person on my front porch, but also one that I’ve known since literally first grade.

Anyway, we chatted for a few minutes and she mentioned that she runs one of the Texas Roadhouse franchises and I fucking swear to god as she said it, we both in tandem looked slowly down at the crazy collection of peanut shells under my front window and started cracking up. Thank god we follow each other on IG and she knows all about my squirrel exploits, lol.

But yeah, I am fucking starved for human interaction (aside from the dumdums I live with) so I almost clutched her arm and begged her not to leave.

God love Girl Scout cookies, but man they really get skimpier and skimpier with the quantity each other, don’t they? DAMN.

“But it’s for a good cause, Erin!”

Ugh, whatever. I only ordered three boxes: Tagalongs, Samoas, and Lemon Ups or whatever they’re called. I got to have one samoa, one tagalong, and three of the lemon ones before Henry and Chooch devoured the rest like trash compactors for cookies. Jesus.

BONUS: SPEAKING OF BUDDY, here he is eating his walnuts and watching SHINee videos. He has the best life!

Now to get through Friday late shift. What a drag.

Friday 5: Memories & Music

 Friday Five, nostalgia
Feb 262021
 

Oh why hello there. Warning: this is going to be completely scattered. I mean, when is it not. But you know.

  1.  Math Blasting Myself in the Foot

OK OK OK, listen. It’s no big secret that I was a Big Spoiled B when I was a kid. Good thing that didn’t shape who I am as an adult, amirite guy? Lol. So you’ll understand why I was SUPER PISSED when my Aunt Sharon, who was like my second mom and did her fair share in helping my grandparents spoil me rotten (hence the rotten apple tattoo I have on my arm), told me that her goddaughter Nicky was getting a computer for Christmas.

Now, I HATED Sharon’s goddaughter, probably because I didn’t really understand what that even meant to be a goddaughter, but also because she was only a year older than me and I was supremely jealous anytime Sharon did anything for her. (And it wasn’t even that often! Nicky’s mom was Sharon’s friend and they hung out so infrequently that I think I only actually met Nicky once or twice and just remembered that she was a GINGER.) Clearly, Sunday School wasn’t doing a great job with keeping the hate out of my heart.

So this was back when I was in 2nd grade, in 1987, and home computers weren’t what they are today, obviously, and I had never even wanted one until now that NICKY was getting one, what a dumb bitch! I wanted a computer too, suddenly! I mean, what–no, I had wanted a computer before Nicky, like since before I was BORN, what are you talking about, this wasn’t fair! I was already fuming about this, but to add salt to the wound, Sharon was like, “COME TO THE COMPUTER STORE WITH ME AND HELP ME PICK OUT A GAME FOR NICKY SINCE YOU ARE BASICALLY THE SAME AGE.” Oh.my.fucking.god. I was LIVID about this, like Firestarter-levels of fury. But I let her drag me along to this dumb computer store which no longer exists but we sometimes drive past its former location and every so often I have flashbacks and wonder where that dumb bitch Nicky is today.

ANYWAY!!! So we go to this idiotic store and I’m being SUCH A CUNT and rejecting all of Sharon’s suggestions. Then, I see this totally boring-looking game called MATH BLASTER and imagined Nicky tearing open Sharon’s meticulous giftwrap-job, expecting some Sharon-level present (Sharon always gave the best presents) but instead seeing some dumb computer game that was just an extension of school. Yay, now you can come home from school and do more school! Dumb bitch, that’s what you deserve.

So Sharon was like, “OK I trust  your judgment” or whatever, probably something like that, and she paid for it with her CHARGE CARD probably or maybe wrote a CHECK, because 1986, while I stood there glaring, with my arms folded across my chest I’m sure because this was my standard pout pose. (It might still be, ask Henry.)

Imagine my surprise that Christmas when, after I already opened like 80 gifts because my grandparents loved me best, my Pappap was like, “OH WOW ERIN I WONDER WHAT ALL THESE GIFTS ARE” after unveiling a series of boxes clumped together off to the side of the sun porch, where we often celebrated our Christmases at my grandparents’ house.

My very own Apple II GS and a printer!

And then there was a smaller box, but you already know.

Math Blaster.

Turns out Nicky wasn’t the one getting the computer after all, that was just Sharon’s ruse to see….what kind of games I would want.

WHO’S LAUGHING NOW.

I don’t remember what made this memory pop into my head but the other night when Henry and I were getting ready for bed, I just started babbling about it and he was like “……………” and then I went to bed angry at the recollection of that FUCKING GAME. I was so bad at it!!

Math Blaster Plus Gameplay Pc Game 1987 - Cute766

2. G-Dragon + Jennie

Is it true (okidokido)? At first I was like, “This seems false” because I just can’t picture him with someone like her, and you know obviously I’m SO CLOSE to both of them that I am qualified to make these types of assessments. My friend Veronica speculated that it could be a publicity stunt because maybe GD has an album coming out and I was like DARE TO DREAM because we VIPs are hungry over here, guys. BIGBANG needs to throw us a bone here soon.

But I dunno, it seems like it could be true and if it is, it’s pretty fucking adorable. I mean, they have known each other for quite some time and I know a lot of us were holding out hope that it would be him and one of the girls from 2NE1 (though I personally shipped him with I.U.!), it doesn’t matter as long as both parties are happy! Honestly, when I saw I worry about GD everyday, I’m not being facetious.

Also, my coworkers emailing me to see if I’m OK with this is the sweetest thing ever!

 

3. Bobo Bobolinski

My dad was good friends with this dude who had 4 sons and the one that was my age was my dad’s godson (oh boy, here we go again!) except that I actually liked this kid. Our families hung out a lot at cookouts, birthday parties, etc., but the one who was my age, Shawn, was the one who was with us the most because even though he was the same age as me, he got along real well with my younger brother Ryan. Plus, you know, the whole godson thing – my dad was always inviting him to Kennywood with us and things like this.

Anyway, my mom texted me a recent picture of all 4 boys with their wives and I was like HOLY SHIT THEY ARE SO OLD, OMG THAT MEANS SO AM I. I haven’t seen any of those guys since I was in high school, because my parents eventually separated and then divorced, so there were no more fun hangouts, but seeing that picture made me miss those days SO MUCH.

Shawn was ALWAYS at our house during the summer of ’92 – it’s when we had a French exchange student staying with us and is still to this day the best summer I ever had. This was also the summer that my dad bestowed upon Shawn a nickname that has stuck so well, that I actually hesitated before typing “Shawn” throughout this entire section. One day, we had taken the dumb French kid to Laurel Caverns, which is like a rite of passage for kids in any kind of Scouts-type group and also just fun for a basic family outing too. While we were there, Shawn slipped and smacked his face off one of the rock walls of the cavern, inspiring my dad to blurt out, “Good job, Bobo.” Then later, I can’t remember if it was the same day or not because I actually wasn’t there for this one, my dad had Bobo, my brother Ryan, and that dumb French kid at a place called Ohio Pyle, where once again, Bobo slipped and smacked his face off of rocks, so now the name Bobo had solidified, now with the surname of Boboliski.

Now, this was also the summer of the Atlanta Olympics so this was the backdrop for many of memories that summer, most notably the time my BFF Christy was over and we were all casually watching gymnastics. I remember Bobo laying on his side on the floor, in front of the coffee table, and saying, “Shannon Miller is a good gymnast.” Literally, that was all he said, just some stale statement, superlative-free, about his opinion of one Shannon Miller. Well, too bad he said this in the presence of Christy and me because we turned it into the Love of the Century and ran around screaming “OMG BOB LOVES SHANNON MILLER!” for the rest of ever.

I have one super specific memory of Bobo in our basement, trying his damnedest to play Pacman (we had the actual arcade game) while blocking out Christy and me who were buzzing around him like the most annoying middle school flies, screaming love sonnets involving Bobo and Shannon Miller.

I just told Henry this story the other night and he was like, “Wow. You are the same.”

That’s Bobo on the far right, French dummy on left, Christy then me.

4. Speaking of the Olympics…

I hope that Covid fucks off because I want Henry’s mom to come over and watch the Olympics (if they happen this summer) so I can live-blog. I had SO MUCH FUN watching the 2016 summer Olympics with her.

Watching the Olympics with Judy 

Plus two more!

Olympics with Judy: Part 2

Olympics with Judy: Part 3

5. Weekend Jamz

You guys I am OBSESSED with the new SHINee album. It is QUINTESSENTIAL SHINEE and I cant listen to it without running spastic laps around my house. It is giving me that spring fever-ish zest for life where I want to just forget all of my problems and frolic through a filed of tulips or whatever bullshit you happy-go-lucky people do. So, in an effort to dispel good vibes, I’d like to send you off with two of my current favorite from their new album:

And they have been performing this song in addition to Don’t Call Me, and it too is a bop which is something I don’t normally like to say because it makes me feel like I should be hanging out with Taylor Swift fans or something but this song is so motherfucking upbeat and I’m ready to, I dunno, make Henry dance with me maybe.

SHINee are goddamn pop legends. Please support them!

Friday is For Fomenting Facts

 Friday Five, Uncategorized
Feb 192021
 

I honestly don’t think I ever even heard the word “foment” before until that former President, forever dingleberry Trump incited an insurrection and suddenly that was the word du jour on all the news channels.

Anyway. Just wanted an excuse to use that.

So here are some things, not necessarily five as we’re wont to do here on Fridays, because I’m feeling more in a freestyle mood if you know what I mean and if you do please tell me because I don’t know anymore.

I watched that Netflix documentary about the Cecil Hotel last week – it was good but I felt it was also kind of repetitive and while I wished there were more episodes exploring more of the dark history instead of just focusing on the Elisa Lam case, I also think that they could have accomplished the same thing in probably less. Does that even make sense or am I typing in circles again.

Numerous times while watching this, I had the thought that this is 100% the type of Roadside Shack of Doom that Henry has put us up in various times throughout the years. In fact, I’m convinced that if we had had to stay in LA at any point during our whirlwind trip to Coachella in 2004, we would have been walking the same blood-stained hallways that Richard Ramirez once roamed. I mean, the actual place he booked for us during that trip was a Knights Inn in San Bernardino that was also hooker housing (I talked to one of them when she came out of a neighboring room as I was petting a stray cat and she said, “Oh, there’s lots of cats around here – we feed them every day!”).

And let’s not forget that seedy Red Carpet Inn outside of Newark – I mean, THE CONNOTATION AND ALLUSION BEHIND “RED CARPET” IN THIS CONTEXT ALONE IS NAUSEATING.

This inspired me to go digging for that particular vacation journal because, can’t travel now so might as well live vicariously through past sojourns, right? A thing you need to know about me is that I have fucking journals all over the house. Like, tons of them. Like, if I ever became a former President, they’d have a good place to start with my library collection. Until you get to the later ones when I wasn’t yet aware of how problematic my “jokes” were. Y-I-K-E-S. Let’s just say I’ve had lots of years (and self-education) to, um, grow away from that.

While digging through a cedar trunk (Henry’s from the SERVICE!!!) of my self-penned tomes, I found the very first journal in my Vacation Series, which I must have started when I was 9ish?

I barged into Chooch’s room to read him this super adorable disclaimer but he interrupted me to guess, “does it say ‘caution: very uninteresting content’?” WOW JUST WOW guess I won’t be leaving him my hand-written vacation journal canon in my Will.

Eventually, I did find the specific journal I was looking for and was reminded of how mentally unstable and self-loathing I was back in 2004 when Henry and I took that California trip – I was apparently VERY AWARE of the girth of my arms and fixated on it to the point that it ruined the entire vacation for me and probably made Henry reconsider his choices. I’m still very neurotic and self-conscious but I think I have gotten A LITTLE better over the years!?

Yikes.

My mom asked me if I want these torch lights that she salvaged from my grandparents’ house because she feels that it would really complete my decor, lol. Yes I want them! However, after going back and looking at pictures of them when they were still hanging in saluting stasis in my Pappap’s goth hallway (which, ironically, was blood-red carpeted), I’m now remembering how gigantic these suckers are and wondering where I would put them, plus there’s the whole electrical side of it to consider (Henry reminded me 87 times during this discussion that we do not own this house and while he has his electrician-guy background, he doesn’t want to be doing electrical work on a house that he does not own). UGHHHH. What to do!? I  guess I will take them and store them and hope that one day I will wake up and think, “This is the day we start actively house-hunting.” I dunno why I’m being so lazy about this. (I mean, I do know – it’s because we don’t want to be limited to where we can buy a house while Chooch is in school, but still, I have to wonder how much of that is just an excuse because I’m such a fucking weirdo when it comes to change.)

(Hopefully Chooch, the Zillow Prince, doesn’t read that last line and take that as his cue to start sending me house listings again lol.)

Back to my vacation journals. The one with the Coachella recount also had the tail end of our weekend 2003 road trip to Lancaster, PA which was supposed to be my consolation prize for Henry ruining my birthday trip to Boston/Salem by getting the flu (according to my journal, we had to abandon our Salem itinerary halfway through the day and go back to the hotel because Henry thought he was having a heart attack and knowing me, because you know, I am me, I’m sure I verbally eviscerated him the entire car ride back for ruining my day. Anyway!!! I know certain reader(s) enjoy being taught shit by Henry, so here’s a little lesson that he taught  me at 8:43PM on August 8th, 2003:

Truck drivers used to “swap” toll tickets so their toll would be cheaper but then they got caught, which is why the rest areas usually have two different ways to get in so that the traffic doesn’t cross or something. [Now that I’m typing this based on what I wrote in my vacation journal, it doesn’t make sense so I’m sure I was only half-assedly listening.] Anyway, those shady-ass truckers got busted because of the discrepancy in time on the turnpike tickets. Quotes Henry, “It made it look like it only took them an hour to drive 300 miles.

Hahahaha!” According to my journal, I laughed really loudly and mockingly so I basically haven’t changed at all. Sorry, Hank.

Drew likes to sit on the mantle, much to my chagrin, and here she is bird-watching with Trudy. Please note that after this morning, Trudy no longer is wearing the matador-red tiger robe because it was bringing out the bull in Drew’s sister Penelope, and I’ll tell you what, little gets the blood pumping quite like the sound of a mannequin hitting the floor behind you in an otherwise ghostly-quiet house while you’re concentrating on work.

I’ve started to slowly add things to the wall adjacent to the Cure Corner – when I say I have a lot of Cure memorabilia, I mean that I have so much that I have actually been uncovering prints and posters that I had no idea I had, or even when/where they came from. So yeah–I could decorate an entire house with just the stuff that I’ve collected since, when, like 1999 I guess.  But right now, I started with these three smaller things: a sketch of Robert from the artist EsQui, the picture of me meeting Robert OMG kill me, and — bear with me — this cute 3D cockatoo art that I bought from some store based in Amsterdam when it came to me late one night (when alllllll the best/stupidest ideas visit me) that I needed something cockatoo-related in that area because if you didn’t know, Like Cockatoos is in my Top 10 favorite songs by the Cure.

Henry was shining his phone’s flashlight at this corner for me while I took pictures because it’s shrouded by a moody pink light up there 24:7 (actually more like 18:7 because we have the light on a timer lol). As soon as it’s OK to have parties again, I’m going to insist that all of my friends take turns sitting here so I can take their pictures. Maybe this could be like a polaroid zone.

Here’s me: how can I effectively turn my home into a functioning modern art exhibit or at the very least, an Instagram-trendy cafe but without the baristas. This has been my dream for quite some time but ever since Corey, Kara, and I visited this one abandoned house-cum-art installation a few years back, I was like THIS IS FOR ME. More secret passages and fireplace-crawl spaces!

OK, maybe I will consider buying a house sooner rather than later, before my friends are too old and feeble to army-crawl in between walls in order to access the bathroom-slash-movie theater that only plays silent, vintage porn.

A Friday Five / Things Around My House mash up

 Friday Five, Things Around My House
Feb 122021
 

Is it weird to have your own art hanging in your house? I don’t think so, I guess. Most of my art is birthed from inside jokes (like the Tony Stewart portrait I painted for Henry while he was at store and he didn’t even appreciate it or the Ham Sandwich AF painting after I watched a Mamas and the Papas documentary) or inexplicably deep-seated obsessions (like this strange amalgamation of celebs with a token serial killer). I don’t really *miss* painting all that much, surprisingly considering it did provide some catharsis for a time, but it does make me smile to have some remnants of that Somnambulant Years scattered around my house. So for this Friday Five, I will show you OMG FIVE HOW DID YOU GUESS pieces of what I still consider “my fake art” because my grandma really gave me a complex when I was a teenager and said I wanted to go to art school in San Francisco and she scoffed and huffed, “Well, I’m not paying for that.” Lol.

  1. Twin Peaks Montage

I actually never finished this (the red is pretty streaky and I never even sprayed it) because I knew pretty much from the get-go that I wasn’t going to sell it since I love Twin Peaks so much and I’m a selfish person – I always had a hard time letting go of some of my paintings, most notably the Pee Wee ones.

2. Stars of the OJ Trial

This one has been half-obscured on a shelf for years but I think I’m ready to get a frame for it and hang it. The OJ Simpson trial was a HUGE PART OF MY LIFE as a teenager (OK maybe only for like 3 months). I don’t know why I was so fixated on it considering I was only like 15 and most teenagers didn’t give a FUCK about the news or whatever back then but I was so sure that OJ was innocent and I actually got kicked out of a class that year for cheering when the verdict came out lololol. And there was the whole Pog saga.

3. HOT JESUS

This is, IMHO, the best painting I ever made I think.

4. BLAH BLAH BLAH CHOOCH CHOOCH CHOOCH.

buy forzest online buy forzest generic

I bought this creepy-ass picture at Goodwill of a young boy and then painted Chooch’s head over top (this was back when he had pink hair, clearly) and surprised him with it.

buy lipitor online buy lipitor generic

He was SO MAD about all the “blah”s lol. I remember back when I painted it, Henry’s mom was all Weekend Art Critic about it and I was like, “I know Judy, that’s why I’m a fake artist.”

5. Murder Farm

This one is SO DUMB but I found this basic country/farm picture thing at Goodwill one time and liked the shape and the frame so I added some ghosts and blood and bones and then made Henry hang it in our bedroom and he was like, “HAHAHA – oh, you’re serious.”

So, that’s five. Maybe someday I will share five more.

buy lexapro online buy lexapro generic

WOW DARE TO DREAM.

High-Five, It’s Friday

 Food, Friday Five, Uncategorized
Jan 152021
 

Gonna be real honest here (I dunno why I always preface shit with that, as though I’m typically FAKE NEWS’ing my way through these updates), this is most TGIF’ish I’ve felt in a long while. Here are five things plus some photos that have nothing to do with anything.

  • Henrys Voice Crush

I guess helping me make those book cover cookies really inspired Henry to work on his literacy, because he DOWNLOADED THE LIBBY APP and has been listening to audiobooks while he carts pallets of Faygo around the warehouse all the livelong day. He’s already listened to Beartown (!!!) and then decided he liked the narrator’s voice so he searched Libby for more books narrated by her, and then ended up getting one of my other Top 13 Books of 2020 – Nothing To See Here. Apparently she also narrated whatever that prequel to Practical Magic is that just came out, so HE LISTENED TO THAT NEXT and why is this so hilarious to me??? After he finished it, he said, “It was good. I guess I will listen to Practical Magic now.” When I started squealing with giddiness, he got all bent out of shape and asked, “WHAT? I’ve seen the movie…”

I wonder if he saw it ON A DATE.

Anyway, Chooch is trying to be emancipated now that he’s lost BOTH parents into the literary world.

  • The Call

Speaking of movies, if you want to watch a good horror movie and don’t mind subtitles, the Korean film “The Call” is on Netflix and it is SUPERB. Henry and I finally watched it last weekend and I was legitimately scared, which rarely happens anymore with me and horror. Also, the main girl, Park Shin-Hye, is from one of my FAVORITE MOST-BESTEST K-DRAMAs, The Heirs.

  • Good Veg Foods I’ve Recently Devoured

Last week, Zenith has seitan tacos on their menu and I’m not one of those Taco Tinas by any means but I was suddenly really in the mood for a damn taco. It was delicious, as usual, because Zenith. Side note: When I was younger, I NEVER EVER EVER opted for soft tacos. It was hard shells all the way. In fact, for a long time I didn’t even realize soft tacos were a thing! Now that I’m An Old, soft tacos are my friends because biting into hard shells makes me nervous. Also, those ones are messier and I’ve acquired a major food mess phobia somewhere along the way.

And then for dinner tonight, Henry got me takeout from Apteka. Please say hello to my BBQ Yuba sandwich, which is now in my stomach. (Pineapple + morita adobo, seared yuba, smoked garlic slaw, pickle. Not a burger but on a sesame seed bun.)

It was good but the adobo took a bit to get used to and then after I figured out what was going on, I pretty much swallowed the whole thing in two bites. (To be fair, I split it with Henry, because he got a vegan steak hoagie from Spak’s which is down the street from Apteka, and I wanted in on that action too. It’s fun when Henry opts for vegetarian stuff too so that we can share – I THINK THAT IS WHAT LOVE IS ALL ABOUT but I’m not the best at that because I’m so selfish.)

Chooch and I have restarted Jillian Michaels’ Body Revolution and tonight we have to start level 3 so I’ll probably puke all this food up at some people, you’re welcome for visuals of me vomiting on my mat while sweat drips off my face and commingles with the puke puddle.

  • MY FAVORITE PLATE

Since you can kind of see it in the FOOD PICTURES, I decided to talk about MY FAVORITE PLATE which I have had since middle school (early 90s, OK? I  told you, I’m An Old) but haven’t seen in years and then I recently found it in the basement when I was looking for something else, and this was an astonishing find (LOL like it was a ruby heirloom or something) because I honestly can’t remember this plate ever coming with me after I moved out of my parents’ house when I was 18?! But I apparently had it this whole time!?

Anyway, this plate is special (so special that I forgot about it for 20+ years, but OK, cook on, Erin) because I got it when I was in Italy with my aunt Sharon and grandparents. There is this highway rest stop / cafeteria chain called Autogrill and our tour group would stop there occasionally when we were on the bus, en route to the next destination. It was always a big deal for my aunt because if you got the Autogrill special, it was served on a collectors plate. She ended up with quite a few of them over the years (I don’t remember seeing any of them when we cleaned out my grandparents house – DID SHE SELL THEM ON EBAY?!). I only opted to do this once or twice, because the “Special” was always something that sounded gross to a kid. My palate just wanted a basic grilled cheese, but if we’re being honest (OMG there I go again) the only thing I had my fat kid eyes set on was the dessert buffet, mmkay.

Do not ask me what sort of lunch I had to swallow in order to earn this prized plate (probably liver and onions) but I did it and I have recently started giving this plate the appreciation it deserves. I use it EVERY DAY and Henry and Chooch know that it’s off limits to whatever dumb foods they might consider slopping onto it. (Chooch’s food would be OK but god only knows with Henry – he might actually reintroduce it to liver and onions.)

  • A Random Piece of Chooch Info

On one of our walks recently, he said that he hopes to have a son and daughter one day and he will name them both Chris. Not Christopher or Christina, but they’ll each just be “Chris.” So…look forward to that?

Well, on  that note, I’ll sign off with a creepy picture of my bedroom that I took accidentally the other night when I was getting ready for bed.

Friday Five: Things I’ve Recently Liked

 Friday Five
Jan 082021
 

You know, because I’m such an influencer (*eyeroll*).

CLOTHES

I saw this precious blouse in an Instagram ad and you know how fly-by-night those companies can be! But I did some research and the fact that the clothing was moderately pricey combined with finding the personal IG accounts of the artist & designer who collaborated with the company made me feel a lot more confident that I wouldn’t get scammed or receive something that looked like it was made in some middle school Home Ec class.

The clothing company is called Unlogical Poem and it appears to be based in Japan, but the distribution center is in China. So it did take about 3 weeks for my order to arrive, but they were very transparent about that from the get-go.

I love it! I will warn that everything there is free-size so I was nervous that it wouldn’t fit. Sometimes the arms will be very short, but this one fits nicely and I can tell that it’s made quality material! I love it so much and maybe one day I will have somewhere to wear it to?

TV SHOWS

I recently finished watching some pretty good shows that I will now list here for your consideration:

  • Home for Christmas: Um hello why did I not know about this show?? There are two seasons on Netflix and they were a breeze to binge. It’s set in Norway (I think?) so it was fun to hear which English words are the same over there, like “fuck boy” lololol. Didn’t think I would like this because I don’t typically get into Christmas-y shows but this was sooooo funny and also endearing and whoever that main chick is, I love her deeply.

Home for Christmas (TV series) - Wikipedia

  • The Mess You Leave Behind: this is Spanish and based on a book which is always in Spanish in the opening credits so I don’t know what it’s called, I know it’s shocking that my one whole year of Spanish in 12th grade hasn’t been more effective. This was is way more of a thriller/mystery/drama about a teacher who moves to a new town in Spain and  takes over a class left behind by a teacher who committed suicide….BUT DID SHE. I thought it was really great. Also the word for “ok” in Spanish sounds like the word for “quickly” in Korean. That was my takeaway.

Netflix: The Dark Thriller You Should Watch - The News Fetcher

I also watched Bridgerton but…did I like it? I’m not sure?? It was mostly softcore porn, to be honest. To the point where I had my finger on the remote ready to exit out of Netflix in case Chooch came into the room, and meanwhile Henry was in the dining room making greeting cards and nearly breaking his neck trying to see what I was watching on the TV, lol.

MUSAKKKKKKK

My current favorite song is Twice’s Cry For Me. The choreo gives me chills. I love mature Twice!

SOCIAL MEDIA 

I mean, it should have happened a long time ago but Trump being banned from like every social media platform has me FUCKING GID-DAY up in this clown town known as my house. FINAL-FUCKING-LY. Now can Apple and Google pull Parler, please? DO THE RIGHT THING.

FURRY COMFORT AIDS

If you don’t have pets, how have you been getting through this week/last 4 years? I depend on my cats way too much, I think. The squirrels too. It’s so pathetic that when my work friend Margie called me yesterday, she said, “Sorry, I’m probably interrupting squirrel time” and I was like, “OK I actually WAS at the window but it was only to put out more peanuts, OK MARGIE.”

Here are some pictures of my baes from this week:

Clown Lap Cat Nap – my future band name. DO NOT STEAL IT.

OK, I’m starting to feel panicky and I’m on the verge of tears again because, America. So time to bury myself in a book. Have a fine weekend.

The First Friday Five of 2021

 Friday Five, Uncategorized
Jan 012021
 

In lieu of doing some phony, gratuitous recap of 2020 (I think we can agree that we all have the same feelings for it!) or making up some lame resolutions (last year at this time I predicted that 2020 was going to be the best year yet so imma just chuck that Nostradamus act off the nearest bridge and luckily I live in Pittsburgh, the bridge capital of the world), I’m just going to pretend like this is a regular day and throw down some Friday Five action.

1. The constantly in flux 1980s Dream Kitchen

I’m not sure I’m ever going to consider this room “done.” I just bought this sweet ass Pee Wee Herman art piece which I’m waiting to arrive, we have that pinball back glass that needs marquee lights, the Conair phone is an entire electrical nightmare that Henry doesn’t want to think about, lol…But I do have an update!!

When I decided I wanted to redo the kitchen, one of the first things I bought was this amazing piece of fabric on Spoonflower, featuring the likeness of Robert Smith (natch), David Bowie, Cyndi Lauper, Adam Ant, Siouxsie Sioux, Boy George, and Annie Lennox. Originally I wanted to use it as a curtain for the door that goes into the backporch but honestly, I really like being able to look through that window when I’m in the kitchen. First of all, we have cute lanterns and stuff hanging from the ceiling so it’s very festival, but also there are some BIG BOY trees in the backyard and I love being able to see the birds and squirrels having tree top playtime.

Months went by and it kept getting pushed further down Henry’s To Do List (come on he’s the seamstress of the house among everything else!) and then eventually forgotten about. But then I remembered it and Henry mumbled “oh boy.”

I settled on using it as a little skirt for the front of the coffee cart and I love it so much!! Henry did a good job. Holla at him if you need no-sew curtains made–he’s really good at finding the most half-assed, cop-outiest route possible to get shit done lol.

Anyway, I know I said I wasn’t going expound upon 2020 but our kitchen was really such a ray of sunlight for us. We might not have been able to control what was going on around the world but at least we could make necessary changes inside our house that would positively affect our mental standing and I am so grateful that we had the means to do so!

2. People Cups

I know I’m not alone in this but our cat Drew will seek out my glass of water no matter where I set it and then she just helps herself and I’m all, DREW THAT’S MINE while Henry laughs heartily because it’s such a losing battle. Finally I looked at her and said, “DO YOU WANT YOUR OWN PEOPLE CUP? IS THAT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT??” so now we have to keep a people cup of water on the table for her, which she drinks from with the urgency of someone who just clawed their way out of the desert.

Penelope never really bothered with my glasses of water before but her sister has helped her cross over to the People Cup side.

Cats man, amirite?

3. Reoccurring Beets

Remember a few posts ago when I talked about The Office-inspired pints of ice cream we got from Sugar Spell and how one of the pints was beet-flavored? I posted it on Instagram and my Korean teacher/friend Jiyong commented and I replied in Korean that I learned a new word and then wrote the word for “beets” and she was like “Did you mean to say sugar-free?” and I was like “no beets!” and she was like “haha that is not the word for beets” and I was like NAVER DICTIONARY FAILED ME THEN and it was so embarrassing (not really) because this was all done publicly on Instagram so all of my friends (like all 3 of them) could be reassured that good ol’ Erin is still a fucking dunce but I was so confused because I specifically used Naver to look it up because that’s the Korean version of Google and it said that the word was “satangmu” and even showed pictures of beets and I was like “OK I guess that makes sense because it translates to “sugar radish” right? Buy Jiyong said that they don’t use that word to say “beet,” they LITERALLY SAY BEET.

Languages are so frustrating.

Then right after that, our local sandwich joint, Oak Hill Post (RIP Parkers) posted on Instagram that their new veg sandwich creation was beets ‘n greens so of course I had to have it even though I was like “UGH FALSE SATANGMU.”

It was goddamn delicioso.

THEN!!!! I was reading “Grown” and there were numerous chapters called “Beet Juice Part 1,” “Beet Juice Part 2,” etc and I was like, “…..” The universe really went all out to keep me reminded that I suck at learning Korean, lol.

(But seriously, fuck dictionaries!)

4. My DoDo Son

Here are two (2) stories about my dumbo son who is actually quite intelligent but somehow always manages to shock me with his stupidity when I least expect it:

  • The other day, we were on one of our walks, when Chooch said, “We learned at the teen center that the “x” in the abbreviation Xmas comes from Greek. I can’t remember what the X means though…tree…?” and as he was making other far-off guesses, I stopped him and said, “CHRIST??” He looked at me like I was a genius and exclaimed, “Yes! That’s it! How did you know that??” and I was like, “Because….CHRISTmas….???” There was this moment when time stood still and you could hear the gears & cranks turning in his thick head. “Oh my god, I had no idea…”
  • Last night on New Year’s Eve aka Just Another Night, I was inspired to watch my favorite Alice in Wonderland adaption (the 1985 made-for-TV version but really it’s the porn version shhhh). I found it on YouTube which is great because I only have it on VHS but I don’t have a VCR anymore, so that’s cool. Anyway, Chooch made it approx. 15 minutes through the movie before declaring that he was bored and retreated to his room to play dumb Fortnite with his dumb friends. A little bit later, I went upstairs and poked my head in his room to say, “You missed the part where Alice dies.” I was prepared for him to say, “Yeah OK” but instead there was a pause and then he said, “Wait—Alice dies? How?” My mind started spinning; I wasn’t prepared for the convo to go this far because I assumed he knew the story?!?! “Um…the Mad Hatter….cuts her head off,” I said and immediately regretted not saying the Queen but I was ready to say that the Queen had the Mad Hatter do in case he gave me push back. But instead, he said, “OMG, does she die in the Disney version too???” He was REALLY BELIEVING THIS, you guys. “Yeah, just not as violently,” I managed to get out without laughing, thankful that we were separated by a wall and he couldn’t see my face. “How did I not know that…” I heard him whisper to himself.

You guys, these moments are my favorite parts of parenting.

5. Invasion of Privacy

Henry casually outed the fact that he OCCASIONALLY uses the security camera to watch me watching the squirrels during the day??!! Actually he tried to lie and say that he uses it to watch the squirrels but that I am “always at the window watching the squirrels” so of course he’s going to see me. He even recorded some instances and showed me the other night!! There was a video of Penelope of watching the squirrel and then she looks over her shoulder and Henry goes, “Watch, here you come…” and sure enough THERE I CAME.

I’m not sure how I feel about this!!! But then he showed me some more videos where I’m talking to the cats about the squirrels (“WHERE HIM AT, DREW?! WHERE BUDDY?” And “LOOK AT HIM EAT HIM WALNUT! HIM EAT HIM WALNUT REAL GOOD, HUH?” because I never baby talked Chooch but whoa nelly I got lots of it stored up inside me) and I was like “wow I’m really cute!” but also maybe in need of a friend.

Anyway, yesterday there were four squirrels congregating on our porch and yard at once and it was a big deal bc they were the brown ones who I have found are super territorial with each other and usually chase each other away and only one can be on our porch at a time. This was a big deal!!

I spend too much time at the window! Also, Chooch tried to take the garbage out yesterday and one of them was sitting on the chair next to the door, eating a walnut, and then JUMPED DOWN TO THE DOORSTEP so Chooch couldn’t get out of the house! They’re getting so fucking ballsy and perhaps a bit too comfortable, haha. Also, it’s going to be sad when I go back to work in the office eventually.

Can you spot all four??

Well, I guess that’s all for this Friday Five. Happy Fucking New Year.

Superstuffed Weekend

 Bullet Point Thoughts
Dec 242020
 

I mean, as super and stuffed as a weekend during a pandemic can possibly be, which isn’t really much but as I sit here on HINDSIGHT tuffet, it really does feel like a decent amount of stuff happened and you know me, always keeping the ol’ LOG updated for alibi accuracy.

So come on, Mary. Let’s do it bulletpoint-style.

  • I almost forgot to make the Christmas card for my boss Amber which I strong-armed my team into jumping on video call in order for me to get a screenshot of our BIG SMILING FACES (lol at Todd who apparently was having audio issues and had no idea what was going on, oops). I mean, I had it designed, it just needed printed so Henry did that on Saturday along with the million other cards he had to make from our actual card shop and then we walked to the post office, which is basically our Saturday morning ritual because our lives are SO EXCITING. On the way there he was being SUCH A FUCKING DICKHEAD TO ME. Literally whiteknighting everything that I was against, being contrary to my every opinion, and EW YOU GUYS, I was feeling it. So I started yelling at him for being shitty and JUST THEN, a huge clump of snow slid off a rooftop and fell straight into his jacket and down his shirt. I felt some BIG WITCH ENERGY right then. Don’t fuck with me, dickheads.
    • But then later that afternoon, I was walking home from the library and some guy on our street (the grandfather of Chooch’s friend, and he hates Chooch and is actually kind of scary in a  Yinzer Danny DeVito kind of way) was trying to pull away from the sidewalk and his tires started kicking up DIRTY STREET SNOW RIGHT AS I WALKED PAST AND IT GOT ALL IN MY HAIR AND MY BLUE FLUFFY COAT AND I WILL GOOGLE A SPELL, BUDDY, YOU JUST WAIT.
  • Henry went to pick up our latest batch of Sugar Spell pints Friday evening (that counts as the weekend!) and they were amazing as always! They did a special edition “The Office” series of flavors and shit, as if we’re not blessed enough to have a delicious vegan scoop shop right here in the ‘Burgh, they’re also fucking creative geniuses too! Now look, it’s already Vegan Hunger Games when preorders go live, because those of us in the know realize that these pints will sell out in a blink. Seriously. And this one was even worse (for us) because they got a lot of press and shout-outs for these flavors so now we had new people to contend with! Every single flavor sold out in less than 5 minutes! This was the first time that we weren’t able to get all the ones we wanted (there was just one that got snatched from our grips!) but we were still happy with the trio we managed to procure. However, Sugar Spell posted later that night on Instagram that they had received a lot of shitty comments and messages from unhappy and angry people who weren’t able to snag any ice cream. The proprietor of the place said that she was in tears and I swear to god you guys, I was like WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE, I WILL FIGHT THEM. I just don’t get people like that! First of all – it’s just ice cream (granted, REALLY FUCKING DELICIOUS ICE CREAM) and your life will surely go on if you miss out on a pint. Second of all – this is a small business, run by two people who work their asses off to make this for us. Third of all – we’re in the middle of a pandemic. How about channeling your Karen energy toward the government or racists or anti-maskers. My lord, I was so angry about this that night! Even Henry was mad about it and his only emotions are usually: ambivalence and drowsiness. Is that an emotion? It feels like it is. But yeah, we got our pints and they are D-I-V-I-N-E. That one literally is made with beets and I never knew how much I needed an ice cream made with beets until now.

  • The Dunder Mufflin flavor up there is a blueberry muffin base with swirls of blueberry jam and it tastes like waking up on Grandma Eloise’s farm in Idaho on a mild summer day, basket of muffins fresh from the oven, covered with a tea towel, and you’re wearing short-alls and getting ready to go out and flirt with all the farmhands who are JUST A LITTLE BIT too old for you but THAT IS WHY IT’S FUN and also IT’S THE 90s so SOCIAL MEDIA HAS NOT TAUGHT YOU THAT THIS IS WRONG. I mean…I don’t have a Grandma Eloise, you have a Grandma Eloise. Anyway, this ice cream also reminds me of the blueberry candle I bought when I moved into my first apartment, and that blueberry smell was so accurate and sweet and every time I smell something even remotely similar, I am jettisoned back to 1998, sitting on a beanbag chair in Payne Hill Apartments (I think my address was like J-163 or something??) because I didn’t have furniture yet and I swear to god, it makes me feel SO WARM AND COZY and this ice cream gave me the same feels except not the warm part because, ice cream.

  • Speaking of sweet treats, Chooch baked a shit ton of cookies for 10 lucky people and Sunday was “Delivery Day.” Before he baked the cookies, I googled, “Is it OK to give people baked goods during the pandemic” and everything said YES BUT REMEMBER THAT NON-PANDEMIC HYGIENE CODES STILL MATTER TOO!! but don’t worry – I am a nutcase about keeping the kitchen squeaky clean so no one is going to die from dirt. Anyway, we delivered to half the recipients on Sunday, and actually got to see two of them and have socially-distanced conversations outside! One was the Chris half of Chronica fame, and it was SO FUCKING NICE TO SEE HER FACE IN REAL LIFE. When I tell you that I haven’t seen any of my friends or family since March (I saw my mom once a few months ago for several minutes when I went over to pick up that wallpaper), I really mean it. Then we gave Henry’s mom Judy her cookies outside of the apartment complex she lives in and believe me, we all wore masks because I’m definitely not trying to kill Judy over some dumb cookies, you know? Anyway, she was telling us that she misses hanging out with my mom and that they used to pick up guys together?!?!? I was like WAIT WHAT and she said for example that there was this one time they started talking to this one guy and were having a good time but then he had to leave and they were like no don’t leave so they FOLLOWED HIM TO SEE WHERE HE LIVES?! Judy was laughing so hard with this far-away glimmer in her eyes and we were like “………………………..” Honestly, this has my mom’s name written all over it but when I asked her about it she said that Judy must be dreaming but then she followed up by saying that there WAS this one time where they started talking to some guy in McDonald’s because they were the only three people in there  but she swears there was no stalking involved but that if I’m welcome to write about it in my journal if I want. I AM JUST GOING TO GO AHEAD AND BELIEVE A LITTLE BIT OF BOTH SIDES OK.

Well, Mary, it’s Xmas Eve and I would like to go and like, egg houses or whatever it is we do on Xmas Eve. Tootleloo.

A Feeble Attempt at a Friday Five

 Food, Friday Five, reviews
Dec 182020
 

Today is the three year anniversary (that word seems not right) of Jonghyun’s death and I burst into tears thinking about that while I was doing the dishes this morning and so let’s do a Friday five to distract that blog-author, can we? Can we really?

I’ve been off work all week but as usual, I have very little going on so let’s see what I can pull out of my…brain.

CHOOCH’S MEMOIR

I mentioned previously in here that Chooch has to write a short memoir-type essay for his creative writing class and actually opted to write about his trip to Korea, which obviously made my heart swell. However, he’s been furiously searching my blog for my Korea recaps in order to get names, dates, places and basically every other detail correct. I’m not sure if this is something you’ll believe, but I have been STRAIGHT UP GLOATING over this because HAHA suddenly MOMMY’S BLOG is useful.

Anyway, he has opted to go the “switchback” route, which has allowed him to combine both trips into one story and at first I was like THAT IS NOT GOING TO WORK but then he ironed out some smaller details and it’s actually turning out pretty cool.

Also, his computer crashed last night at midnight when he was finishing up his essay and he lost two entire pages because he wasn’t aware that Word has an auto-save option that needed to be turned on and while I feel super bad for him, I’m also kind of like, “Initiation complete. Welcome to the writing club.”

It’s due at some point today so I hope he gets it done!? I’m fighting the urge to be That Mom who writes papers for their kids but good goddamn do I want to stick my finger in this pie, wow that sounded awful.

KILLER KLOWN

I got some more fantastic pieces from my favorite pin maker The Idol Collective (which is currently defunct because   Danielle is actually rebranding herself so I’m not sure if The Idol Collective is coming back or if she will be reopening under a completely new name, but I do hope she comes back because I LOVE HER).

Killer Klowns From Outerspace was one of my favorite horror movies as a child. My younger brother Ryan and I used to go ham over horror movies, especially those of the B-variety (The Gate, anybody?) and Killer Klowns was definitely on our shortlist of favorites, so when The Idol Collective debuted this new line of necklaces, I snatched one up without even blinking. I love working from home, but I’m also kind of like, “when can we go back?” because I have so many new pieces and literally nowhere to wear them!

Side note: that Killer Klown / popcorn sculpture thing was made by Chuck Jarmon, a mastermind in the Halloween costume and prop industry. A long ass time ago, he asked me to write some descriptions of his products and then gifted me this amazing piece as a thank you. We had become friends through a mutual, who I’m no longer friends with because she accused me of “talking shit on [her] mother” and I lost him in the friend divorce, which is sad, but we’re all adults here and he is allowed to make that choice, I guess…EVEN THOUGH IT WAS THE WRONG ONE. Lol.

TREK TO HANDPIELAND

Last night, 350 Bakery posted on Instagram about the new hand pies for this weekend, one of which is ROASTED WINTER VEGETABLES. I was all set to tell Henry to get his ass over there on Saturday morning, but then they mentioned that three local coffee shops were going to be selling them on Friday, and one of those coffee shops is 802 Coffee (so many number names, ugh) which is on the boulevard, so I was like, “I AM GETTING THAT IN THE MORNING” and usually I say things like that and then I wake up and think, “Eh, maybe another day.” But not today. I sprung out of bed, showered, quickly acknowledged Chooch’s presence, and then set off for my mile(ish?) trek along slushy, unshoveled sidewalks (thanks, neighbors) but as expected, this bad boy was totally worth lacing up my boots for.

File under: things that motivate me to leave the house.

KPOP DAD

I was really bored one night last week and had this GREAT IDEA to pop quiz Henry on all of the members of the Kpop mega-group, NCT. In 2020, they acquired several new members, and now, when all of their units are combined, they are up to a whopping TWENTY-THREE MEMBERS. That’s insane! I remember when I got into NCT a few years ago, the only unit I followed was NCT-127 which had…nine members then, I think? And I was like, “I WILL NEVER KNOW ALL OF THEIR NAMES.” Flash forward to 2020 and I can name all members of NCT127, NCT Dream, and WayV (the Chinese member unit).

Their agency has released this super ambitious undertaking with all of the members of those units, plus two entirely new members, for a massive NCT 2020 release. There’s one song (at least – I haven’t really looked into the whole entire album yet) that features all 23 members, and then the members are broken up into smaller groups for all of the other songs. Whenever NCT does stuff like this, it’s known as NCT-U. (It’s a whole fucking culture, you guys, you have no idea how long it took me to understand the NCT concept!)

Anyway, I gave Henry a sheet of paper and a pencil and told him to go to town. He was able to eke out the names of 11 members.

“I have to tell Veronica!” I squealed through hysterical peals of laughter. Veronica is my favorite kpop partner-in-crime whom I met on Instagram and I would be so lonely in this kpop world without her, I’ll tell you!

“Why do you have to tell her everything?” Henry sighed. But he secretly loves it, I think.

Then it was my turn and I got 22/23 because I can never remember new member Sungchan, although I probably will now.

01:27 — NCT 2020

 BAD INTERNET FRIENDS

In a previous post, I mentioned that I took down a shelf that used to live at the top of the steps and the things I found stashed away in it are Pure Gold. For instance, I found a note that one of my co-workers at Echostar and I had written back and forth (we were such great pupils in that training class!) and at first I was like “wtf are we going on about” because whoever I was writing to had replied “why would your friend want to spend the last 2 months of her life working here?!” And then I realized we were talking about my friend Cinn whom I had recently met through a gothic chat room called Darkchat and supposedly had a brain tumor.

BUT GUESS WHAT GUYS SHE WAS LYING ABOUT IT FOR ATTENTION and I guess she just hadn’t anticipated becoming IRL friends with someone from there (we lived like 15 minutes away from each other) so then her stupid ass lie took on a life of its own and it made me feel so pathetic and angry to read my parts of the note because it was clear that I really cared about my new friend who was going to die soon and how fucked up is that??

We are no longer friends, although we did come in and out of each other’s lives several times for about 8-ish years, long enough that Henry had met her and learned very quickly that she was a fucking snake. But still, I was blind to it, or maybe it was a purposeful blind eye I had, because I was attached to her. She was the big sister I never had. She took care of me. But she was also very quick to belittle and humiliate me in front of others; it took me years to finally understand that this happened when she wasn’t getting attention from the room.

Seeing that note really opened up a wound that I hadn’t realized was still festering under my skin. I ranted about this for a while to Henry and then realized that I’ve had so many awful encounters and fall-outs with people that I met online, that I could do a whole series on it WOULD U COME HERE FOR THAT TEA, y or n?!?!?

On that note, I have to go watch the squirrels from my window. At least they don’t let me down. (Although, they do use me…)

 Older Entries  Newer Entries