Bro when I say that I feel like a brand new person straight out of an isolation chamber ever since I got BIGBANG tickets….I mean, it’s really pathetic that concert-goers need to feel this level of anxiety when a band they love (especially if it’s Kpop) announces a tour. It just shouldn’t be like this, we have enough stress on a daily basis thanks to this fucking orange rapist and his gang of degenerates putting us in the crosshairs and obliterating basic human rights, let us at the very least have a normal, non-panic-inducing experience when purchasing tickets to a concert that we deserve to attend in order to restore our sanity and give us a small moment of joy before we head back into the reality of this corrupt world.

YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SAYING?

Here are some more little moments of joy that I have curated over the last week or so.

For the last year or so, I’ve used this photo app called Minutiae where you get a notification at a different time each day and you only have 5 seconds to open the app and snap a picture of what’s in front of you. Most of the time, I miss the notification. Most of the times when I DON’T miss it, I’m sitting at my work desk so my pictures are always of my house, depending on how fast I swivel to capture a new corner, lol. It happened when I was at DGD last week so I was really excited to have a picture that illustrated me actually having a life outside of the house.

ANYWAY!! While Chooch was home last week, I got a notification right as he walked out the front door to go see his friends. I screamed CHOOCH WAIT and took this through the screen door, lol.

Also, if you read my Waldameer post, the lady who was forcing her kid to ride Chaos WAS WEARING THIS SAME SHIRT which inspired Chooch to wear his the next day. I can’t believe he still wears it. He got it in some dorky gamer subscription box years ago, I think!?

Earlier that day, I made Chooch go for a walk around Brookline with me because I was bored. Here are some pictures I took with my Charmera, much to Chooch’s chagrin:

Lemonade we bought from two siblings on the corner of our street (I don’t know where they came from). The brother was the one we made the transaction with and there was not a lick of enthusiasm to be found on him.

It was $1 each so Chooch slid him a dollar bill and 4 quarters (we had to go back into the house to get cash when we saw the stand right at the start of our walk, and the two kids stood shoulder to shoulder, holding their lemonade sign, glowering at us like the Shining twins as we walked back down the sidewalk to get the money, it was scary).

“I don’t have change,” the kid said dourly, scooping out the lemonade with a ladle.

“Uh…that’s OK we don’t need it,” Chooch said, like BOY DO BETTER AT MATH CLASS. Sheesh.

“Do you want ice?” he asked in a monotone.

We did not.

The lemonade was actually pretty bad but we still sipped on it as we walked away. “That was an interesting serving technique,” Chooch laughed and I mean, really! It took him forever to scoop two small cups’ worth of liquid out of the pitcher.

I couldn’t believe how many people were actually PULLING OVER to support this local business. I’ll tell you why – BECAUSE THEY WERE WHITE KIDS.

The Teen Center’s lemonade was so much better (and the operation was diverse!).

This also made me think about how shocking it is in hindsight that Chooch never got into the lemonade slinging trade, but that’s probably because he was too busy diabolically banning people on the Minecraft servers he was in charge of.

The Moonlite Cafe redid its facade and it’s super cute. I have lived in Brookline since 1999 (!!!) and somehow have only eaten here twice and have no recollection of liking it or not.

Back on our block, the kids were still doing the lemonade thing. “Hi again,” the boy said to us like we were regulars.

I haven’t mentioned this much because the process has been so slow since we haven’t been home much for Henry to work on it, but we’ve reached the “accoutrements” portion of the record player buffet that we’ve (“we” lol) been refurbing. It’s exactly the same style cabinet as the one we clownified for the living room, but this one is purple and green. The doors will (hopefully) be a mosaic made from CD shards, with halved toy dinosaurs attached. The sides, which is what we’re currently working on, will be made from old cassettes and 8-tracks. (The theme here is prehistoric media, if you haven’t noticed.)

I’ve had these 8-tracks in a box in the basement for over 20 years. Freaking JOE gave them to me back when I worked at Weiss’s. I don’t even know why I took them, I did not have an 8-track player nor did I have any intention of purchasing one on eBay in order to listen to Lawrence Welk and Elvis albums. But, because Henry tends to just push things into the dark recesses of the basement, he found them a few weeks ago when he was looking for something else, and said, “Hey, can you think of anything to use those old 8-tracks for?” Well, it turns out, just using the cassettes won’t work, dimension-wise, but alternating between cassettes AND 8-tracks makes for a better fit on the sides of the cabinet!

So, here is a picture of Henry cleaning them the other night while we watched FROM.

Also, it’s super annoying because they wrote “WEISS” on a bunch of them like a mom tagging her kids’ underroos, so some of them can’t be used. (Sorry, it’s already bad enough that I have tangible evidence of this family’s existence in my house, I don’t need to see their names as well — this cabinet is already going to be haunted since we’re using these!)

Here’s the journal page from Father’s Day in Philly. Henry was not pleased with my depiction of him (mostly because I was using a picture of him as reference and he was insulted that I can’t draw him from memory, like bro calm down, I can barely draw a stick figure from memory anymore).

I fucking love my journal so much!!

All of these things have been keeping me afloat lately. Once I finally admitted that my life needed to shift, even if just the slightest, everything sort of fell into place and every day gets a little better. It’s not perfect, I still have sad days (ok, sad moments every day), I am still stressed, I’m still worried about Penelope constantly, I still have panic attacks reading the news. But these little things are my liferaft!

(+ HOLY SHIT I’M GOING TO SEE BIGBANG, BREATHE ERIN.)

8:03am: Just left to return Professor Pout to Philly :( He’s mad because there’s too much weight in the back of the car so we can’t take his bike back with us or something, whatever lame excuse Henry gave him in order to not have to deal with it.

He has literal boxes of DVDs that my mom gave him that he’s taking back with him because he collects DVDs now I guess. Here is a picture of him scanning them all last night – he made some QR code scanner thing so he could scan each one straight into an Excel spreadsheet that can be imported into Letterboxd. Or something. As soon as he started talking about code I shut down.

This week went by so fast. :(

Here’s another picture from yesterday. We had lunch at Mintt and made fun of Henry the whole time. A little slice of normalcy :(

(Or “Borlaug” which js what my phone kept trying to turn “normalcy” into.)

9:11am:

Minecraft pillow from the Children’s Hospital charity walk lol.

9:38am: Kpop Dad Observation: “they have enough songs about ice cream and lemonade.”

11:18am: Listening to Downtown Battle Mountain and feeling some type of way. :( Henry said it makes him feel nothing. No surprise there!!

12:35pm: if Henry didn’t have to stop at EVERY REST STOP TO PEE we would probably be there by now. He forced Chooch to get gas while he goes inside to pee and Chooch is so irritated.

1:52pm: after a weird subway ride, we made it to Silk City and then some old bitch swiped our booth so now we’re waiting. She and her husband said they were going to sit at the counter so the hostess gave them menus to take into the diner part of the place after checking to make sure there was a booth for us, and then when she came back out to get us, that old bitch took the only empty booth AND was bitching to her husband about how she said she didn’t want the drink menus “BUT SHE STILL GAVE THEN TO US,” she spat. What a miserable cow.

The hostess was like, “oh…” when she realized what happened. I don’t mind waiting bc we had a reservation for 2pm anyway and I don’t want to sit outside because it’s hot!

Anyway, here’s a picture from the last time I was here in 1998!

And today!

The bitch is behind him!!

2:54pm: Silk City photo dump!

My vegan breakfast sandwich was really good! Chooch had bananas foster French toast and Happy Father’s Day Man had birria hash.

Special shout out to the hostess there who really went beyond to make sure we were seated quickly and where we wanted to be sat. She was really nice and Henry said he wished he could have tipped her instead of our server but I was like HEY NOW because she was awesome too!!

The bathroom mirror made me feel like I was in a Deeelite video. Also, the floor had a healthy layer of still water on it.

3:07pm: now we’re back on dumb Septa going to Milk jawn and Chooch is being a baby because HE DOESNT WANT ICE CREAM.

Here’s Henry on the way to Spring Garden station after lunch:

LOL. Pretzel Man

Septa fun.

I loved these neon pillar things!

3:53pm: Made it to Milk Jawn!

Vegan earl Grey honeycomb photo series.

Henry got strawberry rhubarb or something, I don’t know. And then Mr. My Parents Force Me To Get Ice Cream got himself a whole pint of vegan mint stracciatella which meant we couldn’t walk back to Drexel like I wanted to because his stupid pint would melt!!

4:38pm: we’re sitting outside of Chooch’s place now waiting for him to answer us because he left his mustard and Carrot Crocs in the car and apparently HE DOESNT WANT THEM.

OMG we just a skateboarding crew and one of them almost fell down the subway steps but caught himself as his skateboard went all the way down. All his friends were like o.O and he was nervously laughing and saying “hoo!!! Hoo!!” You had to be there I guess.

5:00pm: Thoughts on the day: it was a lot of fun traveling around Philly and we were all in a good mood (well, Chooch was neutral) so I feel really happy right now but also sad because we won’t see Chooch until the end of July :(

Also, I took a lot of pictures with my Kodak Charmera so I’m excited to get home and put them on my laptop to see how they turned out. I love that idiot camera. I told Henry today that it’s the best thing he’s ever bought me and he was like “wow.”

8:11pm: bro, Henry made me drive for an hour and he was sleeping so soundly (an anomaly) that I was panicking, trying to feel his stomach moving and eventually resorting to sticker my hand under his nose to feel his breath. I was SCARED. (He’s alive and driving again, fear not.)

Aside from that, I felt really happy today.

9:37pm: just so you know, when I was driving, this was our ETA. Then Henry took over and now our ETA is 10. We could be home right now.

Anyway, I’m signing off.

Even though I knew it was Henry’s birthday, I signed us up a few weeks ago for a Children’s Hospital charity walk. My friend Todd had his own walking team for it and when I found out about it, I was like DID SOMEONE SAY WALKING? You know I love me some walking! Especially when it comes with an event t-shirt! Henry is a good sport and didn’t mind (too much) having to leave the house pre-7AM in order to drive around Oakland looking for somewhere to park before festivities commenced at 8AM. We ended up parking in one of CMU’s parking garages and cutting through their campus to get to the designated meeting spot.

I’m still v. annoyed with CMU and the whole college application process. I hope fucking Suri Cruise is enjoying her time in MY SON’S SPOT. (LOL j/k but NO RLY.) I’m actually glad he opted not to piss around on the second round of wait-listing because he really loved Drexel and being outside of Pittsburgh. Plus, he has a life at Drexel and isn’t on the brink of a nervous breakdown like these CMU kids are.

Pre-walk cold brew acquisition from the Roaming Bean. They had stuffed snickerdoodles there and Henry was ogling them to an uncomfortable degree and I thought for sure he’d treat himself since it was his birthday and god knows I treated him with nothing, lol.

(THE MAN NEVER WANTS ANYTHING, OK!?!?!?!? I was nice to him all day at least and if anything, I sacrificed A LOT by refraining from bossing him around.)

Anyway, what a great event! There were lots of vendors and free snacks (I had a banana and Smiley cookie — the breakfast of Pgh champions!), Zumba on a stage which would have been better if PAUL EUGENE was leading it, but they did play a Blackpink song which was cool I guess.

One of our other work friends, Sharon, also joined Todd’s team with her husband Dave and daughter Lillian so that was really nice too! Sharon is one of my faves and it was nice when I was still going into the office post-pandemic on Tuesdays because she was usually also there but then I just gradually stopped doing that and now we don’t have our own floor anymore and I hate going on some alien floor like I’m a visitor, having to share a space with STRANGERS UGHHHH.

Sorry, that was a little side rant. So very unlike me.

FINISH LINE!

So one of the things that I had to laugh at is that there was a booth there giving away kids pillows. I’m sure if I had gone over to the booth and actually paid attention, I would have understood what was going on but instead I just walked by and thought nothing of it. Then Sharon’s husband Dave decided right before the walk started to go and grab one even though their kids are teenagers. He came back with a Minecraft pillow and I was like, “OMG I BET CHOOCH WOULD LOVE THAT” so I sent Henry off to get one. By that point, it was slim pickins and the Minecraft ones were gone. Dave and Sharon both were like, “Please just take this one honestly, we don’t really need it” and Sharon ESPECIALLY was like, “I’m not kidding, I don’t want that in my house.” LOL. Dave even said he’d carry it through the route for us and I was like, “I mean, if you’re sure…” and their daughter did not seem like she cared either way, so now we have a Minecraft pillow to surprise Chooch with when he comes home next week! I know he’s going to be like, “Wow cool” in that shitty tone but then he’s going to be snuggling it in the care when we drive him home after his break.

THOSE KIDS WERE SO ADORABLE. You know that means something coming from me! The girl with the purple shirt on—Egypt—was like a mini-adult. I was a big fan of hers!

Anyway, it was honestly such a great start to the weekend. Todd and Brittany are two of my favorite people so it’s always fun seeing them, and their friends and family were so down to earth and welcoming! Hopefully they do this again next year because I’m in!

Also! You can see the neon yellow wristbands on some of us– there was a vendor handing out SLAP BRACELETS. I used to love those little bitches so much! It made me launch into a spiel later that day, a spiel that I am positive Henry has heard before, about how I was so obsessed with them back in the day (“Doesn’t surprise me,” Henry murmured) and one time, when I went to FRONTIER DAYS in Ligonier with my friend Kristin and her parents in elementary school, I spent all the money my mom had given me on SLAP BRACELETS because there were shops that had DESIGNS I DID NOT ALREADY HAVE IN MY COLLECTION.

Do you remember how they became outlawed because kids were allegedly getting sliced with defective ones?

Back at home, Henry was examining the one I got that day and made some offhand comment about the tape measure inside of it and I was like, “OK, WAIT, WHAT NOW??? THAT IS WHAT IS INSIDE THESE THINGS?!?!?”

And he said that’s how the original ones where made, with whatever the tape measure metal is!?!?!?

MIND BLOWN. Henry spitting facts as always, no break on his birthday.

We went home, ate lunch and relaxed for a while, then went to a brewery of the birthday boy’s choosing out in Jeannette. I decided that since it was a special occasion, I could break my month-long beer fast. (Just so you know, my choosing to not drink beer anymore is 100% about vanity and weight management, so I’m not like “falling off the wagon” or anything!)

But first, when there are “wall wings,” there’s me bossing Henry into a pose!

This was the foyer of Sobel’s Obscure Brewery! Because I’m a thorough investigative blogger, I looked at their website and found that this space was once an Historic 1903 Department Store (their capitalization, not mine!).

That’s the owner! He was very friendly. I sampled the Monkey Business brown ale and immediately went for a full pour of that.

It was DELECTABLE. Reds and browns for me, please.

Henry got a flight. I have been steering clear of flights because they make me feel sick afterward whereas one fill pour (or 2 half pours) don’t. Maybe it’s psychosomatic but in my head, it feels like mixing liquor and even now just thinking about a flight sitting in front of me made my stomach roil. Is there a science to this or am I just being weird as usual?

Since it was the middle of the afternoon, we were one of only about 3 groups there. It was a very pleasant experience! I only wish that the music would have been a little bit louder because it was almost eerily quiet in there.

I liked this place so much that I made Henry buy a glass.

It started raining really hard while we were there so we split a honey wheat while we waited out the storm.

I am really liking this new “season” (ugh, I hate when people say that yet here I am being One of Them) of our lives. It’s nice to have been with someone for so long but still have so much to talk about—well, that’s 90% accredited to me, the resident yapper. I always have shit to say. But it was just really fun sitting there and talking about the recent Cold concert, and past Cold concerts, and what we’re looking forward to at this year’s Riot Fest, and just concerts in general! MUSIC IS MY FAVORITE THING TO TALK ABOUT and thank god Henry can keep up.

After it stopped raining, we walked around a bit before driving back home. I loved this mural!

Can I be so for real for a second though and talk about how Henry is OOAK? Like, all men should be modeled after him. He is basically a feminist (I mean, I taught him though), he hates Trump, he is an ally, he is patient and reliable, he puts literally everyone else before himself (not always the greatest thing because SELF-CARE IS IMPORTANT TOO but you can’t train an old dog, etc etc), talks softly to the squirrels and bunnies when he passes them in the yard and driveway, and takes care of the most basic tasks so that I have more free time to paste things in my journal and do YouTube workouts or god knows whatever I’m into that week. This is why everyone likes him more than me, and after 20+ years I think I am finally OK with that. I get it, you guys! I get it. Lol.

He is so amazing that on HIS BIRTHDAY, he walked down the street to a local record shop and bought me tickets to two upcoming shows that I have been clamoring on about (Armor for Sleep and Royal Coda). On HIS BIRTHDAY. Ugh, I love that oaf.

Henry is the best. Like that’s news to anyone.

I was looking forward to today all week because we had plans to go to Lolev (the Zelienople location) for the release of their matcha lager, Iroh II. But first, I had to be Queen Miz all morning because I was FASTING until my 10:40am appointment at Quest to get bloodwork done. Nothing major! But Nourish (the nutrition app) offers FREE PANELS every couple of mths and my dietician put in an order for me to get them done again. Of course, I have my check-in call with her on Monday and only just remembered that I hadn’t made the Quest appt so by the time I scheduled something for today, the earliest available was 10:40am. I get up pretty early even on weekends and normally eat around 9:00am but you literally would have thought I was on a forced hunger strike for a week, the way I was lashing out at Henry.

“Great, I’m going home to eat now!” I said to the Quest phlebotomist before she had even fully withdrew her fingers from the cotton ball / tape contraption she had put in the crook of my arm. I was HUNGGGGGY, you guys.

Later that day, we got to Lolev around 1:00pm and I was so stoked for this matcha drink of the goddesses that I ordered A FULL POUR. I’m a half-pour princess, for those who don’t know. But I knew this was all I was getting and I wanted it in the cool glass that it was meant to be served in.

It was just as divine as I remembered from my inaugural stop at Lolev a year ago. This brewery, man. It is just god tier in my book.

Henry got this New Zealand pilsner and it was light and refreshing. Before that, he got Luminis, a double IPA which was almost as good as their 5-star Zeus. Every time I think I’m over IPAs, Lolev is like, “Here – drink this. Haha, you thought.”

Not pictured: the droves of green-clad 3/17 revelers milling all about Zelienople. I always forget that people start celebrating the Saturday before because, contrary to popular belief surrounding my ultra Irish name, I am NOT Irish and actually, St. Patrick’s Day is right up there with Flag Day in terms of “holidays IDGAF about.”

We actually briefly considered walking down the street to another place called ShuBrew to get one more beer and a late lunch, but that place was poppin’ off with Leprechaun LARPers. We walked in, walked out, and drove to the neighboring town of Harmony for baked goods and caffeine.

Not pictured, part 2: the German pretzel bakery where we got a double chocolate cookie (mine, and it was SO MOIST that it was POSITIVELY GLISTENING like it had been smeared with SUGARED OINTMENT from the heavens above), a Snickerdoodle (Henry is a hardcore s’doodlehead), an Irish scone, and a load of sourdough. Then we walked up the street to ANOTHER bakery called Lagerhaus and I felt bad because it was 15 minutes before they were closing but the ladies behind the counter were so sweet. (Same with the lady at the pretzel bakery – we got there at the very end of their day, and she was apologetic that they barely had anything left but we were happy with the pickins slim as they were!)

I like to take action shots of Henry returning from the bathroom in order to send to Chooch.

And this one was sent to Alyson STAT! This frown of the day was way too good to not share with her, and I knew she would be the only one to appreciate it. She texted back that she was saving it for future phone wallpaper and then asked what had made Henry so CROSS. I read that part of the text to him and he goes, “Has she never hung out with you?!?!”

Wow. Just, wow. I have been so amiable all day!

I really liked this place. It was cozy and made me feel like I was on vacation. BTW, I got a cherry vanilla matcha and Henry got a honey bun iced latte. Both were very well-crafted (I am PICKY with matcha because I love it so much), and we got a mini banana cream pie and carrot cake square to go. They gave us the carrot cake square on the house because the barista accidentally made my matcha with whole milk at first and caught it right before giving it to me, and we truly didn’t mind waiting for a few one but they were like, “Take this for free!”

Honestly, I was the who felt bad because we had gone in there 15 minutes before closing and the remaking of the matcha put us there at exactly closing time. I hate doing that to businesses!

But again, they could not have been nicer and if they felt put out by our late arrival, they definitely did not let on.

On the way back to the car, we were lured over to the WEAVERS HOUSE by this adorbs lamb whose name I learned is CHUGGER because he’s bottle-fed. I learned this because I got sucked into the WEAVERS HOUSE and an older woman sitting behind a loom immediately struck up a conversation with me and I had no idea what was going on but she reminded me of Barb Riley if Barb Riley was into textile craftmanship.

(Can I just take a moment to state for the record that I miss Barb Riley so goddamn much that she still appears in my dreams every now and then and SO MUCH reminds me of her. In fact, I had dinner last Monday night with Margie and Sue at Amel’s and I realized that the last time I was there was with Barb. And on the way out, Sue pointed to the dessert case and said, “Makes me think of our girl” and I was like </3 in real time. 2024 was such a shitty year. I can’t even keep track of the amount of times I see something, hear something, remember something, and think, “I HAVE TO TELL BARB—-oh.” I think I need to visit her grave tomorrow.)

(Chugger agrees.)

Anyway, when I finally emerged from the Weavers House, Henry—who had stayed outside the whole time lamb-loving—asked drily, “So, when’s your weaving class?”

Wow.

I mean, I did take the flyer home with me, so you never know.

Then we came home and Henry immediately went to the store because OMG it was after 4PM and he hadn’t gone to the store yet and he has to go to the store every day because it’s literally his favorite thing, pushing the cart mindlessly down each aisle, letting the soft rock waft down from the ceiling speakers and restore his will to live.

this picture has nothing to do with the titillating subject matter of this post but it’s from Sunday and the most recent picture I have of HENRY, the SUBJECT of this post

We were just sitting here when I saw the news about the US Air Force refueling plane going down in Iraq and I screamed, “HENRY, THAT COULD HAVE BEEN YOU!”

“No, it could never have been me because I was never flying on those planes,” Henry said, annoyed at my outburst yet DESPERATE to talk about his pre-AWOL SERVICE YEARS.

“Wait, you weren’t on those planes?” I cried, my mind racing through a brain rolodex 20+ years of FALSIFIED INFO.

And it was at this point that Henry, by explaining that he was ON THE GROUND doing mechanical work on the refueling planes, obliterated the Spielberg-caliber movie that my mind had scripted, directed, and produced over the last 2 decades wherein Henry was sky high in a refueling plane, laying on his side and grunting as he tried to feed a floppy fuel-tube out of an open door and into a hole of the ARMY PLANE it was flying alongside of.

Wow, I feel so stupid. Henry’s real job was way less exciting than I thought! He should have just let me believe it.

No one asked, but my Nourish app journey has been going well! It’s been a little over a month and I did go into this knowing that I lose weight extremely slow but something clicked into place the other day and after having lost 2 pounds in the first several weeks, I dropped 3 more since Friday and I am so stoked! Mostly because I CAN SEE THE DIFFERENCE. I feel so much better, I’m sleeping better, I have more energy. And I really love my dietician! We’ve had three Zoom calls so far so I like that it’s not a strict weekly check-in. And she is so encouraging and praises me for my protein and fiber intake! She’ll say things like, “You tend to go over your carbs, but I’m not mad about it.”

Perimenopause has been such a silent pest over the last 1-2 years! I was doing so well, not needing to track my food, staying active, and then BAM – I gained ten pounds over the last year, mostly in my belly – and none of my old diets and tricks have helped. I was in such a calorie deficit all summer, walking every day, doing cardio, lifting. Not a single ounce dropped and no muscle tone gained (because while I was gaining weight, I was losing all of my good muscle tone!!!). It has been so frustrating, mostly because I honestly am a very vain person. I care deeply how I look, and I’m not ashamed to say that. However, I am ashamed to admit that this has caused me to cancel plans in the past and actually fear going to social events where I have to eat, so that part is not good.

And that’s why I finally took Henry’s advice and found professional help because apps alone aren’t doing it for me. I need a real person. And Amanda, my dietician, has opened my eyes bigly to all the errors of my ways. I never ever fucked with macros before. It seemed too complicated. But she has set my goal numbers for me and it is very fascinating having to adjust my diet to make sure I’m hitting my goals, rather than just counting calories. Especially as a somewhat vegan-leaning vegetarian.

After our initial consultation call, we had a check-in after a week to see how things were going with me tracking my food and understanding macros, etc. I didn’t know this at the time, but dieticians have access to your “journal” on Nourish so I had to sit there while she went through EVERY DAY OF MEALS that I ate in the last week, stopping to make comments (“You could have added some more protein here by xyz” type shit) which was jarring at first and I felt so under the spotlight.

“OK first of all, it’s no wonder you like having smoothie bowls every day – these look SO GOOD! But wait – it says here that the smoothie bowl you had on Saturday had tofu in it. That must have been AI putting in inaccurate information,” Amanda said. But I said that no, that was probably right because Henry has been known to slip in some soft tofu in there to bump up the protein.

“That is brilliant!” she said. “Oh my god, I have never heard of that – what a hack!” and then she went on to praise Henry for his ingenuity and his pretty smoothie bowl plating (“bowling”?) like, OK we get it! EVERYONE LOVES HENRY. HENRY IS THE HERO OF EVERY STORY!

Ugh.

AND JUST SO EVERYONE KNOWS I AM 100% SURE THAT HE DIDN’T MAKE UP THE TOFU HACK!! It’s probably a very well-known thing to do in the veg community AND HE PROBABLY LEARNED IT FROM ONE OF HIS GRANOLA MOM COOKBOOKS!!

I mean, he does make very visually appealing smoothie bowls. And they are delicious.

BUT STILL!!!

THIS IS ABOUT ME!

Sigh.

Anyway, this has been my dietary update. I am super happy with Nourish, adore my dietician (we chatted about Romania last week and she was like “please don’t track your food but please DO post pictures of it because I want to see!” 😂) thankful that my insurance covers it, and grateful that it is helping me conquer my fear of food! I am 46 and learning how to eat, better late than never! Hahaha ugh.

We used to go to Kennywood every Father’s Day because for some reason it is traditionally uncrowded there that day. I guess most dads want to stay home and grill meats, who knows. I’m not a dad, I don’t know what goes on in Dad Minds.

It ended up being not crowded, per the norm! And Chooch had already said he was bored before we even entered the park so that was a great start, status quo, welcome home, etc.

Steel Curtain finally reopened this season after having been closed all of last season and….most of 2023 I think? I quit caring, to be honest. Kennywood does this thing where they buddy up with a coaster manufacturer and agree to have a prototype / first of its kind added to the park and then it ends up being a maintenance nightmare, but whatever – you do you, K-wood.

Oh! I can’t believe I never mentioned this on here but Kennywood and its sister parks were recently bought by Herschend, the owner of DOLLYWOOD AND SILVER DOLLAR CITY. I am so stoked on this. Do I wish that Kennywood could go back to being family-owned? Of-fucking-course. But this last corporation that owned them (Palace) made some real stupid choices. I’m hoping that Herschend will put some theming in, get some better food up in that piece (I’m thinking of YOU, Dollywood’s famous cinnamon bread,  but then again – it might lose its novelty if we’re able to have it whenever we want here in Pittsburgh!), and AHEM – RMC MAYBE??? We know Herschend has a good relationship with RMC! (OK, Lightning Rod might have tarnished that relationship BUT they were still invited to re-track Fire in the Hole at Silver Dollar City, so maybe??)

Sorry. Tangent.

LOL Henry had to ride with some other dad. They immediately started talking, too, and Chooch and I were dying. Then Chooch realized he had allowed himself to share a moment with me and went back to being sullen and bored.

Anyway, Steel Curtain is still good! I didn’t notice the new trims that much, but Henry said that his ride was super bumpy but maybe that’s just because his brain is bumpy.

KANGAROO.

Honestly, nothing that exciting happened all day so this is mostly just going to be pictures.

We didn’t even really ride that much because we were all tired for various reasons (Henry and I had a late Friday night and then the No Kings protest most of Saturday, and Chooch is just perpetually tired because he’s of a certain age + spent all of Saturday on a train home). But we did get some Phantom rides in and I can confirm that it is STILL one of my all time favorite coasters.

Then Chooch guilted me into riding Black Widow with him and I cannot stress enough how much I dislike this ride.

They assign you a number when you walk on and are very serious about everyone sitting in their assigned seat. They were going in order starting from 1 and I ended up being 15 but then they skipped to 20 for Chooch. I know it was weight / balance thing because the park wasn’t crowded enough for them to fill every seat on each cycle, but it was still annoying because I didn’t want to ride at all and now I had to sit alone. Then they moved him and some of the people next to him clear on the other side!

I’m not going to lie, I thought I was going to throw up as the ride was coming to a stop. I was hungry and also definitely needed water so that just exacerbated things and I am totally certain that all of the casual bystanders could tell that I was having a bad time, lol. The ride operator even said, “How was that ride?? Some of you looked like you were having fun, others….did not.”

HEY, THE LITTLE NEXT TO ME ALSO HATED IT AND WAS YELLING AT HER BROTHER THE WHOLE TIME FOR MAKING HER RIDE IT, SO THERE.

DARK SKIES.

OMG he’s so happy to be home with mommy and daddy.

We didn’t get a Golden Nugget! But we have season passes so I’m sure I will get my Gol’Nug fix at some point this summer.

That stupid Bites & Pints thing was happening again so Henry bought a dumb tasting card and there was next to nothing for non-meat eaters, I’ll tell you that much. Chooch and I would have been extra-screwed if we were full vegan. As it were, we could only really eat the dessert options at nearly every country’s booth. I was PISSED at Italy because it looked like ALL THREE OPTIONS were meatless so I was stoked and asked for the flatbread that had peaches and cheese on it, I forget the exact kind. But then when I saw in under the heat lamp thing, it looked like it had MEAT CRUMBLES on it so I asked the guy who punched my taster card if it did and he emphatically said no. But some woman next to him overheard and said, “Yes, it does – pancetta.”

UGH!!! The description did NOT mention that AT ALL. Do better, Kennywood. It is literally 2025.

Oh and the “pints” option for Korea wasn’t even a Korean beer, but ok.

My favorites were the churros from Spain and whatever the raspberry pancake things were from Poland.

It started raining pretty hard around 3PM and Chooch was like, “Oh darn, I guess we will have to leave now.” He was in a big hurry to be done with family time!

Before we left, Chooch and I rode the Racer in the rain which was kind of fun actually, but there was a Jonny Craig-looking dad in front of us (in a wife-beater, no less) whose young son was sitting in front of him and he proceeded to SLAP THE KIND ON THE BACK OF THE NECK for the entirety of the ride?! Granted, he was doing it as a loving rough-housing type of thing but it was making Chooch and me so uncomfortable, like bro – ok, you could have stopped after the third whack, you know?

Just so fucking weird.

What else do I want to remember? Oh, Johnny Rockets is now the Carousel Cafe and they have a veggie burger! We were HOT several seasons ago when Johnny Rockets removed the black bean burger from their menu like fucking haters. Anyway, only Chooch wanted to eat there so I went inside with him while Henry went to pee (the Kangaroo really jostled it out of him), but then I realized I didn’t have my credit card so we standing there by the register like losers waiting for Henry to come back and then a big family came in and I was like UGH NOW THEY WILL GET IN FRONT OF US AND THIS WILL TAKE LONGER but luckily, they hung back to look at the menu and then I saw Henry finally walking over so I pushed Chooch over to the register to order. I was frantically waving Henry over but a mom and her daughter thought I was calling them over so they cut in front of the large family and joined us?!!? It was so awkward!!!

And then the young emotionless girl who rudely took Chooch’s order was so confused because there were three of us but only he was ordering and it turned into a whole thing much like everything does when the 3 of us are united, like we’re aliens from a planet of socially awkward dysfunctional families. She acted MAD that only Chooch was ordering food though and I was like, “MIND YO’ BUSINESS, MISSY.”

Anyway, not the most exciting trip to Kennywood but it was still fun, we rode Phantom, I sipped some beers, and it got us out of the house AS A REUNITED FAMILY and that’s all that really matters! Don’t worry, I’m sure there will be many more amusement park recaps this summer and hopefully at least one of them will be more exciting than this one.

Yesterday was a milestone birthday for Henry – the big 6-0! I posted these pictures yesterday on Instagram in his honor (he was so thrilled and touched by some of them, as you can imagine) so I figured I’d share them here too because honestly, we didn’t do anything to celebrate. I kept asking him what if anything he wanted to do and he gave me nothing to work with. Some people are just like that, which is crazy to me because I will pout and sulk if nothing happens on my birthday which is why I start planning ahead of time because I have learned over the years that if you want to have a happy and fun birthday, ain’t no one going to do that for you but you.

I did chat with Chooch about this a few mths ago but we couldn’t think of anything he’d actually enjoy, lol. I definitely wasn’t going to have a party for him because that would be just me doing something for me, in the end.

And besides, the last year+ has left me stripped of energy, motivation, and creativity. Plus, it sucks without Chooch here. He’ll be home next weekend, which is Father’s Day, so we can celebrate then.

Shout out to Henry for having more patience than anyone I know, keeping Chooch & me from perishing more times than I can recount here, being a one-man crafting powerhouse (he takes all of my ideas and makes them tangible!), driving me hours upon hours for Kpop concerts and never complaining, loving G-Dragon almost as much as me, rolling with all of my stupid “OK HEAR ME OUT, WHAT IF—-” ideas, and honestly just being my best friend. I don’t know how I would have gone through this last year+ without him.

Remember when I used to take coleslaw action shots?? Should I start this series again?? Lol.

Chingumas poca Henry.

Looking like the cook. 

Celebrating Hyunjin in Seoul.

This was taken by me in Gamla Stan, Stockholm just to show him an example of how I wanted him to take a picture of ME and he still failed miserably even with a visual aid. Anyway, it turned out to be one of my favorite pictures of him and his man-purse.

Chilling with a troll in Norway.

If Henry was an office worker.

He found the Ted Nugent hotdog bun at Tony Packo’s in Toledo!

That time he got stuck on the floor at my birthday lunch in Seoul. 

This was taken at one of our favorite places to walk – Keystone State Park.

Mt. Olympus angel. He was annoyed because I posted it on Instagram and Mt. Olympus liked it haha.

This was when we were visiting Alyson in New Hampshire <3

LOL donut photoshoot in some random town in New York.

Posing at Six Flags Great Adventure.

LOL. Even when Henry is having fun, you can’t tell.

Being a proud Air Force person at Indiana Beach even though he went AWOL.  

We love Phantom’s Revenge!

At a SHINee anniversary event in Cleveland!

Working on some project for me.

Seeing NCT127 for his first time in Newark!

Enjoying his Golden Nugget at Kennywood.

Henry and his twin brother at Six Flags. 

Had to include this classic Henry photo lol.

Anyway, Henry seemed to have an OK day. He came home from work, got a haircut, went to TWO GROCERY STORES at TWO SEPARATE TIMES which is his favorite past time, and then had some beer while watching Korean content on YouTube. (Specifically: Taemin on Daesung’s talk show, and Joshua on Yoon and Brian’s show BYOB.) I don’t know what today will hold but tomorrow we’re driving to Philly to bring home the bulk of Chooch’s shit so at least he will get to see him for some belated birthday aggravation!

We went to the Laurel Hill Cemetery after lunch last Saturday (I have a shit ton of photos to share separately – that place was POPPIN’ OFF with springtime blossoms!). Chooch took a picture of Henry and me walking/running down this little path and then as per his tradition, he left an ultra-zoomed in picture of Henry’s face in my camera roll. I was watching the live version of the photos and it was cracking me up how it ended with a creepy close-up of Henry’s lascivious smile, so I spent the first hour of our drive home that evening turning it into an Instagram reel that flopped but was so fucking funny to me that I was in tears over it, literally chortle-choking in the passenger seat while Henry, eyes on the road, kept muttering, “I DON’T WANT TO KNOW.”

I’m fairly certain my friend Alyson was the only one who saw the hilarity in this – for instance, Chooch commented and said, “What is this” as if he wasn’t the one who took  the pictures?? Constantly trolling me, even when in college. Ugh.

Anyway, I don’t know what made me choose this STAYC song but I love how the ASAP part perfectly aligns with Henry’s close-up, ugh I’m dying all over again and will now forever associate STAYC with this, sorry STAYC!

I promise I won’t do this every year, but this is our FIRST anniversary as a married couple and I am feeling nice about that today and was in my feels looking through pictures from our Korean Marriage Mission.  So, here are some (the only, actually) pictures of me and Henry from that trip! Most of the pictures were of Chooch, or of all three of us. Not too many of just me and Henry together probably because he IS SO ANNOYING to take pictures with.

(Henry. Yes, you are.)

In Gyeongju!

Our handmade wedding bands that we made in Hongdae!

LOL us with our marriage license; Chooch was SO PUT OUT that we asked him to CROSS THE STREET and come over to us to take this picture. He gave literally zero fucks about this whole thing because his life did not change at all.

I loved loved loved this place. 

Buddhist Food in Insadong!

Cheonggyecheon <3

We actually came here to take Chooch’s senior pictures, but he snapped some of us too, grudgingly.

I love this picture so much, thanks Chooch! I should probably get this framed.

Henry’s dumb face lol.

One of the BEST places to walk and a great place to watch the sun set. 

I hope that we get to go back to Korea again someday. I feel more alive there than I have anywhere else in my life and the fact that Henry was willing to marry me there means so much more than any traditional wedding we could have had here. It was no frills. Just us, in jeans. I actually couldn’t imagine doing this any other way and would not change a thing.

(OK, maybe I’d have eaten more salt bread. Lol.)

Ugh, I’m crying as usual.

I woke up today to a gift bag full of Totally Erin gifts:

I was cracking up because these could easily pass for a middle schooler’s birthday presents.

Speaking of…Henry said that he talked to his mom today. She said something along the lines of how it’s too bad he didn’t meet me before “that other one” and married me first. Henry was like, “Mom, I’d have gone to jail.” I mean, considering I was IN MIDDLE SCHOOL when he was marrying “that other one.”

So, then she said that he could have “waited for me” and I screamed, “EW, SHE WAS SUGGESTING THAT YOU GROOM ME?!”

That was such a sobering moment on The First Anniversary of Ruby & Hoover’s Marriage Fit for an LJ Post.

Anyway, baby’s first Enhypen album!

Hello from Thanksgiving! It is so weird having Chooch home! I know he has only been away at college since September but it feels so much longer. And just like old times, he didn’t wake up until nearly 1PM and then came downstairs to take up space and complain (OK but mostly because I was trying to make him watch Seventeen videos).

Penelope was rolling around on the floor, playing with her toys, and I effing swear to god she would stop every once in a while and look back at Chooch as if to see if he was watching. It was so cute but I still think she hates him muchly.

Then he went to the Teen Center to interview the lady who runs the place, since she apparently is more interesting than his own mom and makes a better profile subject. Mmmm. He came home long enough to bitch about things and then went to the mall with his friends (and my credit card ughhhh I miss the days of Working Chooch) so Henry and I chilled out with some kpop content and beer. First I tried this Orval Trappist beer because I was convinced that I love monk stuff but this one was NOT GOOD.

“It smells like the pee of a sick person,” I reported as I pushed my glass toward Henry because he is like the sink drain for my beer rejects. Sorry, but I’m not wasting calories on a gross beer??!!

Henry found a Blue Moon in the back of the fridge and thought it would be a good idea to drink that next. Hello, it was probably left over from a party and who knows how old it was. Blue Moon was one of the first and only beers I was able to tolerate back in the day and if we were at a concert or festival and they had it, Henry would always share his with me because I could never drink a full one on my own and we all know how much concert beer costs. Anyway, I went to have a sip and Henry abruptly warned me it tasted bad and tried to stop me. But I was like I WILL BE THE JUDGE OF THAT.

“Ugh!” I grimaced. “It tastes like—”

“Stop! Don’t ruin it,” Henry pleaded.

“–the interior of an old car. Like if you ate an ace bandage.”

“OK great. That’s enough. Thanks.”

LOL, like I was actually done. “It tastes like Camden Park, like if you licked the duct tape holding together one of the rollercoaster seats,” I continued.

I’m pretty sure he dumped it out after that.

I did have one of my Chouffes though and even though it was an IPA, I found it to be quite refreshing and delightful. Even Henry liked it and was waiting for me to split it with him but I said, “Nah, I’ll just drink the whole thing, but thanks.”

😊

(LOL the TV in the background is showing the livestream from Incheon airport where Dispatch was waiting for Seventeen’s arrival and you better believe we sat here and waited with everyone else because we are legit Carats.)

Wait, real time update: I came downstairs and Henry is ROCKING OUT in the kitchen to Seventeen’s “Hot” while making vegan kimchi. Welcome to Thanksgiving at the Kelly-Robbins shanty.

Today has been pretty chill so far (literally) – I went for a walk in the rain this morning which I majorly regerted afterward and will probably be getting sick soon. But other than that, I have just been relaxing (well, after I got my workout in – I’m trying to get back into a fitness routine and of course I chose Thanksgiving week to kickstart that, like a fucking freak), watching some shows on Hulu, adding some Kpop Christmas cards to my Hello Hanguk shop because I am finally feeling a tiny bit creative again after like, years of not.

We got premade vegan Thanksgiving meal kits from Viridis so I’m looking forward to having that tonight. We have never had anything from Viridis before so this was really a shot in the dark but hopefully it’s good? Wish we lived closer to Seitan’s Realm because their T-giving meals looked fire. I love Seitan’s Realm so much.

Um, I guess that’s all! Just trying to use this bitchin’ space for more free-style type of posts because my therapist said that would be good. (Also, I googled “is it unethical to invite therapist to Christmas party” and I’m sure you already know the answer because even I knew the answer even though TV CHARACTERS ARE ALWAYS INVITING THEIR THERAPISTS TO EVENTS but gentle reminder to myself that I am not a TV CHARACTER, just a BROOKLINE ERIN, but anyway – this is how I learned about “transference” and how therapists are required to immediately refer their patients to someone else when that happens. HOW EMBARRASSING.)

Wait one more thing! Henry is back in the kitchen doing cooking things and Stray Kids’ Lose My Breath just came on and I got SO STOKED all over again about seeing them again next year! I told Henry to turn it up and he tried to get Echo to do it but Echo was like, “OK I WILL STOP THE SONG” and then it took him forever to get it to restart so consider the mood killed.

Yo, what a nice weekend. Henry and I spent a nice amount of time outside, which is always GOOD FOR THE SOUL or whatever someone with a collection of Rae Dunn cups would say. Saturday was decent enough but it was hot off the heels of some pretty heavy raining, and we admittedly picked a dumb locale for a walk that afternoon – Schenley Park, which has sand-like trails so we were dodging puddles left and right. ANYWAY, I wouldn’t have included this in here at all except that as we were walking, we found car keys on the trail by the soccer field. Henry scooped them up, I guess because he figured it would be safer than leaving them on the ground and also because he thought they probably belonged to one of the joggers who had splattered past us in the mud.

Sure enough, some lady who was actually parked in front of us eventually started jogging over to us and panted, “You didn’t happen to see car—” and Henry held the key up for her to take.

“Oh my god!” she cried. “I said to myself, ‘I’m gonna ask these ppl over there’ and thank god I did!” and we were like, “<good natured lip service>” but really in my head I was like WOW MUST BE NICE TO LOSE SOMETHING AND THEN GET IT BACK.

So then I whined about my missing ring for pretty much the rest of our walk. Picked up Chooch from his game design class at Pitt, stopped at Grim Wizard for a chai but then ended up getting a Vlad the Impaler latte instead and it was OK but had a bit too much strong flavors swirling up in it.

Not too much else happened on Saturday. Oh, we went to Kohl’s which has become one of my least favorite places in the world but I needed to find a top to wear with a skirt I got for my not-wedding and it ended up OK but I just truly hate shopping, I think.

The weather on Sunday was much more beautiful than Saturday though and I was rearin’ to go. This time I chose Monongahela Cemetery because it’s been a few years since I was last there with Chooch the day we went out without a chaperone to geocache. 

We stopped at a Sheetz down the street first so I could pee and I found a pair of sunglasses hanging in the stall! SO I TURNED THEM IN TO SOMEONE AT THE CHECK-OUT.

WHY COULDN’T SOMEONE TURN MY RING IN??

(Ugh I honestly spent all weekend reliving that night.)

(Yeah-yeah that’s me, linking back to one post ago like a loser.)

Anway. Ugh. What a nice day.

Ew, you can see Henry BANDAID in this picture. He started to tell me what the cause of his injury was but it had something to do with a car seat of a truck and it fell on his arm and UGH I started screaming because I think I was picturing this to be way worse in my mind because Henry was doing a poor job explaining it so I had to fill in the gaps with my mental Play-Doh Factory of worst case scenarios.

Of course, we mainly talked about K<3REA.

AND THEN I

SAID THAT’S

THE ONE THING WE’VE GOT

(Hate that song, actually, so I’m thrilled for myself that it popped in my head just now.)

You guys! I couldn’t tell if this raccoon was dead or just sleeping!?! Henry said it was definitely sleeping but I couldn’t see that he was breathing and I was so freaked out.

That was a nice hour of sunshine and acting like morons.

Then we drove a few towns over to CHARLEROI and had lunch at some place called Perked Up cafe. The vibe of the place was decent – I mean, we were so far removed from ThE bIg CiTy that this wasn’t a magnet for Instagram Influedouchers.

I was sad though because I must have been looking at old menu and the AVOCADO TOMATO sandwich I was eyeballing wasn’t on the actual menu board there :( The cashier suggested just getting the avocado toast with tomato but I had it in my head that the retired sandwich was meant* to be actual slices of avocado and tomato on a sandwich, son. Not smashed avocado. :( So instead I got the spinach & artichoke on marbled rye and let me just tell you that the bread was the best part because the stuff between the slices was scant and lacked absolutely all flavor. And for $10!!!! Jesus Christ. I abhor making sandwiches but you better trust that even I would have made this better.

*(I had a friend who moved away from Pgh many many many years ago and she would always say “meant” instead of “supposed,” for example: “You were meant to turn there.” I would get angry and scoff, ”Stop talking like you’re British!” So, good job triggering yourself, Erin.)

I mean, I still ate it though because I was fucking hunggggy.

Henry kept raving about his cold brew and I was like, “Calm down, guy, it’s not that special.” For instance, I got a French Toast latte it tasted like neither French nor toast nor French toast. I didn’t hate it, and I somehow didn’t hate the place in general. But I was still fucking hunggggy when we left.

LOL you’re welcome.

Ugh Saturday started out horribly. Ok that’s hyperbolic, it was just boring and mildly frustrating because it was snowing hard. Henry and I were going to go to lunch at Blue Flame but then Responsible Son texted from work and said that he OF FUCKING COURSE didn’t have his house key so we had to turn around (granted we were still close to home but everyone was crawling because of the snow) to unlock the door for him – so safe.

THEN it took us forever to even get onto the main road because a car was broken down so traffic was all backed up and it was nearly 1PM by now and like nearly EVERY RESTAURANT IN PGH Blue Flame closes as 2PM so we decided to just go to Frank and Shirley’s which is much closer to home anyway but when walked in, the bus boy was all, GET THIS, “oh yeah we’re closed bc of the weather.”

THERE WERE PPL EATING AND THE “WEATHER” WASN’T BAD BUT OK. Cook on. Or, don’t, I guess, BC OF THE WEATHER.

Idiots.

So basically it took us exactly an hour to drive in a circle 10 minutes away from our house only to come back and eat lunch at home.

Ew, I was fuming.

Chooch slept over a friend’s house that night, so Henry had a soju & makgeolli party and watched the new Exorcist which I thought was just OK and definitely didn’t scare as much as some other possession movies (my favorite type of horror, BTW).

I had a lot of things to say throughout it and I think Henry welcomed my commentary because it distracted him from the matter at hand: THAT WE WERE WATCHING A MOVIE ABOUT POSSESSION and very much the opposite of me, Henry hates horror movies that have religious themes to them because HE IS A BIG WUSS.

At one point, I felt inspired to text Chooch and tell him that if ever became possessed, I would leave. Literally could call my mom and ask if I could move back home or better yet, send Chooch there.

Which reminded me….

“When I was in high school, I desperately wanted to be possessed by the devil. Desperately,” I confessed to Henry, burping up soju probably.

“That…doesn’t surprise me one bit,” Henry mumbled.

Today, Henry and I had our lunch do-over but this time decided to go to Deer Creek Diner in Russellton, wherever that is. I don’t know what I was doing when I took this picture but judging by the last month or so of my blurry picture-taking, I think it’s safe to say that I have crossed over to Elderly Person Taking Photos with Kindle territory.

This place was fine! As soon as we sat down, the elderly couple (who probably have an entire camera roll of blurry pictures) on the other side of the little wall thing next to us said hello and it made me feel uncomfortable, like they were breaking some sort of third wall, restaurant edition, and then when the man sneezed at one point, I had a mental breakdown trying to decide if saying BLESS YOU was appropriate but then too much time passed while I was debating so instead I just pretended like I hadn’t noticed even though we made eye contact.

Oblig coleslaw-in-the-maw action shot! This coleslaw was totally my style, btw.

I got a grilled cheese with tomato, and fries. Forgot to take a picture. The grilled cheese was basic, but the fries were ALMOST the “Good Kinds” that I love so much. Almost!

I had to come back into the bathroom after already being in there once to actually pee, because I made the fatal mistake of not bringing my phone (I mean, it’s weird to walk into a public bathroom with your phone in your hand; I usually only bring it in if I’m wearing a jacket and it’s in the pocket) only to be met with this HIDEOUS mural!!!

I made sure that all of the diners who were there when I went in the first time were already gone, lest they think I have some bladder disorder or a hand-washing compulsion, etc. Because EVERYONE CARES WHAT I DO, OBVIOUSLY.

Anyway, I had only been in there for 20 seconds and was getting ready to leave when someone started knocking on the door. That pissed me off. Excuse me, but if the door is locked, then clearly someone is in there? You really have to knock?? So, I washed my hands for no reason and then left, having to slide past the OFFENDER who OF COURSE happened to be a lady sitting behind us who had left and then apparently come back just to use the bathroom so now she knew that I had used it twice in 15 minutes, UGH.

(Again, no one cares. But this is one of those things that I will think about for at least the next 7 years.)

The men’s room had deer! Henry took these without me even asking!

You have no idea how long I waited to get this shot, because the table at the end was occupied almost the whole time and one of the people, some middle-aged woman, freaking locked eyes with me every time I turned to see if the coast was clear.

The worst part of the lunch was when Marble Mouth Henry whispered to the waitress, “Can we get dessert?” Um first of all, we’re paying customers, so fuck yeah, we can get dessert, why is he asking for permission?? We are hardworking adults who have more than earned a piece of freaking pie. Anyway, she of course couldn’t hear him because he was mumbling, and this was right after she gave us the check, so she goes, “What’s that? Oh, you can pay up front” and he goes, “No” and then re-mumbles the dessert question, and she goes, “Oh! You want me to turn up the TV?”

Oh good lord, I couldn’t sit back and watch this any longer so I jumped in and asked with CLEAR ANUNCIATION, “Do you have coconut cream pie? I see it’s on one sign, but not on the daily special board, so I wasn’t sure…” and she seemed relieved to have an excuse to remove herself from this excruciating episode. “Let me check!” she said, and jogged away.

“YOU ARE SO EMBARRASSING!” I hissed, and Henry just laughed and shrugged, because he probably didn’t hear what I said anyway.

They did NOT have coconut cream pie, so we got a slice of Italian cream cake to share, and it was super rich and waaaay too much but I still did more than my share in its demolition.

The last notable thing of the weekend, and certainly a perk, was that Chooch and I got to have a Zoom call with our friend Kristen and it was sooooo nice to see her face, hear her voice, and chat about Chooch’s college applications and such. It definitely put me at ease! I can’t believe how long it’s been since we last saw her IRL, so I hope 2024 is the year that breaks that streak!

Well guys after pretty much exactly a year, Henry has finished (well, to the point where it’s presentable at least) the second incarnation of the Seoul Subway Sign!

You probably don’t remember (or care, most likely) but while Henry was making the first version*, he began to realize that there were better ways to do it but he was too far into it to start over. The first version was fine-ish but he used regular LED lights and some of them were plain white (he claims he didn’t know this?? was he building parts of this bitch in his sleep??) so he couldn’t change the color of those strips to match the subway lines, and THEN anytime the electricity would go out (we live in an old house so it’s more often than you’d think) all of the lights would reset and nothing would match anymore.

*(OK weird but the first version was completed exactly one year and 2 days ago. And now this one was completed ALSO exactly a year after he started it last November?!?)

Not to mention the paper was glued down on plexi glass and almost IMMEDIATELY started to bubble.

The original frame was painted gold and I lowkey hated it. It was more meBLAHlic than metallic if you know what I mean. (Why can’t I ever make sense to you?!)

So even though I really wanted a better version I think Henry wanted it even more, as a pride thing you know?

This time around he used the led lights that people use for programmable Christmas displays – you know the ones that move in time to music? So each light was programmable. This new sign has its own wifi and a box full of computer-y electrical shit that I don’t understand but Henry put together all on his own.

The frame has better colors and now each different subway music clip has its own illuminated button!

Tonight, he finished matching each light to whatever subway line it belonged to and I love it so much but also I’m so impressed that he was able to make this for me??!! I don’t give Bandanna Husband enough credit – some broads are cooing over their mans for far less (“He spray painted a rock, I’m so proud of him for stepping out of his comfort zone!”) and I’m over here like THATS NICE BUT U COULD HAVE DONE BETTER?! after everything Henry does. I need to be nicer lol.

The only things he left to do is to build the sides and cover the screw hole-thingies along the front.

I literally can’t believe it’s done. We thought – THOUGHT – it was nearly done in September but when he hung it and turned on the lights, I was like, “Um, bro? Why is the entire left half of the sign not in line with the lights?” Apparently, he used different glue on that side and as he was pasting the paper down, it was stretching JUST ENOUGH for him to not notice at the time, but also JUST ENOUGH for me to notice IMMEDIATELY as soon as he hung it.

So, then he had to strip the paper off which required a heat gun and a scraping tool thing and that took weeks upon weeks.

The anxiety I get when I think about this process, and I’m not even the one who made it. Big props to Henry who spent countless hours sitting in the basement hunched over it, listening to hours upon hours of audio books and probably willing himself into a coma.

NOW HE CAN START ON WORKING ON ALL OF MY OTHER IDEAS!!!!

Yesterday started off fine but then around 4, things got stupid at work AND Henry came home with a really shitty story to tell me – these two things coinciding just really pushed me over the edge. I went from being so angry that I was vibrating, to so sad and humiliated that I was sobbing uncontrollably, and then back to wanting to set fire to…a place.

Basically, what I learned yesterday was:

• I probably 100% require therapy for something that happened 20+ years ago;
• I know the truth and that’s all that matters;
• RAGE-WALK IT OUT. Reacting the way I really want to react is probably only going to backfire because that is what always seems to happen when I try to stick up for myself since I have a tendency of going from zero to psychopath in the blink of an eye.

But wow, I am always caught off guard by how much certain events and actions still hurt me to this day.

Anyway, maybe I will talk about this more once I have a chance to sort through my emotions, but it was a really bad time inside my head last night.

Henry and I went for a walk after dinner because I needed to rant and you all know I do my best ranting and raving while in motion. I had a library book to return so I suggested we walk to the Dormont library and then we could get some drinks at Dunkin’ across the street because that is JUST what this bitch needed, more caffeine. However, when we were walking to the library, we saw that the Boonseeker foodtruck was at a brewery across the street! What serendipity too, because I had completely forgotten that they were going to be there.

So we walked over, placed an order, and then stood as far away from the crowd as possible because I looked ROUGH from all the crying I had been doing. No makeup, unwashed hair, leggings and hoodie: I was a walking billboard for the kind of day I was having. Of course, our order got screwed up  (they gave it to someone else!!) so we had to wait even longer after already waiting a long time. Glad to have a Korean foodtruck in this city but it is a shining example of why America can’t have nice things. If we had been in Korea, the food would have been in our hands before we even had a chance to pay. America just doesn’t do “Efficiency” like Korea!

Some baby sat in a stroller and glared at me nearly the whole time. Join the club, baby. Sometimes it feels like people are lining up to make me feel like trash lol.

Here’s me looking 100% REAL in my BE REAL after we came home from nabbing Korean street food. But, the cheese stick cheered me up a bit, even though I *did* share it with Henry. Sigh. Made me really miss Korea, though. :( One day, I will return!

Another thing that made me smile was finding these pictures of Henry posing in my tutu from 2007! I thought they were lost forever because I couldn’t find them on Flickr and any photo I ever used on LiveJournal is gone because the site that hosted my photos back then was COMCAST which we no longer have.  Anyway, I actually asked Henry for his consent to post these on Instagram  (LOL who even am I lately) and he mumbled, “Whatever.”

People over there loved to see it, though!

Sadly, because of course let’s end this on a sad note, why wouldn’t I, I found out last year that the old friend of mine who made this tutu for me died from Covid. I hadn’t had contact with her in YEARS but it still felt like a kick to the heart to find that out.

Life is so fucking sad and weird, but also it can be OK so that’s what I’m holding out for: more “OK” days. Bring ’em to me. (Quickly.)

P.S. I have always been jealous of Henry’s shapely legs. Mine are like thicc tree trucks. Sigh.