Vegan Lunch Pilgrimage

 Liveblogging, travel, Uncategorized
Feb 262022
 

Oh ho ho, 좋은 아침 여러분. Henry and I are currently en route to Columbus, Ohio to have lunch at Seitan’s Realm. Here is how that happened:

Every time we pass through Columbus, we want to eat there but it always happens to be on Sunday and they are closed! Finally, I couldn’t take anymore taunting via their Instagram feed so I yelled at Chooch to request off on some upcoming Saturday so that we can feast. Then a few weeks later he was like “I’m off on the 26th” and I rejoiced! But then I found out that he called off for a Pokemon “event” so this is why it is just Henry and me in the car and Chooch is still at home sleeping :(

Anyway it’s 7:19 and we just plied ourselves with coffee, NCT Dream is blaring, and I’m already about to start complaining about contacts. Woo road trip!!

8:55am: what a boring drive, as expected. We stopped at Sheetz for breakfast as per road trip protocol. Nothing interesting happened there at all. Then I listened to a few chapters of an audiobook but it was making me fall asleep (I mean the book is good but combined with being in the car, I was so drowsy).

9:12am time for a Renjun appreciation shout out, best NCT vocalist.

10:26am: Just arrived at Otherworld but our reservation isn’t until 11 so we’re just sitting in the car, you know, same as we’ve been doing for the last three hours.

OMG Henry’s memory of the day is from 2006 when I was pregnant and we were also in Columbus that weekend! The picture is my puke on the bathroom floor of the science center. IMAX & Slurpee was not a great combo for my mucho-prego self lol.

11:28 I live here now.

11:56am: Spent an hour at Otherworld and it was really fun but toward the end, it started to get really crowded so we were glad we left as early as we did and got there before our 11am reservation because this is not the type of place you can enjoy yourself with a crowd.

Henry: Really? Renjun’s Voice?

Yeah, so??

Now we’re on our way to Seitan’s Realm, finally!

12:30pm: finally at Seitan’s Realm!!

THIS IS ABOVE OUR BOOTH!!!

1:06pm: you guys wow. We just left and I will definitely need to write a separate review post thingy but it was so satisfying and I am wrecked that we live 3 hours away.

1:33pm: stopped at Topiary Park. We weee here years ago with Christina but it was rainy that day so I wanted to come back. It was smaller than I remembered and also super cold so we left after five minutes lol.

3:07pm: just peed in the nicest park bathroom ngl.

Some place called Blacklick Park I guess. I needed to go for a walk to digest and henry took forever finding a place and we had many fights.

Artec! Nooooo!

3:26pm this just in: I knew something moss-adjacent that Henry did not: that British Soldier lichen stuff!

That is not my picture but I have vivid memories of this shit being all over the fences along the side of my childhood street – Gillcrest – and I have never seen it since then. :(

3:36: Just stopped at 5 Bean Coffee and got a maple butterscotch latte which is quite delectable but I’m having ordering regertz because they had red velvet on the special menu that I didn’t see at first so I pointed it out to henry but he blew me off and just got something basic like his personality. Ugh.

3:44: we just drove past the gas station where we had to pull over one time on the way home from who knows where when Chooch was laughing so hard he peed his pants and henry was soooooo angry lol.

Meanwhile henry just called the car in front of us a COCKBITE.

4:47: just spent a cool $100 on Kpop pins in one of the pin maker’s shop updates. I also bought a keychain meant to be used as a frame for Kpop photo cards – so if you’re new here, that means that anytime you buy a Kpop album, one of the fun parts of it is finding out whose photocard you got because it’s totally random. Some of the super manic Stans will buy dozens of the albums in an effort to collect all of the photocards. It’s nuts!

But it got me thinking about how everyone was so shocked when I got into Kpop and admittedly I was too but it actually makes so much sense because I am a very obsessive and fanatical personality type. For instance, when I was in middle school, I had it SO BAD for Pgh Penguin Paul Coffey and used to carry his hockey card around with me everywhere like it was actually him. I can remember even taking him to the movies with my friends and giving him his own seat next to mine.

“So really I haven’t outgrown that part of myself at all,” I said to Henry just now, to which he mumbled, “You haven’t outgrown much of anything.”

Wwwwwwwwwow.

5:52pm: Made the mistake of telling Henry I don’t really understand sanctions and he stepped into his MANSPLAININ’ trousers and gave me a Lesson.

Also fuck Putin. What a miserable pathetic gremlin shadow of a man. Go drown in quicksand with Trump please, while grasping onto your tiny peepees.

6:33pm: Now we’re about 15 minutes from home but Son of the Year texted me and demanded an iced coffee so now we’re at Dunkin’ in Bridgeville and I just want to go hoooooommmmmeeee.

Posting this now I guess. What a lame live blog. Ciao ciao for now now.

Pink Latte or Bust

 Liveblogging, travel, Uncategorized
Jan 032022
 

Hello Internet. It is 7:24am and Henry and I are departing our house for Cleveland. We both have the day off work but Chooch went back to school today so I thought, “What could we do that’s fun but doesn’t take us too far away” and then through the power of YouTube I accidentally stumbled across a vlog where some vegan went to a cafe and got pink vegan cinnamon rolls AND A PINK LATTE. Come on, we all know I’m not above novelties foods and bevs, so I was all over this like a Jersey Shore girl and a Plan B pill.

Unfortunately, upon more research I learned that this joint – the 27 Club – is owned by Machine Gun Kelly which is v. cringe but I want the latte so am choosing to ignore this gross fact. Shh.

Besides, we’re listening to Taemin in the car to ward off the sleazy MGK vibes.

Gee wiz guys it’s 11:05 and I forgot I started a LiveBlog lol. But we’re done with 27 Club and I am here to say it was…worth it ugh. Lol. I will post more about it on the way home because now we’re going to West Side Market, supposedly. Henry went rogue and made the unilateral decision.

12:16pm: We just left a pointless stop downtown CLE and are en route to Otani Sushi and Henry is stressing me out because he has to USE A BATHROOM like ASAP and I’m over here like plz stop talking about this.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the cafe, which was actually a pleasant experience as I said above.

Henry enters the building.

Little known fact about me: I never was a fan of Biggie. Tupac or GTFO.

Barely anyone reads this so I’m confident that it shall remain a little known fact!

I got my pink latte with almond milk and salted maple syrup and it was actually VERY nice. I know it’s all about the beans but also the type of syrups a cafe uses can make or break the place you know? This maple flavoring was very mellow and not cloying at all. So even apart from the fact that it’s adorably pink, this shit tasted great too.

I guess henry liked his cold brew. Who cares. (I just asked him and he said yeah and also it made him remember the LIQUIDITY of it which exacerbated his need for A BATHROOM lol).

I’m really glad that we went there before they took down their Christmas decor because yes.

All of the stools had various dead singers on them. Ours had Amy Winehouse on one side and whoever was on the other side looked like Jonny Craig at first and I could tell Henry was trying not to make any OFF COLOR jokes about how too bad Jonny made it past 27 wow did I really just do that for him? Oh well. I forgot to look at the picture more closely before we left so I never did actually see who it was.

Was Henry enjoying where he was right then, Y or N.

You guys – these vegan cinnamon rolls were made fresh upon ordering, came out piping hot, with this banging pitaya icing. I LOVED THEM. Of course I shared with Henry, who only expressed mediocre feelings toward them. I think he was in pink shock though.

Um I also bought a hoodie because my eyesight might be fledgling but it’s still 20/20 when it comes to design. This hoodie is THE LIMIT. I’m also obsessed with the 27 Club’s logo. Ugh.

12:30pm: NEWS ALERT – Henry just RELIEVED himself at a REBEL gas station. He is so happy now.

Also our Waze is still set to Korean so Henry nearly missed a hidden cop up ahead lol.

Overall, I am very satisfied with my experience at 27 Club even though it had the equivalent cringe factor of, say, visiting a vape shop owned by Jonny Craig.

Ugh I bought a bottle of Voss water earlier at Sheetz and I will never buy it again. It tastes awful and I think it’s the AQUAMIN that’s in it whatever that is?? It reminds me of, and this will mean nothing to you, the water fountain in the office of Dr. Lewis, the “fat doctor” my mom used to go to in the 80s to get probably unsafe “diet pills” and my brother Ryan and I would always have to sit in the waiting room with all the other “it’s this or Jazzercize” desperate broads. Ugh the water fountain there had the grossest vitamin infused flavor.

1:22pm: just had an underwhelming visit to my fave vintage joint, Flower Child. I mean it was still fun to walk around but there was nothing that really caught my eye and felt worth arguing with Henry over until he acquiesces and agrees that, yes Erin, we really do need yet another swag lamp in the house even though there is literally nowhere else to put one.

I cried IS THIS FOR COCAINE and Henry was like, “um I don’t see how, but ok.” Then he just strolled off into the sunset next room, leaving me to wonder.

There weren’t even really any JESUS pictures that I needed. Oh well. Next time maybe.

Here are pictures from when we went to the Arcade which was completely empty and the restrooms were locked, causing Henry to cry because this was at the height of his bathroom urgency and even Starbucks down the street was closed lol.

As of 1:31 I hate Henry because he SNEEZED with no warning and now he’s sniffling ughhhhhh.

Meanwhile we’ve been to Cleveland approx. 50x and I still never know where anything is.

2:09: Hi. We’re at Otani Japanese because they have veg/vegan sushi options and henry is being a big cry baby because he wanted WONTON SOUP and i allegedly shamed him somehow? But then he had a big RISE-UP moment and called the waiter over to add it to his order, like ok cool Henry, snap those big boy pants suspenders.

LOLOLOL it’s WONTON SOUP time:

Oh shit hello vegan sushi:

Hey wanna know something hilarious? After we devoured this, our waiter came over and asked, “are you guys vegan?”

“I’m vegetarian,” I said, scared that he was going to say, “ok because actually that one roll has actual tuna in it” but apparently they have an entirely separate vegan menu with EVEN MORE OPTIONS than what’s on the regular menu and it would have been nice if the host had given us that with the other menus. I just really thought the menu looked odd because I had sworn when I looked at the website a few weeks ago, I had seen a shit ton of vegan sushi rolls that had me gurgling my saliva but then I just assumed that maybe I had gotten restaurants mixed up in my head because that’s definitely an Erin Thing to do.

LOOK AT THIS SHIT. I’ll be coming back to Cleveland sooner rather than later, I guess.

4:16lm: at a rest stop outside of PA, henry decided to treat himself to a Blizzard. Of course I chose for him (snickerdoodle) and then spent a solid minute having an internal convo with my alter egos about how ridiculous of a word “snickerdoodle” is. Then I started imagining Chooch working at DQ and instead of just handing Blizzards upside down to customers, throwing it in the air and then drop-kicking it over the counter because that would be a very Chooch Thing to do.

Anyway, this Blizzard was not snickerdoodle? It had chocolate slivers in it? What the hell?

I mean it was still good because Blizzards gon’ Blizz (…what?) but that was no snickerdoodle I’ve ever tasted.

Ok well we should be home in about a half hour so goodbye.

Atlanta to Pittsburgh: A Series of Stuff

 Liveblogging, travel, Uncategorized
Nov 282021
 

I wasn’t going to LiveBlog because we woke up late and now we can’t do all the fun stuff I wanted to do on the way home (ok it was just one fun thing and I wasn’t really married to the idea but whatever).

But I’m bored and need something to do so here we are.

It’s 10:30 and we just stopped at this place screaming about PEACHES PECANS AND FIREWORKS. We went there specifically to see if we could find any good deals on peanuts for the squirrels (lol my life) but they only had bags of RAW p’nuts which are not good for my Buddys and Grays!

Instead we spent $40 on deep fried peanuts, strawberry peanut brittle, locally made soy candles, lip balm, and beard balm. And something called Divinity that Henry tried to not share with me but I ripped it out of his hand.

I could have spent more money there, easily.

I didn’t see any real peaches there and made the mistake of saying so, and now I’m enduring a spiel from Farmer Hank about how peaches are out of season. I wonder where he hides his Farmers Almanacs.

Omg henry is so annoying. He keeps changing the route while he’s driving in an effort to bypass anticipated traffic. “This will put us through the top of Tennessee,” he said. “What’s the top of Tennessee?” I asked. “Not the bottom,” he replied. I MEANT LIKE WHAT CITIES BUT OK MR LITERAL.

Hi it’s almost noon. Henry and I talked about LGBTQ+ issues, nutrition, and Slutty Vegan for like an hour in case you were wondering why I wasn’t updating lololol. Now we’re at a gas station and Dunkin’ Donuts in Athens Georgia because why wouldn’t we have left Georgia yet. I had an annoying gas station bathroom experience thanks to a loud mom and her 12 children. Also I broke a nail last night when pulling down my restraint on Georgia Scorcher and I need a nail file but have not found one at any place we stopped. Also my macchiato (“macchiato” – very LOOSE definition) tastes like hot water. Henry tried to stir it by shaking it and sprayed “macchiato” everywhere so I yelled about how I “try to keep the car clean but then YOU PEOPLE–”

“Is ‘you people’ me and Chooch?” Henry had the audacity to interrupt.

“ANYTIME I SAY YOU AND PEOPLE IT ALWAYS REFERS TO YOU AND CHOOCH” I yelled. Because hello really??

Twenty five minutes later. In Tennessee. We just drove past a giant cross. I blurted out, “Giant crosses are pathetic” and I dunno why I said that other than the power of Satan compelled my tongue.

Also, earlier in the drive I was fixated on the fact that we don’t pronounce sugar soo-gar and now Henry says “SOOGAR” every time he sees a sign that has sugar on it. So that’s a cool linguistic monster I created.

1:11pm and I was just vocalizing how I imagine Henry would be right now if he’d never met me: sitting in a tattered recliner in a sweat-stained wife beater, shotgun propped up against the side, long greasy hair, knife in a holster of his belt which also features a huge belt buckle since he’s an OTR truck driver, eating a HUNGRY MAN tv dinner while shotgunning a generic beer and watching–

“NCIS?” Henry cut me off with a sigh.

“No, GRACE UNDER FIRE,” I shouted, choking on laughter. “And who’s that other asshole…JEFF FOXWORTHY.”

“I used to listen to him before he was famous,” Henry said and I think he meant it as a brag???

“Wow congrats. You were a redneck hipster.”

1:51: THIS JUST IN–at a Pilot somewhere in Tennessee and THERE WERE FOUR OF US BROADS IN THE BATHROOM WEARING MASKS. I felt like I was with MY PEOPLE.

2:25pm: had a fight about maps. Chooch actually defended me by pointing out that HENRY can’t even read a map. Thanks, Backseat Son.

Anyway here are mountains. Maybe the Smokies? Who can be sure. No one can read a map.

Also just passed a billboard for HEAVENLY STITCHES: a quilt store. Cool.

2:53: GUYS. WE JUST WENT TO PAL’S SUDDEN SERVICE. I have been OBSESSED with this fast food chain since we saw one Friday night when henry abruptly pulled off an exit to go to Dunkin’ Donuts and one was right next door. I AMOST forgot about it until today when Henry was saying stuff that I wasn’t listening to as usual and then casually added, “and then you can go to Pal’s” and I was suddenly ERECT WITH ATTENTION.

The exit sign is A POINTING HOT DOG!!!

I got a toasted cheese!!! I made Henry get a Mello Yello so I could drink some because I didn’t want my own!

Henry tried to pay at the ordering window and the girl LAUGHED AT HIM and said, “oh no, you pay at the pick up window” like Henry had asked to see the basement. It was such a highlight.

Here are pictures I took Friday night:

I need a Pal’s t-shirt SO BADLY NOW.

6:00pm: HENRY made me drive for the last TWO HOURS most of it was GRIDLOCKED TRAFFIC in Virginia, while he slept like a precious WHITE MAN. My nerves are shot now. I pulled over to switch with him RIGHY BEFORE the dumb toll thing which I had to drive through on Friday too and it was so annoying because we have EZ Pass but were behind CANADIANS who had to dig around their car for change and I was very unhappy with our NEIGHBORS TO THE NORTH in that moment.

Anyway did I mention that I’m in a bad mood now? Because I am. Fuck off Henry. If you even ever read this!!!!!

Omg he just had the audacity to say something about me complaining about driving when he still has to drive for 3 hours and 45 minutes and I was like, “yeah and you got to sleep for 2 hours so I dunno why you’re complaining!” But now he’s saying he wasn’t?? Um I’m sorry but when he bitched about the remaining time left he has to drive, that was him LODGING A COMPLAINT. Fuck off!!

6:25: Hi. My other dream was to go to Tudor’s Biscuit World & get a motherfucking biscuit since all my other biscuit dreams were crushed on this trip. Now we’re here but we got stuck behind an elderly couple who just materialized from outer space and we’re ecstatic to order human food except they had no idea how. But at least they’re wearing masks!

OK REPORT’S IN: BISCUIT WAS WORTH IT.

I loved our experience at Tudor’s was amazing and I am very happy. My favorite part was when Henry accidentally threw away all the plates into the garbage can:

And then couldn’t find anyone to tell because they were all outside smoking. So when he found them on our way out, the one lady was like “oh it’s alright. We’ll just leave them there” and the other lady said she wouldn’t tell. Henry’s such a chump.

Also, I feel like I missed out by not ordering the CAPPICINO:

8:25pm: I just changed Henry’s Waze profile to this and I’m crying and he’s in the drivers seat going WHAT. WHAT. WHAT DID YOU DO. STOP FUCKING WITH MY STUFF!!!

I just spit on myself trying to hold in another round of hyena-level laughter.

I just signed him up to be a Waze carpool driver and I’m crying.

I’m nice but don’t like to talk much unless it’s about military airplanes and the TV show Monk.

I gave myself a stomach ache.

I’m so overheated from laughing that I’m sweating. I tried to show Chooch my hard work and he said I DONT CARE. Meanwhile Henry is over here panicking, wondering what damage I’ve done to his impeccable Wave profile.

9:06: we still have 90 minutes left *SCREAMS INTO A PILLOW EXCEPT I DONT HAVE A PILLOW SO THIS IS JUST A REGULAR FULL-VOLUME UNSUPPRESSED SCREAM*

9:20: Listening to my old COCK ROBIN jam and I said, “I’m not sure how I ever knew about this song. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it on the radio.” And, with a SMIRK, Henry said, “probably from one of those dumb CDs you used to buy.”

LOLOLOL: he means all the COMPILATION CDs I used to get via MAIL ORDER using my mom’s credit card lol.

https://open.spotify.com/track/3d6zRaJbLV2XvxY93Yow1l?si=6EtYY8nTQ1KAX2Wo4sOwTA&context=spotify%3Asearch%3Acock%2520robin

I guess I will post this worthless account of nothingness now. Will update if anything interesting happens??

UPDATE: I only accumulated 2500 steps thanks to basically driving non-stop all day. We got home at 10:35 tonight and I was DETERMINED to meet my daily goal of 12000 (I usually get way more than that but 12000 is what I have FitBit set at). I walked/jogged in place from the moment I walked in the door, pausing only once for a pee break, and I met my goal WITH TWO MINUTES TO SPARE. You can ask Henry–he was sitting on the couch staring at his phone the entire time.

Ok. Trip’s officially over. Happy to be reunited with my insane, attention-deprived cats. Taking my contacts out now thank god. Peace out all-gendered scouts.

Update from the car, featuring THE HORSE

 Liveblogging, music, Obsessions, travel
Nov 272021
 

Hi hello how goes it. We are in some Tennessee town outside of Chattanooga and we have on some incredible radio station that played JACKIE BLUE and then this INSTRUMENTAL song came on and I was in so much pain because I wanted to snap my fingers along to it so bad but I cannot snap my fingers, in case you didn’t know. I was born without the ability.

Anyway, I became instantly obsessed because it made me picture all my squirrel Buddys on the porch having a peanut party and I couldn’t stop laughing. But then I went to this band’s wiki page and it’s actually SAD because the song was actually an instrumental b-side to the a-side song which featured the lead singer Cliff Nobles’ vocals, but it was the INSTRUMENTAL that took off and became a huge hit, peaking at #2 on Billboard in like 1968 or some other old-ass year.

Cliff Nobles ended up working in construction after his music career ended which makes me sad because now he is dead and will never know that I have become obsessed with him and a song that he had no part in.

Also we ate breakfast at Donut King Tastee King Donuts (came here 6 mths later to proofread this and correct the damn donut shop name, #professional) which I picked only because it has a cute logo BUT NO MERCH.

It was just ok but I wanted an egg & cheese on a biscuit on they were like NO BISCUIT, CROISSANT so I had it on a croissant instead and the whole time I ate it, I wondered why no one wants me to have a biscuit on this trip because at dinner in WV last night I also ordered an egg sandwich which was supposed to come on a biscuit but it came on TOAST instead.

Also they put like a THICK SHEATH of pepper in the middle of the eggs this morning and I was almost having an allergic reaction.

Now we’re on our way to Atlanta!

Thoughts while trapped in the car.

 Liveblogging, travel, Uncategorized
Oct 102021
 

Hello. We are in Princeton, NJ about to make our way home from our time at Six Flags Great Adventure. Last night, we were out looking for War of the Worlds roadside attractions because apparently this is the area where the Orson Welles radio show happened. That was kind of a fail because we couldn’t see anything at night, but!! we drove past a shopping center with a sign for Woori Mart, which made me do a double take. “IS THAT A KOREAN MARKET” I screamed. It felt like it was the romanization for 우리 which means “our” in Korean. Sure enough I was right and I love being right!! It was closed but we stopped this morning after checking out from a Quality Inn that had music softly pumping out of speakers near the elevators, such as INFORMER BY SNOW.

Anyway, Woori Mart was cool. I bought a case of some type of beverage endorsed by Korea’s MC Yoo Jae Suk. And we got black sugar milk tea flavored Choco Pies and some other snack items, and good grapes. But we didn’t want to buy too much because we had already planned on stopping at an H-Mart in/near Philly, and that is where we are headed now, woo!

It’s now 11:07 and we’re leaving H-Mart. Henry was so annoying in there and spoke to me with no sincerity in his voice at all. Then he accidentally took someone else’s shopping cart and she was like excuse me this is my cart and I was like OMG GREAT JOB HANK because of course it was at a moment where he had handed the cart off to me.

Here’s a selfie of Chooch and me inside Artbox!

I took it for Veronica because she is going to H-Mart in LA today.

Now Chooch is trying to retrieve his Apple juice from under the seat using the backscratcher he won at an arcade in George, NY over Labor Day weekend.

Props to Henry, I would never want to drive in Philly.

We made it! No one would order when the lady came to the window so I was like OMG CAN WE HAVE TWO VEGAN CHEESESTEAKS AND ONE VEGAN NASHVILLE HOT CHICKEN. For gods sake, THESE PEOPLE!!

Anyway holy shit both sandwiches were good but that chicken was AMAZE. Unlike Eden Burger’s korean chicken sandwich, this one actually was coated in sauce we could taste and the fake chicken itself was delightful.

Did not enjoy sitting next to the road though.

Then we walked around for a few blocks because I didn’t want to get in the car right after eating. We went into a small pet shop and got Drew & Penelope cat nip bubbles and made friends with the shop cat, Marvel.

After calling Henry out for ogling numerous lingerie / bondage shops, we went into a comic book shop and the “saxophone guy in a thong on the boardwalk” song from The Lost Boys was playing but Dumb Chooch didn’t recognize it.

Oh yeah and we stopped at Dottie’s Donuts (also vegan) because we parked right across the street and I took it as a sign so we stopped in and got a hibiscus and blueberry jam-filled. Haven’t tried it yet because we’re still full from lunch but I’m sure at some point during the drive home we’ll be digging into them.

1:34pm: on our way out of Philly we passed Laurel Hill Cemetery and I was whining about how I always wanted to go there, and Henry was like OH OK REALLY? HOW DO YOU EVEN KNOW ABOUT IT like I WASNT masquerading as a goth for like 4 years of my life. I started naming off things about it.

“And it’s a really popular place for photo shoots,” I finished.

“Ok let’s never go there,” Chooch piped up from the backseat.

2:23pm and we just left the PETER J CAMIEL rest stop. Henry needs to find another rest stop because “there were too many people in the bathroom” and he needs “to sit down.”

You’re welcome.

Wait! More rest stop happenings. We decided to taste test the two donuts from Dottie’s (I was like WE ARE JUST GETTING TWO BC EVERY TIME WE GET MORE THAN THAT ITS GLUTTONOUS).

Hibiscus: v. good & light, the glaze is v.v.v.sweet though, with just the right amount of floral. Into it.

Blueberry jam-filled: DELECTABLE and visually pleasing. I had to make Henry take it away from me so I didn’t inhale the whole thing.

Meanwhile, some dude was getting out of his car and Henry noted, “That guy gets out of his car the same way I do. Let’s see if he’s limping when he walks—oh! He is! Let’s see if his wife makes fun of him–Nope, she’s holding his hand and helping him! Wow. You just slam doors in my face.”

Omg we’re at another rest area you’re shocked. We checked on the popsicles that we bought a thousand hours ago at Hmart knowing damn well they’d be melted even though they were in a cooler with ice but that’s HOW FROZEN STUFF WORKS I guess. But henry was all THEY WILL BE OK WHEN WE PUT THEM IN THE FREEZER.

Chooch ate…er…drank one and said that, contrary to Henry’s optimistic assumption, there is no way they will refreeze and be ok. Then Chooch & I cooed over a corgi who was being walked over by the garbage can where we were throwing away wrappers of Korean snacks.

When we got back to the car after that, Henry was all LOOK AT THE CORGI and we were like WE KNOW BUT NICE TRY. Then I told him that Chooch said the popsicles probably won’t be ok when they refreeze and Henry barked, “WHO said that??”

“The corgi, henry. The corgi told me that. He is a fucking Popsicle oracle.” My god, CHOOCH SAID IT, HENRY!! TRY TO KEEP UP! Fuck.

Hello from the last rest stop in PA at 6:21. Henry had to pee SO BAD but chooch and I stayed in the car. Thank god henry was kind enough to park with this wonderful BLARING view of the sun.

I want to kill him, honestly.

It’s 7:04 and we’re on our street. BYE!!

Logansporting back to Pittsburgh

 Liveblogging, Uncategorized
Sep 192021
 

Hi from Logansport, Indiana. 8:24am. Let’s have a live blog to chronicle the probably lame trip home to PGH so as usual, check back throughout the day if you’re hard pressed for words to read.

First let’s start with the oatmeal Henry brought back to the room while I was exercising. He put syrup in it?? I never put syrup in oatmeal?? 20 years together and what has he ever learned about me??

He claims that I “change a lot” when it comes to food.

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Oh ok. And he fucks up a lot.

8:31 Good bye holiday Inn Express with the beautiful view of RURAL KING.

Apparently some guy from Logansport was a corporal who died at the Kabul airport last month :/ A lot of the businesses here have RIP messages on their signs and our hotel had a small memorial set up for him in the lobby. It was really sad to see. Then Chooch casually asked, “Wait, what happened there?”

So smart, and yet.

8:49am: BIG UPDATE we’re about to drive past the Air Force base Henry…did plane stuff at.

“There’s a museum? For what?? Are you in it?” I screamed. No he’s not in it, he said calmly.

Wow. It is really ugly here.

We just drove past Maple Farm Trailer Park and Henry said he once knew someone who lived in there and I asked WAS IT A WOMAN prepared to make lascivious accusations but it was a dude.

ALLEGEDLY.

9:09am: we just stopped at some convenience store with a STORYBOOK facade and facade is RIGHT because the store itself was so shitty and I was not getting coffee there also Henry almost hit a squirrel crossing the street.

10:33am: Still no coffee. Indiana is a dump. We just crossed over Cornbread Rd and normally that would have seemed cute to me but right now I’m just like go fuck a cornstalk, Indiana.

We found a Dunkin Donuts which isn’t great but I won’t go to Starbucks and there is literally a TRAIN stopped on the tracks blocking traffic but in a surprising twist of luck for us, DD happened to be right before the tracks thank god.

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Fuckin’ Indiana.

Chooch just woke up while we’re in line at DD and said, “is that train just stopped there? Why??”

“Because it’s an asshole,” I snapped.

“I don’t think that’s why,” Henry white-knighted.

Then henry had the most embarrassing order-handoff with the poor young girl at the window who was just trying to do her job and Henry was like THIS IS WRONG but it wasn’t and Chooch and I were like THAT IS OUR ORDER, TAKE IT and then the poor girl was all flustered and then we started to pull away when Henry stopped and asked her for straws and Chooch and I screamed THEYRE IN THE BAG because unlike Henry we actually paid attention to what was going on and now Henry is trying to defend himself to us, saying that nothing he did was embarrassing and I screamed OMG NOW YOURE GASLIGHTING HER.

now Henry is pointing out some technical school he went to when he lived in Indiana and I truthfully don’t care, I am so hungry and bitter.

10:51am: “Wow that stop sign has LED lights around it,” Henry said. “They must really have a problem with people not stopping around here.”

I looked around at the corn fields on all sides of the road. “Yeah, that’s because all the Footloose kids are busy sneaking out at night to go drag racing and dancing in barns,” I spat. I hate Indiana. I don’t understand how we’re still here??

12:11pm: just left the big candle place, $70 later ugh we are ALL candle addicts so it’s actually amazing we didnt spend more. This place has the best kettle corn candle and I have been dreaming of going back for one ever since we were there a few years back on our way home from Holiday World.

Random Michael Myers sighting. I wonder how many pumpkin candles he purchased.

Rustic candle restroom selfie.

1:46pm: Columbus, finally.

2:13pm: Korean Fried Chicken special at Eden Burger.

Um, it was really good but didn’t even have a hint of Korean flavors?

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Can American restaurants stop trying to replicate Korean cuisine? Because they are failing. Aside from the confusing marketing of this sandwich, it was very good – vegan chicken is my jam. I will usually always go for that option over the burgers, but I made Henry get the OG Eden Burger because they make their patties in house and I wanted to try. It was DELICIOUS. I love when vegan restaurants make their own instead of just copping out with an Impossible patty and then masking it with loads of cray toppings U KNOW.

Anyway, Eden Burger has bomb fries also. I’m definitely not hungry anymore.

(Oh and Chooch got Buffalo chicken and whined the whole time about having to pee when we literally just came from a rest stop and he said he didn’t have to go.)

2:29pm: CHOOCH and HENRY (it keeps auto-capitalizing and I don’t care anymore) went to Kroger’s so CHOOCH could pee and he said while he was in there, some old lady on drugs came in screaming I HAVE TO PEE I HAVE TO PEE and then she got arrested. I miss everything.

3:30pm: Henry just said something about this being our last trip for the year while I’m over here googling “does Six Flags Over Georgia do a winter festival” and “how far from Pittsburgh to Atlanta” lol.

3:58pm: whoa, our first Sheetz stop since yesterday if you can believe it! I got a pumpkin chai and it’s ok!

I was randomly recalling to Henry the time my mom was dating some prison guard dude and I was pretty ambivalent toward him until the day he accompanied us to a car dealership because I was going to trade in my EAGLE TALON (miss her) for a new VW JETTA and my mom was all set to make this happen when he stepped in and said to her that he didn’t think a girl “my age” really needed “a brand new car” and then tried to get me to take a USED MALIBU instead. CAN YOU EVEN??

I was like BITCH WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE AND WHAT EVEN IS A USED MALIBU, EW.

I never had my mom tell me no before!!

Except for maybe when I was in high school and wanted her to drive me to Cleveland so I could see where Bone Thugs n Harmony lived. That was a hard no.

4:32pm: Chooch needed the charger but I was using it and the spare was in the trunk in Henry’s bag for some reason and I can’t explain it you guys but there was this whole argument where CHOOCH was like WHY CANT U JUST USE BLUETOOTH LIKE NORMAL PPL WHY DO U HAVE TO USE AUX and I was like STFU BITCH BOY and Henry was like LANGUAGE which made us lose our minds bc really DAD?

Then CHOOCH was rummaging through the bags and screaming and Henry was like IN THE BLACK BAG THE BIG BLACK BAG and I was laughing so hard that I started to cry and the whole left side of my face was spasming and then CHOOCH SUPPOSEDLY puked in Henry’s bag bc he too was laughing so hard and Henry had that “JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL” look on his face.

5:44pm: we are mere minutes away from home! This LiveBlog was lame! They all are, really! Until the next “not happening” trip, this is Erin signing off. Bitches.

Did somebody say…live blog?

 Liveblogging, Roller Coaster Road Trip Birthday Thing, 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 is out of something henry wants.

When the waitress came over to tell Henry, 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 REALLY 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 I’m reading though. You care.

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

8:31am: HOLA I finished my book (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!!!

Election Day Distractions: something like a liveblog?

 Liveblogging, Uncategorized
Nov 032020
 

I woke up this morning and like probably most Americans, vomited over the side of my bed into my Victorian chamber pot. Presidential elections should not incite these kinds of full-body emotional meltdowns.

After eating breakfast which I couldn’t even taste because even my palate is numb I guess, I started watching The Unicorn on Netflix because I needed a mediocre American family sitcom with short episodes to keep me from my thoughts. It was ok! I will probably continue watching season 1 and then wind up getting attached only for it to get canceled.

Now it’s 10am. I spent the first hour of my work day not being able to log on and waiting for the help desk to, you know, help. That really added a few BPMs to my Election Day heart rate.

But I would like to take a moment here to show you the gallery wall in my “office area/dining room” which henry helped me achieve. It took a lot longer than you’d think but it was worth it to have happy images in front of me all day!

The desktop background of the computer is also a picture from Seoul so it blends right in, see also: what is obsession?

Probably 75% of the frames were purchased at various Goodwills and thrift shops for this very purpose but it also resulted in Henry crying out, “WHAT THE FUCK SIZE EVEN IS THIS? THEY DON’T MAKE PHOTOS THIS SIZE!!” more than once and then we learned that something happened to Henry’s brain somewhere along the way and he can no longer “do measuring” so every time we had photos printed, there would be like 3 that suddenly didn’t fit into any of the frames, so that was the catalyst to several spats, lol, noooo not Henry and me, we NEVER argue.

Way before we started to redo the dining room, I had the idea to do a gallery wall with frames that matched our dining room table chairs, and then that turned into, “but we should also paint that wall” which turned into, “Well just one painted wall is dumb guess we should do the whole room” which turned into, “Wait, put stripes on this part of the wall” which turned into, “let’s just make the room completely unrecognizable because, corona.” All in all, it’s comforting to me and makes working from home less sucky!

I saw these little clipboard frames at Michaels and felt they would be perfect to fill up the smaller gaps while displaying travel ephemera like ticket stubs and metro cards. I was way too excited about this and Henry was like *ambivalent nod of semi-approval-ish*.

Boarding pass from Incheon to Tokyo and bus ticket to Ildong from when we went to stay at G-Dragon’s pension!

Instant coffee from our hotel in Busan!

I’m obsessed with the one of the palace guards.

Now it’s 10:30 which also turns out is PUZZLE TIME and the cats are HERE FOR IT.

We all need distracted. Currently looking for Obama coffee mugs.

I started a HELP ME UGHHHHH email chain with several work friends and now we’re talking about stress-eating Mad Mex and that sounds like a great idea except that on Election Night 2016, we went to a nearby Mexican restaurant and I will never forget how sick I felt with  both a plate of enchiladas and a giant TV screen displaying polling results in front of me. We know the outcome of THAT election, so now I’m afraid that getting Mexican food again will jinx it, ughhhhh what to do.

11:30. Do I have the attention span to start an audiobook to help me get through the work day? I’m not sure. Everything fucking sucks. My brain is full of thought marbles.

It’s 1:17. I just ate a bagel and a sad Boca burger for lunch. It was unfulfilling. Everything is sad today.

3:33 now and I’m just numb-ish. Chooch and I went for a walk during my lunch break. I returned two books that I DNF’d (TWO DNFs!! Who even am I?!) and then we did our usual stroll about Brookline, critiquing people’s landscaping. I have two hours left of work, which has been OK and since several people are off today, I’m providing backup for some things that I haven’t done in a while so it’s kind of giving me a fresh outlook, in a way, and also sort of keeping me distracted but now Henry is home and he hasn’t voted yet and I am practically about to shove him in a wheelbarrow and push him across the street to our polling place.

OK he just left to do his civil duty! Godspeed American Hank.

4:40: My friend Nate and I are chatting about thirst traps so this feels more like a normal Tuesday now.

Sort of.

Guys, did I tell you that YG Entertainment officially confirmed that THE KING, THE LEGEND, KWON JIYONG-SSI, G-DRAGON, GD, is finally working on a comeback?? That’s the pillow that I’m screaming into today.

Speaking of G-Dragon, this older Mino song came on our Spotify playlist over the weekend and it made me miss Taeyang and BIGBANG in general so much that it felt like I had the air knocked out of me.

6:30: I sat down to watch more episodes of The Unicorn and now that Henry’s home, he usurped my personal space and started laughing too hard and saying things like WHO IS THAT GUY and WHAT SHOW IS THIS and like, go watch one of your dumb cop shows and back off my wholesome sitcom about a widower with super annoying friends, for gods sake.

Look, I can’t do this. My body is straight up sizzling. I think I’m going to get drunk and set things on fire. Hopefully we come out the other side of this with the outcome we want and this country needs.

Oh my god, BARF VOMIT GAG.

Macy’s Parade LiveBlog

 Liveblogging, Uncategorized
Nov 282019
 

I never care about the dumb Macy’s parade but I’m watching it today for NCT127 and when it was just announced that the balloons will fly, I TEARED UP?!?! My emotions are like gremlins running amok. I have no idea what they’re going to do anymore.

Well, I guess I’m live-blogging this because Chooch is watching it with me now and #FUTUREMEMORIES or whatever.

9:08am: Chooch has groaned in the Key of Teenager at my hyperbolic parade-outbursts at least 15 times so far and it only just started 8 minutes ago, and 3 of those minutes was just the announcement of what’s to come. #ThanksgivingBytheNumbers

9:25am: “‘I GOT MY OWN INFECTION!!!’ Ugh that song sucked but I can’t stop singing it!” – Chooch, Celine Dion’s parade performance.

“Are you saying INFECTION?” I asked.

“Yes,” Chooch said.

“It’s IMPERFECTION, you idiot!” I laughed.

“Oh. Well ‘infection’ sounds better.”

Agreed.

And then he said “wait—” and resang it as “infectSHAWN” and said “There, that sounds more like her now.”

What you missed before this was me ranting for a solid 3 minutes about how Barbra Streisand is better than Celine and she can take that fucking Titanic song and shove it up her ass and then we speculated why Celine was holding her stomach and my theory was that she was trying to keep her colostomy bag from slipping out of her dress but Chooch said maybe it was her breast implants leaking?!?

Wow.

9:35am: remember when Al Roker fat? God I can’t stand him.

This Hades thing is boring so we’re both looking at our phones now.

9:39am: OH OK LET’S ALL LAUGH AT ERIN FOR DROWNING ON HER TEARS DURING THAT ET COMMERCIAL THING THAT ACTUALLY HAD HENRY THOMAS IN IT UGH SHUT UP CHOOCH.

9:41am: When does Al Roker fall off the Roker Cycle? Please tell me that’s scheduled into this dumb parade.

9:44am: OMG Chooch doesn’t know who Tina Turner is. What a Dumb. But he just went on record saying that this lady who emulating Tina Turner sings better than actual Celine Dion, and I agree. Fuck off, Celine. Go home and practice your weird speech impediments on a chunk of stinky French cheese.

9:49am: Ellen commercial incited a riot in my brain and I shouted, “Oh and fuck you too Ellen. Fake ass bitch.” Pause. Chooch giggles. Pause. I giggle too. Then we just flat out start laughing like drunk bastard hyenas. Oh, Thanksgiving!

9:53am: Wow. There’s um…such diversity among the Rockettes. Whatever. I used this time to jog in place.

9:57am: WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT HOW ELMO RUINED SESAME STREET. BREAK THE SILENCE.

10:08am: Wait, country singers look like hipsters now? I’ve been so out of the loop with American things.

10:13am: Choochs favorite float so far is the NY Life / Kelly Rowland one. “All the black singers are so much better,” he said, thank you for the most obvious statement of the year. But then we started making fun of the robots surrounding the float so don’t worry—we haven’t lightened up.

10:20am: If I wore the padded outfit Ciara was wearing, I wouldn’t be able to get out of my front door.

10:27am: all these marching bands are boring. Unless someone is going to mess up, I don’t care. Oh shit that was a band from Pittsburgh. “Yeah that’s the school where the kid stabbed someone,” Henry said, interjecting himself into our parade narrative 90 minutes after it started. HE IS NOT EVEN IN THE SAME ROOM AS US.

10:34am: Wow the Ronald McDonald balloon GOT A TEAR mid-route. You just can’t predict what will happen next at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Truly.

10:39am: ONE MINUTE OF NCT127 PERFORMING HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN WAS STILL BETTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN THIS BORING ASS PARADE. It even brought Henry into the room!

Haechan looked so sweet, I thought I was going to die.

10:43am: Why hasn’t Henry been invited to join the 610 Stompers?! Holy shit.

10:44am: Gushing about how Debbie Gibson’s Electric Youth was THE SHIT when I was in 5th grade. “There was even Electric Youth perfume,” I said apparently too passionately because Henry started snickering from the peanut gallery, aka the dining room table where he’s making serial killer Christmas cards, happy holidays.

10:48am: I wish Billy Porter was my dad. Also, his float is the best, as it should be.

10:53am: there is still an hour left. I already saw NCT. Can I stick it out? Ugh, this is painful.

I love them! Jungwoo wasn’t there because he’s resting and that’s Henry’s bias so he was pretty bummed lol.

10:56am: the kids dancing in this Universal Kids performance thing all look like they just got done shooting a United Colours of Benetton ad and I just realized that i never hear about that brand anymore and I used to HATE it when I was in middle school! We had one of their stores at the mall and my aunt was always trying to get me to wear their clothes but I was fat and it never looked cool on me.

I also had braces and a really bad perm which definitely didn’t help perpetuate the aesthetic Benetton was aiming for.

11:03am: TLC! Chooch said, “I thought you hated them?” And I did a dramatic gasp with a hand on my chest. “Oh, is it just the song No Scrubs you hate?” he asked and was really perplexed when I said no. “I swear you hated something about scrubs…” and then we came to the conclusion that it was the TV show Scrubs that I hated.

I was telling Chooch about how Lisa Left Eye López died and he countered with a history lesson about Richie Valens and Buddy Holly. I…had no idea he knew about them. Now he’s singing “La Bamba.” “I like that song,” he said as he left the house and now I just realized I’m the only one still sitting here watching this dying horse of a parade.

11:09am: I dislike country singers and Christmas songs so you would think I would hate this current performance but it turns out that “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” is one of the few Xmas songs I genuinely like and this dude’s voice isn’t too twangy and he’s sans cowboy hat so this is tolerable.

11:19am: OK ASHANTI WITH YOUR UN-AGING SELF. RUB IT IN.

11:20am: Apparently Henry snuck (yeah I know “sneaked” but snuck sounds so much better!) off to Blake’s house next door I guess because there was too much parading for him.

11:26am: SORRY JIMMY FALLON BUT EVERYONE KNOWS THAT PEE WEE HERMAN HAS THE MOST LEGENDARY PERFORMANCE OF WHATEVER THAT BIRD SONG IS.

Anyway, NCT’s 90 second performance is already on YouTube:

I’ll just watch this over and over while Lea Michele’s performance is happening. She is so fucking annoying.

11:39am: another fucking marching band.

11:48am: I have suffered through so much. Marching bands. Broadway performances. Al Roker. Hoda. Commercials. Celine Dion and her infection. A ripped Ronald McDonald. I don’t think I can continue to the end. I can’t imagine that the finale will actually be that grand.

11:55am: this “man with the bag” performance is making me uncomfortable bc I’m not thinking about Santa, but a serial killer with a burlap sack wide enough to fit the girth of my dead body.

11:57am: Santa is overrated. This finale was flat. I’m out. Happy ThanksLIVING everyone (that’s what all of us cool veg-people are saying this year according to social media).

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.

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