We did our obligatory Easter bunny photo shoot over the weekend. The “DIY”approach started when Chooch was four and my mom made me feel like a shitty parent because we hadn’t taken him to see the Easter Bunny at the mall. LUCKILY I always keep animal masks in the trunk, so we dragged my mom’s rocking chair outside and made Henry put a rabbit mask on.

It’s been variations of that ever since.

And since today is the start of the Law Firm Walking Challenge, I will leave you to a bunch of pictures and no more words. What a nice change, right?!

His one vest button came unpopped and I didn’t notice until we got home. I was going to Photoshop it, but it’s way more “Chooch-esque” this way, I think. There’s always something slightly off with him.

Everyone was happy because these were taken literally a three minute drive down the street at some abandoned school for blind kids. Usually I pick a location way off the beaten path with no cell service so Henry can’t call the police on me, ever.

It was exhausting.

P.S. Chooch’s rate these days is $10 + ice cream.

Henry’s sister Kelly posted this on Facebook for sibling day or whatever and I couldn’t stop laughing because the idea of Henry ever being a child (or someone who smiled, for that matter) is endlessly hilarious and intriguing to me. And then!! Then there’s the cone-headed Easter bunny with alien eyes.

That’s apparently some weird Easter egg Henry is holding. I thought it was a bike helmet.

Thank you for this gem, Kelly! It’s nice to see that while Henry may have outgrown that whole “smiling” scene, he’s still way into striped shirts.

Well, that mushy Hallmark holiday is done-zo and I hope everyone survived being sufficiently glutted on chocolate hearts strewn about the workplace. Henry and I aren’t exactly a walking example of a Nicholas Sparks “novel,” so it’s kind of nice to have an option to celebrate Valentine’s Day without needing to make reservations at a crowded restaurant or relying on Henry to suddenly sprout a romantic notion and surprise with some glittery romantic bullshit.  So for the second year in a row, we pretended to somewhat like each other at Castle Blood’s special VD event.

I know I have virtually clung to Castle Blood’s jock numerous times over the years, but it’s because it is a fantastically imaginative haunt produced by talented people who pour their blood, sweat and costume makeup-stained tears into it, their Gothic lilts never wavering; the whole experience has given me so many beautiful Halloween memories since I was 16.

And now that they’ve officially nested in their Monessen location, Castle Blood is not just your standard October pop-up haunt anymore. With a set-up way too creepy to waste, Castle Blood is the only Pittsburgh-area haunt that reworks their story for Christmas, Valentine’s Day and even a special Midsummer’s Nightmare, which is just enough to keep us horror hounds pacified until the official Halloween season without completely stripping itself of that original autumn novel.

Of course we brought our spare limb Chooch with us, just in case the urge to openly love each other conquered our carefully-built cinder block wall of mutual disdain. (Not likely, but you never know. You’re welcome, people of Monessen.)

This year’s theme was “Love & Death,” and it revolved around one of the Castle denizens, Vapor, and her bloody trail of dead husbands. She greeted us in the first room of the Castle, which was full of placards featuring the names of all of her dead husbands. She told us to pick three and Chooch was absolutely beside himself, raising his hand and “Ooh ooh”ing like a rabid teacher’s pet because one of the cards said “Henry.” I mean, this kid was in anguish, hopping from foot to foot, squealing through clenched teeth, ready to projectile vomit the word “Henry” all over Vapor’s bloody face. I wonder if he’s like this in school, too…

However, there was a young couple in our group, probably high school-aged and totally adorable; Vapor chose one of them to answer before Chooch and he acted like his head was going to explode, like some punishable crime had just been committed before his eyes.

(I’m sorry that my son tried to disembowel you with his mind, Vapor.)

Finally, Chooch got his turn and instead of just telling her which name he wanted, he practically choked on his tongue while shouting “Henry!” and then walked over and grabbed the card, too, completely ignoring Vapor’s insistence that being handed the card wasn’t necessary. He just REALLY wanted to make sure she knew he chose “Henry” and not “Ivan,” I guess.

Now I can’t even remember the story of Husband Henry’s demise because I was too busy trying to keep Chooch from having a seizure. He gets so excited to participate, but sometimes he forgets that there are other people with us and they too would like to play along. So then I have to hiss, “LET OTHER PEOPLE HAVE A CHANCE” because I may or may not have approximately 7 entries in my Haunted House journal where I’m whining about getting stuck in a group with attention hogs.

After Vapor told us the story of three of her husbands’ untimely deaths, we were set off into the Castle with an order to find a fractured heart, a fluffy, and a flame, which Chooch happily screamed when we were acquainted with our guide for the evening. She asked if Henry and I were married, which delighted me greatly because it gave me a chance to emit my patented Harumph of Disgust. I guess she liked my response, because I was rewarded with a plastic ball and chain to carry around through the castle. Chooch kept trying to pry it from me; Christ, kid, let me have a thing or two every now and again!

We paused in a small room outside of the library, where our guide encouraged us to check out the art work on the walls.

“I think you’ll like the one behind you,” she said to me. It was a painting of a lady being attacked by an angry mob. She explained that it was Lady Bordella, and apparently she did some things that some people did not appreciate, which automatically made me think of myself and the Catholic School Incident and I was like, “OMG DOES THE GUIDE KNOW ABOUT THAT!?” So then I was paranoid and looked over my shoulder only to find myself face to face with a werewolf, which made me scream and then Chooch did the “Parents are so lame” eye roll. I get no love from him in haunted houses.

In the gypsy room, I got another chance to verbally articulate my disdain for Henry by answering “pffft” when asked if anyone in our group was in love. The cute little high school couple were the polar opposite of Henry and me and they tended to cuddle up on each other in response to these types of relationship status inquiries. It was adorable and sickening all at once, but they seemed like some kind of scene kid offshoot, so I decided to go with the “adorable” judgment. Anyway, we scored the fractured heart in this room, which was given to the scene kid for safe-keeping.

Next up was the lab, which was lacking a considerable amount of dorkiness and at first I just couldn’t…put…my…finger on it. But then I realized it was because Professor Scrye wasn’t there for the first time since, I don’t know, practically the beginning of the Castle. But his new assistant Zap was there and immediately made Chooch blush.

“Shut up,” he whispered, ramming his elbow into my ribs when I tauntingly fluffed his hair.

Professor Scrye’s fill-in tried to put the fractured heart back together for us, but failed. As he handed it back to the scene kid, Chooch made a swipe for it because god forbid if he doesn’t get to touch every single talisman. Scene kid let Chooch keep the heart and you would have thought it was cold hard cash (or…a stuffed cat) what with the way Chooch rejoiced and hugged it to his chest.

Before our guide took us through the mausoleum, she turned to Chooch and asked, “Do you even know what a mausoleum is?”

“Yeah,” he scoffed. “It’s like a building in a graveyard where they keep dead bodies.” Like, duh.

“Hmm, this is surprising,” she said, her mortal-hating tone softening a bit. “How do you know this? Does your mommy let you play in graveyards?”

“Yeah,” Chooch answered with a shrug, because this is Normalcy in our household.

One of my favorite parts of the tour was when the creepiest, most Peter Steeliest-looking vampire emerged from a corner and demanded that the scene kid in our group sing him a love song.

“What genre?” the boy asked, and I so badly wanted to scream, “POST HARDCORE!” because you know me, stereotyping people everywhere I go. (But seriously, I want to believe that on their way home later, that cute couple put on some Emarosa.) Anyway, the kid tried to pass the buck, so Vampire Peter Steele went down the line, asking each one of us to sing him a love song, and let me just tell you that Henry is lucky I suck at coming up with a medley on the spot because mine would have been a fucking 87-verse funeral dirge about how I wasted 13 years on a blue-collar d-bag who won’t marry me so I stabbed him in the eye socket with an icicle, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, love is an enema for the heart, tra la la.

So then it was back to scene kid, who blurted out Itsy Bitsy Spider and was awarded a small fluffy pillow for his effort. Chooch was like, “OMG FLUFFY WE GOT FLUFFY!” (I’m telling you, there’s nothing like an interactive haunted house to make a seven-year-old feel important.)

In the end, we wound up with all of our talismans (talismen?) and walked away with honorary vampire fangs, a Hershey Kiss, and a satisfyingly non-mushy Valentine memory. I deemed this trip to Castle Blood as one of my favorites yet; the whole “going to a haunted house in February” brings back some of the novelty and I even found that I was more jumpy than usual. Castle Blood doesn’t focus on scares, but they do have an occasional “boo!” moment, and every last goddamn one of those made me jolt. I guess I’m just much more stoic in October.

Chooch and I spent the rest of the night making fun of Henry for being one of Vapor’s murdered husbands. Obviously.

———————

I started writing this a few days ago, before the news of Castle Blood’s eviction was announced. For the second time in as many years, they will be looking for a new home and I can’t tell you how much this breaks my heart, knowing how much work goes into this (OK, Henry knows more about that part that I do, since my definition of “work” is “standing around in everyone’s way”). This is so much more than “just a haunted house.” For a lot of us, this is a standing Halloween tradition. I’ve been going to Castle Blood since I was 16, and we started taking Chooch when he was two. Some of the people involved in bringing this place to life every year have become my friends, and I know that they won’t let this ruin them.

So, here’s hoping that Castle Blood v.4 will be the best one of them all.

(Seriously. They have to come back because I WANT TO HAVE MY BIRTHDAY PARTY THERE.)

I don’t necessarily hate this day, but I don’t really care much for it either. (Although I really am a sucker for glittery pink and red heart accessories.) I think it all stems back to the time in high school when I spent $toomuch on a coffin-shaped Misfits boxed set for Psycho Mike and even did the whole pathetic rose petal thing, only to get taken to Donut Connection where he bought himself a donut and coffee with a coupon, but I had to pay for myself because he only had the one coupon.

However, it’s better now that I have a kid, because I get to give him all kinds of cheesy heart-boxed chocolates and novelty Peeps and make him inside joke-laden cards. This morning, he was all excited to give me Godiva chocolates and a Valentine card with, of course, a kitten on the front. If HENRY has chosen to participate in this day, he has not shown any signs yet.

(Although, he’s paying for the tattoo I’m getting tomorrow, so I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on him.

)

Tomorrow night, the three of us will be reveling in the anti-Valentine spirit by attending the second annual Castle Blood Valentine’s show, so if you live anywhere near Pittsburgh/Monessen, you should go too. Because Castle Blood is awesome.

And, I will end this with a vintage Valentine’s Day photo of Chooch.

Go eat lots of chocolate hearts (and real hearts, if that’s your thing) today.

My New Year’s Eve might have been mellow, but it was still pretty fun. I was off work that day, so Chooch and I walked to Tom’s Diner where I substituted tomatoes for potatoes as my omelet side. It pained me, you guys. It pained me. But it was OK, because I like it when Chooch and I get to venture out on our own and I can prove that I’m capable of getting us somewhere in one piece without the aid of a police escort or bread crumbs. We do turn a lot of heads, though, when we’re on foot.

Back home, I made Chooch do some book reports. He has to have 25 of them done by the end of the year and his teacher didn’t tell us this until the middle of October at the parent teacher conference. Apparently, he was supposed to be doing them during free time at school, but hadn’t been, even though he reads books all the time.

So, that was a nice communication breakdown.

Anyway, after he did a report on one of his chapter books, I cut him a break and let him do the next one on a smaller book: Neil Gaiman’s “The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish.” I was telling him that Neil Gaiman also writes books for adults.

“OMG did he write Fifty Shades of Grey?!” Chooch cried in earnest. He is fucking obsessed with these books and I have no idea how he knows about them! (Unless Henry really does have a secret library of mom porn…)

****

Later on, when most normal people were probably just starting their night of wild debauchery at the corner bar, I discovered that a workout video from one my favorite aerobics instructors, Jacki Sorensen, is on YouTube! Thank god we can watch YouTube on our TV, so I quickly changed into my workout clothes (unfortunately, this ensemble does not include belted pastel leotard) and made Chooch and Henry watch me essentially dance like Pee Wee Herman. Because what else could I possibly do on NYE that would be more fun?!

(Fun fact: Frankie Avalon sings this in one of my favorite movies, Back to the Beach, in which Pee Wee has a cameo!)

Chooch and Henry sat on the couch looking positively miserable, eyes glazed over, wishing for a shotgun.

“Why are they all smiling?” Chooch asked in disgust. “Why aren’t they laughing at her?” And then he pointed out every thirty seconds that I was “doing it wrong.”

The worst part for Henry was that the workout video was split into 14 parts, so when one would end abruptly, he would sigh heavily and search for the next one on my phone while I stood there, sweating and screaming at him to hurry up.

Then Henry and I had a mild argument over whether or not one of the exercisers was Morgan Fairchild.

“THAT’S NOT MORGAN FAIRCHILD,” Henry shouted and then laughed without mirth, which is what he does when he finds something incredibly appalling. SORRY if my only brush with Morgan Fairchild was some shitty 1980s Lifetime movie (oh, redundancy!) and “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.”

….I’m sensing a theme here.

I am now wildly obsessed with that man in pink shorts, by the way. Making fun of him (and me) was the only enjoyable part for Chooch.

Then we played this shitty Scooby Doo game that made no sense and I lost, which makes me think it was defective because I never lose.

And then Chooch twerked to D.R.U.G.S. and made up scarily good stories on the spot with these Story Cubes he got for Christmas while we tried to avoid Miley Cyrus on all of the NYE Countdown shows. (We settled for the Carson Daly one—where was MTV’s?!?!)

And as far as resolutions go, I don’t normally get into that, but this year I decided that:

• I want to learn more life skills
  • things like “learning how to cook rice”
  • and “making paper cranes”
• I will put forth the effort to avoid any predicaments which could:
  • find me falling into a hole
  • and/or hearing Mackelmore’s “Thrift Shop.” Other Mackelmore tracks are OK, but that one in particular makes me want to put on ear muffs made of working power drills
• I will finally get Henry to:
  • wear something from Drop Dead Clothing
  • and/or get a throat tattoo

So, that was our banging New Year’s Eve, you guys! Hope yours was just as full of sensational 1980s leotard!Merry 2014 my friends!

Alternately titled: Where We Torture Our Kid Under the Guide of “Art.”

I’ll tell ya, we’re met with more and more resistance every year when it comes to picture-taking. I got all exasperated, which is my usual go-to response to adversity, followed quickly by the ever-popular solution of “I QUIT.

” But then right as I was about to pack it up, Chooch started to use an old guard rail as a balance beam, so Henry fulfilled his quota of “one bright idea every five years” by tricking Chooch into having his photo taken while “doing things.

”

Then we dared him to run as fast as he could to another spot and then suggested he sit down amidst the leaves after he hurt his ankle.

Henry encouraged him to hurdle over headstones, which of course resulted in Chooch eventually catching his foot on one and falling, leaving him with a handsome bruise on his leg.

BLAME HENRY.

Then we paid him all the money in our pockets* to take his coat off for approximately 3 minutes so we could get some shots of his sweater, since that day’s outfit was a happy accident. (All three of us blindly picked out one component of the outfit, and somehow it worked.)

*(This amounted to $7. I actually had $4 in my pocket only because it was change from when we went to see Gremlins last week. I usually never have cash. Seriously, don’t ever bother mugging us.)

He looks thrilled, right?

It gets easier every year, this “dealing with Christmas” thing. Not celebrating with my mom has become the new norm instead of a shock to the “holiday tradition” system. And then a funny thing happened: I realized that I was starting to look forward to it instead of feeling like my soul was being devoured by a flesh-eating bacteria otherwise known as the deadly and highly contagious Grinch virus.

Honestly, the only downside to the whole day was that I was hahahahungover. Dear god. I even took a NAP, and I never take naps!

Chooch seemed pretty content with everything he got and didn’t spend the next three days fixating on what he “didn’t” get, which is what he’s done in his spoiled past. Kids, am I right? In addition to an ass-load of Simpsons bullshit, we got him a Casio keyboard, a ukulele and a harmonica, so that’s going to be one hell of a one-Chooch band.

“And you said there wasn’t going to be anything good in my stocking!”

Chooch was really pleasant to be around all day, and that’s all I really want on Christmas if we’re real-talking, here. Just give me some fucking peace, kid, you know?

Marcy had fun eating Christmas Eve leftovers. Hey, the vet told us to give her what she wants and keep her happy. So, Merry Fucking Christmas, Marcy. Have some potato chip crumbs.

Lurking.

Later in the afternoon, Henry prepared some sandwiches and I dragged my post-drunk ass to the cemetery for our traditional Christmas picnic, which gets less picnic-y every year because hello, it’s DECEMBER and cold as fuccccck. I ate my sandwich with gloves on and enjoyed approximately none of it. I don’t even know what I was eating, to tell the truth. Which is what I do 100% of the time: TELL THE TRUTH.

Henry was particularly Christmassy. Jolly Old Saint Nick must have literally given Henry jollies in his stocking. Do I look tired? I was tired.

Later that evening, we stopped by my dad’s house so I could give him the snack bowl I made him.

Snack bowl. A bowl for snacks.

My dad’s house is like one giant snack pantry. I don’t understand how he’s not 800 pounds. Every time we go over, he’s all, “DO YOU WANT A SUGARY SODA FROM THE VINTAGE PEPSI MACHINE? DO YOU WANT SOME COW TAILS? HOW ABOUT SWEDISH FISH? NO?! SURELY YOU’LL WANT SOME PEANUT BUTTER-FILLED PRETZELS!” So it made sense to me to make him a snack bowl (dude, get an old glass bowl, spray paint and adhesive foam sheets and you’re done).

I filled it with all kinds of crap that he used to make me hide in my coat pockets and smuggle into the movie theater when I was a kid so that he wouldn’t have to pay the inflated prices at the concession stand, things like Mike and Ikes and Good and Plenty. He loves that bullshit. (But not Junior Mints, however; he gave those to Chooch.) We also stopped at the Mexican market down the street and I grabbed some weird ethnic snacks from there. He was super stoked about that. “DID YOU GET THIS AT THE PLACE IN BROOKLINE THAT HAS THE TACO STAND OUT FRONT?!” he exclaimed. Yes, yes we did.

Then I noticed that Duck Dynasty was on and he tried super hard to extol the merits of that piece of garbage “TV show” and I sat there and said things like, “Oh.” Because I wasn’t trying to start a fight on Christmas Day about radical homophobes and the people who make them “famous.”

I was sad that we missed my brothers. I think they would have enjoyed the inside scoop our dad regaled us with regarding the time he was in a Columbia Gas commercial back in 1984, and how it never aired because the Steelworkers accused Columbia Gas of making them lose their jobs because they switched to PLASTIC PIPES, whaaaaat. Drama drama.

After my dad’s, we stopped over Henry’s sister Kelly’s house and hung out with his side of the family, which is always nice, especially when a plate of artichoke dip is placed right in front of me. Then Henry’s niece Stephanie’s cat James bit Henry’s hand and scratched his back as Henry leapt up from his seat. IT WAS MY FAVORITE CHRISTMAS MOMENT!!

Chooch made a vase for Judy, and was going to write “To Judy” on the gift tag but I was like, “OMG, your grandma will go through the roof!” She overheard him call Henry by his name once and I thought she was going to have a stroke.

Henry was originally helping him with this and thank god I walked by and noticed that it said “Your” before anything was permanently glued into place.

I also made this vase for Janna. She didn’t cry when I gave it to her though, like Judy did when she got hers, haha. It was a Very Merry DIY Xmas I guess, which is what happens when you totally run out of time and money, which we do EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

But it’s the thought that counts, right? Hope you all had a Wonderful Whatever Holiday You Celebrate!

Lately I’ve been feeling OK about our current living situation. I think all the furniture repurposing and purging of “stuff” has really rejuvenated the living room enough for me to feel comfortable about having people over again. Hosting parties was my thang, you guys. And then I just stopped because time (and lack of money) has really worn down my house, and we only rent so there is only so much we can do as far as sprucing goes. Thank god spray paint is so economical.

Anyway, all of this is to say that I wanted to have a small, casual Christmas Eve get-together. I know most people celebrate with family, but I figured maybe there might be some friends looking for something to do. There were a ton of Christmas Eves where I was alone with a cup of Manischevitz and tears. I don’t want anyone to have to be alone!

And I also just wanted an excuse to bring back the Beverage Buffet again because you know how I get obsessed.

We went with a Christmas Sangria and classic spiked egg nog. Turns out, Henry makes some fucking bomb egg nog.

Chooch was pacing all day. “When are people coming over? What time is it now? How much longer?” He’s definitely my kid.

Christmas Crack. I forget what it is, but it was really good.

Corey is probably the only other person as obsessed with the Beverage Buffet as me.

My friend Sean (ex-Law Firm) stopped by with some wheat beer for me, because so far that is the only kind of beer I am sort of able to kind of swallow. This particular kind tasted like an unknown vegetable, but I was able to drink TWO OF THEM back to back, which is how I know I was already drunk. Sangria/egg nog/beer/wine: GREAT FUCKING COMBO, DUMBASS.

Sean brought his friend Lee with him. I thought he looked familiar when he walked into my house, and then he was like, “I met you a few years ago at your roller skating party.

I’m the one—”

“WHOSE SKATE BROKE!” I cried, and then laughed because I’m super polite and socially on point. So then that’s how I introduced him to everyone, as the Guy Whose Skate Broke at my birthday party, and he was just like, “This is fucking awesome.”

Lee Whose Skate Broke and Sean.

Sean and Wendy.

Henry’s oldest son Robbie and his girlfriend Stephanie.

Shannon and Blake, who I don’t believe purposely coordinated wardrobes with his brother Robbie.

Evidence that Henry socializes with people!

The Handa’s! I was happy that they were able to stop by because usually our hangouts consist of us covertly waving to them as we pass through their rooms in Castle Blood.

Best Frenemies.

Janna stayed late and we watched Henry wrap presents while I commented every 15 seconds on how drunk I was. It was a really great evening, even though Henry’s weird pumpkin seed dip was a colossal fail. Good job, Henry.

I think it’s time to start having Game Nights again. RIGHT, KARA?

Before I get all up to my elbows in jolly holiday blog posts, I want to give a quick shout out to my California bestie Andrea who once again hooked us the fuck up. She makes me feel like a kid again on Christmas!

We don’t usually put any presents under the tree until late on Christmas Eve after Chooch is in bed, so he noticed immediately the other day when there was a mound of wrapped wonderment sitting idly beneath the boughs. “WHO ARE THESE FROM!?” he screamed while prodding and shaking each one.

“Aunt Andrea,” I said. “And stop fucking with them!”

“ANDREA’S MY AUNT!? AND YOU NEVER TOLD ME!?”

Ugh, kids are so literal. Later on, we were walking to CVS and he was STILL talking about the presents.

“I know that one of the ones for Daddy is Fifty Shades of Gray,” he said seriously. Because Andrea knows that Henry loves mom porn? DOES Henry love mom porn? Wait, does Henry actually like to READ porn?

Who cares, because I got NAIL SWAG! These decals come complete with a SQUIRTING WEENER!

Matryoshka doll decals!

A bag of fucking whistles, really? Well played, Andrea. She also got him the first two seasons of the Simpsons since he is apeshit obsessed with it thanks to Simpsons Tapped Out.

“Everything I got is basically stuff to make you,” Henry said as he unwrapped a book of vegetarian slow cooker recipes, and I cheered. Andrea, you’re the best!

Just some pre-Christmas thoughts, HOPE THAT’S OK.

• I’m currently wrapped in a Domo blanket and listening to some sultry club remix of The Last Unicorn theme song. Just in case you wanted to mimic me.
• It was really nice being home from work last night and having the ability to watch a Penguins game in its entirety, except that Henry was sitting next to me, gossiping about his work people and I was just like, “Bitch, don’t you have some cookies to bake?” Not like I was missing much—we lost 0-5!!
• I hate that I think about work even when I’m not there. Like this morning, I was washing the dishes and found myself wondering if there is any disgusting pee-splash on any of the toilet seats there right now. My work friend Lauren started this thing called Project P (get it? It took me awhile, too) where we try to use process of elimination to peg the culprit. But one night last week, there was so much of it on one of the seats (always on the back part!! How is this happening?!), that I was just like, “No. This is not from a woman. There is clearly a tranny amongst us.” And you know, that’s fine, but be a sweetie…

Obligatory Almost Christmas Selfie

• Janna and I took Chooch to see Gremlins at the Hollywood Theater on Sunday. (Have you seen “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”? It’s the theater the Rocky Horror Picture Show scenes were filmed in and it’s right down the street from me because I live in Awesometown.) There was this one older lady sitting near us in the balcony and she was cracking the fuck up at parts that I never really found funny (like the whole “I hate Christmas because my dad snapped his neck in a chimney while impersonating Santa” monologue that always made me horrified and sad as a kid!) and I was just sitting there thinking, “Wow, this broad REALLY likes this movie.” Anyway, one of the puppeteers was there doing a Q&A session afterward, because she’s apparently from Pittsburgh and lives one town over from me. Janna and I were stoked to stick around and hear what she had to say (she designed Gizmo, for fuck’s sake!) but Chooch was like, “Let’s go let’s go let’s go I’m bored this sucks I hate you for doing this to me you ruined my life.” Eventually, he went and laid down on a couch in the back of the balcony because this bitch ain’t gon’ be controlled by no 7-year-old. Learn ye some patience, bitch-child. And of course the puppeteer was the laughing lady, so then it made a lot more sense. After she was done talking, we went to the lobby to see the pictures she brought with her, but I got all weird and awkward like I do because I didn’t have anything to say to her and I was afraid that if I got too close to where she was standing with the photos that I would be required to say something profound. I was whispering all of my fears to Janna right when the puppeteer (her name is Valerie, I guess I could have mentioned that) interrupted someone to say to me, “I really love your purse!” So then we talked about my purse while Chooch’s head was practically spewing brain matter. Oh, how he hates when people like my purse.
  • The first time I saw “Gremlins,” I was 4 or 5 and my Aunt Sharon took me to the theater to see it. I got scared when the gremlins hatched out of those gross cocoons and started to cry so Sharon had to take me out of the theater. A few days later, I decided I wanted to go back and try again and it quickly became one of my favorite childhood movies. That summer, I was going to Wildwood, NJ with my family and Sharon had left me a present in the backseat. It said not to open until we got to Wildwood, and every time we hit a bump in the road, the box would jostle and I would hear a tiny squeak from inside. I KNEW she had bought me a mogwai. I JUST KNEW IT! I was so fucking excited to get there and open it, but it was just a Gizmo stuffed animal that made noise when it was squeezed. :(
  • I still want a fucking mogwai. The closest I’ve come was our cat Speck/Nicotina. (RIP, babe.) And Marcy will forever remind me of Stripe.
  • Chooch obviously was not scared of Gremlins at all. We have the DVD and he was probably 3 or 4 when he first saw it, and he wasn’t scared then either. Valerie was asking everyone in the audience if they thought it was too scary for kids, but I just sat there like a deaf mute because god forbid I should ever speak up and contribute to conversations.
• We finally got a Christmas tree last Friday and decorated it when I came home from work, which of course led to arguments and tears because can’t we all just get along? Apparently, no. No, we cannot. Anyway, there is nothing notable about this year’s Christmas tree, but in keeping with tradition (The Liberatree, the Obestitree, the Mediocretree, the Obscenitree), it needed a name, so behold the Last Minutetree:

Marcy hates it all.

• We’re having a small Christmas Eve soiree here tonight so Henry is elbow-deep in party food preparations right now while I lounge around blowing on my nails. What? I did my part already: I got the Beverage Buffet all set up and decorated!
• Chooch and I were talking about what we’re going to eat at our annual Christmas Picnic in the cemetery tomorrow and we were trying to remember what we ate last year. “Well, I know what I had,” Chooch said. “Tantrum-on-a-stick.” AND IT’S TRUE, TOO. He was such a little jerk-off last year during our picnic, at least he’s now acknowledging it. Hope we get Peaceful Chooch tomorrow, and not Mr. Miserable:

After people started to receive our Christmas cards, I was asked several times if I put those heads on us using Photoshop. I promise you, these were real piñata-versions of us that fit over our big dumb heads:

So I figured I would post real quick about how obnoxiously frustrating this stupid “family portrait project” really was.

Over the summer, I was spending another mind-numbing evening at work when my eyes rested upon the paper mache clown head I made for my Halloween desk last year. I started thinking about how much fun it would be to make paper mache versions of Henry, Chooch and myself and then do a family portrait, since it’s occasionally pointed out to me that I have little to no family portraits of us guys. It wasn’t my intent to use the result as a Christmas card, but considering how many times this project kept getting pushed back, it kind of made sense after a point. I think Henry and I started working on these in November, sometimes with entire weeks of neglect in between because I kept stupidly filling up our weekends with all those extraneous outings that Henry loves so much.

I was trying to be quiet about it because if there’s one thing I hate, it’s saying that I’m doing something and then not being able to finish. And I’ll be honest, there were a ton of times when I thought for sure this project was going to fail, and even more times than that where I would scream, “JUST FORGET IT I QUIT!!” because paper mache is annoying. And messy. I’ll be honest and tell you that Henry did more of that part than me. (But he did NOT do all of it, like I caught him telling him our friends Rick and Tammy.)

There were a lot of pictures I couldn’t post before now because the damn heads were in the background, like this one of Marcy chilling out on a Saturday morning with a donut scrap, watching Christmas Cats TV with her Grandma Judy.

Once each head was fully dry, I was able to start decorating them in our likeness. Eventually, it started to come together and I didn’t feel so anxious or hateful about it anymore. Except that we missed out on all of the beautiful November weather by that point and had to settle for doing the photo shoot on a Sunday morning in 10 degree weather at a location that wasn’t where I really wanted it to be, but I guess we can always do another one at some point since we surprisingly haven’t whacked these things to pieces yet like your basic piñatas.

We finagled Janna into taking the pictures for us, and she was all nervous about having to use my camera, but I think she did great! The hardest part was not knowing what the hell Chooch was doing since none of us could see out of those heads. I hate hate hate feeling so vulnerable. And I hate not being behind the camera. But it wasn’t too bad since I knew at least no one could see my ugly mug.

I think next year, we’ll just buy our cards from the store, haha.

Merry Christmas, you guys! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to find some kind of awesome egg nog to make for tomorrow night.

When Debbie S. suggested a few weeks ago that we organize a department Secret Santa, my vote was of the FUCK YES variety. I love surprising people almost as much as I love pranking them! And then I proceeded to do nothing while she did 100% of the planning and organizing. Debbie set a budget of $10 for the gift exchange, plus 5 days of $1 gift-giving during the week leading up to the big reveal/office holiday party. We somehow managed to get a good 15 or so people to sign up and I was excited because some of the people were co-workers that I don’t get to interact with very much, so I would have been happy no matter who I picked because I think it would have been fun to get someone random and then ALWAYS HAVE THAT CREEPY SANTA BOND with them.

Kind of like Stockholm Syndrome?
No?

The day of the name-drawing, I was walking past Sue’s office right after I picked my co-worker Sherry to be the receiver of my Santa-ly sneaking.

“Did you know those two bullied Glenn into signing up at the last minute?” Sue laughed as she gestured toward Debbie and Barb’s desks. “That man deserves combat pay!”

My immediate reaction was, “OMG I hope he didn’t get me!” and Sue started cracking up even harder.

By the time I made it back to my office, I already had an email from one very generous co-worker (OMG it was totally Bridget) which said, “I got your #1 frenemy” and then proposed A TRADE.

So that’s how Glenn wound up with me as his Secret Santa. (And that’s coincidentally also how Sherry wound up getting much better gifts than she would have.) His list of $10 gift options included: a Wines and Spirits gift card, a Starbucks gift card, or “any food item.” OH REALLY GLENN. At first I was like, “Asian Market, holla.” But then I got a better idea. Because this is Christmas after all, and I didn’t want to be a total asshole and waste Henry’s money on a bunch of bullshit that he’ll end up throwing away, because—ew. But, more on that later.

Do you know how hard it was for me to keep my mouth shut and just be cool about this? Really fucking hard. And I think I did OK, but there were a select handful of people here who knew (Barb immediately forgot though, so that’s good), and I quickly learned that if I just avoided eye contact with Glenn at all costs, I wouldn’t start cracking up and totally out myself as his big-bellied present-dropper.

And I was really subtle about it too! The first day I left him a candy bar that had beef jerky in it. The fact that it was being sold at Target and not out of the back of Jim Bob’s John Deere made it seem like this was an OK thing to give someone, and even Henry agreed that it was a manly candy bar and I was like, “How the hell would you know?”

His next gift was a One Direction journal, which I thought was useful because he goes to meetings sometimes and who doesn’t like to write their name 13,987 times on scratch paper, placemats, war monuments and bathroom stalls? That can’t be just me. Then I bought him some stuff from Big Fun when I was in Clevland last week, like a tiny book of office wisdom, a mini Vanilla Ice cassette case full of gum, and an Office Brown Noser that grows in water. All good things, yet no bombs or things with his face on it, so why would he think it was me?

Meanwhile, I was getting candy and nail polish every day, which was AWESOME. (On my list of things I wanted, I put: nail polish, cheap jewelry and exotic fruit.) I was convinced that my Secret Santa was either a boy or me, because I got chocolate-covered pretzel rods wrapped in a CVS bag and everything else was delivered in plain white envelopes. And boys, like me, don’t generally get into the whole “wrapping” thing. Especially the ones here, I wouldn’t imagine.

I don’t know what happened to my Day 4 photo, but Day 5 was a set of cotton candy scented nail polish wrapped with a Little Tykes advertisement, which made me laugh. My Secret Santa made coming to work way more enjoyable!

So for the final gift exchange, I did one better than a Wine and Spirits gift card and instead bought $10 worth of mini liquor bottles.

And then I designed Glenn-centric labels because you know I have to put his face on everything. (When my friend Elizabeth found out I was Glenn’s Secret Santa, she replied to me on Twitter: Did you put his face on all his presents?)

I’m not going to tell you the duress that Processor Punch caused me. Maybe another day, but I promise you I was a fraction of a centimeter away from shattering my phalanges and knuckles on a plaster wall.

And Other Glenny Flavors.

Glenn is a processor here at the Law Firm, which means he does stuff that I don’t care to understand. All I know about processors is that they import batches and sometimes refer to something called a synonym list. I wanted to incorporate those things on the Processor Punch label so that the processors could laugh while no one else would care. LET THEM HAVE THEIR MOMENT, YOU KNOW? Yes, even Mean Amber.

So that’s where “This batch was imported!

” and “On the synonym list for delicious” came from. I was pretty proud of it because it shows that I have learned something in the almost-four years I’ve been here.

40% Orphan Tears, you guys. Because Glenn is a sonofabitch.

But the real present was a box of oversized cupcakes modeled after the infamous Glenn Would Rather Be Riding The Wacky Worm incident of 2011. Glenn actually still has this hanging up on his desk because it was clearly the best thing to ever happen to him. I turned him into a Law Firm celebrity, basically! OK, not really.

Henry made the cupcakes and brought them to me the night before so that I wouldn’t have to carry them on the trolley the next day, because he’s such a fucking peach.

(As it turns out, I didn’t take the trolley that day after all, but that’s another story to tell at the same time I tell the other story I said I was going to tell.)

So I got to work yesterday, with all of my things, totally giddy because I couldn’t wait to give Glenn his stuff, when Mean Amber was actually being Nice Amber long enough to point out that the gift exchange was scheduled for 2:30 that day AND GLENN LEAVES AT 2:30. I had been having A Day so this was enough to put me over the edge and I almost cried real tears when I told Barb, whose best solution was to send an email to the department reminding everyone that Glenn and Sherry both leave at 2:30 (so I would have been screwed either way!) and their Secret Santas should think about giving them their shit sooner rather than later. I didn’t like this solution, because I wanted all of the Secret Santa players to be there when Glenn was being humiliated. :(

My boss Joy saw how upset I was, and agreed that everyone should be there, but instead of just emailing the group doing the Secret Santa thing, she replied to Barb’s departmental email, essentially telling the WHOLE DEPARTMENT to meet her at Glenn’s desk now. God love her. Thankfully, not the entire department showed up (most of them don’t like being told what to do) but a lot of non-Secret Santa people did mosey on over and you could tell they were thoroughly confused as to why they were being commanded to stop doing work and watch Glenn open presents of his face.

Anyway, he was totally thrilled, if not a little stunned as to why a small crowd of oglers had surrounded his desk. He even proudly took down his Wacky Worm picture and held it up next to the cupcakes so everyone could see. And then Nate said I win at Secret Santa, so I wasn’t as stressed out after that. Thank you, Nate, for always saying the right things!

“Where did you get that beef jerky candy bar?” Glenn asked.

“Why, did it make you sick?” I tentatively asked.

“No, it was actually pretty good,” he admitted. Dammit.

You guys, I am just so bored here sometimes (all of the times) that when I get an opportunity to have a little bit of fun, I fucking run with it. I would have still had fun with any other name I could have drawn, but getting to be Glenn’s Secret Santa totally made my holiday season, so thanks for looking out for me, Bridget!

I wanted to also make him a Starbucks-esque mix CD of Lilith Fair Christmas songs, but my fucking CD burner quit working.

(I also got Glenn a rubber band gun, what was I thinking??)

Then at 2:30, everyone’s Secret Santas were finally revealed! Only one person guessed correctly. And mine wasn’t a boy after all! It was Rachel, which explains why all of her tags were printed out because I used to work on this monster of a spreadsheet for her so I’d recognize her handwriting in a heartbeat. Especially if it was written in red ink. Anyway, my final gift was a bunch of bracelets that I love and I’m wearing three of them right now as I type this.

Me, Cheryl and Rachel.

But the moral of the story is that for a week, everyone got to be excited about something and it was so awesome seeing people giddily sneak around, trying to put stuff on their person’s desk while they were away. I suggested that we do this as often as we can, like have Clandestine Cupids, Lurking Leprechauns, Mystery Martin Luther Kings Jrs….? Yay? Nay?

I’ve been getting all nostalgic over past Christmases (in a good way, though) and tonight I found this picture of that time I ruined Chooch’s first Christmas by making him chill on a couch with clown dolls. (Merry Christmas, Chooch, have a hearty dose of coulrophobia!) So I decided to post it as a wordless Wednesday-type thing because I’ve had A Day and can’t really contribute much else to the Internet right now. Plus, hockey is on.

Two more days of work and then I’m off until the day after Christmas, wooooo.

Chooch and I were DELIRIOUS by the time dinner was over. What else is new? It’s not like we’re going to keep it classy just because it’s a holiday.

Chooch suckered Corey into playing Mousetrap and Corey was thrilled that “Stacy’s Mom” came on Pandora literally minutes after he wrongly accused another song of being “Stacy’s Mom.”

(That song and all songs that sound like it suck, btw. If I was a writer for a music magazine when that song came out, that would be the extent of my review. What else can you really say about it? “Fuck that song with a flaming pine cone” is using more words than that song deserves.)

Chooch decided to start Googling pictures of Ted Nugent, since we love talking about the time Henry went to see the Nuge in the 1980s, you know—the time he pushed over some broad in a wheelchair! Earlier that day, while Henry was still cooking, Chooch put Ted Nugent on Spotify and was cracking up really bad. He decided that he loves the song “My Bow and Arrow” (WTF? I know nothing about Ted Nugent). But then some spoken word-ish song about HUNTING came on and I almost broke my neck in an effort to turn it the fuck off. I don’t want to hear things about hunting, you guys. It was so graphic!!! Now every time my friend Alyson talks about Ted Nugent’s Meat Emporium (Palace of Flesh? What do you call it, Alyson!?), it will make much more sense to me.

Anyway, having his fill of Ted Nugent, Chooch decided to take requests. Corey immediately shouted, “LILLIE MCCLOUD!” because that was his favorite contestant on X Factor. My request was for “butt unicorns” which made me start laughing so hard I almost peed all over my wheelchair. I didn’t even look to see what came up other than a picture of a butt with a unicorn tattoo.

And then there was a point where everyone except for Mike pulled out their phones so we could discuss the merits and frustrations of Simpsons Tapped Out.

It was literally the most serious time of the night. Look at Chooch’s consternation!!

Fuck you and your lame Springfield, Henry.

So, this was moments before Chooch took an extreme close-up of Janna and then started laughing so hysterically that he barfed all over the floor. This happens often. God only knows what he puked up since he literally ate zero things for dinner.

While Henry mopped up the puke, Chooch posted the puking catalyst on Instagram. It was a good night.

Let’s pretend for a moment that Henry goes by “Hank” so that I can call this year’s autumnal feast “Hanksgiving” without anyone asking me why.

There was only one reason I wanted to host Hanksgiving this year, and no, it wasn’t because I wanted to drive Henry to a stress-induced heart attack. I just wanted to put together a nice, memorable evening for Chooch, Corey, Janna, Laura and Mike because let’s face it: holidays just aren’t what they used to be. Especially if you don’t have any or much family in town. But that’s no reason to surrender to seasonal misery!

I have such a love/hate relationship with Thanksgiving. I loved it as a kid because hello: time off from school! Food! Parades! But what I didn’t like was suffering through whatever family feud was playing out at the moment, someone was always giving someone the silent treatment, my grandma was always taking passive aggressive jabs at me. And then some years we would go to my dad’s parents’ house and that was always uncomfortable. I wasn’t really close with any of them, and my dad was always losing his patience with his mom. It was just awkward.

But they did have that electric organ I loved to play…and Grandma Kelly’s homemade buckeyes….OK, maybe those Thanksgivings weren’t too bad.

And then as an adult, after my parents divorced, my mom would kind of try to put together nice Thanksgivings for us, but there was always that underlying bitterness and creepy facade of normalcy. Like you just expected the walls to crumble in. I would typically end up leaving in tears and then going home to drink Maniscevitz “wine” alone. That’s not what I want for Chooch! I want him to grow up with good feelings associated with holidays.

And even though I told everyone it would be a casual affair, I still wanted to make it pretty. We even used real plates as opposed to the paper fare we slopped food upon the last time we hosted Hanksgiving (back when we were still calling it THANKSgiving like the rest of you weirdos).

Corey was even surprised when he found out I used real flowers on the table, and not fake ones, haha.

REAL.

Chooch was clearly stoked! He gets really hyper and excited when he knows people are coming over, and he unfortunately got too crazy and ended up pissing off Laura immediately after she arrived. I’m still not sure what happened, but hey, what’s a holiday without tears? Made it seem that much more “down home.”

He just wants to entertain, you guys. That’s all.

We ran out of chairs so I conveniently used my wheelchair to sit at the head of the table. “Are you sitting in a wheelchair?!” Corey asked in disgust as he sat down to eat. “I hate you. In the best possible way.” My dream, in case you’re new here, is to buy a house and then have Henry build a dining room table out of pallets or old disgusting doors and then have all old wheelchairs as the seats.

REAL FLOWERS, OMG. This is what I did while Henry slaved away over various food-things in the kitchen: made things look nice to distract from the rest of our shitty shanty. Although, to be honest, we’ve been slowly sprucing things up as best as we can muster in a place we don’t own. And it’s been nearly a week and the house is still clean! At least the rooms that we can’t hide behind closed doors, anyway. My bedroom still looks like a dorm room.

I sliced that cheese!! And placed the deviled eggs accordingly! I was really excited for Hanksgiving, obviously. I used to love hosting parties when I was younger and the house was nicer and I WAS SINGLE. But you know, things change.

Henry made this cheese! I bought him a DIY cheese kit because I buy him things that I will benefit from. That cheese was some good shit, too. Even though Laura looked horrified when I told her it was homemade. :( Whatever, it made me feel like a legit hostess.

Speaking of Laura and homemade and cheese, Mike brought some sort of amazing creamed corn side dish that was loaded, and I mean LOADED, with cheese. I wanted to swim in it while “accidentally” forgetting to close my mouth.

 This is normal at our house.

Here is Janna, probably scolding me for something. Speaking of Janna, she brought these sweet potatoes that were absolutely drunk off bourbon. Holy shit, were they good.

I wish I had some right now.

Mike’s first tofurky! He was already sliding some onto his plate before he found out what it was. You can see how excited he was! EAT IT! EAT IT!

Corey gives hanks for tofurky. Can I also just say that this is only the third time in my life I have been BLESSED enough to have tofurky on (T)hanksgiving?? Henry usually “forgets” to buy it, and one year he bought it but then “forgot” to cook it. One of the only Thanksgivings I had it was at my mom’s house. Henry made it at home and we brought it with us and I was ridiculed mercilessly by my aunts to the point that I almost didn’t eat it. It was traumatizing! My mom kept making puking noises everytime I cut into it.

Even from a non-vegetarian standpoint, I genuinely like tofurky! That shit they stuff it with is the bomb.

I think that might have been the first time I called something the bomb. Better than “all that and a bag of chips,” I guess.

Not pictured: persimmon pudding. Oh for Christ’s sake, who has four desserts for eight people? So ridiculous. Shout out to Sandy for the cake hook-up!

Chooch ate approximately nothing. Sadly, his older brothers were unable to make it, because they could have shown him how to eat a Hanksgiving dinner.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I would consider the first official Hanksgiving a success. THANK YOU, HENRY. Maybe next year he will finally let me invite some vagabonds. Perhaps by then we’ll have more wheelchairs.

Pee Wee’s ass wants to wish you all a Happy Hanksgiving.