Chooch’s Birthday Live Blog!

 Liveblogging, travel, Uncategorized
Apr 252021
 

Chooch is fifteen today!! It’s still difficult to really do anything big and fun for him during this but we looked into some safe options and decided to combine two things he loves: zoos and road trips. The Columbus Zoo has a good Covid policy so we reserved a time and are currently en route to Ohio which I never thought I’d be excited about but apparently spending a year at home lowers the bar, bigly.

So now it’s 7:19am and I guess I will be trying to LiveBlog. We just rolled up to Dunkin Donuts and I am psychically pantomiming the action of sipping my coffee please get it in my hand ASAP omg.

7:31am: Henry and I just had an argument over car inspections because he is sooooo lazy and weird about it – like, he will let it lapse until it spirals to a point where it’s beyond acceptable and then just throws the towel in and refuses to deal with it. So I said he must not have been born with the gene that all the other men have where they pump their arms and march out to the car grunting about GOING TO GET THE CAR INSPECTED, GET TO BE A MAN TODAY, LOOK AT ME FLEXXIN’ MY MANHOOD and Henry said no man is like this, no man gets excited to take their car to a place for another man to tell them how much $$$ it will cost and I said “yes they do because then they get to say LISTEN HERE and argue about the cost and then end up trying to fix it themselves.”

Duh.

Speaking of cars I forgot our new car has seat warmers! Just turned my own since working from home with a sore back has made me reliant on the feel of a heating pad under me.

8:22am: “I miss road trips!”

8:32am: a truck just let us pass and I was going to wave but I LOST MY NERVE because it’s been so long that I’ve waved to truckers that I have to rebuild my trucker confidence.

8:59am: Stopped at SHEETZ in Zanesville Ohio where apparently no one got the mask memo. Literally got LOOKS from everyone inside that wasn’t an employee. But, here’s my first SHEETZ road trip selfie in forever!

9:56am: I just looked over and caught Henry dancing to Chungha’s bicycle and excuse me while I die from secondhand embarrassment.

10:46 guys something happened. We are near the zoo but had an hour to kill before our appointment so we stopped at a nearby Target because I had to pee and crybaby Chooch wanted a blankie for the car wah wah wah. Anyway, there was a sign outside the bathroom door that demonstrated using your elbow to open the door so I did that except that I didn’t follow directions correctly and shoved my whole arm in the handle not knowing that there was a little pole jutting down that was what I was actually supposed to hook my arm around but now it was too late, my arm was shoved in the door handle and I was in the process of opening it but I had to follow it back with my body because it was bending my arm and I ended up pinned against the wall trying to extract my arm and then I CUT MY HAND in the process.

The worst part was that this took place ENTERING the bathroom so I was still in plain view of everyone in that part of the store.

Anyway now I have a “bravery badge” and Henry is so annoyed bc we have a first aid kit in the car but I wanted to choose my own bandaids.

11:48 oh shit we’re at the zoo and I forgot to tell you lol.

Henry: I’ve never seen a koala in real life before

Me: I HAVE. IN AUSTRALIA.

Henry&Chooch: 🙄🙄🙄🙄

3:25. Still in this hellscape.

Chooch: I’ve ridden a camel before havent I?

Me: I dunno but I have. In Morocco.

😆

3:52: henry just asked with trepidation why we were laughing.

Chooch: because that girl was crying because she was too tall for the playground.

Henry: OH! LISTEN TO YOU TWO! YOU’D BE THE FIRST TO CRY IF THAT HAPPENED TO U! AND U PROBABLY HAVE!

4:07: omg finally just got to the car and are about to leave finally wow what a fucking day. If I had to describe the majority of the people we saw I’d have to say that a lot of the moms looked like they recently got released from prison.

4:19: “I hope when I’m older, I have one of those daily boxes that say like M, T, W—”

“A pill box?” I interjected.

“Yeah, that!” Chooch said gleefully.

5:31pm: Eating our Eden Burger vegan dinner takeout at some place called GOODALE PARK and it is soooo satisfying. My vegan fish sandwich tastes so much like a McFilet but BETTER and that is the ONLY thing I miss from McDonald’s!

5:38: Henry just mused out loud, “what are those things hanging…” and chooch and I were like “why things” but he didn’t answer us so I said to Chooch “maybe he just discovered his balls” and then we both started laughing and Henry glared so I started laughing harder and Chooch switched sides and said, “stop it’s not that funny” and then I laughed even harder and almost peed my pants right as some guy asked us about how to pay to park and henry was like “[parking info]” which made me say, “thank god he asked a question and not like how do you get somewhere” and CHooch was like “yeah thank god he asked a question and not a question” but I meant to say “a question WE COULD ANSWER” but I only said it in my head and skipped over it when I was saying the whole thing out loud so then I started laughing again and I am still doing a throaty giggle much to Henry and Chooch’s chagrin and now you’re all caught up.

6:46pm: a Love’s appreciation segment.

  • The perfectly retro vibes of their branding. Never change that.
  • The fact that a robust farmer in overalls came out of the store WEARING A MASK – big ups to the Love’s clientele.
  • It has a “dog yard” where some man was playing guitar and singing to his dog and thank god Henry pointed this out THREE TIMES or we might have missed it.
  • Clean bathrooms!!

I want to subtract some points for the overly MURICA design of their merch (American flag straw cowboy hats anyone?) but the fact that I was able to pee without risking a STAPH INFECTION in my Target bathroom door wound makes me feel like being generous today.

7:38pm: A Conversation about pills:

Henry: where’s the ibuprofen

Me: I swear you guys just love saying that on purpose in front of me.

Henry: Well I don’t understand why you can’t just say it. Ibuprofen. It’s not hard.

Me: It is though! It’s so awkward to say! Why would they even name it that and not just like, Pain Pill?

8:31pm: hello. We are going to be home in about 25 minutes so I am going to sign off here. It’s been a long time since I live blogged. Was it ok? Don’t answer that!!!

VA to PA: Words Inspired From a 5 Hour Drive

 Liveblogging, Uncategorized
Oct 132019
 

It’s 3:13pm and we’re on our way home from King’s Dominion in Somewhere, Virginia. We came here for the weekend because amusement parks are our favorites and also because we’re on a quest to get Chooch to 100 coaster credits by the end of the year. I think this visit put him into the 90-count so we might be able to do it!

Anyway, it was an awesome weekend, our first time at King’s Dominion & it really redeemed the Cedar Fair brand in my eyes. But I will get to that another day! This post is just going to be a live blog thing for our drive home because it’s a five hour trek which means it will take us like 8 hours probably and I finished my book on the way there (“Emergency Contact” by Mary H.K. Choi – loved it) so I will need entertainment.

We left the park around 2 and stopped at the Four Seasons Family Restaurant for lunch because we didn’t pay the big corporate Cedar Fair $$$ food prices – seriously insane how much they charge for a flimsy piece of pizza there.

Good plant vibes here, and our waitress was nice BUT the French fries were crinkle cut which is not my style. Also, Chooch and I both gave our salads to Henry so then when he got his burger, he removed the lettuce because he said he had too much already lol. The trials and tribulations of Henry J. Cry for him.

Then Chooch started being Chooch-esque and slammed back into the booth not knowing there was someone behind him so I was like SAY YOURE SORRY and he held up the stuffed dog he won there in the claw machine and made it do the apologizing for him and then started crying from laughing so hard so henry was like CHECK PLZ.

4:42: I keep nodding off because a weekend of running from one ride to another is more exhausting than it sounds but I have to stay awake because I’m so afraid that if i fall asleep so will Henry and then we’ll die in a fiery crash.

Also, we’re going to be out this way again in a month for the Super M concert which is weird because it’s been three years since we last came out this way and I was recently like, “we never go south anymore” and basically I’m just typing words to stay awake.

5:14pm: When Paula Abdul says, “now I’m caught in a hit & run” wtf she even mean? I never really thought about it until now.

We just left Sheetz and are currently fighting over a cookie so things are back to normal. The amusement park feelings forcefield has worn off, out of radius.

6:16pm: At some rando rest stop in Maryland that’s pretty for some reason!

Henry has his creep-o uncle Raybans on and I feel so offended.

7:09pm: Just stopped at a Pilot so Chooch could look for a book light. They didn’t have that but this is the place to go if you need a Bible, designer hunting knives, George Jones CDs, or starchy attire to subtly let people know who you voted for.

8:02pm: We just passed one of this “runaway truck” ramps coming down the mountain into Uniontown and I regaled Henry with the time I was driving home in the middle of the night from hanging out at the airport with my friends Heather the Ken and Justin Blair (back when you could hang out at airports and we would sometimes go just to get an ice cream cone from McDonald’s and watch planes land, god that sounds so fucking romantic lol) and I mistook one of those runaway truck things for the road and drove onto it.

“of course you did,” Henry sighed.

8:23pm: HENRY IS RIDICULOUS WITH THE CAR A/C. HE TRIES TO FREEZE US OUT.

8:50pm: I think that Elvis is like super overrated. THERE I SAID IT.

Some bullshit Ronnie McDowell song is on whatever old person radio station put on and apparently he was like an Elvis super fanboy and sang JUST LIKE HIM and I can’t understand a SINGLE WORD he’s saying so when people ask me why I listen to Kpop when I don’t speak Korean I will be sure to reference this motherfucker who is singing in ENGLISH (allegedly!).

Casey Kasem just told us a FUNNY STORY about how Barry Manilow found a song called Brandy by “some guy” and wanted to record it but there was already a hit song at the time called Brandy (the Looking Glass one) so he changed the name to MANDY.

I DID NOT KNOW THIS. Henry’s old person station taught me a thing. I’m going to tell Glenn tomorrow at work, see if he knows. He might have already learned this fact organically just by being old though.

Now Crystal Gale is on and I was like, “that’s what we used to call—oh, what’s that?!” I yelled as we drove over something on the road.

“I dunno, plywood I think,” Henry said.

“Oh! I thought it was a piece of glass. Anyway, that’s what we used to call the waitress at McCoys.”

“A piece of glass??” Henry and Chooch said in unison.

“No! Crystal Gale.” God.

Anyway we’re home now, just in time for Stephen Bishop’s “On & On” to end. I mean, it’s not the Tootsie theme, but as far as Stephen Bishop songs go, it’s not the worst.

Kentucky Kingdom or Bust

 Amusement Parks, Fairs, & Carnivals, Liveblogging, travel
Aug 312019
 

Hello, good morning, or good evening, please adjust as necessary. It’s 6:06am and we have departed our shanty in Brookline after a solid 30 minutes of bickering because what else is new.

We were still on our street when Henry announced that he forgot his hat and now he’s threatening to buy a MAGA hat at a truck stop kill me.

He just turned on the GPS and Cookie Monster’s voice filled the car at full volume and now my heart is racing. “Put it back to the Korean lady!” I cried but he said he doesn’t know where he’s going with her. :(

Also, I’m wearing my Kpop Fitness shirt and Chooch, without knowing that, put on his KCON 2017 shirt so now we look like Koreaboos.

6:26am: Some light just came on in the car to tell us that the tire pressure is low and Henry that cocky motherfucker said, “No shit.” That’s news to me, but OK.

7:18am: UGH we just left Sheetz in West Virginia. We had the unfortunate timing of being there with an entire orange-vested road crew and it took forever to get our stuff and then while we were waiting I happened to glance at my receipt and noticed that HAM was listed as an ingredient on my breakfast flatbread and I threw a fit and Henry was like “Sweetheart* just pick it off” and I was like I HAVE SPENT 3/4 OF MY LIFE JUST PICKING IT OFF (wow gross) and so he went over to the counter and caught them right as they were starting to make mine after the conveyor belt of MEAT SUPREMES EXTRA MEAT PLUS A SIDE OF MEAT that were being assembled for the hick road crew and asked them not to put ham on mine and when he came back he said, “See? I take care of you” so ALL HAIL THE HERO I guess.

*(Lol yeah right.)

Obligatory Sheetz Road Trip Selfie. I’m fucking tired.

The car radio defaulted to Country when Henry turned it on and even just five seconds of it before my Spotify kicked in was enough to make me angry.

“HOW DO PPL LISTEN TO THIS” I angrily spat and Henry told me to go back in Sheetz and ask them.

Then Chooch and Henry were arguing and Henry yelled, “Last time I checked, I can do whatever I want!”

He must check a lot.

Also, do the police know this?

8:30am: Chooch recently discovered a love for 80s new wave so I put on a Spotify playlist for him as soon as we left the house but he’s had headphones on the entire time so far, watching his dumb YouTube videos so I put Taemin back on, fuck that.

Speaking of Taemin, Baekhyun from EXO did an InstaLive with SuperM and they were all eating BBQ and I was like THEY R SO LUCKY TO WATCH TAEMIN EAT IN PERSON and Henry scowled at me.

9:30am: So glad Chooch brought his shitty crossword puzzle book on this trip. 94 miles to Cincinnati. SOS.

“Is Sammy Lee Jones an actor?” – Chooch from the backseat. Ughhhhhh. I turned up SHINee and I can still hear him asking for help.

10:16am: We stopped at a gas station and before leaving, Henry got back out of the car to throw out a banana peel and the sound effects Chooch is making for this action is soooo grotesque and hilarious. Now Chooch is fat-shaming Henry for purchasing a 470 calorie Nutty Buddy.

10:34am: An hour ago, i made what some might consider a stretch of a comparison between Taemin and Anita Baker, then I was perusing Spotify playlists and Anita Baker’s “Angel” was the third song in one of them so of course we’re listening to Anita Baker now.

“I went through a heavy Anita Baker phase when I was in 10th grade,” I said to Henry who muttered that he wasn’t surprised because my music phases were all over the place. Anyway, anytime I would mention Anita Baker back then, my dad would ask, “What? You need a baker?”

EVERY.TIME.

11:07am: We just crossed over into Kentucky. Hello Kentucky, sorry you have to hear us all yelling at Henry because our phones haven’t been charging this whole time.

11:25am: UGH I JUST LOOKED AT HENRY AND HE HAS HIS CREEPY UNCLE SUNGLASSES ON.

12:32pm: We made it to Louisville! We have like 9 minutes until we’re at Kentucky Kingdom and we’re all fighting over the playlist.

I’m going to publish this worthless post now but I will probably add it to you after we leave the park and head to Santa Claus, Indiana!

8:14pm: Wow we just left the park and I am pleasantly surprised! What a great park – I’m excited to do a review sometime soon after I get home but right now we’re looking for some place to eat on the way to Indiana.

Here’s a sunset!

8:26pm: Ok we found an eating establishment with minimal bloodshed!

Jerry’s J Boy! And they’re hiring so I got to submit it to Job Spotter! And Mary J Blige was playing when we were seated and our waitress is nice!

BEEN AWHILE SINCE I SNAGGED A LIVE-ACTION COLE SLAW MASTICATION SHOT!

8:46pm: Guys. They just played KC & Jojo, Phil Collins, the Folk Implosion, and Oasis back to back.

Jerry’s J-Boy, you were super hospitable to us, thank you, we will come again.

9:29 (10:29EST): We’re all settled in our actually halfway decent Motel 6 room, same place we stayed last year when we came to Holiday World. I’m exhausted and annoyed with both of my travel companions and snapped out after we left Jerry’s because that fucking Cookie Monster GPS was on my last nerve and Chooch was being shitty because he was tired and I almost just rhetorically asked when that will end but I’m 40 and still act like a roiling nest of hornets when I’m exhausted. So.

Anyway, goodnight before I punch Henry in the face.

Pigeon Forging it Back to Pittsburgh

 Liveblogging, Tourist Traps, travel
Nov 262018
 

It’s 8:05am and we’re waiting for Henry to check out of the hotel (the Ramsay – actually not a shit hole!). I wanted to have been on the road much earlier but no one listens to me. Anyway, I’m live-blogging because this is an 8-hour drive and I need to stay occupied or else I’ll start picking fights with Henry – which I’ll do anyway, who am I kidding LOLOL.

The mysterious bruise on my thumb went away but now I have a mysterious cut on my finger that even cut thorough my nailpolish?? It hurts but it’s not bleeding.

8:14am: So here we is y’all at the Red Rooster Pancake House where Chooch was thrown off that there is NO LEMONADE on the menu and proceeded to act like it was his first time ordering in a restaurant and kept looking at us with frantic PHONE A FRIEND eyes and we were like psychically coaxing him to just order chocolate milk and then when it was time to order breakfast, he got eggs and toast and ordered the eggs like a pro (overeasy FTW) but then he complicated the toast part of the order by making her run down the whole bread inventory and then asking “do you have Texas toast?” and we were like OH COME ON and she was like “Oh no, honey lololol” in her thick southern drawl like he just asked to see the Alamo’s bread pantry.

This waitress hates us so bad.

Ugh some old song just came on and I could vividly remember it playing in my pappap’s kitchen when I was little and now I’m crying in the Red Rooster Pancake House.

9:04: I couldn’t stand that bitch GPS voice so I made Henry change it to Santa, who just now told us that there was a cop reported up ahead. “Thanks, Santa,” Henry mumbled.

10:24: Chooch has me playing some word game called Letter Press and he is cheating sooooooo bad it’s not even funny.

We just stopped at Sheetz and Chooch and I got so riled up that Henry threw our stuff at us when we got back in the car and then he started eating a banana that I got for myself but didn’t want because it wasn’t done enough so then that set Chooch and me off all over again and we almost peed and then Henry yelled IF YOU PEE YOURE SITTING IN IT! and then he saw some guy sitting alone in an RV and said he wished he was him.

11:10am: Stupid GPS Santa keeps calling us Comet big what if I want to be Donner?! LIKE THE DONNER PARTY.

11:24am: Mino’s solo album dropped today and the MV for “Fiancé” is fire. I watched it this morning in the hotel while Henry struggled to pack everything on his own. I don’t care what anyone says, YG has the best rappers in Korea. DON’T @ ME.

12:33pm: One of our favorite road trip games to play is calling out HENRY LOOKED! HENRYS WANTS TO GO THERE! every time we pass billboards for adultmarts and strip clubs. Henry just blocks us out now.

1:26pm: Hello from some highway in WV! We ate a quick lunch at Sheetz (ballin’) and now we’re en route to some monster museum in Sutton WV. Speaking of museums, I need to call the Bayernhof Museum to schedule a tour for this Saturday but every time I tried to dial the number I started to crack up because I’m so giddy so finally I admitted defeat and Henry said he would do it for me next time we stop YES ANOTHER VICTORY!

2:40: We just rolled up in Sutton and Henry read the welcome sign out loud. I thought he said “bitchin’ history and hospitality” but it actually said “rich in history and hospitality” which is less rad.

3:03: Wow so the Flatwoods Monster Museum was pretty amazing! I mean, if you have low expectations. They had the documentary playing and it was creppy (autocorrect is always trying to change this to creepy ugh). Basically A UFO CRASHED THERE in the 50s and a bunch of boys and some old broad SAW A MONSTER and experienced symptoms similar to those that MUSTARD GAS cause but also HYSTERIA!!! So you tell me!!!

We’re back in the car and cracking up so bad at everything and Henry is like NO ONE IS LAUGHING and I’m like CAN YOU NOT COUNT BECAUSE TWO PEOPLE ARE LAUGHING?!

Anyway, that was a fun detour! Henry probably disagrees.

He actually bought us this adorable miniature Flatwoods monster but then bitched about it being EXPENSIVE.

Then we saw this creppy Santa on the way back to the car.

Chooch is playing this dumb Scattergories-type game; the letter was P and the thing was “Things You Find in a Bedroom” so Chooch and I simultaneously screamed PLAYBOY and PENIS while Henry calmly and vanilla-ly suggested PILLOW lol Henry you’re so square.

4:34pm: Oh god, we were just talking about the Dollywood coasters and then I said, “Remember when they went to an amusement park on The Smile Has Left Your Eyes??” which is the last drama that Henry and I just watched and in fact, I refused to leave for this road trip on Friday until we watched the finale because I knew it would bother me all weekend otherwise and turns out, it was THE MOST TRAGIC KDRAMA I have seen yet and the impact it has had on me is so ridiculous, so my weekend was totally affected by it anyway because I just started crying after saying that to Henry and he was like, “…oh my god” because the whole way to Tennessee I was dissecting the entire show and then I would start wailing WHYYYYYYYY in the stylings of a Korean Kerrigan.

Honestly, this drama was spectacular and I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a thriller / emotional roller coaster.

4:57pm: One more hour to go! I just said, “It doesn’t seem like we’ve been driving that long” and in tandem, Chooch piped up from the backseat, “I know!” while Henry frowned deeply.

“I guess that’s because we’ve been playing those games,” I said, all up-beat, and this made Henry’s frown deepen into something more murderous.

5:38pm: “Nice turn signal, a-hole” — Henry, in a very calm voice to someone in a minivan.

We are 35 minutes from home and I have to pee BUT I DONT WANT TO STOP DO YOU THINK I WILL MAKE IT? Also I forgot to mention that at our last Sheetz stop, Henry had the nerve to tell me and Chooch that we are embarrassing. WE ARE?? He’s the one who dresses like an off-duty trucker shopping for guns and jerky!! I just started cracking up after I wrote that because I’m the only person I make laugh, and Henry tried to quote an IU song where she says “Stu-p-i-d” but he completely fucked it up so then I started laughing harder and now he won’t talk to me.

5:45pm: Chooch and I are playing that letterpress game again and he just cried in anguish from the backseat, “I wish there was a P because I wanted to play ‘pansexual'” and I cried OMG ME TOO and Henry just shot me a glare. Eyes on the road, partner.

6:00pm: 17 minutes from home! I’d like to thank all the new Kpop drops, Chooch inviting me to play Letter Press or whatever it’s called, and Henry’s willingness to be the laughing stock of the car. BITCH LASAGNA.

6:19pm: We’re a mile from home and Henry just said we’re the stupidest people he’s ever met and this is the last trip he’s taking with us, so there you have it! The official ending of the liveblog!

A Live Account From the Road: Newark to Pittsburgh

 Liveblogging, Uncategorized
Jun 252018
 

Because I need something to do and talking to Henry doesn’t count.

8:21am: We just left that sleazeshack of a “hotel” that Henry put us in all weekend and I am so glad to never go back. It was definitely a pay-by-the-hour dump and I had to sleep with headphones on every night because the people above us sounded like what I would probably sound like to downstairs neighbors while doing Kpop cardio. Thankfully Chooch and I had already fallen asleep when this happened but Henry said those people were up there having sex for like an hour and a half and now he has fuel for his fantasies because, as he said this morning, “I don’t know WHAT they were doing!” Ugh Newark sucks so bad. We have to come back here in September for BTS and my plan is to leave after the concert and start driving home and get a hotel somewhere even farther out of the city.

When we left our room, I slammed the door super hard and Chooch was cracking up but Henry was like “THOSE PEOPLE WERE UPSTAIRS NOT ON THIS FLOOR!” And I was like “EVERYONE HERE IS A MOTHERFUCKER THO!” Literally starting at 6am it was just a fucking cacophony of room doors slamming, so fuck you, Red Carpet residents. Also, the “breakfast room” LOLOLOLOL was below us and we could hear every single chair scraping against the floor as it was pulled from the tables.

Henry made it through the lobby before us and tossed the room key through the slot of the BULLETPROOF GLASS surrounding the desk, YES IT WAS THAT KIND OF LODGING, so he missed the grand finale of me yelling THIS IS THE WORST “HOTEL” EVER to the lady at the desk, at which point Chooch lost it and started laughing so hard that he dropped his suitcase and then couldn’t get it upright in order to wheel it out the door, and then dropped it again, so I had to wait for him and my SMOOTH EXIT was totally ruined.

The new SHINee ep was released today though so I’m content in the car, listening to that thing of beauty.

10:17am: We stopped at H-Mart and Henry was in grocery-mode which I hate because he turns into MEAN DAD who says NO!!! every time Chooch and I come back to the cart with amazing finds. But I did get a pair of TAEMIN SOCKS and my favorite Korean pastry things from Tous les Jours which I always want to call Tour duJour because I can never remember it.

Prior to this we went to Dunkin’ Donuts and got stuck talking to an old townie with no teeth I MEAN HE WAS A NICE GUY but I don’t want to discuss how much the local teachers get paid, you know? (Apparently 100,000 after 5 years and the nurse gets $90,000 “for WHAT? To take temperatures? Put on band-aids? Send kids home? Pffft!”)

11:19am: Still mad about this hotel bullshit. You know what now I don’t care that Chooch pissed himself from laughing so hard in front of the vending machine on the first floor (and I mean HE PISSED HIMSELF) or that he spilled his Gatorade all over his bed. It’s probably the least-worst stains that place has seen.

11:55am: I’m just gonna put this out here even though it will get me in trouble with a lot of people (j/k only three people will read this) but Sheetz is better than Wawa.

12:40pm: Henry is trying to make conversation by asking me how many songs NCT127 sang last night and I was like WHY DO YOU CARE but I answered him anyway and then said, “Plus ‘Whiplash’ for the special stage….you don’t know what special stages are though” BECAUSE HE DOESNT GO TO THE CONCERT PORTION.

Ugh that fuckin’ Peachy Boi lol.

1:12pm: At the Midway Diner in….Midway, PA? I dunno. But they have a veggie burger so that’s cool and Chooch is pissed because he doesn’t have any PokeBalls and SO MANY THINGS ARE SPAWNING. Now I know how it feels to be everyone else when I’m talking about aegyo and unnies and All Kills.

2:03pm: Lunch was mediocre at Trainor’s Midway Diner but at least it wasn’t walk-out levels of awful like TOM’S KITCHEN (see last LiveBlog!). However, I do have some feelings:

Trump might judge a restaurant by how it looks on the outside (according to his latest crybaby tweet) but I judge based on the ketchup they use. #HeinzOrGTFO amirite?

They had a veggie burger so that was wonderful! But the cole slaw had no flavor. They had shoo fly pie! But it was terrible, and not even served warm with whipped cream!!

They had a…diverse reading library. My favorite is Fishwrapper Stories. So hard to find.

BUT THIS BANQUET HALL. I WANT TO HAVE A BANQUET THERE!!

Claw machine selfie.

2:29pm: Somewhere near Hershey and at this point it feels like we’re traveling backward. I’m making them listen to Hope FM which is rife with powerful contemporary worship jams and Henry just yelled WHY ISNT SPOTIFY ON and then I was mocking him saying that we won’t be able to see Hershey Park from the road, he doesn’t care WHAT the sign says, and now Chooch is laughing himself to pants-pissing status again.

2:53pm: Just drove past this sign followed by three strip clubs in succession.

3:26pm: In Rutter’s gas station and it took Henry FOREVER in the bathroom so Chooch had a fashion show:

When henry finally came out Chooch was like FINALLY, WE HEARD YOU FLUSH LIKE A MILLION TIMES and Henry said it kept doing it automatically and I was like “It knew it had to work hard” and then Chooch was laughing so hard that he felt inspired to try to jump on my back in the middle of the store. Henry was so mad and said WHY DO I BRING YOU WITH ME.

Then he sulked because we left him at the register and when the lady asked him if he wanted a bag he allegedly said, “I guess so, everyone left me.” LOLOLOL.

Now he’s mad because I got the gigantic jug of water that Chooch is holding in the picture above and I had to ask him to open it for me because I have no strength in my hands from laughing so much. DOES THAT HAPPEN TO YOU, TOO?

5:03pm: We’re having a family meeting about how henry isn’t a part of the Chooch & Erin Club because he fails to see how funny, fun, cute, hilarious and interesting we are and chooses instead to reject us and Chooch piped up from the backseat, “Yeah, we’re really funny” and Henry has disagreed profusely and I said “Well, this is why we don’t get along then” and he countered with “90% of what you do goes against me!!” LOL YEAH IT REALLY DOES THOUGH HAHAHA.

6:16pm: Water jug progress:

Also, we’re not home yet.

7:19pm: In Pittsburgh! We should be home in like 10 minutes. Man, I am not usually happy to be in Pittsburgh but Newark is one of the few cities that make me seriously appreciate this joint. Sorry Newark but you kind of suck, a lot.

A Friday Liveblog For No Reason

 Liveblogging, Reporting from Work
Dec 082017
 

I just decided to do this now at 9:37 so let me quickly catch you up on the riveting events you missed. Keep checking back for more! YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN ESPECIALLY ON MY LUNCH BREAK.

  • I watched Taemin perform “Day & Night” on Music Bank whole Chooch made puzzle pieces soggy with his tears.
  • I texted Henry death threats because he left a shoe in the middle of the floor and also made me walk to the trolley in 20 degree weather.
  • I purposely wore a navy blue lightweight thermal shirt to work today because I bought this adorable cape to wear over top of it but as soon as I shut the front door behind me I realized I left the cape on the couch and YOU KNOW HOW I CANT UNLOCK MY DOOR. Ugh, the tragedy that is my life.
  • Came to work and in lieu of any morning salutations, I dove right into my cape-tastrophe. “IT HAS BUNNIES ON IT AND THE HOOD HAS BUNNY EARS” I cried. “That sounds like my three-year-old’s bath towel,” Glenn worthlessly chimed in. “YEAH WELL MY CAPE IS FROM CHINA!” I yelled. “So is her bath towel probably.” Ugh.

9:51am: We just picked our Secret Santa names and I am so pleased with who I got! SEE I TOLD YOU SOMETHING EXCITING COULD HAPPEN!! I wonder who got my name.

10:09: Today is jeans day and I just want everyone to know it’s because I begged for one yesterday. YOURE WELCOME, COWORKERS.

10:30: We were just talking about the shocking conclusion to my apple thumb saga, because somehow Todd missed the ending and innocently asked for an update, so Glenn got to relive the story about my bandaids being on too tight.

11:30: I picked a boring day to liveblog. I should have done it yesterday when Lori was wearing a cool pair of vintage 90s chunky-heeled boots she found and then realized halfway through the morning that they were disintegrating and she was leaving boot crumbs all over the department. I suggested that we try to rebuild the soles with the leftover bling I have from the G-Dragon table, but then she realized that the bottoms of the soles were jacked too so there went that great idea. :(

11:33: I wonder how many times people catch me sitting at my desk, silently mouthing along to Korean Instagram captions and then quietly celebrating when I’m able to understand what it says.

11:36: Glenn is eating his lunch. I bet it’s a bologna sandwich.

12:24: Now I’m eating my lunch too. I almost always just have Cream of Wheat because it’s something easy that I can handle. Today, I’m eating it with a banana and honey, as well. I usually put cinnamon in there but THERE IS NONE LEFT IN THE OFFICE KITCHEN. I’m not sure if this is supplied by the firm because there has always been cinnamon in  the kitchen in the entire 7 years I’ve been here, sometimes two things of cinnamon even, and now…none. This is worse than when we ran out of the honey that Gayle brought in and I had to go out and get my OWN HONEY to keep in my desk and now cinnamon too? When will it end?! I can’t handle these grocery issues.

12:50: This is my current desktop background because I’m 14

Everyone here just ignores it now. That’s for the best.

1:02: I hope my Secret Santa gets me a Korean tutor.

1:40: Glenn just came back in from outside. I asked him if it was super cold and he said “just like it was this morning” but I couldn’t remember what it was like this morning at first until I scrolled up and re-read the first part of this blog post. ALL HAIL THE POWER OF LIVEBLOGS. Speaking of weather, here’s an actual convo that happened Tuesday on the elevator:

Me: Tomorrow is supposed to be really nice!

Tracy: I thought it was gonna be cold?

Me: I dunno I just saw a big sun when I checked.

Lauren: Do we need to teach you how to understand weather forecasts?

I’m just really bad with weatherly things.

2:10: I’m at Gasoline Street getting a maple brown sugar latte and I hate everyone in line with me because The Postal Services cover of Against All Odds is on & I’m tryna listen to it. Instead I have to listen to these bitches are talking about how bright their futures are and I’m like let me help darken that shit for you.

2:43: I’m back from my lunchtime walk. Here are some things that happened, in addition to the coffee-getting:

  • Henry and I had a huge fight on the phone over pizzelles! He acted all shocked when I said I didn’t like them so that’s nice to know that after 16 years, he’s ignored this huge, defining fact about me. He was like, “Why don’t you like them?” and I’m all (cover your eyes, pizzelle-lovers, because I know you’re out there in droves gunning for me right now), “You mean besides the fact that they’re the peasants of cookies?” and he was all, “HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT” like he’s some 90-year-old Italian bitch selling them on the street so she doesn’t lose her cottage. Then he went on to gush about how much he loves them and I was like, “Of course you do, because you have the palate of a fucking Pilgrim” and people near me on the street where like wtf is this girl jawing off about.
  • I accidentally littered and there were witnesses!! I was running across the street (I jaywalk now sometimes, can you believe it?) and the top of my (empty) latte blew off and I was torn between stopping to pick it up and continuing on to the sidewalk before getting smashed by a car. So I let the latte lid get smashed by the car instead and I felt terrible. I even yelled, “I CAN’T BELIEVE I JUST LITTERED” and people at the nearby bus stop were like, “OK.”
  • Some guy with a big beard wearing a blue hoodie and carrying a backpack definitely stuffed with hacky-sacks waved merrily to me, like he was the Santa of headshops. I waved back. I’m not always a bitch. (This sighting wasn’t a coincidence because it happened in front of that weird stoner coffee shop.)

3:52: Sorry, I was doing work. But then I sold a BTS Christmas card! I feel so blessed. I love my Kpop Kards line.

4:18: Approximately two more hours before I get to meet Barb for dinner! AND I AM REALLY HUNGRY. Also I think that offices should have soft rock playing gently from the ceiling at all times, because it gets too quiet in here and then maybe the real Against All Odds will come on and everyone will unite in a shared love of Phil Collins.

  • Speaking of Against All Odds, Chooch came home from piano lessons last weekend and cried, “GUESS WHAT SONG I’M LEARNING!?” and here is a picture even though you’ve already guessed:

Chooch has the coolest/best piano teacher ever, sorry to you other piano teachers out there.

5:26: ALMOST TIME TO LEAVE. This day was fine until the last hour when some dumb project came in at the last minute, stupid work, just kidding I love my job.

8:17: Hi guys I just came home from dinner with BARB! We went to Gianna Via’s and I uncovered some new information about Barb:

  • Barb “discovered” salmon at McCormicks and Schmicks.
  • There was a guy there in a plaid shirt that Barb kept staring at and murmuring about. “Oh, he must work here,” she said at one point and I blurted out WHY, DO YOU LIKE HIM? “No!” she cried defensively. “I said that he looks like someone I used to work with!” That means she likes him. Whenever it was time to leave, she was taking her good old time getting her stuff together so I made it to the door before her. As I was standing there waiting, I watched her walk past Plaid Shirt and TALK TO HIM! I was so excited to point this out when she walked over to the door and she (again, defensively) yelled, “I JUST WANTED TO LOOK AT HIM UP CLOSE TO SEE IF I KNEW HIM!” She likes him.

I had to take a picture of us before we left, for liveblogging purposes, and Barb was excited to wear her new sunglasses for the picture. OH BARB. Also, I made Barb look at a gif of Taemin eating and she was not impressed.

Now Chooch and I are walking to CVS so maybe I will have more liveblog fodder when I get back, you just never know.

8:48: Brookline sidewalk shrimp.

9:02: Oh hi Chooch and I are back from our nightly walk about the town. I had a lovely conversation with my favorite CVS clerk, John, while he rung me up. We talked about how we can never phone numbers, but he can remember his best friend’s number and had to call him once to ask him for his own cell phone number because he forgot it and I told him that I can’t remember any phone number from the last decade, yet I still remember my grandparents’ landline that I haven’t used in like 20 years.

Also, Chooch randomly blurted out, “I’m so glad you’re not a Pinterest Mom.” Same, Chooch. Same.

Then! I saw my Mexican taco cart boyfriend and got my hand stuck in my coat pocket when I was trying to wave hello to him and Chooch was like “wow you’re so slick.” Then Chooch was rejected when he asked to pet someone’s dog and I secretly rejoiced because his dog-petting is such a burden to me; it puts me in awkward social positions where I feel forced to then make small talk with the dog owner and I hate it I just hate it ugh.

But now we’re home, annoying Henry, and I’m probably going to sign off for the night because it’s KPOPX TIME, WHUT WHUT.

Wow, another pointless liveblog! You’re welcome.

The “Headed Back to America Where I Can Use My Phone” Real Time Vacational Blogging Thing

 Liveblogging
Jul 312017
 

6:29am: We’re on our way out of Toronto and I am so sad! I would totally live here. I feel like this was one of the few times where we came somewhere specifically for a concert but managed to make the most of our time here. This is the first time we’ve been on our car since we got here on Friday! Fuck cars! Toronto’s public transportation is way better than Pittsburgh’s (I mean obviously). 
I am going to have such terrible withdrawal from this weekend. :(

Meanwhile, Halsey’s voice really grates on me sometimes.

6:38am: we just drove past a movie theater and I haven’t heard of one single movie being played. That’s how infrequently I watch TV these days. At first I was kind of horrified that I’m so out of the loop, but now I think I’m glad for it. 

7:35am: “How did the sun get in front of us? It was behind us when we left…” – Pondering, with Head-Scratching Hank

I had to suck it up and get a latte from Starbucks. It’s fine. 

Henry just sneezed and I didn’t say bless you because in Korea, blessing people for sneezing isn’t a thing and I love that because it’s so stupid! Why do we make such a big deal out of sneezing?! Literally, someone got dust in their dumb nose and we’re interrupting our lives to give them a blessing that doesn’t mean shit because none of us are the fucking Pope no matter what the snakes under your bed tell you. 

8:17am: Just drove through Niagara – it costs $22 to park here! We’ve both been to the Falls numerous times so we were like FUCK THAT (THUNDERING WATERFALL) NOISE and also Chooch would probably murder us if we went without him. Sigh. I’m mostly only interested in the Clifton Hill tourist trap area but none of that kitschy shit is open yet anyway so WHO CARES. UGH. 

And now henry is yelling at the GPS which is my favorite part of road trips. #eyerollemoji

8:29am: Came back to US via the Rainbow Bridge this time and it was a WORLD OF DIFFERENCE. The Border Patrol guy was so nice and even joked with us and it took maybe 25 seconds to pass. Thanks, G-Dragon. <3

9:21am: Henry needed to pretend like he was earning a Boy Scout badge so we ended up stopping at the US side of the falls where we only paid $3 to park and an additional $2.50 (total) to go on the observation deck and take the elevator down to water. It was terrifying. My legs were shaking but not nearly as bad as they were shaking last night when G-Dragon was within literal feet of me. That will forever be the way I measure my leg-shake-age from now on. On a scale of one to GD. 

10:15am: Stopped at Uncle Joe’s Diner in Hamburg, NY even though one of the Yelp reviews was all ITS TOO FLASHY BOOOOO! We didn’t eat breakfast so I don’t give a shit if they say us next to Liberace in a fucking disco ball, ok, just fucking feed my face. 


10:42am: Oh my sweetly spanked Mussolini, this is the first wrap in about 13 previous wraps that was served to me as advertised. Thank you, Flashy Joe’s. 

Meanwhile I just started crying again because I never thought I’d be that close to g-dragon and henry just sighed, “Great, now the waitress is going to think something is wrong.”


11:22am: AHHH we just drove past a sign for Chatauqua Lake and I’m regaling Henry with stories from when my friend Kim and I went with our friend Liz and her family to their cabin there in 1992 and it spawned so many memories and inside jokes like U Nork and Smrobably and freaking out over Panavision and me listening to my Damn I Wish I Was Lover cassingle constantly on my yellow Aiwa Walkman. 

GOOD FUCKING TIMES. 

Our friend Kelli was supposed to go too but she had chicken pox and WE WERE ALL MAD AT HER ANYWAY SO WHO CARES. 

Oh middle school. 

1:01pm: We’re right outside of Mercer whatever that means. I’ve been AWOL for awhile because I’ve been making Henry rehash every last second of last night’s show like ahhhhhhh. He’s being a good sport about it. He’s excited because he saw three people there that we saw in a card shop in Koreatown on Saturday. (I only spotted one.) Henry is a gold medalist in people-watching. 

2:39pm: Almost home! In Dormont! (That means like 5 more minutes, FYI) Chooch is at the doctor’s office while his grandma is having her weekly therapy and he just called us from the bathroom acting like he was in a hostage situation. “Please come get me!” Lol. We also found out that Janna completely spoiled him rotten all weekend! He’s such a brat. We owe her big time for watching him. HAT TIPS ALL AROUND FOR JANNA!

Oh, and this happened too;


Janna said Chooch chose the podcast. His interests are very diverse. 

Ok I’m ending this now because I want to go in my house, flop on the couch, and start sobbing again about how magical my birthday was. I have the best boyfriend/non-husband. 

Rainy Monday Liveblog

 Liveblogging, Reporting from Work
Jun 052017
 

Hello. Good morning. 안녕하세요.

I decided that I would liveblog my workday because I haven’t done that in a while and quite honestly, I have nothing else to write about because everything in the world sucks, you know?

And this morning sucks because it’s raining REALLY hard and I had to walk to the trolley thing and now I look like a drowned rat and my umbrella blew back and slammed me in the forehead and it HURTS and I made the mistake of telling Glenn.

“Oh wow, Glenn has a smile on his face so early in the morning!” Catherine said when she walked back to her office with her coffee.

“Yeah, because I injured myself!” I spat, and everyone laughed but NOT ME, I DIDN’T LAUGH.

And then Todd said I should blog about the NBA finals because that would take my blog to the next level. NO.

So, here’s my liveblog prologue. We’ll see how the day goes. Check back or don’t, I don’t care! Ugh!

9:14am: Lauren just got here and I let her talk a whole lot before I told her that I’m liveblogging today and now she’s mad that I didn’t give her a disclaimer before she started talking. EVERYONE BETTER WATCH WHAT THEY SAY TODAY. Just kidding. I don’t want to get fired.

9:36am: I can’t get an email to send and Todd just asked me if I pressed “send” and now I’m ready to flip a table!

10:32am: Just had an argument with Lou (typical) and then we got an email about something to discuss at this afternoon’s meeting which I guess we’re still having because “But it’s raining” isn’t a good enough reason to not have one or something which seems dumb.

img_2396

Current candy situation ^^^ 

Everyone seems on board with the current stash of candy I’ve provided, although there has been some heavy discussion on the Pollito Alvbros (???) which some people claim has a slight chicken taste to it.

img_2397

What nationality’s candy should we try next?! Glenn said we should do what Conflict Kitchen does and provide candy from the places that the US has conflict with, but given the temperament and idiocy of our current “leader,” that could pretty much be anywhere soon.

11:50am: I just briefed Todd on the latest in the T.O.P. marijuana scandal (Glenn has his earphones in, acting like he doesn’t care), and Todd said, “Thank god it isn’t G-Dragon though. I don’t know what I would do with myself” and I said, “I KNOW RIGHT” before realizing he was being sarcastic, ugh.

12:10pm: I’m currently eating one of these milk candies. They’re my favorites out of this recent candy batch because they’re Korean and I can read the package because my name is Erin and I’m amazing:

12:31pm: Remember when I said I was amazing? I was just in the kitchen and I couldn’t open my packet of oatmeal and one of my co-workers had to help me and it was mildly embarrassing because I was really trying to handle that shit on my own. I think my grunts and whines of, “Ugh, I can’t do this!” gave me away. It’s not even good oatmeal that’s worth the struggle either. (That would be the dinosaur egg oatmeal that I left at home.) UGH RAINY MONDAY.

Also, Lou has spoken to me 4 times without permission today.

1:48pm: Just came back in from my lunchtime walk and guess what — it’s not raining anymore! Today still sucks though. Some homeless guy snagged me (they always do because I have that deer-in-headlights naivete about my dumb turtle face, I guess) and when I said I didn’t have any change, he decided he wanted to talk about the good ol’ days, so I felt compelled to be his audience as he wove yarns about being a carefree kid and how then you grow up and they only things you think about are life and death, and then he had a massive coughing fit, and now I’m fucking depressed, man.

Also, I finally saw the Umbrella Sky Project at the Arts Festival that everyone has been posting about on Instagram and SORRY PITTSBURGH but my boo Seoul has one that’s much more fabulous, because: Korea.

2:44pm: We just had our weekly meeting and talked extensively about patchouli. Now Glenn is leaving for the day after giving me zero fodder for this liveblog.

2:55pm: UGH I was just filling in Amber on the whole T.O.P. pot scandal (Chooch gleefully pointed out that TOP is pot backward) and Todd started laughing. I called him out on it and he said that in his head, he was thinking, “Run, Amber, run.” SO RUDE!

3:41pm: It’s raining again so this blog post title is still relevant. Also it started raining after Todd left for his lunch break so that’s what he gets for laughing at my somber Kpop talk.

4:44pm: I picked a dumb day to liveblog. There is nothing happening here! So here is a special peek into Glenn’s locker thing:


Amber1 and I put those dead flowers in there over a year ago I think inspite of Todd’s protests (I think he called us Mean Girls) and I’m not sure Glenn even knows it’s there.


Um, all the other stuff is his, though.

4:51pm: WENDY just came over to get candy from the magical candy pumpkin. “What are these?” she asked, holding up one of those aforementioned chicken lollipops so I got really mad and yelled, “IF YOU WOULD HAVE READ MY LIVEBLOG, YOU’D KNOW.” I mean, hello. Anyway, she is like totally grossed out because it’s the shape of a chicken on a spit, and Todd happily pointed out that I, the sanctimonious vegetarian, ate one of those. “There’s something you could liveblog about – your hypocrisy,” Todd suggested smugly and I was so mad. And then Lauren started cracking up because she was thinking of our conversation last week when I said the word “gleeking” and how we became concerned after the fact that it might not mean what I thought it meant. “My friend Chad Green taught me about it in fifth grade!” I cried defensively. “It’s when you spit from under your tongue, typically when eating something sour!” And then Lauren was all, “Oh great, I just trusted you based on something you learned from a fifth grade classmate!” I want to google it now but then it might take a turn like it did a few weeks ago when I was googling Iraqi candy shop.

5:39pm: Hey you guyyyyyys. I’m here in the car with King Uber, aka Henry. He was like “I HAD TO CALL PAYPAL. I GOT HACKED! FOR $2.99! IT WAS FRAUD!” And I was like “You mean this app that Chooch bought?” and showed him the email that I got on my phone. So now Henry is mad that he has a fraudulent son. 

Henry made me forward the email to him and he snapped, “WHY IS THERE HANGUL ON THIS?!” Because my email signature is in Korean? Le duh, oppa. 


Plus, proof that it was raining today. 

I just filled in Henry on my day. “I liveblogged today but it was boring. I think when people found out I was liveblogging, they quit talking to me.”

:(

6:06pm: Still in the car because traffic is terrible and now Henry is threatening to make me take the trolley HOME from work everyday now too as if one way isn’t terrible enough.  But anyway, I was just reminded of the best part of today, when I was in the elevator this morning and some broad said she liked my bag and in a cheerful voice that came from one of my happier personalities, I said, “Thanks it’s from the 80s!” And she was like “OK cool.”

6:59pm: Henry’s supposed to be making my dinner but then Chooch interrupted with some kind of fabricated bike crisis and I’m just sitting here getting high off the wonderful tteokbokki fumes, but whatever who cares that all I’ve eaten today was crappy oatmeal and Korean milk candy. 

7:29pm: my favorite part of the day! Dinner and Running Man!

8:23pm: “No.” – Henry’s response when I asked him if he wants to say something for my blog. Now we’re watching the hockey game and I feel sick. Remember when I loved James Neal and called him my Prom Date? Well that doucher can fuck right off now. He just looks like a soap opera villain to me, like he was shot and pushed off a cliff by the ISA but then came back to life as a Nashville Predator with an uglier face. 

8:41pm: A hearty head shake. That’s wat I got when I asked Chooch if he wanted to say a thing for my blog. STICK A FORK IN THIS THING, IT’S DONE. 

8:47pm: Here’s a song for the liveblog. This came on my playlist on the car on the way home from work, causing me to dance zealously with my fists (i.e. rhythmically punching), resulting in Henry roaring, “OK!!!!!”

Jeez. 

9:00pm: Nashville fans are trash. TRASHVILLE. Go choke on a catfish. I find it so hard to enjoy hockey anymore. 

9:53pm: Well, Henry ditched me about an hour ago for the sweet temptation of bed, leaving me alone with this dreadful hockey game and the ever-biased commentating of NBC. I painted my nails and have a headache but I think I will go and do some more kpopx while imagining that I’m stomping on the entire city of Nashville and their classless, twangy fans. I’M MAD. 

10:20pm: crying over hockey and T.O.P. all at once because I’m a gold medal sobber. Boo fucking hoo. No cheesy kimbap for me. 

https://instagram.com/p/BU-I1QCA_lQ/

I’d like to point out that I have been blogging since 2001 and this, my friends, this right here is the best I can do anymore. 

11:14pm: Penguins lost and I just stress-ate a buttered bun while watching Drew hang off the window screen like she’s auditioning for the cat circus. This is real life, NO GLAMOUR, people!

DREW JUST BROKE SOMETHING. Eh, Henry will clean it up in the morning. On his birthday. HAHA. 

In other “blogging just to blog” news, I bought a new phone case and it’s supposed to be delivered tomorrow so no more Unicorn Tears after that. Don’t worry – my new one is certainly not anymore mature. 

But it’s very accurate. 

11:41pm: OK WOW THX FOR YR PERMISSION??

11:55pm: Well on that note, it’s almost tomorrow so I guess that’s my cue to wrap this shit up. Hopefully tomorrow is sunnier and less boring. I mean, it is Henry’s birthday after all. 

Being a Mom: An Elementary School LiveBlog

 Liveblogging, Uncategorized, where i try to act social
Mar 252017
 

Mayday, mayday. I’m here at Chooch’s school for something called Night at the Museum which was all a SICK RUSE but I’ll get to that in a bit. 

I asked if I was going to be bored here and Henry was all “God yes, you’re always bored” while at the same time Chooch muttered, “Yeah. there won’t be any KPOP there, god forbid.”

But then I asked if there would be cookies and Chooch said probably so here I am. 

TURNS OUT IT’S SOME EVENT FOR DORKY CHILDREN TO SHOWCASE THEIR NERDY SCIENCE PROJECTS AND EVERY TIME I WALK PAST ONE OF THEIR TABLES, THEY START TALKING TO ME. 

I had to pretend to care about some bitch’s SEASHELLS. 

WOE IS ME. 

WHAT IS MY LIFE. 

But then I was actually enrapt in some tiny child’s display on inertia* and was all OH TELL ME MORE, OH YOU DONT SAY and as we walked away, I said to Henry, “HE WAS SO CUTE!”

*LOL I just walked by and it was FRICTION not INERTIA so I guess I didn’t really care that much. 

And under my breath, I creepily whispered, “Because he’s Korean!”

I’ve seen many foes here so far and it’s only been 15 minutes. 


Chooch and I made it almost to the top of this staircase, ignoring Henry’s warnings of “Don’t go that way. Don’t go that way. You can’t go that way” and then when we looked up and saw the caution tape, it all started making sense. 

There were witnesses. 

Meanwhile in the cafeteria, they have a table of food set up, food from Ireland I guess? There were Irish potatoes which I hadn’t had since some kid brought them in to class when I was in elementary school. There were also birthday cake cookies and I wasn’t sure if they were just for kids so it became this big game of me whining about it and Chooch saying “Just go get one” until he finally threw his hands up, marched over to the table and yelled, “Can my mom have a cookie? She’s TOO AFRAID to ask” and everyone laughed at me. 

Chooch found his friend Sharyn so we’re chilling with her grandma who is one HIP LADY. I like her a lot. 

“She reminds me your mom,” I said to Henry. “But not as—-”

“—crass,” Henry finished as I was saying “abrasive.”

Some dumb geode-smashing experiment. They gave Chooch a hammer. I stood far away. 

****

I just outed Chooch as a butterfly phobe in front of a cute broad from the Carnegie who brought insects for the kids to scream at and now a bunch of his peers are mocking him and he totally loves it. 

Payback for outing me as cookie-taking scaredy-cat. 

Ok I just learned about Islam from a Yemen family here and now I’m woke.  

I asked Chooch why he didn’t contribute anything to this event, like some artifacts and a poster board about his fake Siberian heritage, and he just shrugged and said “because I didn’t know about it.” 

He is so dense. 

There is no Korean table here so I’m pouting. 

Henry and the principal* just complimented each other’s beards but Henry pointed out that the principal’s is grayer. “I guess you have more stress in your life,” Henry laughed.

Oh you’re saying I need to up my game?

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. 

* (The principal knows us pretty well, it’s safe to say.)


I mean, a real school would have written that in Hangul, but whatever. 

“You should have made a Korean exhibit,” Chooch said. 

Yeah, that would have looked legit. Some dumb Caucasian mutt sitting behind a table of red bean taffy, ttkeokbokki, and Kpop lightsticks, talking about kai bai bo and BIGBANG. 

Such credibility. 


Protecting Sharyn’s identity because I’ve already been this down this road once LOLOLOL. 

On the way home, Henry asked Chooch who the lady was at the concession stand. 

“Why?” Chooch asked. 

“Because she knew your name,” Henry said, with a silent but implied, “and that makes me nervous. 

“Because he’s NOTORIOUS,” I sang, and when no one responded, I said, “That was supposed to be Duran Duran.”

And still no one said anything. 

Turns out the concession lady was the mom of one of Chooch’s friends. I knew it definitely wasn’t MISS DEBBY THE MISERABLE LUNCH LADY because she actually smiled at Chooch. 

(I’m trying to get Chooch to blog about his years-long war with MISS DEBBY.)

Anyway. Now I’m home. It was fine. The kids did a good job I guess, ugh—THE PAIN! I feel like I need to flip off an elderly nun now or something. 

ETA: Henry just pulled up my blog on his phone and said, “Oh great, I can’t wait for all the parents to read this” and I was like “WTF, I was actually really nice! I said nice things about Sharyn’s grandma and that Yemen lady, and—”

“Erin, you called the one girl with the sea shells a bitch, and the rest of the kids dorks and nerds, and that was just in the very beginning!”

But I mean, that’s not super bad. 

(That seashell girl was super pushy with her seashells though. She was all, “Pick the up for a closer look.” Bitch, you pick them for a closer look! UGHHHH.)

Friday Reporting.

 Liveblogging, Reporting from Work
Mar 032017
 

Well guys it’s Friday, which means I’ll be harassing my fellow team here with the Kpop Video of the Week, and also I thought it would be fun to break up the monotony and make this a fluid post, Chick-fil-A (I keep trying to type CHOCKFUL on my phone and that won’t stop happening) of supposedly witty retorts from Glenn and a run-down of people who walk past my desk vs those who actually stop and take some of my gross-to-mediocre candy.

img_0679

(One of those things is a petrified plum pebble surrounded by a delicious honey-like bubble of candy, but when your tongue hits the plum, it’s like OH WHY HELLO THERE, SALT LICK. Like a shock to the senses. Though, not exactly BAD, either. Todd and Glenn agree. No one else has been bold enough to try one though. I apparently don’t “sell” it well.)

Today will be kind of like hard-nosed, grassroots reporting, y’all. None of that fake news bullshit.

It reminds me of when I was in elementary school, 5th grade I think, and I kept this palm-sized forest green notebook in which I kept a running log of the comings and goings of Mrs. Madden’s classroom. Everyone knew about it so I would let people pass it around because news is meant to be shared, after all. One day, and this must have had a huge impact on my life because I feel like I reference it once a year and even wrote an entire blog post about it, we were at recess and Mike H. called Mrs. Glumac—the barbaric lunch lady straight out of Goosebumps—a bitch during kickball and then broke her glasses with the ball!!

And then when I wrote about it in my paper blog of 1988, everyone was giddy for the second time that day because first they heard someone say “bitch” at school, and now they were READING the word “bitch” at school!

It was pivotal, OK? Just take my word for it.

I just sent out the Friday video and Todd said, “I’m boycotting the Friday video.”

“Why?!” I cried.

“Because it’s Lent season,” he said matter-of-factly. Ugh.

Glenn just said he didn’t stick around long enough to see who was at the door at the end of the video so I said he’s banned from Friday video and now they’re calling me the Trump administration. Today is not going well!

Todd just said that now he’s watching “symbol symbol symbol Music Bank symbol symbol” and I tried to teach him that those symbols are called Hangul and he was like “Sure they are. You can tell me anything about Korea and I’ll believe it.”

Speaking of Hangul, I downloaded HelloTalk to use while I’m waiting for my Korean textbooks to arrive. It very clearly states that it’s a language learning app and is not meant to be used for dating, but still—within two minutes of communicating with this dude from Busan, I got the dreaded, “I’m looking for foreign gf” message. Then when I didn’t reply right away, he slammed with a series of “?????” because that really makes me want to answer. And then when I was like, “Look, I’m at work” he countered with “You like Korean guy??”

“Well, I have a Korean boyfriend now,” I told Glenn. “Got my foot in the door!” This made me think of the time I was using some messaging thing when I had a Blackberry years and years ago, and became friends with a trucker because I wanted to use him to learn trucker slang. (<–you should read this. It’s very POIGNANT and HONEST. LOL, j/k. It’s something alright.)

Glenn just went upstairs to get ice because the ice maker on our floor is broken. See? These are the details you miss out on when I don’t keep a running log.

We just talked about Jonny Craig having back surgery and Todd said, “That’s from all that Xstacy” and then I couldn’t stop laughing and Glenn said, “He actually only had a mole removed.”

Some time passed. Maybe like 22 minutes worth. We just had a riveting conversation about the freight elevator and how desperate I am to weasel my way in there. One time, I saw one of the maintenance guys pushing a cart through the doors and I cried, “DO YOU NEED HELP?!” He said no. :(

ICE UPDATE: We now have an ice bucket in the kitchen. I was really excited to report back to my office neighbors about this. Todd said, “Oh. I don’t even use ice” and then I told that I’ve been secretly live-blogging all day and that I couldn’t wait to update the ice-less drama.

“I just went upstairs when I needed ice,” he said.

“Yeah I know, I put that in my blog.”

MAJOR NEWS UPDATE: Dance Gavin Dance just released a new video! And it’s for my favorite song off their last album! I told Todd and he said he only listens to Billy Joel cover bands now.  And then Glenn sent me a list of YouTube links with the subject “this is music,” insinuating that I listen to garbage, but JOKE’S ON HIM because I also like some of the things he tried bragging about. One of the videos was for Bohemian Rhapsody and I was like, “Cool story but I like Radio Gaga better” and then Glenn admitted THAT HE DIDN’T KNOW THAT QUEEN SONG. Wow, I thought old people knew everything about classic rock.

But yeah – nice try!

CREAM OF WHEAT AND BANANAS TIME. I got so hungry after Wendy came over to talk about popping sebaceous cysts and pimples. (#fakenews)

I’m standing in line at the post office now. On my way here, some jackass Planned Parenthood protestor tried to hand me grossly misinformed literature so I barked NO but then another protestor said my coat is gorgeous and I squealed AW THANKS.

Ugh.

Mixed emotions.

HUGE NEWS- on my way back from the post office, Henry texted me this picture:


OH HENRY OPPA! So I called him andbut turned out he was still in there area so he came and picked me up since I still had 30 minutes left of my break and GUESS WHERE WE WENT:

I bought some new candy and it’s actually good!

I also got a bottle of Nongfu Spring matcha milk tea because guess who endorses Nongfu Spring? BIGBANG whaddup.

It’s been two weeks and I don’t think the novelty of the audit light has worn off yet, surprisingly.

Gayle just sneezed and Julie broke the Keurig.

First skeptical review of the Asian candy just came in: A-ron was confused because he thought there was a second layer of plastic that needed peeled off but then he realized it was a part of it. “Like, flavorful plastic,” he said, after declining an offer for a second helping. Everyone else seems fine with it though.

And my milk tea is divine, now that I’m able to drink it thanks to Wendy and her strong bottle-opening hands.

I’m going to post this now because it’s nearly 4:30, but if anything exciting happens between now and 5:30, you better believe I’ll be back.

ETA: I tried to give Gayle a piece of my new candy and she originally rejected it until I made my Pouting Orphan face; she sighed and took a matcha milky thing which is like a luxuriously mellow taffy thing. AND SHE LIKED IT. Some foreign candy can be good, guys!

Road Bloggin’: Columbus for the Summer Set

 Liveblogging
Oct 222016
 

We’re en route to Columbus Ohio this morning so Chooch can see one his favorite bands, The Summer Set. That’s for those people who didn’t read the title of this post. I’m live blogging because it’s what I live for. (see also: no life.)

11:23am: we left the house at 11 which is actually the time I said I wanted to leave and it actually worked! First we went to Dunkin’ Donuts where they gave me a cappuccino instead of a macchiato and I’m pretty sure I haven’t had a cappuccino since high school when Denny’s got a cappuccino machine and that was like ALL THE RAGE LOL. The Henry wanted to stop at the nearby pretzel place to treat himself and I yelled OH COME ON because I want to GO and this promoted Henry to start bitching about how he does everything we want to do and can he please just get a bag of soft pretzels and YOURE NOT LIVEBLOGGING ARE YOU.

11:39: I just tried to get henry to care about my current favorite Touché Amore song but he’s just like “ok cool story” and I’m devastated as usual. THAT VIDEO THO:

Tears spurt from eyes every time. Real feels.

12:01: WOO TRAFFIC! I drank my stupid cappuccino too fast and now I have caffeine nausea help.

12:26: Chooch just came back to the car from Sheetz and panted, “DADDY STOLE SOMETHING!” And I’m like no he didn’t….did he? I just asked Henry if he did and he got all paranoid. Chooch just piped up from the backseat, “he stole the cash register lady’s heart.” LOL ugh.

12:28: Today my response to everything Henry says will be “you’re fuckin’ faded” a la Kurt Travis.

1:06: THIS JUST IN: Henry has never heard of the term SHOEGAZE are you fucking kidding me. So we had to have an impromptu Music Genre 101 Class and his takeaway was, “That’s dumb.” So no one get Henry any My Bloody Valentine merch for Christmas I guess.

1:18: Me n Henry:

1:40: Obligatory rest area bathroom mirror selfie:


You can’t tell in this picture but I looked at myself in the mirror and thought “THE FUCK is up with my Farrah Fawcett hair?” Because the front is flipped weirdly. I walked out and said, “Thanks for telling me my hair is so big and weird today, asshole” to Henry who said, “It looks like Farrah Fawcett hair.” UGH FOREVER HENRY.

1:55: Couldn’t remember how to tell Chooch to put his headphones on so it came out “Why aren’t you having your headphones on?” I really think I suffered a mini stroke sometime over the last few years I’m not even funnin’ here. I see evidence of it every time I skim old blog posts and see my grammar breakdowns. Should I be concerned or naw.

2:58: Here in Columbus at Whole World Cafe and miserable Chooch is miserable.

4:12: Chooch is in a better mood now that he ate. We’re at North Market where Henry passed up all the obvious choices of parking spots in favor of one where he could show off his flashy driving skills by BACKING IN.


Got some Jeni’s!


I got Sweet Cream Biscuits & Peach Jam and Thai Curry Pumpkin. Henry got Xococo Blah Blah Blah and Sweet Potato Eclair. Chooch got a lame sundae.

GUYS DONT PANIC Henry found another soft pretzel place. We also got donuts (Oh god to be eaten much later—Jeni’s & my broccoli burger has my stomach on house arrest. Whatever that means. It sounded good for a second.



Red raspberry hibiscus & dueling vanilla!

5:31: Henry just lost his mind and told a SERVICE story! “Let the Music Play” by Shannon just came on and Henry said it reminds him of when he was IN FLORIDA for a TEMPORARY DUTY ASSIGNMENT during his SERVICE years and the BARTENDER at their hotel played it CONSTANTLY and that his “SERVICE FRIEND” was in love with her, more like HENRY WAS IN LOVE WITH HER.

In other news, we went to two record stores and neither of them had what I was looking for so now I’m pouting.

6:21: Standing in line for 3o minutes. So cold. Obnoxious camera happy people in front of us.

Chooch just photobombed the obnoxious people and pretty much everyone around us saw it and laughed but one of the guys in the obnoxious group was mad I think.

7:32: this venue sucks. There’s nowhere good to be and the crowd is way older than I anticipated which sucks because they’re all DRUNK TALKERS.

The first guy to play was really great. We realized that if we came out on the patio we could still hear and the view was way better but it’s COLD.


MEanwhile Henry is shopping at the World Market and probably taking a nap under a pier somewhere.

Also William Beckett is here and I had no idea. How do you go from the Academy Is…to opening for a band in a tiny bar in Columbus.

9:56: you guys I came very close to getting into a physical altercation, but it didn’t go any further than a shoving match. I am so fucking angry right now. The people at this show are the biggest bags of dicks of all time.

10:27: THANK GOD ITS OVER. WE’RE IN THE CAR. WE’RE LEAVING COLUMBUS. FUCK THE A&R DRUNK ASSHOLE HAVEN. The Summer Set was great though! Chooch got a pick and we saw Brian Logan Dales outside when we were leaving and I was like YOU GUYS WERE GREAT and he very appreciatively said thanks and I was like “That’s how one human talks to another human. OMG I DID IT!”

Henry went to Target, Old Navy, Barnes and Noble, the World Market, Vitamin Shoppe, he thinks that might be it. I think I would have preferred his night over mine. Henry is taking Chooch to see them next time. Chooch I love you but WOW. My adrenaline is like OFF THE CHARTS RIGHT NOW.

11:23pm: In FUCKING ZANESVILLE and I’m so hungry but Henry is just meandering about like this is some vintage car cruise and I hate Ohio and just want to go home to Pittsburgh where I go to a million shows without altercation. Also there is a route 666 and I never knew it?!


No wonder this place is soul-sucking.

12:10am: I just had a veggie wrap from Sheetz and some of my humanity has been repaired. It’s freezing in the car but god forbid I put on the heat on while henry is driving because he gets sleepy so I’ll just sit here with my teeth chattering and feel thankful that I’m in a car driven by an awake man.

JUST TO WRAP THIS SHITTY POST UP: we got home around 2am and I went to bed without washing my face and I ALWAYS WASH MY FACE, that’s how tired I was. Fuck Ohio.

Labor Day’ing in Louisville: A Live Blog

 Liveblogging, small towns, Tourist Traps, travel
Sep 032016
 

7:47am: We just pulled out of the driveway. “I need coffee” I immediately said. “Yeah, I’m well aware of what everyone needs,” Henry snapped. Whoa. CRAPPY PANTS IS HERE, EVERYONE.

7:49am: Chooch is mad because Henry got a new phone (he’s been using an old person flip phone for the last few mths because his real one broke) and he wants to hold it so badly but Henry is like DONT START WITH THIS PHONE SHIT!! Kids and phones, amirite.

8:16am: I can’t believe I’m about to admit this but I succumbed to the basic bitch pressure and got a….pumpkin macchiato. I know! I’m the worst! I’m so predictable! But at least it wasn’t from Starbucks. In other news, I’m not being a bitch anymore because I got a pumpkin macchiato.

8:42am: I had planned on swinging by the Cincinnati area because I have always wanted to go to the Loveland Castle (and by always I mean for the 4 years I’ve known of its existence). Henry just had me look up the directions on Google maps so I clicked on the map thing in my Roadside America app and started crying because it said it was nearly 7 hours away and HOW WILL WE HAVE TIME so Henry got all huffy and said, “send me the directions!” So I did and he was like, “because these directions have us starting in MARYLAND, that’s why it says it’s so far away!”

While I was giggling, Henry said in a very weary voice, “How do you survive?”

8:59am: Chooch just came back with cheese curls from Sheetz and you would have thought I was asking him for a kidney, I hate him.

Oh for fucks sake, Henry couldn’t find the lemon packet things for his signature unsweetened iced tea, and some Sheetz lady JUST BROUGHT THEM OUT TO THE CAR FOR HIM BEFORE WE LEFT and Henry is SO FUCKING EXCITED ABOUT THIS and wants to write to Sheetz now except he doesn’t know the broad’s name.


He can just send them this picture of her then, I guess.

9:18am: I wonder how many hours of mocking Henry in a hick farmer accent before I finally pierce the barrier he mentally puts up between us. YOU CAN’T BLOCK ME OUT FOREVER, SWEET PEA.

9:51am: I hate when I start to like something Top 40ish and Chooch pops up from the backseat to tell me that they used to be a YouTuber, ugh.

10:42am: Stopped at rest area in some Ohio place and a man in a suit asked Chooch if his name was LESTER and then was crippled with disbelief when Chooch said no because HE LOOKS JUST LIKE SOME BOY HE KNOWS and as we left him in our dust, I could still hear him back there wow’ing in shock.


Obligatory rest stop bathroom selfie. If I look haggard that’s because I stayed up all night watching Danity Kane videos/Making the Band recaps on YouTube.

Meanwhile, I almost forgot that Chooch’s name was Lester back when we kidnapped him 10 years ago.

11:57am: Reminsicing about the time I listened to this Perfidious Words song on repeat for approx. 5 hours when I worked the late shift at my last job, and then accidentally became suicidal because of it. Henry is not enjoying this stroll down memory lane.

12:12pm: Henry is in another rest area, doing whatever he does in there, so Lester and I are talking behind his back. “He’s in such a bad mood today.” “I know.”

Just wait until we get to the castle! That’ll be sure to turn his frown upside down and back around into a greater frown.

1:38pm: well we just finished touring Loveland Castle and Henry is in an even worse mood, as predicted! The only time he smiled was when the guide mentioned THE SERVICE.


ASSHOLE ALERT.

Whatever. Lester had a good time in the castle.

1:43pm: Some broad in a car next to us at a red light sneezed so I said bless you and Lester is like SO EMBARRASSED.

2:13pm: we’re at Sugar & Spice for lunch and this place is a WONDERLAND.

28842021003_e123dbb940_c 29384128941_b00150074d_c

Our waitress was this old lady who seemed concerned that no one had brought me my coffee 30 seconds after I ordered it.

“You had a coffee right?” she asked. “And no one brought it yet???”

I shook my head no, slowly, because I didn’t understand how anyone would know I ordered it when she was still standing there taking our order?

“Wait—did you just tell me that now?” She asked. “Oh, ha! I saw it there and forgot that I had just written it down.”

O.o

The restrooms were DOWNSTAIRS. I love when the restrooms are downstairs! This place was EVERYTHING!


I read about it on Roadside America and literally the only reason we went is because they give out FREE RUBBER DUCKIES. Chooch and I were so nervous that we weren’t going to get one and neither of us wanted to ask and Henry was like THIS IS ALL YOU DONT LOOK AT ME so finally I cleared my throat and asked the lady at the register if the duck thing was still a go, and she silently reached for a bucket on a shelf and told us to go on and take a rubber duck and Chooch nearly clotheslined himself against the counter in his overzealous rummaging.

4:58pm: Nothing noteworthy has happened in hours but we just made it to the hotel – some generic Radisson. Three hours until Artifex Pereo!!

6:51pm: just saw Jerry’s Junk and it was mildly cool but also pretty anticlimactic.


However, I bet that man has a TON OF SHIT that I would buy if he was selling. Meanwhile, Chooch casually asked me to put on Danity Kane, lol.

And Henry is having a blast telling Louisville drivers that they’re doing it wrong. “YOU CANT TURN LEFT ON RED!”

7:24pm: Benjamin the Lyft driver is taking us to the venue now and listening to him and Henry attempt to make small talk with each other is simultaneously killing me and giving me life. Also I couldn’t get my seatbelt to fasten so I’m just sitting here with my arm thru it like a sling.

8:52pm: Huge difference between me and Chooch: when I need to pee in a public place, I freak out and spend 25 minutes trying to build up the courage to look for the bathroom and then I hoarsely whisper to Henry WHERE DO YOU THINK THE BATHROOM IS OMG HELP. Chooch gets right up and sets out to find it himself.

10:32pm: This night is so excelsior. Every band has been wonderful, the venue is great, Henry is actually in a good mood and said that he liked the last band that played (Funeral Portrait) and now Artifex Pereo is about to go on and I’m so sweaty and Chooch is half asleep in a chair and all the Artifex guys keep asking him if he’s going to make it and it’s just good fucking vibes all over, can I stay in Louisville forever.


12:02am: Waiting for our Lyft driver, Nicholas, to pick our exhausted, sweaty asses up. I hope I lost weight. I SWEAT SO MUCH.

“There’s so much wrong with my body,” Chooch just randomly said.

12:23am: Nicholas returned us safely to our hotel (he was an A+ Lyft driver and gave us non-stressful conversation) and then we had cheerful banter with the ladies at the front desk because we’re all delirious from the hotbox that is New Vintage, and now I’m ready to get my Savasana on in this stiff-as-fuck bed.

PEACE OUT, GIRL SCOUT.

Bye, Michigan: a LiveBlog

 Liveblogging, travel
May 302016
 

Today we head back home to Pittsburgh so you know what that means — live blogarama. Sadly, this one won’t have as many big asses in it.

10:25am: We’re with Bill & Jessi waiting to be seated at Scrambler Marie’s and Bill is ready to file a formal complaint because they told us the wait is 25 minutes when we can clearly see NUMEROUS open booths and tables?! ITS DISPROPORTIONATE.

27318845266_22529358c3_c
Henry’s mommy just called him to thank him for serving our country!!

10:35am: Now I’m standing inside and Bill just RECOUNTED the empty tables. Some waitress came over to see if our name was on the list and Jessi reiterated that we preferred to sit outside and that we saw there “SEVERAL EMPTY TABLES OUT THERE.” The waitress was like “OK let me check with the hostess because I don’t want to screw her up.” SHE IS ALREADY SCREWED UP.

10:41:


WE’VE ARRIVED.

11:00am: INTENSE KIDS MENU ACTIVITIES.

26746122613_5239cda44a_c
Also, still talking about the wait time / empty table ratio.

12:02pm: Ugh we said goodbye which is the worst and now we’re back on the road. The breakfast was worth the wait, and also observing the bizarre manner in which Chooch eats his pancakes: he scrapes some off with a knife and then scoops it up with the knife and fork and two-hands it into his mouth? Like who taught this kid how to eat? Also, Henry usually has to cut his food because he can’t stand watching him struggle with butterknives because apparently Chooch has inherited his inability to cut food from his mother. That’s what Henry says, but if you ask me, Chooch would just prefer someone else to do it for him, and that is something he definitely inherited from his mother.

So there.

12:10pm: Henry Appreciation Shout-Out. Homeboy hooked me up this weekend! He bought some of these without me knowing at Bled Fest, and the rest came from Dearborn Music where the guy at the register said, “These are actually some really good records” like he was surprised but then it was probably because he thought they were Henry’s since Henry was paying, and we all know Henry has I’M A TED NUGENT NUGGET practically branded across his furrowed forehead.


That P!ATD is Chooch’s but still. We’re already fighting about who gets to listen to what first, ugh. It’s really hard having a kid who’s exactly like me. I’m sure our bickering was beginning to wear on Bill & Jessi!

1:02pm: Absolutely nothing interesting has been happening since I last checked in. Just been annoying Henry with an emo revival Spotify playlist (I like to flail and flop around in the passenger seat to this stuff which adds to Henry’s annoyance) and now all of a sudden Chooch has decided to remove his nose from Goblet of Fire* in order to poke his head between the seats and bitch about something.

*We stopped at a Walmart (UGHHH) in Monaca, PA on our way to Michigan on Friday to buy Chooch the 4th Harry Potter book because Henry claims he couldn’t find my copy on the third floor (otherwise known as The Computer Burial Ground) which he was supposed to clean out weeks ago in order to turn it into a guest room. Anyway, I GOT LOST in Walmart because I hung back in the makeup section a tad too long and then BOOM. THEY WERE GONE. So I wandered around with my hand on my chest, trying to build a dam for the tears that were about to spring forth from my eyes, and then some way young Walmart worker boy flirtily said hello to me and I was giddy for a split second until I remembered that HELLO IM LOST.

I had to ask some Walmart broad for directions to the book aisle but then I saw them walking by and I ran toward them and cried, “I’VE BEEN FOUND.” Chooch literally threw his arms around me because he knows how fragile I am. Henry just rolled his eyes though.

All that and they didn’t even have the dumb book so they had to go to Target which is where I said they should have gone to in the first place. This in addition to the really slow service at the Monaca King’s completely negated the fact that I left work an hour and a half early because we still arrived in Howell at the same time we would have had I left work at 5:30 so thanks for sucking, Monaca.

1:16pm: Chooch said he saw some guy wearing a La Dispute shirt at Bled Fest. I asked him if he said “cool shirt, bro” and Chooch said, “No, because I hate them.” UGH MY KID IS THE WORST.

1:24pm: Chooch just farted and I had to put down the windows to fumigate. So for that, here is a LA DISPUTE VIDEO, WOOOO.

1:49pm: AND NOW WE ALL HATE EACH OTHER AFTER A REST STOP WENT SOUTH DOWN THE TOILET. All I fucking want (nay, NEED) is coffee and Chooch started running his mouth because Henry wouldn’t give him money for some dumb arcade game and now they’re fighting and I was like FUCK EVERYONE and stormed off. Then I put on a SMOOTH JAZZ station in the car because I have a headache (see also: NEED COFFEE) and Henry had the audacity to try and change the station like this was an accident!? And apparently he stole money out of Chooch’s wallet for “tolls” so this is a brand new fight.

2:49pm: Well everything was fine, Chooch resumed his book-reading, I was happily dissecting my Bled Fest experience, but then HENRY made me look up the nearest Sheetz on google maps and now the car is full of angry snipes and raised voices again because FUCK YOUR MAP.

2:57: I CAN SEE SHEETZ AND I WANT IT.

3:18pm: Iced lattes must be super hard to make because I have had a shit ton of really fucking terrible ones, two in a row today. I guess Crazy Mocha just has me spoiled. Henry’s pissed because I apparently “wasted money” but he’s not a coffee drinker so he doesn’t understand the devastation and ensuing pout-session when one is served a poor excuse for a latte. Go drink a Faygo, Hank.

3:46pm: Henry stopped at a rest area to get me a latte from Starbucks (I dislike Starbucks but whatever – third latte’s a charm) and Chooch and I had a huge fight in the car because he nearly ruined my Bled Fest poster by being CARELESS and then he accused me of knowing where his dumb wallet is but not telling him?! So by the time Henry got back to the car, Chooch was in full-blown TAKE ME TO THE ORPHANAGE I DONT CARE mode. What a little jerkfuck, seriously. Now he’s back to breathing heavily while reading and I’m nursing my mediocre Starbucks iced latte and Henry is enjoying the silence after I gre tired of yelling about how I disagree with the Cincinatti Zoo’s decision to MURDER their gorilla, but whatever — I know enough people from that area to understand that it’s not exactly known for its high IQ.

This whole bit prompted Henry to say, “When I used to go to the zoo in the 70s” and then something about animals in cages but I quit paying attention when I realized that there wasn’t going to be a pregnancy scandal or TED NUGENT concert involved.

4:40pm: Henry just gave me a hard time for apparently listening to too much Cardboard Swords. “How many times are you going to listen to this?” he asked in a needling fashion. AS MANY TIMES AS I WANT, CUNT. Jesus. Nag much?!

Also, he made me count change for tolls at the last minute and then talked while I was trying to count?! I can’t stand him.

4:59pm:


YEAH BOIIIIIII THAT’S MY CITY. 10 minutes until we’re in good Ol’ Brookline. And Chooch just assaulted me with the sight of his bare feet.

6:02pm: Been home for an hour. Cleaned up succulent carnage (of which there was enough to require a plant cemetery, le sigh) and reminded the cats who I am. They seemed stressed out and then we realized that they had to endure their very first Memorial Day parade which oozes past our house every year and is chockful of sirens, muskets, and the screeching sound of children. Sorry, cats. :( Glad to be home but I’m already missing my Michigan friends and without the distractions, some pretty significant post-show depression is beginning to eke its way in. And then Chooch cut himself while playing with Marky and Henry’s not here so I started to panic but don’t worry, Chooch dressed his own wound while I was laying in the fetal position. Ugh. Back to dumb reality I guess.

But hoooooo boy, I’ll be back with a myriad of Bled Fest posts for everyone to scroll past! Stay stoked.

Henry’s Bled Fest Live Blog

 Amusement Parks, Fairs, & Carnivals, chooch, Henrying, Liveblogging, music, Uncategorized
May 282016
 

Technically Henry still says he’s not doing this. LOL. Yeah right. Take it away, big guy! (This may or may not be ghost-written by a 10-year-old version of Henry.)

11:11am: it’s 11:11 and I wished that a sweet big assed girl would walk past the car, and she did! Best short vacation ever! Also I stared till she walked away, she looked at me and I raised my eyebrows up and down!

11:26am: standing in this bitchin’ line and I fucking hate concerts. I dunno if my son’s mother told you that, but If not I did. Anyway there’s a lot of sexy big assed girls Here people keep looking at me like I’m a pervert. I wonder if people think I’m a dilf!

11:52: Just exited the stupid school to finally plan my escape. Some stupid people from Artifex Pereo said “nice shirt to my son. There are some sexy big boob broads in the school. I think they winked at me! Mission Accoplished! Also I can’t follow directions my son’s mother yelled at me to keep the v.i.p bag but I threw it into our Lamborghini.

12:34pm: listening to shitty music while staring at big asses. Man, I wish I had a big ass I could squeeze it all day! mMmMmMm! Well I think my life is going a different direction! Pay 10$ for me to squeeze your ass as a massage!

12:55pm:


IM STARING AT SOME BAND ASSES LIKE A PERV AND AN OLD PERSON! Also “enjoying” music at “Bleeding from my ears fest”

1:15: I went to the V.I.P Lounge so I can escape Artifex Pereo. There were some Staff members with gigantic asses! More to squeeze. My new store is PERVs Ass Massages! Hopefully the cop that comes to arrest me has a nice ass!

2:45pm: We met Artifex Pereo. And more asses! My store will be in Moon Township! Some sexy ass broad girl be havin dat nice ass yelled at my son’s mother’s son. I watched a band by myself! I was away from small ass girlfriend!


5:00pm:  I’m tired and I want to go home to mummy and my nipples. Everybody knows I can’t rub them here. I got meatballs on my shirt and my small ass girlfriend tried to take a picture of it for tinder.

6:05pm:


Dreaming about dem asses at Bled Fest. There was someone tea bagging their car in my dream. I thought the car was a big ass broad. There is a water tower as big as an ass I saw today in the merch room.

6:20pm: big kick ball hit me while I was sleeping. I thought I was getting accepted by the big ass girls! My company is getting customers!

8:00pm: Today I saw some hot broads twerking their fat big juicy asses off while I ordered a pizza. Man life’s good! My small ass girlfriend was watching The World Is a Beautiful Big Ass Place! To teach how to twerk her ass off.

******

9:31am: I forgot to write about the FINAL MINUTES! But my son’s mother found out and said that she will tell the police but I didn’t care I wanted that big ass cop to arrest me! Anyway small ass girlfriend was watching Superheavenhell with all the big ass girls. But it was hot in there and I didn’t want to get sweat all over dat girls big ass.

Columbia, SC to Pittsburgh: A Live Blog End Cap

 Liveblogging, travel, Uncategorized
May 012016
 

Me: Don’t worry, I’m gonna live blog. 

Henry, muttering: That’s great. You do that. 

8:24am: Well, today is the day that we eventually make our way back home. We just checked out of the Microtel in Columbia and are now foraging for breakfast. I found a place on shitty Yelp, but I’m worried that it will be a fail since yesterday’s Yelping was actually successful. It’s storming and Henry is grumbling about how this place better have a lot of indoor seating since neither place did yesterday. This is the first day of bad weather we’ve experienced all week, and also the first day I had to wear jeans so EVERYTHING FEELS WRONGS. Gimme back Orlando.

9:02am: We had to walk through a rainstorm down an alley to get to the Wired Goat Cafe, and it was a little glimpse of what it must feel like for Henry to walk beneath a black cloud all day e’ryday. Anyway, this place might end up being a bust. A guy with a handlebar mustache gelled into place with a hefty dollop of ambivalence crafted my French toast latte while the other barista flitted around in absent-minded confusion after someone approached to ask her how much longer they would have to wait for their food. Henry is sitting here with his GOOD ONE, ERIN smirk twisted upon his dumb mumbling lips.


Now he’s accusing me of reading he reviews for the other location and not this one, which apparently has a reputation for being uninviting. LOLFOREVER. At least we got a table outside on the porch-thing, safe from the rain and the judging once-overs of adult women in rompers.

Also, Henry unwisely let Chooch and I pack for ourselves without supervision and neither of us ended up packing enough on account of our ADD and inability to keep count. Luckily, our room at Star Island had a washer and dryer so Poor Henry had to do laundry on vacation.


Bee Mine French toast with EUROPEAN BUTTER (great, thx) and fruit. Henry just got up and left, and then came back with a cup of water.

“I went to go get my water. Locally-sourced….from a tap,” he muttered miserably because he hates places like this LOL. Henry doesn’t give a shit where the eggs came from because they’re all gonna end up in the same place later— the commode.

26708145351_b14b37ba57_z
#multimedia

10:04: Back on the road! Only 7 and a half hours to go! KILL ME!

10:22am: Well, Henry just hydroplaned and is now congratulating himself for not killing us. “THE TRICK IS TO NOT TOUCH THE BRAKE” he’s instructing his imaginary class.

10:30am: He’s still discussing the science of hydroplaning with himself. I just want to stop somewhere and pee, please.

10:40am: Chooch is scarred for life because Henry made him use a gas station bathroom that had a CONDOM DISPENSER. He came running out to scream about it to me. “YOU PUT IN A DOLLAR AND IT GIVES YOU A CONDOM. THEY HAD ORANGE FLAVORED, STRAWBERRY FLAVORED—” and then I shut the car door on him.

At least he can tell his teachers this was an educational vacation. Seven more hours of condom talk.

11:50am: Somewhere in NC, listening to Balance & Composure and Chooch’s heavy backseat breathing.


And I just finally bought his VIP Bled Fest ticket (it gets him a meal, plus drinks and snacks all day long, so it was worth the extra money to ensure his mouth will stay full with food and not whines). Less than a month away! Not even home from this trip and already anticipating the next! Literally the only thing this Florida vacation was missing was a concert. That would have made it perfect.

1:06pm: Henry’s mom-mom-mommy just called and he made Chooch answer it! Rude.

1:36pm: HELLO VIRGINIA. Five more hours, ugh to the max.

26681241912_3639980025_z

3:00: At a Shoney’s in WV. Chooch was alone at the buffet for what was probably an unlawful amount of unsupervised time for a child according to buffet laws. I watched him, from the comfort of our table, struggle with the mashed potatoes. He came back and is just livid. “The man before me got this perfect scoop of mashed potatoes on his plate and then when it was my turn, I could hardly get ANY!” And now there’s a problem with his jello too, but I stopped listening. Buffet Woes with Chooch.

26775062755_bc25d8d1b3_b

Meanwhile, Henry is on his third pork chop.

EW YOU GUYS THE CREAMED CORN TASTES LIKE WHEN A DENTIST HAS THEIR LATEX FINGERS ALL UP IN YOUR GRILL.


Mystery dessert foraged from the buffet by Chooch — I have no idea what it is and it burnt my lip.

Chooch and I are so wasteful at buffets. Thank god Hank the Bottomless Pit was our shares along with his own.


The Jerusalem Experience offers no discounts. Not even $3 off with proof of stigmata? I find that hard to believe.

JUST LIKE GOD.

Accidentally grabbed two of these brochures and Henry is all exclamatory about it: Why did you get so many???

Dude, it’s two. Not a ream.

4:12pm: Chooch and I just let go of our sanity at a rest stop near Tamarack and Henry is PISSED. Chooch keeps swearing and Henry is like STOP SWEARING and then I started dry-heaving because I saw some man kiss an ugly baby and Henry was like STOP BEING YOU and then I said for the 87th time in 15 years that I don’t understand what the fuck Tamarack even is and Henry yelled AND YOURE NOT GOING TO FIND OUT EITHER which prompted me to ridicule the way he says “going” (sounds like GOYng) and from there I started singing Henry’s version of “going” in the style of a grandfather clock and I think I saw actual steam come out of his nostrils.

6:35pm: STILL IN WV. Is WV spreading? It’s like a geographical STD. Did it take this long to drive through WV last week?! Anyway, we stopped at a Sheetz because I have some terrible Throat Affliction and can’t stop coughing and all I could think about was HOT TEA WITH HONEY. But I always get coffee so I walked in and felt paralyzed and literally said WHICH WAY DO I GO and then I finally found the tea bags but I couldn’t find the cups because it didn’t occur to me to use the same cups that I would use for coffee?! Then I couldn’t find the hot water but by then Henry had emerged from the rest room so I slammed the empty cup into his hand and said “You do it” and then walked away. It was all too much.

7:05pm: location update–still in motherfucking WV. “Whyyyyyyyyy?!” she screamed in the Key of Kerrigan.  And not even being low key about this but we’re listening to old school Finger Eleven right now, driving through a rain storm. That’s what’s up.

My friend Wonka and I hung out with them after a show once in 2000 (ugh sixteen years ago?!?! Might as well keep my Nancy Kerrigan WHYYYY out for awhile) and the singer was questionable but their guitarist James Black was an absolute gem and even though I was annoyed when F11 became radio-friendly, I was happy that he was getting to experience that success because dude was chill as fuck.

#OBLIGATORYROADTRIPMUSICMEMORY

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. Last week at Universal, we rode the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit which is a coaster that has speakers in each seat so every rider can select a song from the mini-jukebox screen in front of them. Henry was riding alone behind me and Chooch, so when we all got off the ride, I asked him what he chose, prepared to mock him, and he said “Finger Eleven” and I was like “OMG ME TOO!!” so he high-fived me (this might have been the first time he’s ever initiated a high-five with me, btw) and we bonded for like a split second until I said, “That was the only tolerable option i could find in the limited time we had” and he was like”inorite” and then breathed the wrong way or sneezed too loudly so I went back to being completely annoyed by him.

8:04pm: In PA now. 20 more long ass motherfucking minutes. Nancy Kerriganing my fucking face off right now. WHYYYYYYYYYYYY?!?!???!!! 

Well we’re home and I just finished assessing the damage. One of the idiot cats pulled the tassel off one of my swag lamps but other than that, everything seems ok! Thanks to my brother for keeping the cats alive! Just watered my plants and am currently ignoring Henry who keeps inexplicably asking for “help” as if he is not an able-bodied man capable of bringing some luggage into the house. Come the fuck on, dude.

/end vacation

 Older Entries