Did somebody say…live blog?

 Liveblogging, travel, Uncategorized
Jul 242021
 

Nope, but you’re getting one anyway!

It is currently 7:33am and we just left the house for the first leg of my rollercoaster birthday road trip: Carowinds in North Carolina! South Carolina? It actually straddles the border, I think.

First stop: the Dunkin right down the street from our house. I just can’t with Sheetz coffee sometimes, you know? I just can’t.

When Henry starts wearing suspenders and sweat pants, we’ll know where he got the Inspo.

7:59am: SHEETZ

8:50am: SORRY I was READING A BOOK. But now I’m taking a break so I don’t puke. My Sheetz breakfast was good, now that I’ve discovered I can customize my beloved protein showdown flatbread.

My mom came over last night so I could show her things she will need while she’s watching the cats. “And then these are their plates for their treats,” I started, and I could feel Henry rolling his eyes from the other room but we’ve had this argument enough times and I refuse to remind him once again they’re PEOPLES and peoples shouldn’t have to eat their treats off the floor!

(Actually, we call them TRITS not TREATS.)

Then I had to show her all the squirrel food too and she was like omg.

Henry, 1970s Granola Dad, made his own batches of trail mix for the road and thinks he is SO AMAZING. I just watched him pop some in his mouth (knock knock Mr. Mustache, coming thru) and do a little shoulder shimmy.

9:32am: West Virginia rest area fun.

Henry said some guy came out of the bathroom with his pants still undone so now he’s really loaded up with style inspo. On the way out, we saw a sign on the hill and henry thought it said MUTILATED TRAIL so then that’s how my eyes saw it as too but chooch was quick to rain on our savage parade by clarifying that the sign said NATURALIZED trail. Boring.

I just saw a huge sign outside of a gym that said JUMPING JACKS FOR CHARITY and I want to play!! I love jumping jacks. It’s literally my favorite cardio.

10:30am: Pilot pee stop!

Chooch stayed in the car and told us he wanted a “fruit cup” but we found no such things so now he’s railing against us like we’re the world’s most incompetent parents and he can fuck right off lest he get uninvited to my rollercoaster road trip birthday party, little INGRATE.

10:59am: scenic overlook somewhere in WV! See also: Henry sucks at taking pictures. See also x2: woke Chooch up from a nap for this and now he EXTRA DOUBLY loves us.

11:15am: Just passed a farmers market and Henry said we should have stopped to get chooch his damn fruit and I said YEAH AND SMASHED IT IN HIS FACE.

“wow,” Henry murmured. Look, Chooch is currently my worst frenemy ok.

Also, how the fuck are we still in WV.

12:09pm: Oh wow another rest area. This one was next to that weird TAMARACK place that we drive past and never go to. Anyway, while I was peeing, the woman in the stall next to me sneezed so I said bless you. There was a moment of hesitation and then she said, “Thank you.” I wondered, as I was finishing up, if it was socially verboten to break the silence in a rest room. I mean, acknowledging sneezes is my THANG (never more than once though; you start with the follow-up sneezes and you’re on your own, Mary) so it just…came out.

Walking back to the car, I started to tell Chooch and he stopped me to squeal, “What?? You don’t talk to people in the bathroom! You just don’t! YEAH it’s weird” he answered before I even had a chance to finish asking his opinion.

She had aqua blue toe nails.

The sneezer did. All I could see of her was her feet and she was wearing sandals.

That’s all, carry on.

12:56pm: At Dolly’s Diner! Easiest food-finding experience of any road trip yet I think, you’re welcome fam.

“I put a star on it for you!” our waitress gleefully told Henry as she plunked his burger plate under his face. She reminded me of Henry’s mom a bit, if she had dyed burgundy hair and a southern accent.

The food itself was ok but the dessert selection was cray and what Chooch and I got (coconut cake and butterscotch lush) was DELECTABLE.

Henry didn’t order anything thinking he was going to share with me but lemme tell you something, Linda, I love butterscotch so much and that is how I know I’m going to make a great elder. Southern Judy even brought two spoons and I said “AW that’s cute that she thought I was going to share with you.”

I let that bitch have two small bites and he’s lucky he even got that.

What a pleasant experience. I would have liked to have bought a shirt as a memento because I have decided that my new thing is buying commemorative restaurant shirts, but Henry claims they didn’t have any for sale.

TUNNEL! THANK GOD!

We’re ten miles from Henry’s birthplace of BLAND, VA.

(We’re in Virginia now btw.)

I started jokingly calling Henry “daddy” and Chooch just mumbled “stop” from the backseat lol.

2:51: now we’re in NC! This drive has been super boring since my last check in because there’s been so much traffic and henry is also being super annoying and then I was openly weeping because SOMETHING HAPPENED TO THE DOG in the book I’m reading and honestly that should be illegal for books to have pet death/illness in them.

3:07pm: We lost Chooch at the Brintle’s Travel Plaza which coincidentally is down the street from the Mayberry town we went to the last time we were out this way (see also: the live blog I just reposted the other day).

This place had an entire hallway of payphones!

And a game room!

And a mom asking her young son in the stall next to mine if he had to poop!

update: henry found chooch. He wandered back into the game room while henry was buying his BANG purple energy drank.

4:37pm: WE JUST DROVE BY CAROWINDS. I SAW FURY!! Going to check into whatever dive Henry booked a room at and then we’re heading on over for the rest of the evening!

4:59pm: you can see it from our floor!

5:44pm: Happy to report that we’ve been in the park for five minutes and Chooch and I are already arguing I hate him.

Some guy just cut all the way thru the line to get the number of the girl in front of me and it was so Romantic and not even a ruse to line jump because he got out of line right after. I WISH I WAS STILL YOUNG & DESIRABLE.

8:22pm: As expected Carowinds was v. crowded since it’s a Saturday so we rode two things then left since we’re coming back tomorrow (hopefully the ops aren’t as slow as they were tonight OMG for a cedar fair park, I was shook). So I found this metal head fountain thingie on Roadside America so here we are.


Everything Henry is doing is so annoying btw.

Now we’re at Skyland Family Restaurant which really wants to be a classy Italian joint but just couldn’t help themselves by adding a breakfast menu.

LIVERMUSH…the fuck.

OUR WAITRESS JUST SAID “I APPRECIATE U FOLKS” and you know what? I APPRECIATE HER RIGHT BACK.

9:17pm: this family at the restaurant has a SCREAMING TODDLER with them and they are doing NOTHING to shut it up. I want to cry.

LOL I left. Henry is cleaning off everyone’s plates, as he does, and I am sitting in the quiet car.

10:06pm: fitness time!

I feel kind of bad because some guy was in there lifting and it seemed like we chased him out.

10:44pm:

Olympic swimming time! Cameo by Henry’s elbow to the left.

Well, I guess it’s time to end this. Day One of BIRTHDAY VACA THING was mediocre. Mostly driving, annoying amusement park experience, screaming restaurant baby, good evening hotel workout. BYEYEEEEE.

the blueberry sacrifice

 Food, Henrying, Liveblogging
Jul 182021
 

Woo boy a blog post from the road! We spent the day at Waldameer Park in Erie. On the way home, we stopped at AUNT BEE’S for dinner. You might remember when Chooch and I went to AUNT BEE’S in 2019.

Anyway! Now Henry got to experience the joy that AUNT BEE’S brings to the bellies. (I really should have went into advertising, I fucked up.)

COLESLAW CHOMPING CANDID

Grilled cheese is not on the menu but when I asked the waitress in a meek, pleading “excuse me ma’am” tone of an orphan beggar if it was possible to get one, she exclaimed, “Of course!” and gave me a look that could have been mistaken for a “who hurt you?” eyeball inquiry.

She even let me CUSTOMIZE IT so I got to enjoy a grilled cheese on FUCKIN’ RYE BREAD, MUTHAFUCKAS.

It was DELECTABLE.

Henry ordered the Belly Buster because of course he did and I heard the COOK come out of the kitchen and say to out waitress, “WE DONT HAVE SWISS CHEESE FOR THE BELLY BUSTER” and she was like “ok I will tell him” but I already had told Henry in dramatic fashion. And then Chooch and I laughed bc we like it when a restaurant if out of something henry wants.

When the waitress came over to tell him, he of course already knew and sarcastically said “oh no” and it came out so awkwardly and now I think I’m going to be forced to pass a household decree that states Henry is no longer permitted to speak to waitstaff.

Ok but really there is a reason I’m writing this post at all. And here it is:

I knew before even setting foot into AUNT BEE’S that I would be getting pie for dessert because the last time we were there, we had already had custard before eating dinner and we were all too full for second dessert. But sometimes family restaurants have REALLH GOOD PIE and I needed to know.

I really wanted Cherry but that wasn’t an option. They also had coconut cream which is actually one of my faves but sometimes places can really fuck that shit up so it tastes like a chunk of congealed vanilla pudding with gross meringue sprinkled with dried coconut. PASS.

I opted for blueberry, and Henry went with coconut because, in his own words, he’ll “eat any kind of coconut cream pie.”

Yeah he will.

I dunno what I’m insinuating there.

When our pies arrived, they were kind of puny. I knew immediately I wasn’t going to be a fan of mine. It was like, thick blueberry jelly in a pie crust. It had a very unnatural, this is not of the earth consistency to it, like was it even made with real blueberries?

I swiped a bite of Henry’s coconut pie after he said, “oh this is pretty good” and I AGREED that while it wasn’t a GREAT coconut cream pie, it wasn’t the worst and it had whipped cream on the top in lieu of merengue which is the best way to serve up a coco-cream, in my extremely esteemed opinion.

I made a sad face and said, “yours is so much better than mine” and then I sighed very aggressively.

So Henry muttered something under his mustache and switched our plates so now I had the coconut! Yay!!

As we pulled out of the parking lot, I groaned that my stomach hurt.

“Mine too, from that blueberry pie,” Henry mumbled.

I laughed because yay, Henry + pain. “Why, don’t you like blueberry or something?” I antagonized.

“No, I don’t!” Henry sighed. “When have you ever seen me order anything with blueberry in it?”

Lol like I pay that much attention to him.

Henry eating stuff he doesn’t like just to avoid me having a tantrum could have been written into the vows of our imaginary never-wedding. 💜

4th of July Coaster Road Trip Live Blog!

 Liveblogging, Uncategorized
Jul 042021
 

GOOD MORNING it is 7:00am and for the first time, we’re actually leaving the house when we said we were going to! We’re en route to the Cincinnati area for some King’s Island action and possibly some other fun! I guess I will live blog but the drive through Ohio is historically boring so we’ll see how that pans out?! First I have to finish a book in reading though. You care.

Haha j/k I forgot my purse so we had to turn around.

8:31am: HOLA I finished my big (That Summer – Jennifer Weiner). I liked it. Also we went to Sheetz about an hour ago and Chooch pulled an Erin and pouted about his breakfast burrito BEING DISGUSTING but then didn’t really tell us why other than it wasn’t heated up.

SHEETZ SELIFE WHAT WHAT.

9:27am: I do not appreciate that this piece of shit parked next to us at Loves.

9:44am: big microburst argument between chooch and me, perpetuated by the innocent action of me handing him an empty bag of Quest chips to put in the designated garbage bag in the backseat and he apparently WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF CLEANING UP A MESS and ripped the bag from my hands and let it flutter to the floor so then I snapped and he clapped back and Henry was like stop please and the song “Reminiscing” was on the Yacht Rock station so I spat something about reminiscing to back when I didn’t have a kid yet and henry was like WOW and the yacht rock station guy said something about how two is better than one and Henry bitterly mumbled, “not always” while looking back & forth between Chooch and me. Wow.

10:44am: speaking of yacht rock I feel like if there was a yacht rock prom, Michael McDonald would be a shoo-in prom king.

12:40pm: sorry, I forgot about you, Blog! We made it to Strickers Grove around noon where we met my old friend Christina and their fiancée Katie but the rides don’t start until 3???? The whole reason we woke up early was to go here before Kings Island because it’s only open 4x a year and there are two rare coaster credits we need but now we are going to eat first and go back ugh I hate when plans change!!

1:55pm: We had the most awesome waitress at Hyde’s and equally as awesome fries even though they’re crinkle cut and Henry bought me a t-shirt so I can rep Hyde’s even while in Pittsburgh BUT they didn’t have the one I wanted and I misunderstood what the cashier said so now I have a Hyde’s shirt that says Pie or Die on the back which I guess is cool and now I have something to wear to the pie party should I choose to have one this year.

The cashier had already gone back to the get the shirt in my size so I said “now I can’t change my mind, I’m basically married to this one” and Henry said, “I didn’t pay it for yet so you’re not married to anything.”

And I said YEAH I KNOW, IM NOT MARRIED TO ANYTHING. Thanks for the reminder.

2:17pm: Henry’s checking out whatever Christina is dragging under their car because every man feels compelled to point it out to Christina.

2:24:

4:58pm: You guys we just had a really great time at Stricker’s Grove even though it’s like 95 degrees out! And we got there just in time – about 40 minutes before the rides started running, and the lines for tickets were very very short. The lines were so long after the rides started. I’ll do a full recap in a separate post but it was really cool to get these two new coaster credits! Now we’re going to check into our hotel, change clothes, and head on over to King’s Island!

5:38pm: Having technical difficulties with our hotel reservation. But Henry was all AHA HERE IS MY EMAIL CONFIRMATION and what will happen next who knows but I want to stay here bc all of their art work is King’s Island-themed :(

Finally success! Booking.com didn’t send the reservation over to Hilton so they had to redo it but now we have a room and they upgraded us too!

7:14pm: We’re in line for Orion now so I think I will probably end this live blog either FOREVER or JUST FOR NOW.

I’m really just trying to ride the rides now, BRUH (sorry, I hate that word so much lol).

An American LiveBlog

 Liveblogging, travel, Uncategorized
Jun 122021
 

Hello. It’s 7:42am and we are about to depart from our luxurious gravel driveway in Brookline to begin our little weekend road trip to Washington DC and Maryland, aren’t you so excited. Originally we were just going to go to Maryland on Sunday to see if we have better luck at that Six Flags but then we decided to make a weekend of it and visit DC since NONE OF US EVER HAVE if you can believe that. We were supposed to go in 2019 the day after the Super M concert but Chooch was all, “wah I have a test and I can’t miss school!” Ugh. Scholastic Chooch is annoying.

As usual, refresh for new updates throughout the day OR DON’T this is a free country.

Henry is already so annoying. He was wearing a white shirt with stains on it and I called him out on it before we left so then we had to wait for to rifle through his pile of Faygo shirts before he decided on an ugly gray button-down that I hate and I was wailing, “why can’t you just have a cool T-shirt collection like normal people this is so dumb!” I literally can’t stand it.

7:53am: only made it two miles before HNC texted henry and said, “you’re probably driving but call me when you can” and now I’m panicking because what if it’s about the squirrels and henry is like I AM NOT CALLING HIM BACK WITH YOU TWO IN THE CAR. I WILL CALL HIM WHEN WE STOP AT SHEETZ. So now I guess I will stew in my anxiety until Sheetz.

8:28am: Obligatory Sheetz stop. I got the Protein Showdown like I always do but Henry called it the Protein Showtime and it’s not even that big of a deal, I admit, but Chooch and I are heckling him hard.

8:33am: BIG UPDATE. Henry called back HNC at my incessant urging and apparently a piece of slate fell off his roof and hit his car and he wanted to know if anyone heard it. Henry said no but Chris should have just called me because I HEARD SOMETHING. We could have masterminded a great conspiracy theory together. Hopefully he’s not going to blame the squirrels because I actually think Mr Gray Guy may have been the culprit.

9:25am: we just crossed over the Youghiogheny reservoir thingie and Chooch said, “that looks like Bambi water” whatever the fuck that means and then Baekhyun’s “Bambi” came on Spotify.

That’s all.

10:07am: Hello from the Love’s restroom. Nothing to report. It was crowded so I couldn’t take my traditional road trip bathroom selfie. Then I came out and appear to have lost my family.

Found them, call off the APB.

You can always count on Love’s for clean bathrooms and gross accessories.

11:19am: there was all this traffic because of a truck that was trying to move over and no one was letting him and there was all this maniacal swerving happening. Henry was like turning inside out on his mad effort to defend the truck driver so I said, “why don’t you just pull over and give him a hug. Maybe you could…BUMP DOLLIES.” And then I was choking on my mirth as usual, and henry was pursing his lips trying not to give me the satisfaction of emitting even a sliver of a laugh.

“Those kinds of truck drivers don’t even use dollies,” was his eventual comeback. He sure showed me. Truly.

12:02pm: ugh I had to pee in a legit gas station bathroom:

Henry was like IT WAS NOT THAT BAD and ok at least the toilet was clean but I was afraid Jason Voorhees was going to burst out of that closet like the Kool-Aid Man but bloodier and less fruity.

Also I wish I was this skinny:

12:15pm: Air Supply’s Even the Nights Are Better just came on the Yacht Rock station and I screamed REMEMBER WHEN WE SANG THIS AT NORAEBANG IN KOREA to Henry and both he and Chooch mumbled no which is surprising since I sang my part with such epic gusto.

On the metro thingie getting ready to go to DC and Henry has already caused a commotion trying to get the metro cards thank god the fare booth recognized us a TOURISTS (Henry’s wearing his man purse, so) and came over to help us before henry made a fatal mistake.

It us.

I made Chooch sit in front of us in case I want to chat with him and that already had him set off so then when I told him to take our picture, HOO BOY.

2:04pm:

3:08pm: have had many arguments with SON OF THE YEAR so far but the best one was when he insisted that presidents don’t live in the White House ok cook on.

Also, I hate scooters.

3:36pm: I like to read up on cities before I go there but nothing I read or watched could have prepared me for the actual assault of ice cream trucks and their demonic competing music box sirens.

4:04pm: BIBIBOP STOP

SOOOO satisfying like bibimbap but make it a salad.

4:35pm: We’re enjoying all the little pride parades cruising around town and Henry said WOW THEY ARE EVERYWHERE and I thought he meant like OMG THE GAYS but he was talking literally about the VEHICLES in the parade.

Also how perfect is this tree it’s like God drew it in his mind and projected it here.

5:54pm: on the metro back to Maryland. It was a full day of walking and I am ready to not do that anymore and go enjoy a nice iced coffee somewhere and relax, my peepee heads.

Here are some pictures of chooch and me being blinded by the fiery sun in front of the Capitol. Also, we almost got ice cream from one of the pushy ice cream trucks near there but henry only had a $1 cash on him!!!! What a cheapfuck!

6:19pm: Just got back to the car! When we got back to the New Carrollton station, chooch and I noticed a girl who was also on the same metro as us going into DC! I was like “what are the odds?!” And Chooch said, “I dunno like 5 or 10” whatever that means.

Oh and just for the record I wasn’t ready to leave but Henry and Chooch were like “no, it’s time.” I can’t wait until I’m older so I can travel with my friends! Literally the same thing I wrote in every vacation journal growing up!

6:32pm: We’re at our hotel and it’s across from Mary Main cannabis dispensary and Henry said, “in case you Wanna get hiiiiiiigh” and the way he said it made both Chooch and me very uncomfy.

7:02pm: omg Henry thought the AC was broke and went to the front desk so they sent him back with A Guy who was like “you have to turn it on” and chooch and I were holding in our giddy squeals then the front desk called and Chooch picked up AND DIDNT SAY ANYTHING bc he doesn’t know how to use a real phone??!! So he threw the receiver at henry. It was a whole thing.

7:17pm: Henry did NOT go here because he wasn’t good enough.

Anyway, we’re en route to Old Alexandria for ice cream.

8:58pm: so funny story. We did not get ice cream in Virginia because there was nowhere to park in old Alexandria and the other nearby places had massive crowds and I was like, eventually, screaming that I was not waiting in a line of that length for two flavors of custard. So we started to head back in Maryland which had nothing near our hotel and that’s why we ended up in Virginia in the first place, and I found a place on Yelp called Ice Cream Sweet Shoppe which was closing in 30 minutes. We managed to make it there and THE JOKE IS ON ME, U GUYS, because it was a fairly dingy joint in a rundown shopping center in a sketchy area, slinging those ubiquitous Hershey flavors. Don’t get me wrong, Hershey ice cream is legit tasty and the flavor options are staggering, but I could walk down the street from my house and get this same ice cream from our neighborhood ice cream shop, Scoops. When we’re in other cities, we want real local shit, you know??

But the young guy scooping for us was super nice and pleasant so it wasn’t a total bust.

I got Llamalicious and then traded Henry for his Rocky Road because mine was good but just too CLOYING. (Cake batter with ribbons of frosting.) Henry almost didn’t have anything to trade me because he initially LEFT HIS ICE CREAM IN THE SHOP.

What a fucking experience. Now Henry hates Virginia and also this part of Maryland where he keeps missing exits and really no one is to blame for that but him.

[ETA, the next day: so I never officially signed off on this fucking live account because after we got back to the hotel I just snapped, had a psychological meltdown, because the hotel was so awful and loud and the night just totally unraveled and I was like I MIGHT KILL MYSELF not even making light of suicide but being extremely transparent and honest here. Anyway, it was pretty bad there, and overflowed into the morning but now I am better thanks for asking.]

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!

Leaving Holiday World: Updates in Real Time

 Liveblogging, small towns, travel
Aug 192018
 

Guys, our trip to Holiday World was everything I wanted it to be and more but we will get to that another day. Right now, we just checked out of our OK hotel (I booked it and it was way better than the sex shack Henry holed us up in in Newark) but it was hard to leave because we had inadvertently become invested in a movie on the Hallmark Channel (Bridal Wave, lol). I mean, I can guess how it ends but STILL.

So now it’s 8:43am and we’re on our way to the Santa Claus Museum, because we are in Santa Claus, IN after all.

We just drove past a house surrounded by corn fields that had a ROOMS FOR RENT sign and now I wish we had stayed there. Also, I just told Henry I’m Live-blogging and he flipped me off.

8:52am:

Obligatory.

9:42am: We just left the Santa Claus Museum and Santa’s Candy Castle and both were worth the pit stop in case you were considering driving past with no regrets.

Oldest Santa statue in the world!

I think I will post about the museum separately because I have a lot of pictures and there was a family there that I hated.

But Santa’s Candy was legit. It smelled wonderful and the employees were so nice! The guy who rang us up reminded me of Hank from Breaking Bad. He just kind of looked like him, OK?!

We bought a small bag of Krispie Kreme Jelly Bellys there and I only ate like 10 of them and feel so fucking sick.

11:26am: TIME JUMPED AHEAD I GUESS. Stupid time zones. We just stopped at a Pilot and it destroyed my good mood because I hate gross gas stations and this one was awful and the “coffee station” was dilapidated and there were flies all over it SO THAT WAS A SOLID NOPE.

REMINDER THAT I HAVE NOT HAD ANY COFFEE TODAY.

11:40am:

Me: I could NOT live in Indiana.

Henry: That’s obvious. Places are limited where you could live.

But seriously WHERE ARE ALL THE CAFES. I have to get coffee at MCDONALD’S.

Chooch just screamed, “Peach ice cream!” because we just passed some barn-shaped grocery store with a huge peach ice cream sign so now I’m mocking him and screaming PEACH ICE CREAM is my new brand. Also, if you think Henry didn’t just completely overcomplicate an order of one small coffee with cream and sweetener, then do you even know Henry? That was the most awkward McDonald’s drive-thru ordering I’ve witnessed in a long time.

Also I only ordered a small because if I find a better place I AM STOPPING.

Or – telling Henry to stop.

12:08pm: Driving through Louisville and I just can’t stop feeling disgusted that they have some sports arena called the KFC Yum! Center.

12:20pm: Henry just made some off-hand comment about how the time hasn’t changed yet and I started screaming about how that there time done BEEN changed for A WHILE now and he would know that if HE READ MY LIVE BLOG.

12:50pm: Oh I forgot – when we stopped at Pilot, there was a RED CARPET INN across the street so Chooch and I were dry-heaving. And then inside Pilot, an announcement came on that SHOWER #4 WAS READY and Chooch was all “ew people take showers here?!” And we had to explain to him that Truck Driver Life but then I added, “If I was staying at that Red Carpet Inn, I’d rather take showers here” and Chooch almost puked from laughing so hard and then the cashier asked Henry if he needed a bag and he said NO because he thought we were still standing there and would help him carry the stuff but of course we had already walked outside and he came out to the parking lot with an armful of items and started bitching at us for bailing like this was so unexpected.

2:31pm: WHY DO RESTAURANTS CLOSE AFTER LUNCH. Every fucking place I’ve found on Yelp for this shitty area outside of Cincinnati closes at 2 or 3 so now I guess we are going to Hyde’s which is fine but I have eaten here before and I wanted to try something different! Ugh! I AM HUNGRY THO SO SOMEONE JUST STUFF A GRILLED CHEESE IN MY FAT FACE ALREADY.

Also I have chocolate stains all over my shirt and shorts from the dumb protein bar I ate for breakfast. Ugh.

2:48pm: We’re at Hyde’s and I came so close to sitting at a booth with OLIVER NORTH.

GAG!! (In case you don’t know, I HATE OLIVER NORTH.)

Also, Chooch beat me and submitted the Hyde’s help wanted sign to Job Spotter and got 97 points for it! THAT’S NINETY SEVEN CENTS!!

Well, Henry and I just had a mild disagreement over the Cole slaw here (I think it’s too sweet, he thinks it’s just right) and for some reason, Chooch thought this was SO HILARIOUS that he spewed a mouthful of iced tea all over the booth and Henry was like GOODBYE and left us lol.

Update: Henry’s back. He was just hiding in the bathroom. The only guy that was sitting near us got up and left.

I just had to send Chooch outside to take deep breaths and now he’s making friends with a gaggle or elder-broads.

Now he’s back and blaming Henry for making him crack up and he really just said, “I’m just trying to live a normal life.”

3:00pm: Waitress just asked me “Do you want more coffee ma’am” and I’m like yeah but I also need you to stop calling me ma’am.

I just wistfully said, “Ugh now I want to watch Short Circuit” and Henry asked why. “Um, because of this SONG?!”

(Bee Gee’s More Than a Woman is playing right now.)

Why does he never KNOW.

3:25pm: Some broad just said she wanted two slices of coconut pie to go so the waitress repeated “Ok 2 coconuts to go” so Henry scoffed and said, “I have two coconuts to go” and gestured at Chooch and me. WOW FUNNY GUY.

3:43pm: I got mad at Chooch and told him he can go get reborn elsewhere and I don’t even know that that means but it felt like the ULTIMATE SLAM at the time.

3:54pm: Here in Henry’s Mecca, aka Jungle Jim’s:

4:57pm: Just left Jungle Jim’s and Henry has that fresh-from-the-market glow. I like it there to a point but then I remember that I’m surrounded by assholes and getting rammed into with shopping carts and I’m over it. Especially when some kids were like “Mom look, exotic KitKats! Are they real?!” And Mom came over with her resting bitch fest and said, “Ew I don’t know. Those are WEIRD” and of course she was super skinny and had that quintessential short soccer mom hair

YOU’RE weird, Mom!

They had cherimoya which I begged for because if you didn’t know that is my FAVORITE fruit but Henry was like, “NOT FOR $10 A PIECE!” Ugh. I did get a sapote though which I haven’t had since my friend Kevin sent me one five or six years ago and I have dreamt of them ever since!

5:53pm: Just stopped at another Pilot. I went into the bathroom and the only available stall had a bunch of poop in it so I said NOPE I’LL WAIT FOR ANOTHER and then a girl came in and was like “There a mess in there?” And I said “Yes it’s pretty gross” so we stood there silently for about 30 seconds listening to someone pee in the taken stall, and then the girl said, “Like is it just not flushed?” And I said “I mean I didn’t really inspect it. I just saw a ton of poop and left” so she went in, lifted up her leg AND FLUSHED IT WITH HER FOOT. She had on flip flops! It could have flipped and flopped into the muddy commode!

Anyway, it flushed and she was like THERE U GO and I muttered thanks and then reluctantly went in even though I didn’t want to use that stall and furthermore I didn’t even really have to pee that bad!!

Oh, the crisis.

Back out in the store, Henry and Chooch filled me on their own bathroom story about the guy who may or not have been living in one of the stalls and another stall was playing rap music. When I told Henry my story and got to the part about the girl using her flip flopped foot to flush, he said, “I saw a guy come out of the bathroom in bare feet yesterday” and I scanned my brain to play back all the places we were at yesterday and I screamed, “EW AT HOLIDAY WORLD?!”

That park had some very questionable clientele.

Chooch got the Giordano’s Deep Dish limited edition Lays and it doesn’t taste like it at all and now the car smells kind of like puke because of it.

7:00pm: Current Sitch – Henry is not speaking to me because I snapped at him for not immediately knowing what I was talking about when I mentioned the Log Jammer’s spillway.

7:36pm: HENRY JUST TOLD ME TO CALM DOWN BECAUSE I AM FURIOUS WITH THE SHEETZ APP RIGHT NOW. OH I’M SORRY, AM I BEING TOO MUCH “EMOTIONAL WOMAN” FOR YOU RIGHT NOW?

8:24pm: I finally ate my coveted, signature Sheetz veggie wrap so I feel better now however Henry started “thinking out loud” about whether Ruby Tuesday’s still has their lettuce wedge salad and I snapped out and yelled SHUT UP NO ONE CARES.

Also, we managed to lose not one but TWO of the three reusable straws we brought with us so I feel pretty defeated because we didn’t just throw them out by accident but we literally LITTERED. There was a hole in the stupid Journeys drawstring bag we had with us at Holiday World ugh.

Also x2 one of my relatives was mocking those of us concerned with the environment and sardonically promised not to use straws and I am just so fucking sick of conservative cabbagefucks acting like it’s so cool to be environmentally deviant. You’re right, let’s all just dump buckets of oil into the nearest body of water for funsies and show the world who owns it. Rah rah rah.

Also x3 before I fed my face, I snapped out on Chooch because I am SO SICK OF HIM ASKING FOR V-BUCKS FOR THAT STUPID FORTNITE GAME and I yelled about how I’m not spending $25 for some in-game purchase that won’t even yield something tangible that he can hold in his hand but is only just some virtual accessory for his stupid character and school starts on Friday and we haven’t even bought him new shoes yet so NO I’M NOT FUNNELING MY HARD-EARNED MONEY INTO THE MAW OF A FUCKING VIDEO GAME. And wow did I ever feel like a REAL MOM after that rant.

8:56pm: Two of my friends announced that they’re going to be moms and it was so nice to see GOOD NEWS today – I’m so happy for them!

9:24pm: WELCOME TO PENNSYLVANIA. Oh thank god.

9:47pm: Chooch was just on the phone with his neighbor-pal who is extremely geographically challenged. “I wasn’t in CHICAGO, Jayden! No that’s in ILLINOIS. I was in INDIANA!” On the way there Friday night, he was like, “No Jayden I’m not there yet. No, I’m not coming home tonight! BECAUSE IT TAKES 7 HOURS TO GET THERE, WHY WOULD I COME HOME THE SAME NIGHT?!” He gets so aggravated talking to him haha.

10:58pm: Hi friends I have been home since 10:15 and I am ready to crash and dream about the incredible coasters we rode at Holiday World – Chooch and I are obsessed! I would include Henry in that statement but he’s a bitch and only rode ONE OF THEM, ONCE. He’s so disappointing.

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!

 Older Entries