Today was the first day of school and I was like boo hoo, sike naw I was like BYEEEE.

Honestly though, it’s the same feeling every year: How do I have a kid in [whatever] grade?!

It’s funny how we parents always act so shocked and awed that our child is aging like come on really fam?

I’m just mostly sad that this means summer is over—I know the calendar and that equinox thing says otherwise but the first day of school always feels like the kiss of death for summer even though I still had to go to work pretty much every day.

Oh and fun story, we waited until last night to go school clothes shopping. I worked until 7:30 so we went to the mall straight after and I hate mall-shopping but I REALLY hate not going home straight after work so I was acting pissier than a bag of hornets all night especially when the dumb bitch at Journeys was too busy talking to her bitch friends who weren’t even BUYING SHOES totally ignored us and then when she finally was all, “Oh do you need help” they didn’t have Chooch’s size and Henry was like WELP LET’S GO instead of having Chooch find a different pair?!

Also I refuse to spend anything over $100 on this kid because have you seen the way his shoes look after a month?! He has these fat Barney Rubble feet that blow out the sides of shoes and I just can’t stand it.

(HE GETS THE FEET ISSUE FROM FAT-FOOT FATHER HANK.)

Finally found a lot of green ADIDAS at Foot Locker and then I instantly got happy because there were three teenagers in there talking to each other in Korean and Henry was like “OMG you are so weird” (to me, not to the Koreans) but then we went to the Vans store and while Henry was paying for some shirts, the mall closed! It was only 9pm!! Is this normal, asking for someone who doesn’t shop in malls in often.

“This wouldn’t happen in Korea,” i said sourly.

“Yeah, they would have just opened an hour ago,” Henry said and I was like shut up because now I was back to being angry.

Luckily we managed to scrape up somewhat of a starter wardrobe for my SEVENTH GRADER YEAH THATS RIGHT HE’S IN SEVENTH GRADE NOW.

That didn’t warrant CAPSLOCK but I’m in a fucking mood tonight. (It was a “two calls to the help desk” type of Friday Night Late Shift, is all I’m saying.)

He originally didn’t want to get these shorts because he didn’t like the color but I said, “These look like something Blake would wear” and Chooch said, “I love them.”

I pretended like I was going to cry when Chooch left for school this morning but really I watched the new BTS video several times and then made an Aileen Wuornos birthday card, then I went to the post office where Maureen, my postal clerk nemesis, was too busy bitching to me about her relative houseguests to give me the usual third degree about what was in my international packages. Thank you, Maureen’s nieces.

Also, Maureen is sick of these idiots asking her for change, this isn’t a goddamn bank.

So, that’s that. Chooch had a good first day back and I’m hoping this year goes smoothly. Please Sweet Heavenly Angel-Baby Taemin let this year go smoothly. *prayer hands*

Yesterday was a really depressing day but then I saw this trailer FOR A G-DRAGON DOCUMENTARY ON YOUTUBE RED and I felt saved, you know what I mean? G-Dragon always pulls through when I least expect it.

I sent this to my group at work today and Glenn was mad because it’s not Friday and I’m only allowed to send them Kpop-related videos on Friday but this couldn’t wait!!

Anyway, just my semi-regular reminder to cherish those little things in life because it makes it a little easier when we have to face the big bad things.

I AM SO GOOD AT THESE PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS.

At some point today we will be in Indiana, and I promised to do part of the driving so I won’t be able to liveblog. So instead, I guess have a Friday Five featuring things I’m currently into or thoughts that are glomming onto my brain. It’s a Friday free-for-all.

1. Jonghyun Pins & Making Friends

I saw this Jonghyun tribute pin a few weeks on Instagram and immediately bought one. In some small way, it makes me feel comforted to have it, you know? Anyway, I noted that the seller is also from Pittsburgh so I got really excited and messaged her that I am also from Pittsburgh, hoping that she would read the invisible words that trailed after which said in desperate font PLEASE BE MY FRIEND. She did not pick up on this though and simply replied with, “haha small world! Enjoy the pin!” So I was like HENRY WHAT SHOULD I DO because my social skills are about as dried up as the remnants of my dead plants that I still haven’t thrown away. Henry of course was no help because he doesn’t care about making friends so I waited a few days and messaged her again with a hopefully-not-psycho-sounding suggestion of meeting up for coffee & Kpop talk sometime and she was like “Cool! I’m actually leaving to go back to college soon but I’ll let you know when I’m back in town again” and I don’t know why I’m surprised that she is probably nearly 20 years younger than me, sigh.

But then, while I think about how nice it would be to have a friend here in the city who shares my interests, does it really matter all THAT much? I like all my friends here whether they like the same shit as me or not. And I think it’s kind of cool that all of my friends are so different from me when it comes to interests and hobbies.

2. The new Hands Like Houses single

I can’t tell you how many alerts I get about new music from bands I used to love, and I’m like “I’ll check that out later” and do I?! NO! Just like when friends are like “You should watch [insert American Tv show]” and do I? NO! Because I have reached a point where I almost despise hearing the English language, how messed up is that?! I made it through one episode of Sharp Objects and it was fine but I never went back because it felt strange to not be reading subtitles or hearing that certain Korean dialect that has become more familiar to me than my own language. Anyway, my point is, when I saw Hands Like Houses had a new video, I actually did watch it right away and, not surprisingly, I loved it because I have loved everything that HLH has ever done. Some of the reasons I love them is because:

• They sound like no other band
• Trenton manages to keep his Australian accent while singing and I LOVE that
• They’re from Canberra which is where I went to see the Cure for the first time!
• One of the guys in the band bears such a strong resemblance to a young Tim Curry and has always looked so overcome with joy every time I’ve seen him on stage and it just makes me so happy!

https://youtu.be/BUp03PaFIkU

3. Cats Are Movin’ On Up

Remember sometime last winter when Chooch constructed a shoddy cat condo out of a bunch of cardboard boxes? And we had to beg Henry not to throw it away every Garbage Day? Well, that thing was so busted after awhile that even I was starting to turn against it. And then, the actual cat tower we had BROKE which really isn’t that shocking because it was nearly 20 years old. I bought it for my Original 4 Cats when I was going on the aforementioned Canberra, Australia trip because I was trying to make them less sad that I was leaving (they didn’t care at all in reality) so it ended up just sitting in the basement for years until we got Drew and Penelope and wondered if they would use it. Drew ended up loving it! Penelope notsomuch. So when it broke two weeks ago, Drew was like WHY DO YOU HATE ME.

I talked Henry into buying this fancy cat tower from Chewy and he did but ONLY because he had a coupon for it, he is such a tightwad. When it was delivered last week, Chooch and I begged Henry to assemble it straight away and he was like DO YOU NOT WANT DINNER THEN and I was like OH LOL I MEANT AFTER YOU MAKE DINNER.

At first, Drew was hesitant but now she is like “I can’t believe you guys had me loafing in that cat shanty when this palace was out there all along.”

Even Penelope plays on it! (though it’s harder for her to get on it since she is a jumping dunce).

And made a special Jimin VIP room! Henry was like WHY IS JIMIN IN THERE because he has no imagination and doesn’t believe in cat tower interior design. Cool. Cool cool cool, Henry.

(Hive five to anyone who read that in Melissa Joan Hart’s voice. CLARISSA EXPLAINS IT ALL VIBES!)

4. Pittsburgh Jesus

A few months ago, I was walking past the Steel Plaza trolley entrance when I looked over and I swear to god I saw Jesus Christ himself emerging from the little park area next to it. He was illuminated by rays of sunlight, even. This was Jesus, for sure, and not even the emblazoned-on-a-grilled-cheese version.

But then my eyes adjusted to the blinding light and I realized it was just a homeless guy.

I suppose this is something I could have sent a Greetings from Erin’s Lunch Break about but the truth is that I haven’t SENT A SINGLE ONE because I lost all motivation and also because I spend almost all of my lunch breaks on the phone with my therapist (lol, his name is Henry) because I am a crazy person who needs help and Henry lets me yell.

Anyway! I saw him again one time when I was leaving work after one of my late shifts and as I got in the car I hoarsely whispered to Henry, “There he is! The guy I thought was Jesus!” and Henry was like, “….that fat black guy?”

Ugh no behind him!

Luckily, I saw him again the other day and had the perfect opportunity to snap a pic because he was just casually standing on the steps right by my building.

Honestly, I felt blessed.(FRIDAY FIVE INTERLUDE: We just left Loving Hut somewhere outside of Columbus and we are ragging on Henry to the point where Chooch just barfed up a mouthful of Strawberry Smoothie To Go and I just screamed because Pawn Shop is closed and I had fake-convinced myself that I wanted to stop there after we ate, and Henry just called us assholes.)

5. COCO where’d you GOGO

Hey guys Chooch and I helped a guy find his lost dog while we were on our nightly neighborhood walk the other night. Just another day being hometown heroes, no biggie.

We first saw Coco leering back at us from the end of the sidewalk we were walking down. I got scared and turned around at first because you never know what you’re gonna get with a leashless dog! But then she ran around the corner and we were like LETS SEE WHERE SHE WENT and then some older man was all COCO! COCO! Ugh Peg left the GATE open! I’m going to YELL at her!

We were like SIR ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A DOG CUZ WE SAW ONE and he was like YES WHERE and Chooch put on his Dog Detective hat and pointed the way. We kind of stood there helplessly for a while and then I was like “This is awkward, Kid. Let’s split.”

But when we walked up to the next street, we saw some teenage girl slowly chasing a dog through her yard, yelling things to a man on the porch like “It has a harness on!” And I was like THAT MUST BE COCO so I had her and Chooch Lee an eye on her while I ran through the alley to find the man who looked like Harry Potter’s uncle, and I frantically yelled, “Mister we found your dog!” And he asked his neighbor lady if he could hop in her car and they took off to the street I pointed to and I ran back through the alley to find that Chooch and the girl were still blocking Coco but then right when the car rolled up, she bolted deeper into the bowels of Brookline and the girl screamed PAP, GET HER! So now the girl’s pap was party of the search party and the owner got out of the car with the leash while the neighbor lady (who I thought was Peg at first and wondered if she had already gotten yelled at but turns out she was just a nice neighbor who was helping Harry Potter’s uncle who was in NO SHAPE to be trying to lasso Coco on his own) crept slowly after Coco in her car while the rest of us walk-ran in order to not spook Coco into running faster.

OH FRIENDS it was a whole ordeal. But we finally cornered her and the girl was able to grab onto Coco’s harness while Harry Potter’s uncle clobbered over to us with the leash, panting and on the verge of a coronary.

We all bid each other a jovial adieu and then Chooch and I ran home and walked Henry up to tell him that we were hometown heroes once again and he mumbled “I’m so sure” and then fell back asleep.

Last night during our walk, I pointed things out to Henry like the bush where the girl was first trying to catch Coco and the alley where I ran down to tell the owner I found her and Henry was straight sneering on the backseat of a bus to Frown Town.

“It was a really big deal, Henry. You had to be there,” I huffed.

“I doubt it,” he muttered.

“If Brookline had a newsletter, it would have been in there!” I yelled haughtily, but by then his bus had reached its miserable stop at the corner of Scowl Street in Frown Town so he was no longer listening.

And that’s all for this week’s Friday Five! It’s 9:04pm and we’re still in Ohio, to the point where I’m not convinced that Henry hasn’t turned around at some point without me knowing and we’re actually headed back to Pittsburgh.

Lol.

Seriously, I’ve heard this song many times but something today made me shout out in the car, “HOW HAVE I NOTICED THIS BEFORE?!”

Henry was totally alarmed, like I was about to announce that I had a hidden penis, but when I said, “There’s a part in this song that sounds like Foreigner’s Waiting For a Girl Like You!” he sighed his way into a frown.

“I hate when you do that!” he mumbled and then after four or five times of pointing it out he finally said, “YES OK I HEAR IT.

”

Haha. Henry loves my weird music-listening tics.

Seriously though SUMMER QUEEN.

This radio performance makes me smile, like my head could split in half, but then I get sad because I miss Jonghyun so much and wish time could rewind so they could all be together in a room, having fun and laughing with each other again. But then Jonghyun would be in pain again. :(

Also, I want Onew’s sweater.

Also, Taemin is everything as usual.

Also, I can’t sleep.

Also, Chooch and I saved a locust from uncertain death on our way back from our walk which also featured my Mexican boyfriend telling me goodnight! Anyway, we diverted him from walking into the street by transferring him to a yard, via a leaf-mobile.

“That could have been the end of his life!” I sighed.

“Well to be honest, they don’t have very long lifespans, so…

” Chooch said. GOD OK POINDEXTER.

Also, I was talking about the locust and not my Mexican boyfriend in case you were wondering.

Also, I didn’t know it was a locust and thought it was a tiny alien car but Chooch said, “No. This is a locust.” That’s how I knew.

In the nearly four (4!!) decades I’ve been visiting Kennywood, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve gone to the arcade. Just not my thAng, you know?

But Chooch dragged me in there twice yesterday and turns out, it’s not so bad and they have a ton of old school arcade games that I used to play with my bro Ryan at the mall when we were wee lads & lasses.

Anyway, here are some pictures that I took while I was bored when Chooch was doing stuff for tickets under the guise of “winning mum a birthday present” like ok boy.

I used to be really good at Skee Ball! But now I suck and get super aggravated at even the thought of inserting a token. It made me kind of sad to think about how undesirable amusement park and arcades games are to me, even though my wallet is happy, because it’s probably one of the only childhood things that I’ve outgrown. I still love amusement parks, I still get obsessed to the point of traveling to other states and countries for bands, and I still love piling on accessories that make me look like a toy store window display.

But I just don’t care for games anymore! Of any kind! Video, arcade, card, board…however if you were to invite me over for some night tag or hide n seek, I’d be there.

Especially if there was a night cap of prank calls.

I won 15 tickets on this thing by accident. Ok bro.

In the back, some old shit is on display so that was cool and Chooch and I had some laughs imagining Henry riding on one of the old carousel horses or playing whatever that Peppy thing is.

Fun fact: the movie Adventureland was filmed at Kennywood and the arcade was in some of the scenes. I only saw that movie once when it first came out like 10 years ago so don’t ask me any questions about it.

We had to return to the arcade once Henry joined us later in the afternoon because I’m one of those mean moms who won’t give their son money for games LOL. Yeah that’s right, the first time we were in there, he just stared wistfully at all the games because he had no money haha.

Meanwhile some lady frantically chased down Chooch and panted, “WERE YOU JUST PLAYING THAT MACHINE OVER THERE? WELL HERE, BOY, YOU LEFT YOUR TICKETS!” and she dumped a long string of tickets into Chooch’s open palms, what a fucking ARCADE SAINT.

Henry was threw some quarters at me like I was working in a Texas strip club and I did super lucrative things like get fortunes and lottery numbers.

Anyway, those bastards didn’t even win me anything because Henry was all WHY DONT YOU SAVE THE TICKETS FOR THE NEXT TIME YOURE HERE AND THEN GET A BIGGER PRIZE and I already know how this will pan out but here, choose your own adventure:

A. Henry loses the ticket receipt

B. Chooch loses the ticket receipt

C. Chooch chooses a prize for himself

D. We don’t make it back to Kennywood this year to see which way this will go

E. Trump bans amusement parks

You know what I’m truly bad at now as an adult? I mean, aside from being an adult? Pinball. It makes me so anxious!

And this concludes the arcade interlude. I’ll be coming ’round the mountain with another Kennywood post later this week and maybe some songs that we can sing together as a round.

Today is the one-year-anniversary since I breathed the same air as G-Dragon at the Air Canada Center in Toronto, but it’s also my birthday! I turned 39 today and I know that the countdown to is very real to a lot of people, but I gotta tell you: I’m not scared ’bout it! My 20s were largely terrible (bad job, even…badder friends, less control over my mental health), but my 30s turned out to be pretty fucking great for the most part. I don’t fuck around with toxic people anymore; at age 30 I finally found a job that I actually value and do my best at; my relationship with Henry has improved over time (oh god please don’t say it’s aged like a fine wine, that’s so dumb!); being a mom to Chooch has been so much fun; and I just feel like I know myself better through this last almost-decade of my life. So I say, bring on the 40s! I’m ready for it.

This was a great birthday too. Henry pulled through and bought me the whole SHINee Story of Light collection because he’s the best Kpop boyfriend ever. It actually was delivered on Saturday and I was like CAN I JUST HAVE IT NOW?!?! because the box had a Choice Music sticker on it and hello that’s only the best Kpop shop in the US everyone knows that.

Then yesterday my friend Katrina sent me a picture of a roller skate purse she saw in the kids section at Target so I said to Henry, “Go buy me that” and he did.

Shit, I’m spoiled!

I took the day off work for my birthday and Chooch and I had grand plans to be a power riding team at Kennywood (more on that later this week!) but first Chooch was all COUGH COUGH AHEM COUGH until I realized that he had arranged the Hangul magnets on the fridge to spell out happy birthday AND HE GOT ME A CARD! That’s like a huge deal for kids, especially once they hit middle school because OMG other people have birthdays besides them?!

I started cracking up because while Chooch is legit gifted and brilliant in many ways, but is consistently stumped when it comes to addressing envelopes. “I googled it and everything but still didn’t know whose name to put!” he cried. How about THE PERSON YOU ARE GIVING THE CARD TO!? 🙄 Still, it was the best card—I love my at-times-remedial son!

So Chooch hangs out with this kid sometimes and is like enamored with his mom because she cooks and bakes and is basically the antithesis of me (she put one of her kids on blast for calling her a Crabby Patty, can you imagine if she was a fly on our wall?!) and I’m always like, “Wah, you like Wesley’s mom more than me!” because once she made him a grilled cheese and he was just excited to witness real housewife/stay at home mom antics I guess. So the inside of his card made me nearly burst into tears (um, and not teats like I originally typed, or twats which is what came out when I tried to type teats on purpose, writing is hard you guys). I guess the best part of my thirties was watching Chooch grow into such a cool, thoughtful, caring dude.

And going to Korea, duh.

I’m typing this now right before bed, exhausted and delirious from a day full of cracking up and riding my favorite rides at Kennywood. And Henry wasn’t a jerk all day! What more can I ask for?

(I mean, a lot of things obviously but I’m trying to pretend like I’m a mature 39-year-old broad here ok lol.)

Remember in school when people would sign yearbooks with “R/M/A” and it was supposed to mean “remember me always” but everyone knew it really meant “rip my ass”? I am so close to waking Henry up right now to see if that was a thing when he was in school, back when there were one-room school houses with a wood-stove in the back and he walked over the river and through the woods, past the farmer in the dell, cardboard flapping under his feet and then sent a smoke signal to let his mommy know he made it ok. But I don’t think acronyms were invented yet back then.

Just something that’s been on my mind, guys.

Here is a song I like because there is one part, a split-second part, that reminds me of a song by a western pop singer that I really like and like I swear to god I will PayPal you like $5 maybe if you can guess it. #likelikelike Henry couldn’t. Chooch did right away.

On that note, time for my gin bath. Also, I broke my calf muscle today.

One of my stupid resolutions is always to “MAKE MORE PLANS” and “DO MORE THINGS” but fuck it, man, sometimes I just want to walk into a planless weekend and see what happens, you know what I’m saying? No expectations. And nothing is really all that enticing to me lately either, if we’re being honest. I knew that Picklesburgh was underway (the above picture is from my lunch break walk on Friday — the closest I got to that fuckarow of Yinzers) and while I appreciate the concept because I do love me some pickles and bizarre foods, my hatred of bridges* and crowds of people made it easy for me to say “baby bye bye bye” to that idea because CROWDS OF PEOPLE ON BRIDGES.

*(I make myself walk across a bridge once a week or so just to try and combat my fears. It helps a little bit but when I’m walking across a bridge, there are only like 20 other people also on the bridge. Not a horde.)

And to be honest, when I woke up on Saturday, I felt extremely unmotivated and dead inside. Nothing new, really, but the “fun Erin” was in there somewhere, cheering me on and telling me not to give up. I told her to shove her pom-poms up her ass and went back to watching Roommate.

Chooch is like, Mr. Brookline this summer and is never home anymore, so it was just me and the cats Saturday morning. But then Henry came home from work and I was like I WANT TO GO SHOPPING so we did that and I bought some new clothes and felt better about life and the weather was nice and Henry was being attentive. THIS IS ALL I WANT FROM LIFE.

LOL just kidding I want so much more.

At some point, Chooch came home with a FUCKING KAZOO that he found at Blake’s and NO ONE STOPPED HIM FROM TAKING IT, THANKS GUYS. He’s been annoying us with it ever since.

“Big Daddy’s going,” Chooch said out of the blue.

“Who’s Big Daddy!?” Henry and I asked in unison.

“Me,” he answered in a tone that implied we should have known that, and then scooted off into the sunset on his stupid scooter, kazoo in his pocket. That kid! He started hanging out at the Teen Center last week, a place that he formerly referred to as THE CULT. He texted me the other day and was like, “GUESS WHERE I AM, THE TEEN CENTER. THEY GOT ME!” But his friend Liam hangs out there and it seems like a really good place for kids, plus they provide snacks and stuff and that’s what it really boils down to. The other day, the snacks were Korean! He was so excited that he took a picture and posted it on Instagram.

“THEY HAD MILKIS!” he told me later, all excited. So random!

If he’s not at the teen center, then he’s at the library. One day, I was like, “Don’t forget your library card” and he goes, “Oh, I have it memorized. Yeah, I’m THAT kid.”

Getting a little off topic here but I love when we take our nightly strolls and he tells me about all the shit he did during the day. He has…some childhood.

Speaking of walks, he didn’t want to go to the cem with Henry and me later on that Saturday, which was FINE, go be your own person, Chooch.

:(

So then Henry and I pretended like we were on a date LOLOLOL.

Me: We need to have more skinship.

Henry: *tries to hold my hand*

Me: Ew don’t touch me!

It was a super nice day and Henry even listened to me when I talked to him about my struggles learning Korean and he was like, “Hey, I can barely speak* English, so…” I don’t know if that made me feel better or worse because hey, my boyfriend’s dumbz0rz.

*(Look, I’m one to talk. I can barely write English anymore.)

Then I played my favorite game called “What If I Walked Liked This?” where I do all kinds of weird walks to see if Henry gets embarrassed but he never does. I was getting super athletic with that day’s walk repertoire but then I had visions of landing wrong and breaking my ankle so I stopped doing that and went back to walking gingerly.

I’ve been playing this game since childhood and I never tire of the fun except that my aging body doesn’t allow me to do the “squatting rabbit” hop-walk for as long as I once could, le sigh.

The rest of the night was spent hanging out together at home and it was good, you know? Those guys really are my best friends but don’t tell them I said that.

Sunday morning started out with an egg white omelete and an early birthday present from my pal Maya – hanguel magnets! I’m still 11 and write my name all over notepads during work meetings or on restaurant placement (usually with variations of “Erin rulz”) so when I opened this package, I had my name spelled out on the fridge within 30 seconds. What a perfect way to merge my megolamania and K-love into one!

And then Chooch straight up screamed into his kazoo which had me flipping through the Yellow Pages a/k/a Yelp for a good orphanage or fire station to leave him. When we dropped him off at his piano lesson, he greeted Cheryl with a hearty kazoo-blow but she said she liked it because Chooch’s charms still work on her after all these years.

I wanted to walk around and look for help wanted signs for that stupod Job Spotter app I have (I have $50 in Amazon rewards so far!) and Henry was like, “This sucks, I hate doing this” only because he knows that eventually I’m going to find a mural for him to stand in front of. Pittsburgh surprisingly has a lot of street art. He doesn’t give me much time so I basically have to keep walking while I’m taking the picture. Look how happy he is in all of his drab colors! Tans and grays for days.

Then I got him to go inside the East Liberty Presbyterian Church with me! I’ve always wanted to go inside but never have, even after driving past it every day for two years when I worked at that old job with Eleanore and Tina (lol). I’d sit at red lights and admire it every day.

Usually Henry is like “N-O! THAT SPELLS NO!” when I’m like, “Go inside this spiritual thing” because he’s scared of church stuff. If I had to label myself as something under the God spectrum, I’d say I identify most with atheism. However, I used to be extremely religious as a kid (I eventually realized it was because I was treating it more of a history lesson, if that makes sense) and I actually do believe in the devil even though OMG you can’t have one without the other.

But man, the day my pappap died, I was done with God.

Hoo-boy, I could do some talking about that, but this is not the blog post for that. All I’m trying to say here is that I LOVE ME A GOOD CHURCH.

I’m known to openly weep in churches, I know that’s hard to believe because I’m so rotten.

Turns out this particular church is super progressive so that made me even happier that we were killing time there.

YES! The amount of time and energy some people expend bitching and worrying about another person’s gender makes me want to lose my mind.

After Chooch’s piano lesson, we went to nearby Mellon Park for a Caribbean festival! I follow this one guy on Instagram who makes vegan Puerto Rican cuisine, but only sells his food at various street markets and festivals, so I haven’t been able to catch him because going to things like that always sound a great idea until we get there and hipsters are mowing me down to get in line for kombucha. But then he posted a picture of BREADFRUIT and you know me and my strange fruit/vegetable palate. I needed this, and I was prepared to fight the Yinzeriest of all hipsters for a spot in line.

We parked across the street at Bakery Square, and Chooch was immediately distracted by a foosball table set up on the sidewalk because apparently he plays this at the cult, I mean, THE TEEN CENTER, and is like SO GOOD AT IT, you guys.

“I’m really good at foosball too,” Henry bragged, and Chooch and I were like, “OK yeah sure.”

“I played it all the time when I was in THE SERVICE!” Henry barked, like it suddenly put him on another foosball level because he had a crew-cut while playing it? “I PLAYED IT FOR FOUR YEARS!”

“You liar, you weren’t even in the SERVICE for four years because you went AWOL after three!” I laughed.

“IT WAS THREE YEARS AND EIGHT MONTHS AND I DIDN’T GO AWOL!” he cried all defensively. Oh god, this just doesn’t get old.

No one played foosball that day though.

The festival had only been going for about 90 minutes when we rolled up and luckily it wasn’t overly crowded yet. There were only about 8 people in line for the coveted SaludPgh stall, and I was happy about this. I hate waiting in line for food. Almost no food is worth waiting for me in my opinion. I GUESS I’M NOT A FOODIE. DELETE MY AUXILIARY FOOD BLOG. CANCEL MY FOOD REVIEW PODCAST.

Anyway, the guy behind SaludPgh is really nice and more importantly, awesome at making food. I didn’t know what most of things were on his menu and I truly didn’t care because I was there to give my palate some Puerto Rican culture. I love ethnic food so much, and even more so when it’s vegan.

Here’s what we got:

• picadillo/”beef” & ackee/plantain pastelillos – both of these were delicious but I think I liked the picadillo better. j/k I want both of them in my maw again.
• potato stuffing which was sweet and smoky, extremely hearty and satisfying, and I could see this being a good addition to any holiday dinner table or summer cookout. WHAT I’M SAYING IS THAT WE SHOULD BE CELEBRATING WITH THIS STUFFING.
• quimbombo! This is what I came for and that breadfruit was insanely good, kind of like a yam-ish….? But less dense/carb-y. WOW, MY FOOD BLOG IS REALLY GOING TO BE MISSED. Also, I’ve had a crush on okra since middle school. Hopefully his co-worker doesn’t find this and send it to him.
• arroz con gandules – I barely got to eat any of this because turns out Chooch imprinted on pigeon peas
• vegan pepper steak – even Henry was like, “You can barely tell this isn’t real meat” and I was just like, “Yeah” because I can’t remember what meat tastes like. This was very good and moist! When do I get to have this again?!

The verdict? A+, vegan Puerto Rican food is bomb. Pastelillos aside, everything else on that tray only cost $10 and it took three of us to finish it (Henry got his own $15 meat tray at some other booth for carnivores and I’ll just tell you now that Chooch’s and my tray was way more satisfying and varied and CHEAPER than Henry’s. And you better believe Henry bitched about that too, haha. Come over to our side, Henry! Dance under a shower of soy with us! Wear “animals are ppl too!” bracelets with us! Sacrifice a privileged white male under the full moon with us!

Chooch discovering a love for pastelillos. Look, this kid is the pickiest little bitch at the Picky Eater ball, but he was chowing on everything in that tray. I think Chooch found his favorite ethnic cuisine.

Later that evening, we went to Las Palmas in Beechview so I could get candy for work and then we stopped at that paletas joint again to try more flavs. I got red currant this time, Henry got chili mango, and Chooch went with the ice cream version of the walnut paleta I had last week.

The rest of the night was spent watching Taemin videos because my friend Veronica and I were messaging each other on IG about our favorites and then I screamed REALLY LOUD when Taemin ripped open his blazer in a video that I’ve seen a million times and Blake & Haley are now thinking about moving out from next door and I think one of my cats is moving out with them.

It was a great weekend and I was sad to see it end, but also happy that I was able to allow myself to have a good weekend. I’m trying not to be so hard on myself but shit, these last several months have been rough. But things aren’t so bad when you live with your besties, you know?

Drew and Penelope asked me to please take a break from posting about singers that I’ll never meet and give them the stage for once so here’s some pictures of them from over the weekend I guess.

Yawn.

Drew, being the Creep of the House on a Friday Night.

I can’t remember the last time they sat so close to each other!

Henry is the only one that the cats will lay on (unless it’s bedtime, then Penelope is making things as uncomfortable as possible for us….

there’s always that one cat, and she is it for us!). I think it’s because they know that he didn’t want cats. [Let me clarify: Henry likes cats but he didn’t really want to get another one after Marcy died (I didn’t either but you knew that), let alone TWO new cats; yet here we are!] Also, his belly must be super cozy for them.

Penelope, super pissed that Drew is on her man.

Well, now you’re up to speed on what the cats look like: the same.

I’m the most scared of any horror movie relating to possessions and the Devil so this dance was really great for me to watch alone before I go to bed.

(Henry won’t watch those kinds of movies AT ALL, what a crybaby.)

The dancing is such a huge reason why I got into Kpop. I took jazz for a year in elementary school and literally the only thing I could master was “step-ball-change” and it’s amazing that I’m able to even do Kpop cardio without tripping and falling – I mean, I legit punched myself and ripped some skin off my thumb yesterday while kickboxing lol such coordination.

This has been a random Sunday night post. Sweet dreams.

P.S. I still think Taemin is the best dancer.

Let me give you a run-down on how my day is going: it’s 4:30PM and I only have 1,015 steps.

And no, it’s not because I’m on a plane to Seoul.

Today is my work-from-home late shift day which I always get giddy about the night before. I get to sleep in! (I never do though.) I can go out for breakfast! (Usually just stay home and have a bagel.) I can exercise my face off! (This is actually realistic.) Now that it’s summer and Chooch is around, I thought it would be fun to walk to the paleteria in Beechview and go hog-wild on some exotic popsicles while supporting our local Mexicans (#FuckICE #NotThePopsicleKindsThough).

But then I woke up with a stomach bug and spent all morning puking/sleeping/puking/whining/sleeping/shivering/crying/puking/shaking – you get the idea. And then I had to log on to work where I was met with several disasters from the night before and then I cried some more and had to run upstairs and puke up the piece of bread I stupidly ate in an effort to calm my stomach.

Chooch was like, “Hey mum, I feel really bad and all, but um, I’m going to go the library, don’t die.”

Can I pause here to say that I don’t understand why, if he calls me “mum,” he doesn’t call Henry “dud.”

Well, I typed all of this will feeble fingers just to say that all I have the mental endurance for right now is sharing some pictures of my cats who are the worst because they didn’t care about me AT ALL when I was vomiting and then I started crying because I miss my cat Marcy who, even though she hated me, would always sit outside of the bathroom while I puked and I’m sure it was mostly just because she wanted to be as close as possible to see me suffering/ensure that her wicked spell was working, but the point is, she was THERE and then I imagined holding her and for a split second I could FEEL her in my arms and then I just started bawling in bed and texted Henry, “I miss Marcy” and he said he knew exactly why.

Stop acting like you know things, Hank.

But yeah, here are pictures of Drew and Penelope from the other night when they were on Fly Watch and Drew was doing all these fancy circus-quality high jumps and flips in the air in an attempt to catch one, and then all Penelope did was clumsily bat a fly out of the air, smash it under her paw, and then eat it.

Drew was so mad.

Sometimes you just have to go the rudimentary route, you know.

This was after Penelope feasted on her game.

Pouting, lol.

Well that’s all for me. The one bright side is that this happened while I was at home and not sitting behind Carrie at work. YOU’RE WELCOME CARRIE. Aren’t I thoughtful co-worker?!

#vomit

P.S. Back when I was on LiveJournal i knew someone who always put “vomit” spelled backwards in asterisks and now I feel compelled to bring that back.

*timov*

WHAT EVEN IS THE POINT OF THAT THO?!

Henry sat here and watched all nineteen minutes of this with me without complaining or looking at his phone even once and the question is: is it because he loves me, or Taemin?!?

“Nineteen minutes out of my life,” he just murmured but he obviously felt obligated to say that lest anyone realize he’s way deep in this Kpop lifestyle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ugh that fuckin’ Peachy Boi lol.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Claw machine selfie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6:16pm: Water jug progress:

Also, we’re not home yet.

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

Chooch and I decided to be the founding members of the Anti-Henry Club but then Henry made us feel bad (ie threatened to starve us) so we let him in, Ugh.

Anyway, KCON night 2 is about to start so ciao for now!!