Scaremare

It was at an old bank full of Gangsters.  We had to crawl twice. One time we had to crawl    like for 2 minutes. I saw a real snake and Mother didn’t see it. At the end the tour guide said ”this is the time you go in one by one” Daddy had to go first he said “F*** IT I’ll go in alone :(“. at the beginning this Old man in the 1920’s like daddy’s age screaming about the Children behind bars. And we had to sing HAHA EAGOR YOU CANT GET US NANANANA then he broke through the bars like THIS: IIII:)IIII.    This lady in front of us THAT DADDY LIKED THAT TOLD US TO hide her from the ring around the rosey  grandma that told me I stole her cat so she told me to check mommy’s weird purse so I pushed it. I loved the haunted house

THE END

Sewickley Methodist Haunted Church:

Janna wouldn’t go with us. because she got a new kitten named Ted Nugent it was to dumb to leave it alone. At the beginning there was this fake spider from the HALLOWEEN STORE.  This guy in a red mask said what’s your name I said Riley mommy said Erin and Henry said Henry The guy in the red mask said Erin more like Smelvin  witch doesn’t even make sense BUT IT WAS FUNNNNNNNNNNYYYYYY  BECAUSE I WOULDN’T STOP CALLING HER THAT!!! I got to spin the wheel and it landed on door one of death I’d rather go in door two of terror. The guy that was dressed like a girl was from a TV show called Wheel of Fortune named Vanna White. I never even watched Wheel of Fortune. The janitor which wasn’t really the janitor hung himself on a rope and had really big teeth. I loved the haunted church this year!! last year um I forgot what happened last year. i’ll just say it was good. maybe next time Janna wont be an idiot and will leave her kitten TED NUGENT that’ll teach you a lesson JANNA! LEAVE YOUR CAT IT CANT OPEN WINDOWS OR GRAB THE NOB OF THE DOOR!!!

Cheeseman Fright Farm:

In line I had to go to the bathroom. I went in the boys bathroom but there was this like 10 year old and he was POOPING in the stall and the urinal was too high so I couldn’t use it so I had to use the girls bathroom no one was in there. it was awkward.

Michael Myers was chasing everybody in line. the people in front of us were like ‘oh well crap Michael Myers is in line’

the hayride part well I kept saying hi to all the monsters they said hi back. The chainsaw guys kept putting their chainsaws in the hay right by laura she was so scared ha-ha. Anyway look at her face in the picture. Jason was in a tractor and it came out of nowhere from the hay shooting fire out from the pipes. It made me feel hot. well it did! The fire went right in my face. The haunted house part we got out of the hay tractor I guess that is what you would call it, and we were going in through a hay tunnel I realized I was in front and I was like “no no no” so I turned around and squeezed past laura to be in the middle.  Mommy was scared because I popped out of nowhere and she screamed AAAHHHH.

There was this guy holding a fake snake  but there was a real snake behind him in a tank. He was like “like my cat? wanna pet it?” I was like “oh it’s a cute cat I wanna pet it!” He was like “OK go head!” This girl from a graveyard screamed in my face, popped out of nowhere like a butterfly and I was like “well I can scream louder!” and I screamed, so.

I liked it. I had fun. And that’s when I liked chainsaw guys. Please don’t make me write about the picture with Michael Myers.

Primanti’s. Dozen. Pamela’s. The Dor-Stop. OK WE GET IT, FOOD NETWORK! You have a hard-on for popular Pittsburgh establishments.  The placesI love in Pittsburgh never make any “best of” lists, and they’re not even all crack dens, I swear. Maybe it’s because I tend to shy away from trendy hipster-meccas and any place that Guy Fieri might have grazed his L.A. Looks gel-coated hands. But you know what, Pittsburgh? I have been squatting in your legendary steel-producing town for 33 years and it’s about time some of my favorite local joints get a little lovin’.

OK, let’s start with something that’s not even in Pittsburgh, because that makes sense.

Best Place to Get Indian Food On Those Days You Feel Like Driving For 90 Minutes

You know how sometimes you say out loud to your cat, “I really want some curry but I want to drive a substantial distance for it rather than have it now, right now”?

Then Govinda’s Restaurant in New Vrindaban, West Virginia is your jam!

And now I’m going to tell you why:

IT IS THE CAFETERIA INSIDE A HARE KRISHNA COMPOUND, YOU GUYS! About a 90-minute drive from Pittsburgh, New Vrindaban is situated smack dab in the dueling banjo hills of West Virginia. Tobe Hooper definitely joy-rides around those serpentine country lanes for horror script inspirations.

Before you eat the food that is served to you by a Hare Krishna man with a head tattoo, make sure you take a monk-guided tour of the nearby Palace of Gold, built by the Hare Krishnas some decades ago for their leader-person and currently in a state of disrepair which adds to the whole “This might be my final destination, did I kiss my cat goodbye?” vibe. Honestly, I thought I was going to be taken the day I was there.

I guess that the Palace of Gold is renown for their rose gardens, too. So maybe take a stroll through that as well.

The cafeteria is down the street (you can walk there, unless you can’t walk) in the actual Krishna compound, which makes it even scarier. They serve Indian food, which is comparable to ordinary Indian food. So I guess if you’re looking for HOLY SHIT I JUST CAME Indian food, maybe you should ask Urban Spoon for some advice. But if you’re looking for an EXPERIENCE, go to Govinda’s where you will be stared at by all of the robe-wearing Hare Krishnas and gigantic dancing acolyte statues.

Also, I don’t know if this will help sway you, but people were MURDERED there. (Not in the cafeteria, I don’t think.)

Don’t forget to buy some weird fabric things and a How To Be a Swami For Dummies book in the trailer-cum-gift shop.

Best Place to Eat If You Like Eating Where Someone Was Murdered But Have Already Been to Govinda’s

While I can’t find any Internet evidence to back this up, I was always under the impression that the location of the Johnny Gammage murder-slash-one of the most controversial cases of American police brutality was in the parking lot of Frank & Shirley’s diner on Rt. 51 in Overbrook.

Even if that’s not the case, you should still go there if you like really good French fries and are either a child smoker (as in a child who smokes, not a person who smokes children) or someone with a propensity for yanking on knobs, because Frank & Shirley’s has really good French fries and a cigarette machine.

You can tell them I sent you because they don’t know who I am.

Best Place to Look at Large Boxes That Play Music

Friends, next time you’re entertaining an illegal alien who doesn’t care about buying Steelers memorabilia or going to a Steelers game or petting your collection of Palomalu locks, take them to the Bayernhof Music Museum in Sharpsburg. It is some dead guy’s mansion glutted with a collection of obnoxious music-makers and curated by a man who wears suspenders (although one time I went and he verbally and physically communicated his irritation with himself for forgetting his suspenders by groaning and tugging on his waistband during every pause of Big Band classics). The décor is 1970s Bavarian kitsch, which may or may not make a huge comeback if I ever buy a house. White carpet, sunken living rooms, HIDDEN PASSAGES. You guys, come on — who doesn’t want to take a tour of some dead rich playboy’s house (where you just KNOW a ton of amateur porn was filmed back in the day) and ogle the sights (and smells) of 1970s opulence? (I mean, other than my friend Andrea from California, who still has waking nightmares of the 2.5 hours she spent there when she visited me last year. I guess she’s a German music box racist. I left a framed picture of her in the canning room during my last visit. Yes, there’s a canning room. Yes, I love tacky things enough to take two tours of the place in one year.)

Hey, speaking of the tour, it’s $10 for 2+ hours of enough Hummel figurines to last you a lifetime, but you’ll have to call ahead for reservations.

Just don’t get too butt hurt when Tony the curator ridicules you for mistaking some honking-loud music maker in the basement (yes Pee Wee, there is a basement!) for a calliope when everyone knows it’s really a band organ. GOD! Also, please don’t tell him I sent you. I may or may not be banned from that place.

Best Place to Buy Weird Fruit?

No, this is a question. I’m asking you. I’ve been on this exotic fruit kick (NOT MANGOES OR PAPAYAS) but apparently this shit is hard to acquire here in Pittsburgh. I usually go to various Asian markets around town and sometimes they reward me with persimmons and dragonfruit, but I WANT MORE. My boyfriend keeps snapping about how THIS ISN’T GOOD FRUIT SEASON, OK but I usually stop listening as soon as I realize someone is saying something that I don’t like.

I was on a real roll there for a hot minute, even had a personal fruit purveyor in California (the German music box racist), but like all good things and “Call Me Maybe,” it petered out and now I am back to eating regular American people fruit, like stupid apples and Cuties.

So please, if you know a guy who knows a guy who was in ‘Nam with a guy who grows potentially fatal and weapon-like fruit in a spare room of a tenement in Garfield, please hook me up. I’ll turn a blind eye to the pot plants he’s got in there, I promise.

Best Cake To Put In Your Mouth*

*(But not in your asshole. There’s a cake for that but it’s on another list.)

I spent the first three decades of my life in the same culinary circle jerk as most of the South Hills because let’s be real, no one bakes a motherfuckin’ birthday cake with better panache than Bethel Bakery, the premier go-to cakery of my family. Every last one of those assholes got their birthday cakes from Bethel Bakery.

Except for me. Because Bethel Bakery went on vacation every year during the week of my birthday. EVERY YEAR!! So I always got some shitty grocery store cake. Or worse — Kribel’s. But I didn’t hold it against them. I continued the tradition of patronizing this long-standing family establishment into my adulthood, getting birthday cakes for all of my friends and cats. (To be fair, most of my friends are cats.)

Having an anniversary with your mistress? Here’s a Bethel Bakery cake for you to eat together in a seedy motel room!

Celebrating five years meat-free? Bethel Bakery’s got a three-dimensional hamburger cake to tempt your least-favorite vegan!

STD screening come back dirty? Woo! Sheet cake with frosting in the hue of Snooki’s infected kooka!

Bethel Bakery was even kind enough to make me a cemetery cake for my baby shower. (My lame boyfriend Henry refused to tell them we wanted a baby doll in the coffin when he placed the order, so I had to plunk a plastic baby on the cake myself.)

“OK great, Erin. We get it. Bethel Bakery is your favorite and you want to stick your imaginary dick in it,” says the one person who might have had the stamina, patience and poor-taste to read this far.

WRONG. That was then. Zia Custom Desserts is now.

I will never forget the moment when it all changed for me. Spring of 2010. I had just started working at The Law Firm and everyone was yapping about these macarons that our co-worker Kaitlin had made.

Macarons.

From scratch!

For no reason other than she wanted to!

I could say that Kaitlin had me at “macaron,” but then I tasted one of her cakes and suddenly Bethel Bakery was no better than a box of Duncan Hines baked in a hobo boot. Kaitlin has a way of dumping a bunch of fine ass ingredients into a bowl and knowing how to mix it with the necessary panache to prevent it from baking up into a crusty blob of shit-dough like what always happens when I put shit into the oven.

(Maybe I should stop putting shit into the oven.)

My theory is that Kaitlin uses a combination of French swears and vintage Nintendo cheat-codes when she’s plunging the paddle into the bowl. Casse-toi! Up down up down left right left right b a!

Kaitlin’s sugarplum repertoire is vast – she can do anything from the aforementioned macarons to cake pops, themed cookies to tiny desserts in cups. She even sets up entire dessert tables for functions, so if you’re having a shower or celebrating your mother’s prison release, she’s got you covered. Sometimes I consider telling her I’m throwing a random party for my friends just so I can eat everything myself.

Because my cats don’t like cakes.

Kaitlin even made me an almond-raspberry Robert Smith birthday cake two years ago, so suck on that one, Bethel Bakery.

You can find Kaitlin’s sugar-spun mastery on Facebook: Zia Custom Desserts. Like her page and tell her “Some annoying broad who loves Jonny Craig and swear words sent me here.” And then ask her if she can make lavender macarons. She’ll know.

It was snowing this morning when I walked Chooch to school. He was all, “Yay snow!” and immediately stuck out his tongue to catch snowflakes while I was more like, “WTF it’s only October!” while wishing I knew German so I could really vocalize my anger.

I’m doing a Heart Walk 5k thingie in the morning and I would really like to not have to don thermal underwear and an Anorak, so please come back, autumn.

Chooch and I hid from Henry on Friday because that is what bored children do. Here is a video, but be warned: I’m too lazy to edit so there is a good 1:30 of absolutely nothing happening. YOU’RE WELCOME!

Chooch and I had a full-blown singalong to this song yesterday and it was so good to just not care about anything for a few minutes. Also, Chooch is already way better at singing than me. I am miserably tone-deaf.

Chooch and me during a Saturday session of the STFU Henry club.

In other news, I go back to work tomorrow. :( But I’m happy that I got to squeeze in a sibling hang-out, lunch with my oldest friend Christy (she loves when I describe her that way), hockey games from start to finish, and a ton of haunted houses during my time off.

Chooch and his oldest god mother, Christy. They shared chocolate “mouse” together at Armstrong’s.

And today, Henry is finally back in DIY-action! He’s working on this desk-thingie for the living room. Right now it’s painted gold (duh) and he’s chevron’ing the doors. Earlier, he was researching online for chevron patterns and I said, “Wow, that looks like a hassle.”

“What do you care? You’re not the one who has to do it,” Henry cried like a bitch.

He is REALLY miserable when it comes to home improvement. Especially when glitter is involved.

Chevron’ing, motherfuckers.

We had to go to dreaded Home Depot this afternoon to get more paint, ugh ugh ugh, and some man smiled at me. This prompted Chooch to exclaim that I’d have a better chance at marrying that guy than Henry, and he’s probably not wrong. Chooch’s favorite punch lines are those that involve my perpetual ring-less ring finger, so if I ever did get married, he would probably never tell another joke again. A few weeks ago, he even said to me, “You should just check in with your ex-boyfriends, because I have a feeling Daddy is never going to marry you.” And it’s awesome when he says this shit all somberly and then EXPLODES in laughter. The neener-neener type, which is THE WORST KIND OF LAUGHTER.

Unless it’s me who’s actually laughing. Then it’s the BEST KIND OF LAUGHTER.

Chooch’s self-portrait that he made in art. It was hanging up during last week’s Open House and we almost couldn’t find it because it was the only one that didn’t look like a person.

I’ll return tomorrow with a bunch of words about my favorite haunted houses, since we’re about halfway through the season here. But I’ll warn you, I’m pretty passionate and opinionated on this topic! (I know, what else is new.)

Earlier this evening, we went to Chooch’s school for a parent/teacher conference. All kinds of action was blowing up in there today, like a book fair and a bake sale. (OK, so two kinds of action.) Those PTO* people are really fucking smart though, because at the same table as the brownies and cupcakes and banana bread and cookies OMG fuck off Weight Watchers, they have sign-up sheets for various volunteering “opportunities” at the school. Look, I wasn’t born yesterday. I know they want me to get all sugar-stupid so they can sucker a signature out of me, but I showed them—we got our baked goods in a to-go bag.

*(When did it change from PTA?!)

But I started thinking about how inactive I am in the whole grade school experience. Like, maybe I should offer to make some signs or something? I’m pretty good with poster board and glitter so the next time they want to visually announce the fact that the principal was accused of assaulting a minor at a gym, I could be their girl. But anytime I start having stupid thoughts like that, I just remember back to when Chooch was going to That Terrible School of Yesteryear and how stressed out and crazy his Kindergarten Halloween party made me. And how quickly I’m reminded that I CANNOT WORK WITH OTHER MOTHERS. Especially ones that plan the entire thing behind my back and leave me with all of the loose ends to tie using my special “rabbit ears” method.

Deep down, I really like maybe I would have a better experience with volunteering at his current school, because everyone I’ve encountered has been so nice, but that other school really ruined me.

Just to really drive it home, I pulled up this old blog post about the time Henry and I waited until 10:30PM to bake stupid cupcakes for the stupid Halloween party that year, and I feel very confident in my decision to withhold my name from every and all sign-up sheets from now until Chooch is wearing a cap and gown.

“Hey Chooch, remember these cupcakes?” I asked, holding up my phone for him to see.

“Um…nope,” he said with a shrug.

ALL THAT FUCKING HARD WORK AND MY GODDAMN KID DOESN’T EVEN REMEMBER THE CUPCAKES THAT I WAS SO SURE HAD TO HAPPEN IN ORDER FOR MY FUCKING CLASSROOM SNACK CONTRIBUTION TO BE LEGENDARY. I’m so glad I wasted some of my best death threats on Henry that night FOR NOTHING.

Anyway, here is the legend of the cupcakes that broke Henry and me up 87 times one fateful night in 2010. I love/hate October so much.
****

I had given Henry explicit instructions on what to get for the cupcakes while I was at work Thursday night. The plan was that he was going to bake them and then I would attempt to not look like an honorary member of The Dream Team while recreating what I saw in the last issue of Better Homes & Gardens (which somehow is delivered with my name on it, but Henry is always quick to whisk it from the mail slot before I throw it away).

When I came home from work, it was after 9pm and I quickly saw that Henry had not yet made the cupcakes.

“I’ll get to it,” he kept muttering.

I distracted myself by stuffing the treat bags with lame little Halloween party favors and candy. Then I panicked because I wasn’t sure if the game we had in mind was good enough, so I printed out Halloween mazes and stuffed those in the treat bags too. Goddamn children.

This took about fifteen minutes, start to finish. One could imagine how exhausted I was, having single-handedly carried this entire party on my back while Henry pranced around in his underwear.

Somewhere around 10:30pm, I found out that Henry had purchased red decorating gel instead of black. RED! I cornered him in the kitchen as he mixed the cupcake batter and laid into him for being so worthless, so stupid, so irresponsible, so UNRELIABLE.

We broke up for the second time that night, but he still put his big boy pants on and went back to the store in search of black decorating gel.

By the time he came back, I noticed that he also forgot the pretzel sticks/Frankenstein neck bolts.

“I just came back! I am not going to the store again!” Henry shouted.

I raised a knife.

We broke up again.

I know, I know: Erin, why didn’t you just go to the store yourself? And let that motherfucker win?! Never. Let me remind you that the fact I haven’t eaten meat since 1996 was born from my impenetrable stubbornness. My head, it is that of a bull. (And not just because I’m that ugly.)

“Just forget it!” I screamed. “Fuck the cupcakes! I just won’t take them!”

“Fine,” Henry mumbled, pushing past me and going to sit down on the couch.

“NO I’M JUST KIDDING WE NEED THE CUPCAKES OMG GET BACK IN THERE!” I yelled, heart rate up, left arm tingling. Ew I fucking hate parties. As Henry walked by to go back in the kitchen, I muttered, “But the cupcakes are going to look pathetic since you forgot the pretzels, good job.” I saw him tense up for a second, like he maybe was contemplating pushing me into the hot stove, but then he adjusted his Susie Homemaker ruffled apron and went back to ladling batter into the cupcake tray thing.

“Did you start cooking the spaghetti yet?” I asked. We needed a lot of spaghetti noodles for the stupid game that the other moms so thoughtfully left for me to come up with.

“Can I get through the cupcakes first?” he snipped, and we broke up again.

Around 11:30, the cupcakes were cooled off and it was time to start icing them. Henry mixed up a bowl of purple frosting while I struggled with the orange. I didn’t mix it well enough, so all the cupcakes I frosted had dark orange striations throughout them, and that’s on top of the sides I smashed in from gripping too hard.

“Look,” Henry instructed. “Turn the cupcake with your other hand so the frosting goes on easier.” But as usual, I ignored his tip and continued glooping on mounds of frosting before moving on to the frustrating task of smoothing that shit out.

I started to cry. Then I screamed, slammed down the cupcake I was working on, and marched out of the kitchen.

But not before breaking up again, followed by a death threat.

“You’re a fucking retard,” I heard Henry say as he examined the three cupcakes I managed to frost before having a full-blown temper seizure. I really believe that it takes a special kind of person to be able to work with sprinkles and frosting without winding up with brain matter Pollacked across the kitchen wall.

I started to watch the Jersey Shore reunion show, mouth still molded into a scowl, until I realized that I couldn’t let Henry take all the credit for the cupcakes. And he would, too. I knew it. So I went back in the kitchen and pushed Henry out of the way. He had a plateful of large marshmallows which he had previously rolled through green glittery sprinkles. I picked one up and decided to start working on the Frankenstein heads, that maybe if I concentrated real hard on that, I could block out the fact that Henry was two feet away from me, making me hate life.

By then, it was midnight.

I did that high-pitched shriek that happens when something isn’t going my way.

“What?” Henry yelled.

“THIS BLACK GEL IS TOO THICK! THIS FRANKENSTEIN IS RUINED!” I hurled it into the garbage.

“Great,” Henry said sardonically. “Now we’re going to be short one marshmallow.” Turns out there was just enough green sprinkles for fourteen marshmallows, the exact number of kids in Chooch’s class. “If you weren’t being such a BITCH, I probably could have fixed that one,” Henry sneered and I wanted to skin him alive.

“Oh you think you’re so fucking perfect!” I spat. And we broke up so badly that I created a profile on Match.com.

Whoever lives in this house after us is going to be haunted by all the ire left clinging to the walls from our mutual belligerence. And that’s assuming we both make it out alive. Otherwise, someone might want to consider taking a wrecking ball to 3021 My Street.

Being short a marshmallow, I made the executive decision to only use half and do spiderwebs on the other cupcakes. Oh great idea, Erin Rachelle. Next time, maybe try to remember that you have an unsteady hand and SUCK at decorating.

How do you bitches make this look so easy?

I was standing over the oven, dragging a toothpick over these bastards, and GRUNTING. It was excruciating! You need precision for this shit. And precision and me? We’re not friends. We’re not even frenemies. In fact, if precision turned into a zombie, I’d push everyone out of the way so I could be the one to shoot it in the motherfucking head. Precision makes me cry, you guys. And I think I have arthritis now. I fucking hate you, too, spider webs.

I hate anything to do with baking! I hate frosting! I hate food coloring! I hate the kitchen! I hate Henry!

I do like licking the batter off that mixing contraption though.

The worst part is that I kept catching Henry trying not to laugh when my sanity was very clearly slipping through my fingers like sand through an hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

Of course, they looked nothing like Frankenstein and I had a failure-induced panic attack. Then I realized that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to have a variety.

“What if the kids start fighting because they all want one with a marshmallow head?” I freaked out.

“It’ll be a good lesson for them. You don’t always get what you want in life,” Henry said matter-of-factly. That’s great, but I didn’t want to be there when parts of Mr. Potato Head began flying as the kids fought each other with tinker toys and glue sticks and teachers staggered away with pencils jutting out from their femoral artery. You might be wondering what sort of impression I have in my mind of preschool classes. Obviously a very Mad Max, post-apocalyptic one.

It was nearly 1:00am by the time we finished decorating the fuckcakes. Henry and I slept in separate rooms.

FUCKERS!!!!

[Ed.Note: Henry can attest this is not an accurate account. It has been toned down. A lot.]

I haven’t really been doing much during my week off from work, but I gotta say it’s been pretty fucking delightful to not have to stop what I’m doing to fuss with my hair and fling half of my wardrobe out of my closet while screaming “I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR TO WOOOOOOOORK!”

Today for instance, it has been raining nonstop and I didn’t have to walk to the trolley! (I still have to walk and get Chooch from school though, but at least “going to work” doesn’t happen after!)

However, that nagging countdown is definitely ticking in the back of my head. I’m going to be one unhappy broad next Monday. :(

We went to Bill’s for a post-Castle Blood ice cream hook-up Saturday night. Henry gets so mad when Chooch and I ditch him with all of our ice cream cones, haha.

Pumpkin soft serve, boyyyyy.

Me & Willie, Marcy’s daughter. She hates people, so getting this close to her was a pretty big fucking deal. Also, what the hell is happening to my eyes up there?

I have been trying to get Henry to learn how to do fishtail braids for the last 87 years. But then over the weekend, I watched a tutorial that actually made sense to my rock-filled head and voila, I had fishtail braids! Too bad I didn’t spend more time making sure the part in the back looked OK, so I wound up having to wear a beanie to the haunted house that night, and I do not look cute in beanies so NO MONSTER hit on me. FML.

Henry made a red velvet version of the Cupcake Pie, using the best red velvet cupcakes that Pittsburgh has to offer (Vanilla Pastry Studio, holla!). I took it with me Monday night when I went to hang out with Corey and Danielle, along with Halloween II and April Fool’s Day.

Corey dug into it immediately. We were both kind of fucked since there was no adult figure there to cut a slice for us, but we persevered — a pie made of cupcakes has a knack for making even the most helpless sad-sack find their inner knife-wielding strength.

Our initial response was the same: it was good but we liked the cupcake pie from the pie party better. The custard didn’t mesh right with the red velvet, and Henry ended up having to use extra to make sure the whole pie was coated evenly, so it had kind of an eggy taste. Still, it was a pie constructed of a red velvet foundation with a generous roof of Henry’s homemade cream cheese frosting, which is the best cream cheese frosting I’ve ever tasted IF I CAN BE CANDID HERE FOR A SECOND.

45 minutes later, Corey went back for seconds.

I took a piece home for Henry so that he could taste his errors, and he thinks he found a less eggy custard so he will be conquering this pie yet again very soon. And he will receive no objections from this cupcake ho-bag.

We had a really rough evening with Chooch yesterday. Henry kept looking at me, arms akimbo, and saying, “Little Erin. That’s exactly what he is and it’s SCARY. You both are so lucky that I have a cool head.” I guess it all started when we were at Target and Chooch was hungry and just totally lost it even though he knew that we were taking him to McDonald’s afterward. He caused a slight scene so I just pretended that I didn’t belong to him and Henry. So then we fed him and he was quiet for awhile, but then when we got home, he decided he was still hungry and pretty much tried to blow down the house with his ire. It was pretty fucking intense, and then I started being an asshole too because I realized that I was also hungry, so Henry had to make me dinner while trying to get Chooch to calm down before the neighbors called the cops. (He was in his room, slamming the door and SCREAMING about how Henry wants him to starve, so I’m sure that sounded not at all curious.) Anyway. Chooch ate a chicken sandwich and then put himself to bed and woke up completely normal (well, by Chooch-standards) and happy. I joked that he must have been having an existential crisis related to the fact that he just learned yesterday that it’s the Chicago Blackhawks, not Black Cops.

The highlight for me was when Henry called Chooch “master” but Chooch thought he said “bastard” and well, you can imagine how that went over. Henry’s lucky Chooch didn’t make a meal out of his face, at that point.

This vacation week couldn’t have been any more perfectly-timed, that’s for sure. A lot has been going on in my head and I’ve been pretty up and down emotionally. It’s mostly family-related, and I will just leave it at that. So when my favorite pastel-haired girl singer, Sherri Dupree-Bemis of the band Eisley, posted a sweet photo of herself, her daughter and her sister on Instagram along with some really sweet words about her family, I got all wistful and left her a comment about how nice it is, as an outsider from a completely broken family, to be allowed a glimpse into her life and how inspiring it is to see how close her family is with each other. She replied with a kiss-blowing emoticon and it totally made my day, you guys. Totally. Even Henry, who usually makes fun of me for being so obsessed with this family, smiled BECAUSE HE KNOWS THAT NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO CROSS ME.

People always want to remind me that family is an earned title, and I get that. Thanks! But it doesn’t really make it any easier to know that your mom could be in the same room as you and completely pretend that you don’t exist. But hey, that’s my cross to bear, right?

Whatever. I’m going to Rich’s Fright Farm tonight with Janna, so fuck everything else! Woo, October! (Hopefully Chooch & Henry don’t kill each other in my absence.)

Corey’s senior picture. Janna comes with the package.

After we toured the Palace and the grounds, I was super adamant about eating at the cafeteria. I am obsessed with the cafeteria!! All cafeterias!!

The cafeteria (Govinda’s) is located about a quarter of a mile down the street from the Palace, where the Temple and Hare Krishna lodging can be found. Right across from Govinda’s is a courtyard and it was teeming with Sunday worshipers who all stared at us because, short of flashing fanny packs, everything about us screamed NOT ONE OF YOU.

Inside Govinda’s, we became immediately confused. First of all, we were the only non-Krishna people. Second, there was no clear instruction on what we were supposed to do, so we all kind of stopped and slammed into each other as soon as we entered the door. Then we did what all socially adjusted people do and whispered uneasily to each other like we had just been kicked out of the back of the Scooby Doo Mystery Van and landed on the threshold of a haunted house.

“Ask if they have the buffet,” I hissed at Janna, who sighed and asked the young Indian girl at the register by the door.

“Oh, no,” the girl answered with a laugh and WHY DO I ALWAYS FEEL LIKE PEE WEE AT THE ALAMO EVERYWHERE I GO. I know I reference that all of the fucking time, but it’s because it’s true. “You may choose from our limited menu,” she said, Vanna White’ing her hand toward a black dry-erase board next to the counter. The undulating question marks in our eyeballs must have been pretty clear, because she added, “Would you like me to explain everything to you?”

We all sighed and shook our heads eagerly as she slowly explained in her best dumb white folk words what everything was. I still couldn’t understand half of it because I’m dumb with ingredients and wound up just picking something at random. Corey ordered something similar to what I got, I think our breads were the only difference, and Janna went with the safe bet of samosas because even dumb city folk know what samosas are. You can buy them in the freezer section!

Since Janna drove us there that day, and it’s kind of a long haul, I paid for her lunch. (And Corey paid for her Palace of Gold tour.) I wonder if she wrote about it that night in her diary, because Corey and I don’t generally do nice things for her.

We chose a booth far away from the other people already eating, and waited for our food over a soundtrack of our own nervous giggles.

A waitress (maybe the same person as the cashier? I wasn’t paying attention) set down Janna’s samosas and a tray that looked remarkably like hog slop and baby vomit, so I knew it was going to be good Indian cuisine, but Corey and I were unsure whose it was supposed to be. I thought she said something that started with a “d,” which is what my choice started with, so I dramatically stopped Corey right before he started eating.

“I THINK THAT MIGHT BE MINE!” my inner fat girl beast cried. So then we had the daunting task of waiting for the waitress to return with the final meal so that we could finally put this minutes-long mystery to bed.

I was right! It was whatever I ordered. But Corey’s ended up being tastier than mine, so who’s laughing now.

We didn’t have silverware, not that Janna needed any for her samosas, but it was kind of difficult for Corey and me to dig in to our lunches.

“I think maybe they don’t believe in forks,” I said honestly, trying to fashion my naan into a serving apparatus, but only succeeding in staining my fingertips orange like I had just smoked fifteen year’s worth of unfiltered Pall Malls. This went on for awhile, Corey and I alternating quiet exclamations of “ouch” every time we burnt ourselves on curry. Meanwhile, we kept darting our eyeballs around the cafeteria, craning our necks to see if any of the seasoned Indians at the nearby tables were also eating with their hands, but everyone seemed to be finished eating at the moment.

“You know,” I said, shaking the pain off my fingers, “maybe I’m confused. I think it’s the Ethiopians that eat with their hands.” And just then, another Govinda’s patron walked over to the kitchen and grabbed a plastic fork out of a bucket; Corey and I totally lost it. Eating lunch became a lot easier after that.

Even though I was too stuffed to finish my meal, I kept harping on Janna to go up and buy me dessert. She totally didn’t want to, but I can be very persuasive. There were these golden balls of wonder that I was dead-set on devouring, so Janna returned with a container of those and a regular old push-pop for herself, which made me laugh because how much more Caucasian can one look in an Indian restaurant than by licking on an American summer delight? And then I found out that the golden balls of wonder cost about as much as Janna’s lunch, totally negating the fact that I treated her, so then I was performing the simultaneous trick of laughing and choking on balls, which is something I mastered my junior year of high school.

Anyway, these balls were made of chick peas, cashews and honey. They were an oral treasure, in my opinion. Corey kind of liked them, but not enough to finish the one I gave him, and Janna took one bite and then handed it back to me. MORE FOR ME.

After lunch, we crossed through the courtyard, which was now suspiciously empty, and walked into the temple. There were shoes splayed all over the floor and on the shelves in the shoe room, but only three people were in the temple itself. One was an old white man who looked like he definitely has been foraging in the mountains his whole life. I wanted desperately to take his picture, but that motherfucker never took his eyes off me.

The shoe:person ratio is all the evidence I need to know for fact that these deity statues are feeding on human flesh. You’re not fooling this girl, New Vrindaban society. I’m on to you.

There was an Indian couple in the temple with us, and from a short distance away, I spied the man ladle some sort of liquid into his woman’s palm, which she then brought to her mouth and DRANK. I needed to do this too, so I lingered casually in front of a eerily realistic statue of Swami Prabhupada and waited for them to leave. Then I pulled Janna over to the bowl of hopefully-not-poison and made her try it first.

“It’s just like, rose water,” was her official Yelp review. So I allowed her to dump some of it into my palm, and then I immediately gagged and thought for sure I was perishing as the intense floral notes clogged my windpipe.

“Oh my god, what did you do?” asked Corey, who had just re-joined us after selling his soul to the Cult of Krishna by making accidental eye contact with one of the manga-like deity statues. Janna explained to him that I saw other people doing it and I’m sure she rolled her eyes too but I couldn’t tell since I was pretty much blacking out at that point.

Corey started laughing. “You were peer-pressured into drinking weird flower water?!” YES, PRETTY MUCH, OK?!

Janna had to use the bathroom in the temple before we left, so Corey and I stood outside and talked about her, obviously. Suddenly, a peacock trotted over from god only knows where, and it looked like it was going to start to head into the temple. I suggested that we try to usher it into the bathroom with Janna, and Corey thought this was the best idea since the Nintendo Power Glove, but there were two Hare Krishna people standing nearby so we thought maybe it wouldn’t be the hottest idea to disrespect their token animal while standing in front of the temple, no less. Even us Kelly kids know when to draw the line.

After the temple, we walked off some of our curry-heavy lunch while paying our giddy-yet-horrified respects to the Dancing Acolyte statues on the other side of the creepy (one lone) swan-infested man-made lake. Hidden by trees behind the statues sat a cabin which had eerie Krishna tunes wafting out through the screened windows. I wanted to climb up the hill and peek into the windows, but Janna was like, “No. Don’t.”

The last stop on the agenda was the gift shop back up on the Palace of Gold grounds. I bought a religious ring and a pretty blue bracelet that everyone at work has been admiring and I say, “Thanks it was like $5 at the Palace of Gold!” and then I think that might kind of mar their opinion. But anyway, on the way back to the car, Janna was crossing the street at the same time a car* was coming. I shoved her out of the way while screaming, “JANNNNNNNA!! LOOOOOOK OUTTTTT!” I mean, I SCREAMED it. Corey had already crossed the street and was standing next to Janna’s car, so he whirled around to see what the fuck was happening, and then he started laughing really hard, because what I didn’t know yet was that the doors to the minivan parked next to Janna were open and about 10 Indian people were standing there looking horrified.

*(It might be conducive to the story to explain here that the car was like, a lot of yards away and going 15mph.)

Of course, they were standing on the side of Janna’s car that I had to get into, so it was extremely embarrassing and I was literally squealing from trying to hold back my laughter. At that point, I was also crying. So I opened the backdoor of Janna’s car and pretty much dove in, nearly spilling my container of golden balls of wonder on the floor of her car. Corey and Janna got in and once all the doors were shut, we collectively lost it. Well, maybe Janna wasn’t laughing that hard, but Corey and I were doubled over. I think Janna was probably just more exhausted from having spent so many hours with the Kelly siblings.

****

Once Janna dropped us off, I came into the house and tried to recall the day’s events to Henry, while choking on another golden honey ball of wonder and having to squat down to keep from peeing; I was a hot, giddy mess. Chooch took one look at me and then went back on the computer.

Henry didn’t think any of it was funny, nor did he think I was a hero for saving Janna from vehicular manslaughter. I guess he had to be there.

Walked to McDonald’s to try their new pumpkin spice latte (nothing to text home about, obvi), but it’s mostly because I’m on vacation this week and had nothing better to do*. Maybe tomorrow I’ll walk to Starbucks. Envy my life.

*(I mean, besides cleaning, which just makes me want to cry every time I consider it.

You do it, Henry.)

We are outside of castle blood and my face is green for some reason like the green man in a tunnel. are quest  today was to find a scull,st0ne and a scroll I got the scull henry got the death scroll and Mommy got the stone. my favorite room was the science room and there was some crazy person in it. i don’t want to say anything about when i saw Katelyn.

Terror Town was not scary I told mommy to go in the back she was scared. Laura was in the FRONT I was in the middle. My ears were covered the whole time because there was screaming and the lady that opened the door for when we go in told us that there was real ghost haunting the place that’s what scared me  and this guy called me a chicken nugget and then a pig came over and said ohh a child ghh ghh. HI THIS IS ERIN. I guess it’s my turn to write about  my favorite part of Terror Town, which was definitely when the pushy woman in line behind us didn’t get to go in at the same time as us, because we probably would have been giving her and her kids piggy back rides through the whole thing judging by the way they stood so close to our backs when we were in line. I WAS NOT GOING TO LET THEM GET IN FRONT OF US. I HATE LINE JUMPERS!!!!

now it’s back to me at the end of the haunted house there was this guy in a grave yard and he looked like Freddy Kruger

because his shadow had a hat and was crouched down. When it was over I got a lollypop from this guy.

At the haunted trail at haunted hills hayride .com  OH MOMMY REMINDED ME ABOUT GOD FOR BID JANNA MET US THERE AND MOMMY AND LOURA TOLD ME TO HIDE FROM GOD FOR BID JANNA. the picture shows a sad clown in my FACE. personal space, NOT. when we were in line we  were the first ones in line the lady told us to get in a single file line when we were in the hut there was a cut off real head and told us the rules he said use kind words but I put up the middle finger and he saw what I did. But I was like “oh s**t he saw what I did” And the dumbness begins.

there was a grandma actor she said to me eat this rat tail num num num. And she told everyone else to lick grandfather’s heart but the good thing is that it was in a jar. And she said that she liked ERINS PURSE :tip: everyone says that.

I was so mad because I was wearing my new shoes and it was muddy I was pissed. THEY WERE NEW!!!

These photos are of my brother Corey in 2009. I think we need to do another photo shoot, like, super soon. No masks this time.

***

I’m off from work all this week so maybe I will be inspired to actually write something at some point. Any requests? Haha.

Today I was going through old Flickr sets and came across the one from when Janna, Blake and I toiled over a batch of STD cookies. (While Henry frowned from a distance.) That was such a fun night. I miss those days! Let’s have a reprise, Blake and Janna!

Here’s a snippet from that September night in 2008:

So while Henry slaved away on the kitchen, Blake performed serious Google image searches on various STDs while I bossed around Janna and basically sat around being cute. Then Henry realized he didn’t have corn syrup or some shit for the frosting, so while he was out we had a tea party and it was awesome because it was yet another thing that Henry wasn’t invited to. During our tea party, Blake ridiculed Janna’s selection of Earl Grey by saying that, “Earl Grey is for assholes.” My selective hearing heard, “Let’s race for abstinance” which had me squatting on the floor, squeezing back pee drops. Of course, no one else thought it was that hilarious, which only made it harder for me to not need to slip into a fresh pair of Depends. At some point, we were talking about egg harvesting and I tried to convince Blake that it was as easy as lounging in a tubful of ice, wielding a melon baller, and then creating a Craiglist post. Hopefully, he will teach all the girls at school this method.

Click here for more gnarly STD cookie photos, k bye!

This last week, I’ve been thinking a lot about my family, and how grateful I am that my brother Corey and I have managed to maintain a good relationship through all the bullshit and drama. My hope is for Chooch & Blake to stay tight in spite of their great age difference.

That being said, I think it’s time for a new brotherly photo shoot! These photos are from last November. It was a good day.

Alternately titled: Henry & Erin’s Many Pie-related Break-Ups

I’m pretty laid back in a lot of different scenarios—well, mostly the ones that involve sleeping or watching TV—but when it comes to hosting parties, I am TYPE FUCKING A. I’ve always really enjoyed having parties, and one of the reasons I love the pie party is that it gives me a reason to have a party in the park instead of my shack-house. At the pie party, I don’t have to worry about my cat Willie pissing on someone’s purse, which some people might consider a party foul. (Ha-ha, do people even say that anymore? I didn’t think so.)

The first pie party was pretty simple. Henry baked one pie. We threw some fake leaves and paper tablecloths down on the tables. I had name tag stickers to label the pies. Only four of my work friends came, 10-15 of my outside-of-work friends, and Henry’s entire family. But every year, it’s gotten bigger. I wasn’t even going to have one this year, but people started asking me “When is the pie party going to happen?” a few months ago, and apparently Henry wanted to have another one, too, so I conceded. At first, I wasn’t into it AT ALL. But then, I suddenly got inspired to have the BEST PIE PARTY EVER because maybe this would be the last one.

So I started scribbling down ideas during downtime at work and on the trolley. I scoured the Internet for weird pie recipes while pretending to listen to Henry talk about his day. And then I decided that since it was the fourth pie party, I wanted to do pie four ways. I kept trying to tell people about it because I was so excited, but no one really seemed too stoked on the idea, especially when I got to the “pie-flavored popcorn” part. But I don’t care. Henry carried out all of my ideas and we had pie four ways after breaking up four ways. (Don’t worry—we’re together again. Barely.)

The main pies were Salted Honey Lavender (Henry’s pick):

And the Cupcake Pie, of which I can say for sure that I am a fan. Basically, after Henry broke up all of the mini cupcakes, he poured some sort of custard mixture on it and when it baked, the custard bound everything together and kept the cupcakes moist, while the frosting melted and hardened into these perfectly-crunchy pockets of SUGAR OMG SUGAR. And then it was topped with more frosting. I liked it, but trust me–no one was banging down our door for the recipe, haha.

(I put the sprinkles on it!!!)

Then there was the neglected caramel apple pie popcorn made with homemade Mexican caramel! Oh shit, that caramel was amazing, you guys. I think it’s called cajeta and it is made with GOAT MILK. I don’t know why I was so excited about this fucking caramel. It was actually on my list of things that I was going to attempt to make myself, but that plan was met with some skepticism from people who know me a little too well, so I moved that to Henry’s To Do list. Which consisted of basically everything and the poor man was literally in the kitchen all weekend up until it was time to go to the pavilion to set up, which was supposed to be my job, but it’s hard to do when Henry forgets to bring 75% of the things I need and ends up having to drive to the nearest craft store (FORESHADOWING) and my helper (JANNA!!!) doesn’t get there until literally 5 minutes before the party starts, and it’s 82 degrees and humid in OCTOBER and I’m already sweating my makeup off and I can’t wait for people to arrive and start hugging me.

Um, anyway. The popcorn had pieces of leftover pie pop pie crust in it and I thought it was really good but I eventually had to walk around with the pie pan and force people to eat it. No love for pie-flavored popcorn.

The third type of pie Henry churned out was an array of mini pies in pumpkin, cherry bourbon and Gorgonzola fig which were my favorites but he ran out of fig after only making about eight of them, ugh. I was super excited to use the three-tiered pedestal for those.

I’m totally obsessed with these fucking pie pedestals, you guys. “We” worked so hard on them! I know I will find a billion different things to use them for during the Pie Party Off Season.

And then there were the pie pops, which honest to god were nearly the demise of Henry and me. After my failed attempt at baking a few weeks ago, I bought a pie pop maker on eBay thinking that if I had a machine, I could do it. Because my track record at operating machines is so stellar?

Guess what? Totally not any easier. I tried to help Henry make some Friday night when I came home from work but it was complete bullshit and, to cut out about 45 minutes of obscenities from the story, I threw a total fit and then sulked on the couch. So then I was convinced that the pie pops weren’t going to happen but my puppy dog Henry diligently churned them out the next night while Chooch and I were busy gallivanting around town with Janna and Laura.

Henry knows what’s up. (But then I came home and was mad that he made some without the pie pop maker so we had a huge fight and broke up.)

Sunday morning, Henry made glazes for the pie pops because I thought the crust wasn’t flavorful enough and then he taught me how to drizzle it on. And I succeeded!

I DID THAT DRIZZLE, YOU GUYS.

The pumpkins got all banged up en route to the park, so I was pissed about that, and then I was pissed that the free-form pie pops that Henry made were too top-heavy and barely stayed propped up in their pumpkin-display. They probably tasted like shit, but they sure looked pretty. So whatever.

If you were at the Pie Party on Sunday, you may not recognize the child in the above picture. But that is indeed a shirted-version of my son, Chooch, before he abandoned half his clothes in favor of wilderness chic. His only task was to fill my gold glitter mason jars with crayons, which he took very seriously by turning into this OCD crazy person who had to make sure each jar held the exact same number of crayons and then when he lost count at one point, he dumped all of them out and started over.

The idea was to use craft paper as tablecloths and put crayons on all of the tables, but HENRY only bought one roll which covered like, three tables. And then he brought a staple gun that only had ONE STAPLE in it, so we had no way to keep the paper on the tables. He already had to go back to the craft store anyway, because months ago, I bought several pieces of burlap to lay down on the pie table, and he swore that they were in the car, but only three pieces were there!!! THAT WAS NOT ENOUGH BURLAP! I NEEDED MORE PIECES OF BURLAP EVEN THOUGH NO ONE WAS GOING TO NOTICE BUT ME!!!!!

Another break-up in the books.

Anyway, Henry left to go to the craft store for burlap and tacks and also pick up some cases of water and ice, so Chooch and I pretty much just sat there, swinging our legs and being super bored with nothing to do. And then Henry came back and I said, “Oh good, give me the burlap” and he shouted, “DAMMIT” because of course he forgot the burlap. I was going to make him leave again but then people started showing up and that’s when we realized we didn’t have FORKS. So that took my mind off the burlap. Luckily, Kara had just arrived in time to save Henry from being disemboweled by my simmering glare because she had a bag of plastic utensils leftover in her car from Harland’s birthday party a few weeks ago, bless her goddamn party supply-hoarding heart.

And then Elizabeth came bearing thingies of coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts (and also her husband Mike and daughter Rachel) and I was like, “If I weren’t so socially awkward I would hug you” but instead I mumbled something about being stressed out and wanting to kill Henry. Elizabeth asked if I needed help and I kind of remember saying yes but not giving her anything to do. But god, that coffee was very appreciated. Thank you, Elizabeth!

It’s a fucking pie party. Nothing is happening other than people eating pie. I’m not walking down any fucking aisles, last time I checked, but I still get so stressed out that I’m almost (almost!) unable to enjoy myself. Luckily, I get distracted once people start showing up and eventually stop caring that half of the last pie table is un-burlapped.

A small crowd had assembled within a half hour and it finally occurred to me that no one was eating pie. “You didn’t tell them to,” Henry pointed out. So I stood up and said, “You can eat pie now” and then everyone did. I was unhappy with the plates Henry bought, but then too many people were there by the time I noticed so I guess that’s a fight we’ll have to save for another time.

At one point, I saw Henry flinch but I couldn’t tell if it was from my icy glare or the cupcake pie against his teeth.