Yay yay yay! We picked Chooch up from the train station around 9:45PM on Saturday. Of course, he was like, “Cool mm” as soon as he got in the car and then threw a bag at me.

He was super pissed because he said it was in pristine condition the entire way, and then as soon as he went to get off the train, he crushed it with his suitcase. IT’S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS THOUGH! I’m going to cut them out and put it in my journal <3

Please excuse the messy table. Penelope is going through a weird eating phase and prefers her treats to be placed on this emo activity book. At least she remembered Chooch though! Even with his long, floppy hair helmet. (It’s getting cut tomorrow! He refuses to find a barber in Philly and only gets his hair cut at home, even though he is never happy with his haircuts from home.)

Sunday morning, Chooch and Henry went to the flea market. Chooch is super into collecting DVDs now and I had a list of items for Henry involving several house projects. He came home with NONE of those, but Chooch got a fuckton of DVDs and this SUPER DISGUSTING SHIRT which he put on without even washing (at least he has a shirt underneath BUT STILL), and they brought me back this surprise:

Apparently, Henry the Stoop had to ASK CHOOCH if he thought I would want it and Chooch was like “um duh.”

Later that afternoon, Henry and I wanted to Uptown Coffee for, I don’t know, fika I guess. I heard that sometimes Mochi’s Donuts sends their goods to this cafe, and I was desperate for another go at the apple fritter. The donuts were OK but that fritter has been nestled beside G-Dragon in my mind every since I beasted one on Mother’s Day. It was really that good and here I never considered myself to be a fritter bitch but sometimes we just get our calling late in life.

Sadly, they didn’t have anything from Mochi’s but we did get a snickerdoodle to split (they have really good cookies at Uptown!) and a vegan orange oil cake that Henry thought tasted familiar and, around a mouthful of MOIST CRUMBS, “Yeah, like Zenith’s bundt cakes.”

So now we need to get our asses to Zenith soon because it’s been a minute.

Later, a cop rolled up to the house! He went over to SON OF SLUMLORD’S house and I was desperately trying to neb but our stupid street is too busy. Thank god for CRIME RADAR:

First of all…this woman is way out of his league and everything is his fault. I just know it. I need to know her side of the story. I’ve been mostly home all day (aside from going on my daily walks like it’s my nervous tick) and she hasn’t come back.

HOLY SHIT NEVER MIND SHE’S HERE RIGHT NOW AND HE’S BEING SUCH A DICK TO HER SHE’S TRYING TO GET HER STUFF AND HE STARTED MOUTHING OFF TO HER AND SHE WAS LIKE WHY ARE YOU ANTAGONIZING ME I JUST WANT MY STUFF SO THEN SHE PUT HER HEADPHONES ON. I’m Team This Girl all the way.

WELL – she was getting the last of her stuff and he strode the across the yard and pushed her and made her headphones fall off and then threw an empty can at her so I’m ready for my police interview.

Oh, and in addition to this – he has a new mysterious baby that came out of nowhere? I mean, I assume it came out of a birth canal but whose, I’m not sure. Henry asked HNC about it recently and he was just like, “It’s his, but I don’t know who the mom is.” Well, it definitely wasn’t this girl! There apparently was someone in the house when all of this was going on and I heard her yell, “FUCK YOU LAUREN, YOU METH HEAD” so maybe whoever LAUREN THE METH HEAD is, that’s the mom!? I’m so fucking confused. I have a lot of investigating to do.

Guys we just had to evacuate Jergel’s because someone smelled smoke or something!! This is the first time I ever had to evacuate a venue before a concert. (WE’RE HERE FOR COLD BTW!!!)

I guess it wasn’t bad because they let us back in after about 10 minutes but now I feel like I have a headache, my vision feels cloudy and my eyes are kind of burning, and I have a miner’s cough now.

Bonus! Here is what Henry’s hair looked like after he woke up from his pre-concert nap:

Bro I have a major concert hangover, the worst one I’ve had in a long time. Yesterday was IMPECCABLE. So many great things happened and it made me feel so alive. Tons more words later but here’s a collection of Kodak keychain shots to commemorate the daytrip.

Because you need to know what shoes I was wearing.

Happy Dog 🐶

The non alc beers I’ve been having actually slap!

Mercury Lounge bathroom selfie. That venue also slaps.

Barricade for The Black Queen 👑

We just came back from seeing Mother Mary at the Hollywood Theater.

I can’t remember the last time I had such an unenjoyable time at the movies. I hated every second of that movie except for the 5 minutes FKA Twigs was in.

Anne Hathaway does nothing for me (more like ANNE GOAWAY amirite guyz? Guyz??), the story itself was SO BAD, the writing had me cringing to the point of pain. My decade + long streak of loving every single A24 movie I’ve watched has officially come to an end.

Also???? Not a knock to the movie but there is a scene where they show fans in the crowd and some are wearing these sharp ass protruding crowns and I swear if any kpop group adopts a religious theme and fans start wearing elaborate eye-pokers to concerts I’m going to be so pissed.

Just like I’m pissed that we paid to see that big screen slop.

Well anyway what a grand end to an annoying day. Happy to be cuddling with Penelope now.

I’m pretty sure I have shared these photos countless times over the years, but this little cartoon baby turned T W E N T Y yesterday and I need to put them in your faces again.

I feel so old and panicked over this latest birthday but also proud because he is just so cool and genuinely a good person. Henry and I can’t take all the credit for that – he was raised around some of the best people we know and their presence and influence definitely helped shaped him into the independent person he is today (you all know who you are and thank you for being part of his life and hanging out with him like he was just another one of the grownups!).

We’re currently on the way home after spending some time with him today in Philly and I miss him already. ;(

Exercise.

Go for a walk.

Watch kpop content on YouTube.

Watch an episode of whatever show we’re currently watching – tonight it was an episode of the Pitt and I am realizing that my enjoyment of this show was a flash in the pan because my interest wanes more and more with every episode and I am experiencing intense hate for almost every character at this point.

Relax with this cutie:

Plan one or two things to do over the weekend so I have something to look forward to!

If it was a VERY rough day, I might require a sugary treat.

Ok I guess I am officially in that older person stage of life because I am fucking SPENT today. Henry and I went to Columbus yesterday for a concert and got home around 2:00AM. We’re both super feeling it today and slept until 9 which RARELY happens unless one of us is sick. It was absolutely worth it because we had the best time – I feel like so much happened in the short time we were in Columbus and the amount of small talk I engaged in probably is adding to my overall exhaustion today.

I have lots I want to recap but for today, I’m content just going on slow walks, watching YouTube and admiring the way the faux stained glass makes our bathroom look. It’s so peaceful and I need that!

I have to go to bed early tonight (should NOT be a problem) so that I can wake up at 1:30AM and watch the livestream of BIGBANG’s Coachella weekend 2 performance so everyone should just avoid me tomorrow lol.

Anyway, that has been my weekend update.

We have been doing a pretty good job keeping busy these days and I have definitely noticed an improvement in my mental standing! I’m starting to think of my therapist as more a life coach at this point because she has been clutch in helping me reinvent myself in this confusing season of life.

Here are some things from the last week!

We went to see The Drama at the Hollywood Wednesday night. So far, we have gone there at least once a month since December so I think we’re doing a pretty good being supportive patrons. I love the new rainbow lighting they put in since we were last there!

The Drama was fantastic, though! It was highly recommended by our son the movie critic. Aside from the kids shows she did back in the day, I haven’t really experienced Zendaya in “grown up” roles and she was pretty impressive. Also, I love how much Robert Pattinson has evolved since his Edward Cullen days. He’s incredible, and they both made this movie super engaging. (Also, it was not what I was expecting at all.)

Penelope could not care less.

I accidentally started watching vlogs on YouTube about people journaling and I felt so inspired to do more in my vacation and haunted house journals, especially when the one woman was printing out photo stickers from her phone – I cried, “I NEED ONE OF THOSE PRINTERS!!!” This was on Easter. By Monday, I had my own Canon mini printer because the Easter bunny heard me. 

I started using it immediately!  Here’s a picture of Tallin, Estonia that I printed out for this Finland/Estonia page of my old vacation journal. This is going to be so good for my haunted house journal too, I’m really stoked!

But these random, serendipitous vlogs also got me extra inspired to start sketching again too. Honestly, I don’t know what I did to get these things to start appearing in my YouTube feed but I’m not mad about it because I have been craving a new creative outlet and I think reviving something that I used to do as a teen/young adult definitely counts! I need to get a nice, compact sketch book ASAP.

Meanwhile, Henry was in Chooch’s room trying to gather things that can be donated when he called me over. “You will NEVER need to buy pens or pencils of any sort for your sketching,” he said with mild exasperation, Vanna White’ing his hands over Chooch’s HUGE stash of pens, markers, pastels, colored pencils, watercolor pens, regular pencils…most have never even been touched. This is something that we marvel over quite often: what is the catalyst behind Chooch’s secret hoarding of writing apparati? What is the origin story?? I will tell you that this has been happening for many years – he must take a pen from everywhere he goes, like a compulsion. Henry tried to get him take a box of them back to Philly the last time but Chooch left them here so it doesn’t seem like he is…ATTACHED to these things in any way. Maybe it’s more of the act of the acquisition than the actual “having.” He gets ’em and forgets ’em.

(You can imagine how much he wilded out at the college fairs in high school! PENS GALORE!)

Still crying over Mark Lee, not gonna lie. Using my Book MARK to honor him, LOL.

This weekend so far has been pretty fucking great. We spent almost all of Saturday with our friends Shawn and Jess (more on that in a separate post) and it made me realize how much time I spend alone because I talked SO MUCH that I barely had a voice left by the time we parted ways, and then I woke up in the middle of the night with a sore throat! (I’m not sick – it was just mad at me for talking so much!)

Anyway, here’s an eagle (so says Henry) that we saw while waiting for Shawn and Jess to meet us at the Bayernhof Museum.

We ended Saturday at home watching the Coachella livestream of Taemin’s set. He has officially become the first Korean male solo artist to perform at Coachella and he fucking crushed it.

There aren’t any full videos available yet from what I can see but here’s a clip of one of my favorite songs of his – Guilty.

Today was a more chill day. The weather is amazing so we got some iced match from Meccha Matcha and went for a walk at Homewood Cemetery. Again, I have to be a grumpy old person and complain about how cemeteries have been hot spots for walkers ever since the general masses “discovered” them during the pandemic. I miss the days when could go to the cemetery for a walk and be the only people there – NEVER HAPPENS NOW. Especially at Homewood. Call me a boneyard hipster, I don’t give a shit, but I have gone to cemeteries to walk since I was a teenager in the 90s and I hate that it’s no longer a quiet escape.

I sound like my neighbor, the most miserable woman in the world BUT I SAID WHAT I SAID.

And now I’m preparing to watch the Pens game on HBO, maybe look online for a sketchbook, feed the squirrels (one of the little boy Buddys let me touch his tail the other day, I love him so much), who knows where the rest of Sunday will take me!

View this post on Instagram

6:30am: On our way to Williamsburg for a quick overnighter! We left the house about an hour ago and I’m fighting to keep my eyes open out of solidarity for Henry as he drives in the dark.

Nothing eventful to report as yet. I finished an audio book that was mid at best (Single Player – not something I would normally choose but I needed it to complete a Goodreads challenge) and we stopped at Sheetz on 51 a while back for morning things. I only just got coffee because it felt too early for food and now of course, I’m hungry. Also, I was so tired at Sheetz that I didn’t realize I was pouring the creamer into the garbage instead of my coffee!!

But now we have a Romanian hits playlist on so I’m pretending like we’re cruising through the Maramures even tbough this is just dumb Laurel Highlands (I think? We just passed Laurel Caverns).

7:56am: in some rural part of Maryland rife with MAGA lawn ornamentation. Yes, even still.

Oh wait, we JUST crossed over to West Virginia somehow?! We’re in Paw Paw! I asked Henry if we’ve ever come this way before to Williamsburg and he doesn’t think so, he’s at the mercy of Waze. We just passed a sign for Berkeley Springs and I remembered that we came home this way from King’s Dominion in 2023 and now Henry (in his gross uncle Tay-Bans btw) just nodded knowingly like he knew this whole time when he had JUST SAID “I don’t think so” after I first asked?’ Friends, gaslighting in process. Sound the alarm.

8:18am: just got the welcome to Virginia announcement on Waze! Also, I need to add that yesterday Henry and I went for a walk around the neighborhood and he tripped THREE TIMES, and I mean TRIPPED, like “lurch into the air, Superman-arms” tripping. And all three times it was in front of witnesses like this was the new town spectator sport. I was at once horrified and embarrassed. He made excuses every single time too, refusing to admit to neurological damage. “These people need to straighten their sidewalks!” he cried and I was like, “Or you can just LOOK WHERE YOU ARE WALKING?!” Jesus Christ.

10:40am: Chooch just called out Henry for eating cashews grossly and it reminded me of when we were on the coaster crew trip and someone was trying to catch a bee on the bus and it was very action-forward so I was recording and ofc Henry is in the frame totally inhaling a Nordic cinnamon bun like a feral beast, using TWO HANDS and kicking his fingers to boot. I sent the video to chooch and we’re dying at the memory while Henry is like NEXT TIME YOU TWO CAN GO BY YOURSELVES and for those of you keeping count at home, yes he says this at least once on every trip, no matter how big or small.

11:32am: just entered Williamsburg! Can you believe we only stopped three times, and quickly? I really did not think we would make it here before noon but here we are!

5:02pm: Sitting in the Griffon pavilion area while Henry and Chooch are in because I had a headache that had gotten progressively worse as the day goes on because Henry refused to give me Tylenol in the car. I’m getting a little better but bro, when I was on Pantheon, that was the closest I have ever come to puking on a ride. More later!

7:13pm: we’re about to leave Busch Gardens and OUR HOUSE BY MADNESS is blasting in the England section FML.

7:25pm: just made it back to the car and I said that it’s hard to believe he’s going to be 20 next month when he still acts like a baby and he said “ok and you’re over 40 and still act a baby.” UGH TOUCHE.

7:55pm: just checked into our hotel – it’s a Homewood Suites and we got a suite so chooch has his own room and he is very happy about this.

Lobby things.

8:26pm: At Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steak Burgers and the service has been DELIGHTFUL to the point that I don’t even care at this point if the food sucks.

They make their veggie burgers from black beans!!

OH AND THE CURE WAS PLAYING WHEN WE WALKED IN! (Just like Heaven.)

It was actually satisfying and they have good sauces. While we were sitting there waiting for our food the manager came over to see if we needed anything and he was so nice, and the kid who took our order was so nice, so I was inspired to thank them for mainframe our experience so nice before we left and they invited me back for bingo on Tuesday.

Anyway, I like telling people when I had a good experience- I’m more likely to let bad service/experiences go because complaining takes so much energy and just makes me feel gross afterward (I mean, depending on the severity of the situation then I crack the knuckles and get to work on an e-missive full of expletives). But telling someone they did a good job is nice because how often does that happen, in a world of Karens and Chads.

Actually! This makes me think of the last time we were at Busch Gardens when I stopped by customer service on the way out to sing the praises of the Pantheon crew and the two bitch ladies there were just like “ok and.”

9:36pm: back at the hotel after getting ice cream at Kilwins. Henry and I bought got a small scoop and it was $16! William & Mary will do that, I guess.

Mine was no sugar added caramel ripple. It was ok but I gave most of it to Henry because my disordered eating has my stomach on fire right now.

Chooch opted for a shamrock shake at McDonald’s where some man brought in his boombox and was acting like the resident DJ of his own accord. Granted, Chooch and I were just watching this from the car but Henry was excited to come out and tell us.

Well, on that note, I’m getting ready for bed. This 4am start to the day has me feeling like I’m about to pass out!

On the first day of training at Echostar in 1999, our trainer made us go around the room and say one word that described ourselves. When it was my turn, I punched my invisible pompoms in the air and exclaimed that I was EFFERVESCENT. Sadly, I probably super meant it too because I was 19, overconfident and ready to steal the show.

Now, at age 46, sitting on the couch in sweats with a cat collapsed across my chest, I’d say…what’s the opposite of effervescent?

Flat.

(Also, the amount of times I call back to that Echostar blog post is kind of concerning considering I was only there for less than a month.)

Ugh, Monday. We had a pretty nice weekend, weather-wise, and now it is dreary and rainy, and the temperature drops more and more as the day goes on.

Thankfully, we made time to get out yesterday while the sun was out there strutting. I wanted to take flowers to Barb’s grave since the last time we visited, there was snow on the ground and we couldn’t do much. That meant stopping at Market District on the way to Queen of Heaven cemetery, and I HATE GROCERY STORES ESPECIALLY ON SUNDAYS. But for Barb, I’ll do it. It was stupid-crowded there and we had to wait in a long line for the self-check out! I was like, “What is this madness??” but Henry was basically tilting his head back, eyes closed, basking in the audible chaos around us. He really has a sickness. I’m telling you. In fact, he stopped at a Market District Express after the cemetery (allegedly just to pee and get a drink, then why was he gone so long BECAUSE HE HAD TO WALK DOWN EVERY AISLE) and then he went to Giant Eagle after dinner!

He needs help!!!

(One of these days, I’m going to come on here crying about how I just found out that OMG all those times Henry was “going to the store,” he was actually GOING DOWN SOME BITCH’S PANTS and you guys are going to be like, “Yeah, no shit, you thought he was really just GOING TO THE STORE? OK wow. Stupe.”)

This is not where Barb is, but I just thought it was pretty.

But oh, Barb. It still sucks so bad. She was so special to me, and to so many others! I can’t believe she has been gone for two years now. 2024 was really just such a fantastically shitty year, I hate even thinking about it.

The rest of Sunday was pretty chill. We watched the Oscars and that was…a thing that happened. The only nominated things I had seen were Marty Supreme, If I Had Legs I Would Kick You, One Battle After Another, Hamnet, Kpop Demon Hunters, Weapons, and Sinners.

I thought for sure Sinners had best picture in the bag. Really thought it was more deserving, but I did enjoy OBAA too. I saw someone say on Threads that OBAA is a movie that you watch and enjoy and then forget about, but Sinners is a movie that sticks with you and makes you want to rewatch it for all of the layers and I agree with this.

And I used to like Jessie Buckley until she so grossly bragged about hating cats and making her now-husband get rid of his. Why, Jessie Buckley. Why. I liked you so much and wanted to be more stoked for you.

But overall:

• Conan was great
• the Sinners performance was incredible
• yay Kpop Demon Hunters (dying that TEDDY PARK has an Oscar)
• HOLY SHIT BARBARA STREISAND (if you didn’t know, I have had an 80-year-old woman living inside my eardrum since I was born and have always loved Barbara so much)
• the Bridesmaid thing was so awkward (plus I can’t stand Melissa McCarthy so I just wanted her off the stage)
• and basically, everything else was corny and weird plus the weird audio and waste-of-time audience interactions, cutting off the “Golden” songwriters and Kpop Demon Hunters writers during their acceptance speeches.

Honestly, watching the whole thing did not make me wish I had never given up awards shows, that’s for sure.

There was not enough speaking out against the administration though, I will tell you that much. Thank you, Conan, Jimmy Kimmel, Javier Bardem and the “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” crew who were the only ones with any balls to say anything against Trump, Free Palestine, No War. Disappointing, overall.

Oh, and I texted Chooch during it to see if he thinks Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie will be nominated next year and he said “lol” ugh.

Speaking of Dear Son, he comes home on Friday for Spring Break! I’m excited.

Bye.

I got it BAD. My NTBTSTM poster came today and Henry, supporter of all of my obsessions, tucked it preciously into its frame immediately, took a nap, woke up and made my dinner, went grocery shopping, came home and hung it in Chooch’s ex-room. I am so delighted! I can’t wait for Chooch to come home for spring break and see it LOL.

Another sign of Henry’s support: we originally had plans to see One Battle After Another at the Hollywood tomorrow night but Henry said, “OR. We can go see Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie again.” I think that’s what we’re going to do and I’m giddy about it! (Probably not tomorrow night thought because I loathe going to the Waterfront on a Friday night.)

In the meantime, I have spent most of my life these days consuming every Matt Johnson interview I can find on YouTube while gushing to Henry about how amazing I think he (Matt Johnson, not Henry) is and Henry calmly agrees with me every time.

I guess Henry’s got it bad too.

I saw a Thread recently where someone was saying that scientists should get into the lab and find a way to harness the collective rage from women and turn it into sustainable energy.

I laughed.

I cried.

I screamed.

*I can only type in Pittsburghese

In a continuing effort to not be old people rotting on the couch, Henry and I went downtown after work last night to see “Nirvanna: The Band, The Show, The Movie” which comes highly recommended by the imitable, hard-to-impress Chooch. The weather wasn’t too bad so we opted to just take the T downtown, and it was a very uneventful ride. However, we did NARROWLY miss having a bunch of Disney on Ice attendees jamming onto the same T as us – they came unprepared and were n00bs at the fare booth so they had to wait for the next one. See ya, suckers!

Dumb Henry thought the movie started at 7PM, so we got there around 6:30PM and the Harris Theater people were confused, and all like, “Yes? Can we help you?” and that is how we found out that it didn’t start until 7:30. We ended up walking to Market Square to kill time at The Space Bar.

It was OK. Gimmicky and Instagrammable, nice bartender, but I wasn’t really WOW’d by it, possibly because as usual I had order remorse.

OK what the actual fuck with this picture though?? I swear when I took it last night, it was a normal picture. Then I looked at it later and it had morphed into Foreigner’s Double Vision. Sadly, I HADN’T EVEN HAD A SIP OF IT YET, LITERALLY NO LIQUOR WAS IN MY SYSTEM when I snapped what looked like the 5th cocktail of a Thursday night bender.

But yeah, it was the Yogo Zogo and served legitimately like a boba, in a sealed plastic cup and all. It was good (I mean, it had yogurt soju which is one of my favorite soju flavors) but I dunno, for $15 I should have got something more Space Bar-ish I guess.

It did the trick though because I was fully buzzed.

The…bathMOON.

Sufficiently inebriated, we made our way back to the Harris where I proceeded to ask the concession stand person, “WHERE DO WE GO” like it would have been so hard to figure out but sometimes when I’m in public, it’s like I’m an alien here on secondment. I truly should not be allowed to leave the house, in all honesty.

I would like to add here that I didn’t watch the trailer for this. I just looked up a short synopsis and thought, “This is probably not something I’d go see on my own volition” but Chooch’s enthusiasm was very convincing.

The theater gradually filled up a good bit for a Thursday night in a downtown that generally has little after-6PM activity. I have to say, this may have been the most fun I have had in a theater, laughing with strangers?! The audience really elevated an already hilarious movie and I am so glad that I listened to Chooch and went to see it in the theater because it was exponentially more fun than watching it at home. I’m just saying, when your college-aged kid deigns to give you their recommendations, TAKE IT.

There was one part where I was simultaneously laughing and crying to the point that I started to shake and I was concerned I was having a nervous breakdown; it was so alarming. Maybe I just had that much stress built up and all the laughing was cleansing my head, I don’t know but I felt GREAT when we left!

Also, what a great little theater. I am ashamed to say that, even working downtown in the office for 10 years, I have only been to this theater ONE TIME and it was WHEN I WAS PREGNANT, so…2005 or 2006? Janna and I had gone there to see a Neil Gaiman movie (MirrorMask–I remember NOTHING about this except that Janna and I got on the wrong T coming home so Henry had to pick us up at one of the stations and then I accidentally slammed Janna’s hand in the car door when we got back to my house). The amount of times I’d look at the flyers in the window and say, “Oh, I should see that after work…” and THEN NEVER DID IT is actually so annoying.

Then we had to wait for-fucking-ever for the T to come (as usual, fuck you Pgh) and then the same fucking Disney on Ice families that missed the inbound T earlier WERE ON THE SAME ONE AS US ON THE WAY BACK AND IT WAS ABSOLUTE HELL. Yinzers would never survive in other countries that have SUBWAY SILENCE etiquette. Also, the cast of The Pitt could have really done some bigly accent studying on that T, Jesus Christ.

Overall, though? I AM SO GLAD WE WENT! And I’m even more glad that Chooch thinks I’m cool enough to give movie recommendations to.

Plus! We got to be serenaded on the walk home from the T.

View this post on Instagram

We were watching something where people were at a BBQ place in Buffalo and they got an order of hush puppies so I cried out in victory, “Hush puppies! I could get hush puppies if we ever went where.” Because you, vegetarians don’t typically fare well at bbq joints.

And just like that, a hidden memory was unlocked about the time in 1998 or 1999 when my then-friend Cinn and I went to some business in Forest Hills for a job interview (we both got it and on the day we were about to start, I was like, “Surprise! I quit” before even leaving the house hahahah, oh my lady of leisure days). On our way out of Forest Hills afterward, we stopped at a Long John Silvers because we both wanted hush puppies. I had no money on me but Cinn had a handful of Susan B Anthony coins for some fucking reason and that is how we paid for our hush puppies.

I told Henry this story and his only takeaway was, “Where was there a Long John Silvers out that way?” and even though I explicitly painted its location onto the imaginary map I was drawing in the air with my finger, he refused to take my word for it and had to do his own mental mapping before arriving at the same point as me, a full 10 minutes later.

Anyway, then we took the hush puppies back to my apartment and don’t quote me but I’m pretty sure it was the same day we took this dumb picture and I also have a vague memory of Cinn teasing my beloved cat Marcy with a hush puppy.

By the way has a hush puppy ever gotten so many shout outs in one blog post??