Henry is still recuperating from The Worst Day Ever (what he lovingly calls Warped Tour), so I tried to let him have a low-key weekend. This is something that’s hard for me because I always want to go-go-go, and after years of being so financially strapped that tagging along to the grocery store with Henry was considered “going somewhere,” it’s nice to be able to actually DO THINGS now*. But sometimes it’s necessary to just chill the fuck at home. (I guess.)

*(Don’t get it twisted—we’re by no means rich or anything. Basically went from one echelon of Poor to another slightly higher one.)

That doesn’t mean I still didn’t drag them to a cemetery, though (second of the day for me because I love my dead folk).

Ice cream cone swagggg

We stopped at Sugar & Spice afterward for ice cream. Henry didn’t order any because his new strategy is to wait for one of us to not be able to finish ours. This time, it was both of us.

I got red velvet soft serve in a chocolate chip cookie cone, which was fucking delicious but then it became a swamp of melted goo at the end so I passed it off to Henry because I can’t stand messy food.

Chooch sang Chiodos songs on the way home and I had all kinds of proud mom-love for him at that moment.

And then we actually stayed home! With the exception of sending Henry out to fetch us dinner.

Later that night, we had an impromptu water balloon fight (god, read the picture!) & Marcy tried to run away. Wouldn’t you?

Today, we went to visit Speck & Don’s graves. I picked out sunflowers for Don. Chooch got some kind of typical grocery store assortment for Speck.

Made the mistake of going inside the animal shelter afterward, which always makes me cry because I want to bring all the animals home but you know, who really can? Totally fell in love with this big, fat, fluffy gray girl who I think was 8 or 9 years old.

Ugh, I can’t stand it!

The Yough Trail (a bike trail that runs from somewhere to somewhere, I don’t listen to Henry when he tries to teach us; it ends in D.C. I think?) is right by the pet cemetery so I made Henry and Chooch suffer through a walk with me. I love how quickly the Law Firm Fitness Challenge becomes everyone’s problem!

I don’t know why Henry was bitching though because he got to look at nature and point out wild strawberries and algae. There was a shooting range nearby and I was so afraid of getting hit by an errant bullet and this supposedly “irrational” fear made Henry irritated; so between his infuriating voice of dissent and Chooch constantly making me trip over his fucking scooter, I power-walked ahead of them until eventually I couldn’t even see them anymore when I turned around. It was wonderful! (And also slightly alarming because it would be just like Henry to try to teach me some stupid lesson by leaving or jumping out of the woods with a chainsaw.)

One annoying thing though is that since it’s a bike trail, there are a LOT of bikers. Go figure! Anyway, bikers are really fucking friendly and have a great desire to slap you in the face with their winded salutations. God, you say hi to one biker, you say hi to them all, you know? I eventually just stopped responding.

Chooch really hates walking and his scooter is just stupid, so Henry mused about all three of us getting bikes. I agreed, but under the stipulation that we get matching shirts, like we’re some team of ragtag rejects.

“I want the back of mine to say Mrs. Jonny Craig,” I said gleefully.

“Then I want mine to say I’m Not With Her,” Henry retorted, but I think it should say Not Jonny Craig because I don’t want anyone to think Henry is embarrassed to be my husband. Oh wait, record scratch: the whole Internet already thinks that.

Came home and went for another walk around my dumb neighborhood–without my hindrances this time.

BONUS: When we were walking home from dinner Friday night, this huge, weirdly-shaped plane was flying overhead and Henry practically pole-vaulted to the SERVICE heavens with the boner it caused.

He told me what kind of plane it was but fuck if I care.

Anyway, I guess it was good to stay home because we’re going away next weekend for my birthday, whaddup!

I think it’s worth noting that when I was typing the title to this post, my phone changed “Butler” to “hurler” which should be a synonym since Laura and I wanted to hurl all day.

Hey guess what? This is going to be mostly photos. Enjoy it while it lasts, k? Because the next 8700 installments of the fucking fair will probably break your eyeballs.

Just kidding. I’m trying to be more Cliff’s Notes-y so that I can get caught up and resume writing an entire tome based on a 20-minute trolley ride to work. Or a fruit salad. You guys miss my fruit salad posts, admit it.

If I had to pick only three things to do every summer, the Big Butler Fair would definitely make the cut (Warped Tour and birthday bullshit would be the other two). This is the premier carnival in Western Pennsylvania, you guys. IT HAS ALL OF THE RIDES! And a bunch of other shit that I don’t care about, but other people do, like free country concerts or something?

Henry even busted out a brand new blank t-shirt for the day! I asked him what color he would consider it and he said, “Turquoise-y green.”

Henry called forth the storm clouds with a secret combination of “left moustache twitch-frown-right moustache twitch-sigh.”

“Mmmm, how about we just go with teal?” I suggested. Someone’s getting a motherfucking color wheel for Christmas, boyyyyy*.

*(Please say this in the key of Vanilla Ice.)

Laura and Mike met us out there and I was excited because they were Big Butler virgins. And Laura will ride things with me, which almost wound up being a non-issue considering the first thing I went on with Chooch made me so sick, I had to lay down in the grass afterward. It was the Rock Star and it was only one of those rides where you sit in a row and then the thing moves back and forth and then all the way around. I apparently can’t be spun in that direction anymore, because this is the same sort of ride that knocked me out last summer at Waldameer. And the whole time, I had Chooch next to me, droning on and about the camel he wanted to ride.

He wasn’t pulling a Fear & Loathing — there really was a camel there offering rides, and he could see it from his perch on the Rock Star. I could not see it, but that may have had something to do with the fact that I had my eyes squeezed shut the whole time.

So that is why, when Mike and Laura arrived, they found me on the Quadzilla — a quad ride in KiddieLand. Palate cleansing, etc etc.

One thing to note about the fair is that it is HOT. And I don’t mean like, “Holy shit, there are so many people here I’d like to fuck.” (Because there never ever are.) What I mean is that it’s Are-We-Walking-Inside-Satan’s-Asshole? hot. Turbulent carnival rides, fried food and rednecks waiting for their yokel-okel country concert to start, all while stewing under Hell’s broiler — what a great combination! In year’s past, they’ve set up misting tents but there was nothing of the sort this year, which angered Laura greatly. She kept saying, “They should have those misting tents here” and I kept answering, “I think they used to” but now I’m not sure if this really happened as many times as it felt like or if my head was just playing Groundhog Day games from the heat.

But it’s so worth it. Just look at that majesty!

There is literally no shade on the fairgrounds though. Please plant some trees. Until then, if you REALLY want some shade, I guess you’ll have to ride the Zipper.

Fa-la-la-la-uckkkkkk! Good goddamn I love this stupid ride so much! I was hoping that Chooch would be tall enough this year but he’s still an inch shy. He actually cheered at the discovery of this because I guess I couldn’t hear him over my PEER PRESSURE when he said that he didn’t actually want to ride it. Thank god Laura rode it with me, because there are NO SINGLE RIDERS. I guess they tested it once on an immigrant carny and found him pulverized like a Hellraiser extra.

ZIPPER 4 LYFE! I might get this sexy motherfucker tattooed on my inner thigh. YOLO.

Speaking of YOLO, I tried to get Henry to buy a YOLO trucker cap, and when he and his lifesized frown continued walking hand-in-hand, I considered buying one for Andrea’s birthday but I got sidetracked in my hunt for a Lil’ Wayne belt buckle for her instead.

(Spoiler Alert: I didn’t find one.)

Chooch’s favorite ride. I’m glad he can ride things alone now, because I don’t have the endurance to go on this as many times as he wants. And I especially can’t exit the ride and get right back on like he does. I mean, I want to lose more weight, but purging on rides at a carnival sounds like it would make me cry worse than the Jillian Michaels DVDs I do every day.

Do not ride the bumper cars with Chooch unless you have total control. He’s the WORST. And then he ditched me when the ride was over and I got stuck in a bottleneck of SMALL SCREAMING CHILDREN trying to exit the fucking thing. By the time I escaped, Chooch was back with our group, sitting on a bench, sucking on a lemonade. Fucker.

Not yo’ granddad’s ferris wheel.

I skipped over the Skydiver. The last time I rode that motherfucker was at Lakemont Park in 2009 and my sabbatical from voluntarily torture is still going strong. Maybe next year. (I just don’t understand why they can’t pad the inside of the cages with some goddamn Memory Foam! The physical pain of this ride is way scarier than the actual “plummeting to your death” sensation.

It was so hot, all my photos started coming out red. (Untruth.)

Not even ice cream helped cool us off.

It looks so sparsely-populated on the fairgrounds, probably because 65% of the crowd was shacked up in makeshift infirmaries due to heat stroke and skin blistering. (Please do not fact-check this.)

Be back later with more, oh boy. And VIDEOS too. Can you even stand how high-tech and diverse this stupid blog has become?

Chooch hounded us to get his caricature done at the Arts Festival last month but we kept saying no because we didn’t feel like being there any longer. (The Arts Festival always seems like such a grand idea until we get there and then we all get cranky & bored.)

But Henry for some reason was in an OK mood at the Big Butler Fair last week (correction: he was in a good mood after we let him eat) so he gave Chooch the greenlight. Even told the artist to go for the full-body color option. I couldn’t believe it. This was after Henry bought us a vacation, too! (More on that later.) So now I’m left to believe that Henry has a new side gig dealing drugs.

“You want me to draw you as Superman? Batman?” the artist who I immediately developed a crush on asked Chooch.

“A cat,” Chooch answered in his signature “Why are you asking me stupid questions?” tone.

I took the above picture right when this exchange happened and the artist turned around to laugh with us.

Of course he wanted to be a cat. We were cracking up the whole time, and then the OMG SO ADORABLE artist asked Chooch if he could take a picture of him with the finished drawing because he thought he was so funny.

We bought a frame for it today because it’s definitely a keeper. (Plus, it has the signature of my future husband on it.)

In Marcy news, she still has enough spunk in her to fight a zombie, so I think that’s a good sign, right?

Henry’s Facebook user picture for the longest time was a photo of the three of us from Christmas 2010. I mean, that’s fine, but my face was even fatter then (seriously, try to imagine) and my hair was really dark brown. I really, really hate that picture which is probably why he insisted on being Facebook-identified by it.

And then Alyson took some photos of us when we were on vacation last week and it really made me stop and think about how few photos we have together, as a family.

So I finally made those jerks sit down with me on the 4th of July to update our ghetto family portrait (seriously, can you imagine us sitting down at Sears for some blue marbled-background photos?).  Perhaps someday I’ll quit giving a fuck about vanity and have some real portraits done. With a real camera. That’s being held by someone whose arm is not connected to my body. MAYBE WE WILL BE EATING APPLE PIE UNDER A TREE! And Henry will be wearing real life “slacks”! And a nice hat! And my lips won’t look like they were sliced off by a serial killer and pasted back onto my frightened face into the shape of a smile. And Chooch might be doing something normal. Like holding a baseball mitt? Is that what normal 7-year-old boys do? Who even knows anymore.

I’m partial to the one on top because it lets everyone know that I am the head of the family. Duh. As if anyone needed visual confirmation.

Anyway, there you go. We actually all three exist all at once.

In other blog news, I actually have something real in the works for you guys! Yes—real! As in, something that’s not comprised of 5,800 paragraphs about an amusement park*, videos of Henry eating ice cream, or a deluge of photos from my iPhone. Real substance is on the way! I can only imagine how many people I’ve driven away with my inane bullshit posts. I just really, really, really like to blog, you guys. Even if it’s stupid shit. Who cares about quality on the Internet, amirite?

(* We did recently go to the Big Butler Fair, though….so there will still be the obligatory blog posts with me turning basic carnival rides into sleazy Asian porn vignettes. Sorry in advance!)

One of Chooch and me for good measure. Downton Bunny is ALWAYS with us. I miss Fox!

When my old office-neighbor Angie suggested that we meet for breakfast this morning at either Tom’s Diner or Pamela’s, I was secretly hoping that Pamela’s would get the final vote because the Law Firm Fitness Challenge started today and Pamela’s is a much farther walk for me.

(Yes, FITNESS Challenge—we can do more than just walk this time!!

I can factor in my cardio! I am also the captain of my team!!! We’re the best!)

It dawned on Chooch about 5 minutes into the walk just how far away Pamela’s is. “Wait—stop. Is it by that cemetery?!” he asked in an outrageous tone, clearly remembering being there with Kara and Harland last summer.

(I’m writing this on the trolley and someone just pooped their pants. God, first I had to wait on the platform with a feuding couple of drug addicts and now THIS?

Get fucked, Henry.)

Angie brought her daughter Rachel who is the same age as Chooch. They mostly sat quietly, sneaking sidelong glances at each other and smiling coyly. It was pretty hilarious, especially how piqued their interest was whenever Angie and I would share stories about the two of them acting like Sybil. They’d listen intently and then get this proud “Yeah, I did that” look on their faces.

(Oh god, now the drug addict woman half of the feuding couple has held up the trolley because she’s short thirty cents. OF COURSE SHE IS.)

Then Angie’s effort to dine and ditched failed, so while she was out getting cash (seriously, cash-only restaurants are stupid), Chooch watched Rachel playing some game on her tablet and they exchanged a quiet series of words that I strained to hear but failed.

(Some random guy gave the drug addict thirty cents which is a good thing because she probably only has just enough on her for the two bags of god knows what she’s on her way to purchase downtown. Fucking drug addicts.)

I think they were just testing the waters. Next time they hang out, they’ll probably be running around like the hooligans that I know they both can be.

Kids are so weird!! And so are drug addicts!!

*(I know. I’m getting cornier and cornier. Might as well just succumb to mommyblogdom!)

So, it’s furry time again in Pittsburgh! People either love or hate the arrival of Anthrocon to our sports-lovin’ city. I for one LOVE it, and I know that most of the department at work echo my sentiments. Sandy even postponed her birthday happy hour so that it would coincide with Anthrocon because drinking + furry-spotting = best birthday!

Henry and Chooch took the trolley downtown last night to meet me after work (I even got to leave an hour early!) because Chooch wanted to go “furry hunting.” The thing with Chooch is that he LOVES FURRIES and we’re pretty sure this might be his future. The amount of times he murmured, “I want a tail,” last night was staggering, and really — isn’t that how it starts? No, really, isn’t it? If my plans go through, I’m supposed to be meeting with a walrus furry tomorrow, so maybe he’ll provide some answers.

Chooch casually walked down Liberty Avenue, casually eating an apple, like it was no big thang to be high-fiving purple bears and seeing regularly-dressed people turn around to reveal bushy racoon tails. This is his glory. Life-sized, walking stuffed animals outside of an amusement park or Chuck E. Cheese? Fuck yes.

When Chooch is waiting for his turn with a furry, he acts like I act when I’m waiting to meet a band. It’s hilarious.

I just asked Chooch, “If you were a furry, what kind would you be?”

“A kitty,” he answered quickly. “Of course.” Like I’m so stupid for having to ask. Further inquiring has learned me that he will be a purple kitty.

This guy spoke and it kind of threw us both off guard.

She was my favorite!! We saw her approaching and waited patiently for her to cross the street so we could ask for a picture, but then of course a mob of dickhead downtown “professionals” swarmed over and totally acted like we didn’t exist so that they could have their smug yuppie faces photographed with the bunny. And then of course the bunny didn’t see Chooch waiting (bad peripheral-vision and all), so she started walking away and then while we were chasing her, more dickheads approached. It was the hardest I’ve ever worked to get a picture of a basic mascot.

(Chooch wants everyone to know that he’s mad she gave him bunny ears.)

“She’s so awesome,” I murmured, watching her pose with people.

“Pretty sure it’s a guy,” Henry said.

Chooch caught up to the bunny a few minutes later and called out, “Excuse me, Miss Bunny? Will you take a picture with  my DAD?!” Totally caught Henry off guard and he begrudgingly scrunched up next to her.

“Yep. Definitely a guy,” he sighed afterward.

Inside the lobby of the official furry hotel, Chooch was desperate to get his picture taken with a panda, and the same shit happened here too with people looking right through Chooch like he didn’t exist and shoving their way in for a photo op so they can show all their lame friends how “cool” and “edgy” they are for getting their photo taken with a furry. Chooch kept turning around and giving me this scary firestarter look and I was half-tempted to let him go off, but instead I gave him a gentle (GENTLE!!) shove toward the panda and loudly said, “YOU’RE NEXT.” You gotta be aggressive if you want a picture with a fucking panda, apparently.

I’m not scared of furries like some people are, but the panda admittedly skeeved me out. He reminded me of a panda version of Killer Klowns from Outer Space and I felt fearful in his presence.

After the panda incident, I had my fill and wanted to go home, but Chooch spotted a small horde of furries approaching from another street. So we had to stand around and wait for them to arrive. “This little guy is a big fan!” a plain-clothed furry* laughed to the group of animals, watching Chooch jump excitedly in anticipation.

*(I don’t know what else to call him! He wasn’t in his furry-regalia but had the Anthrocon badge around his neck.)

“You and your foxes,” I sighed afterward.

“Only one was a fox!” Chooch corrected me. And now that I look back at the picture, they don’t look like anything I recognize, really.

I mean, what is this supposed to be? A badger?! Who knows!

Get it? Happy FURth of July?? I love how welcoming most downtown establishments are to the furries.

People are in such a good, festive mood during this time, that some dude from Pizza Parma even bought Chooch ice cream for no reason other than OMG FURRIES ARE HERE! GIDDY-TIME!!

Chooch and I were still so strung-out by the time we got off the trolley, that Henry wouldn’t even walk home with us. Especially after Chooch and I started mocking the laughter of some guy that walked past us:

I hope Anthrocon keeps Pittsburgh as their official headquarters!

The day I left for vacation, one of my Gerber daisies perished. Amber1 left me a distraught message about it on Facebook and said she wasn’t sure if it was Rhoda or VOLTRON, but that she felt really bad. Amber2 suggested it was due to stress since I had relocated their pot behind Gayle before I left, so that they wouldn’t have to be alone.

When I came back to work yesterday, it was sad seeing the empty stem that was once Rhoda, but I was pleased to see that VOLTRON survived in my absence.

UNTIL TODAY.

As soon as I got to work, I noticed that he was wilting, almost in mourning posture and it made my heart break. I watered him, thinking maybe he was thirsty? I don’t know!! I’m new at parenting plants. Well, apparently watering him exacerbated the situation, and by late afternoon, he had bowed even lower.

Nate came to offer his assistance, and together we fashioned a splint out of a plastic knife. However, I think this might have made things worse and humiliated poor VOLTRON to boot. Nate, grasping for straws (literally—a straw was his first suggestion when we were about to MacGuyver handicapped accessories but he ended up not being able to find one), even said a little prayer for VOLTRON. (“dear god, save VOLTRON” is how I think the religious spell went.)

(Jeannie witnessed our awkward gardening experiments and shook her head accordingly. Jeannie hates daisies, pass it on!)

Alas, VOLTRON bit it by that evening. I tried to adjust his knife-splint and three quarters of his petals fluttered to the ground like really pretty dandruff. Sue stopped by for a consult and confirmed that yes, VOLTRON had expired. She advised me to chop off his head*, so I did. I lopped it off with my fake blood-coated scissors like I was Winona Ryder and he was Gary Oldman’s Dracula.

And then I made a Gerber daisy Glenn to add to the RIP wall. :(

*(New ones might grow? Reanimated daisies?)

Chooch got his hair crafted into Warped Tour-approved follicular fringe this morning and bitched and whined the entire 15 minutes he was there. He kept saying he was “so scared” and Lucia—my stylist since 2004, I love her—was like, “Um, OK. Don’t you like zombies? And you’re afraid of getting your hair cut? Weirdo.”

Afterward, he was like, “Whatever, as long as MOMMY likes it.” Because that child knows what’s up.

I promised him that we could go to the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts afterward, because bribery gets me super far as a mom. On the way back, we had the unfortunate luck of falling into step behind a mom pushing a baby stroller and two younger-than-Chooch boys walking next to her. They took up approximately three quarters of the sidewalk and walked slower than a hoarder at the flea market. Had we crossed the street a half second sooner, we’d have managed to cut in front of them.

You may have not ever seen me walk in real life, but please believe that I walk fast and with purpose, without actually ever having any purpose but no one needs to know that. Keep pretending like I am walking to my high-powered job on Wall Street.

I kept trying to skirt around these sidewalk hogs, but Chooch wasn’t following my cues so I’d have to fall back behind them again and join Chooch’s quicksand cadence. These staccato little steps. Tiny shuffles. Maddening slowness. I wasn’t in a hurry to be anywhere but I suddenly had this dire need to be home immediately.

But the thing with Chooch, and any kid really, is that he doesn’t quite grasp the need for personal space, so he was right up on these people like he belonged to them which made it look like this poor prematurely gray-haired mom was walking down the street and oh boy, there’s her bastard ducklings, too. God help them if they had stopped abruptly because they’d be stuck wearing Erin and Chooch backpacks.

And then Chooch has to use his megaphone tone to ask me questions about them.

“Why are they walking so slow? Where are they going? They’re seriously walking really slow, right? Aren’t they, Mommy?”

One half second!!

Sensing our uncomfortable closeness, she called over her shoulder, “Feel free to pass me!” Not in a snotty tone, but one that showed she understood my need to walk with enormous strides and not stare at the asses of her meandering children all the way down the street for god only knows how many more blocks.

“OK thanks!” I answered in my best imitation of “cheerful” that I could muster and steered Chooch by the shoulders so that he was on the open side, allowing us to pass them in a singe file line.

But no. This is not what Chooch did. Chooch decided to WALK RIGHT NEXT TO HER like he was her fourth spawn, leaving me alone to follow in their wake, like I’m the pathetic step-kid. I kept thinking about that motherfucking half second.

Totally fucking awkward. 

I kept trying to push him ahead of them without it appearing that I was opening abusing my son, just some fingers in between his shoulderblades, nothing to see here Officer, but Chooch was absolutely not taking the hint. Just kept walking, side-by-side, with this lady, a stroller and  his new brothers. (They did not look like children Chooch would get along with, by the way. All crew-cuts, khakis and Crocs.)

By this point, it had only technically been two blocks, but I felt as though my hair must have been mirroring this lady’s silver strands. One gray hair for every tiny baby step. It felt slow motion was liquefying my flesh, rendering it into some kind of slow poke simple syrup and oozing it into the cracks of the sidewalk, like I was your basic, walking Salvador Dali painting, melting into the permanence of this scene where I would live FOREVER AND EVER OH GOD HELP ME. ONE MOTHERFUCKING HALF SECOND!

After a few blocks of this faux-coziness, the mom paused at a street corner and turned to cross over to the other side of the street.  We needed to continue going straight so I did a little fist pump and began to take exaggerated lunges down the sidewalk as if to illustrate to the West Liberty Avenue traffic just how fast I really can walk.

But then I noticed that Chooch wasn’t with me. Oh, because he was still with his new family, waiting to cross the street with them.

“What the fuck,” I muttered and backtracked to retrieve him.

“I was waiting for my pass,” he cried as I steered him back in the correct direction.

“What pass?” I asked.

“That lady was going to give us a free pass!” Chooch cried. “For Kennywood, probably!”

“She wasn’t giving us a free pass! She said ‘Feel free to pass me,’ you dummy!” And then I laughed, because that’s what good moms do when their kids are being dumb.

And then we somehow managed to walk the remaining three blocks home without incident.

We bought Henry a pink donut at Dunkin’ Donuts just so we could take a picture of him eating a pink donut. Ordering his stupid donut was probably what knocked us ONE HALF SECOND off course. Thanks, Henry.

Chooch and I had been diligently, and sort of clandestinely, working on a Father’s Day book for Henry. Truth be told, we don’t ever really get him anything on Father’s Day, and the whole Annual Father’s Day Kennywood Trip is mostly for me and Chooch. (Maybe more than mostly.) So I decided that it was time to do something to really show Henry who’s boss.

(Hahahaha, as if.)

Chooch and I took turns illustrating things about Henry that we love, and maybe sometimes also things that we like to make fun of him for. Like his constant desire to point out nature things when we go for walks. Or his ability to identify aircraft, sometimes by sound alone. (Just kidding, he’s not that cool.)

Of course, working with a seven-year-old meant that Henry pretty much knew we were “doing something” right from the get-go. Like when Chooch decided to draw his first picture while Henry was in the other room, and “covered up” by yelling, “I’M JUST DRAWING….UM, A RANDOM PICTURE OF A ZOMBIE. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FATHER’S DAY.”

It arrived last Friday and I diligently wrapped it in wrinkled, used tissue paper, duct tape, and a ribbon made from the circulars because Henry is OBSESSED with reading the circulars. I hate the circulars because they’re nothing more than superfluous clutter, so I tend to pitch them the moment the mailman delivers them, which sends Henry into a blind rage because he enjoys reading about produce sales at the dining room table while he eats his meat-gruel and bread for dinner.

I wanted him to have mixed emotions: happiness about receiving a gift, and anger that his circulars were reduced to little more than gift-fodder.

The idea was to give it to him the morning of Father’s Day, to maybe soften him up for the rest of the day so that he would feel obliged to spend thousands of dollars on us at Kennywood (maybe I might want to buy a piece of a carousel or a bag of synthetic drugs from some teenaged employee in the arcade, you never know), but we caved the following morning and gave it to him a week early. Besides, it was two days after his birthday, so it was kind of like a duel present.

He didn’t actually cry, but he did have to remove his glasses in order to read it because he’s old.

The Frown Page is the favorite here at work.

Seriously though, Trashcan cookies from Sheetz are the bomb. I don’t know why he doesn’t take it into the bathroom to eat it in privacy.

Chooch wanted to draw Henry nude in every illustration. This was the only one where it made sense though. I mean, I don’t think Henry has ever stood on top of a hill, playing Candy Crush in the nude, while Chooch rides his scooter. I hope not, anyway.

There was even a page of Henry Haikus that some of my friends submitted, which really made it even better. I liked that so many people were involved, and I think he was pretty honored. I wanted to do something more for him other than just throw some pictures in a book and call it a day, I guess because he deserves the extra effort — ugh I can’t believe I’m letting my fingers type those words.

Of course, every time I don’t get my way now, I throw The Book back in his face. It’s almost as good as using the Bible against a Christian.

If you have any interest in seeing the rest of the book, here is a slideshow. I know, right — a SLIDESHOW. This blog just keeps getting richer and richer.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Spent all day downtown at the Arts Festival and now I’m watching horror movies. Good Saturday. Here’s some random photos because no one’s got time to write & read blogs on Saturday, my people.

So this is my new purse.

Chooch’s school had “Fun Day” yesterday and this is what his 8th grade girlfriend wrote on his shirt. Apparently she also had “Kellin Q” written on her face and her friend (Chooch’s other older gf) had “Vic F” on hers so clearly I should be hanging out with them too.

Like most cats, Marcy likes a good pat-down with a doll arm.

Getting ready for the arts festival.

A little confused.

• Janna’s friend Jeremy had a dream of opening a hot dog cart and fuck if he didn’t reach for the meat-stars and make it happen.  Sometimes Janna helps out, so we made a special trip to mock her in her stupid red apron support a dream realized. Chooch got to help make lemonade, which I don’t forsee becoming a career.

• At stupid Pat Catan’s (Henry’s favorite craft store), some worker broad was all, “Do you want to make a CRAFTTTT?” and she said it in your typical cat hair-knitting mole voice. Chooch of course was like, “YES OMG YES MOMMY BANS CRAFTS AT OUR HOUSE OH PLEASE GOD LET ME MAKE A FUCKING CRAFT” and then she looked at me and I just sighed deeply and pulled out a chair. We made bubble wands. Who the fuck cares about bubble wands?! And it was all just a ploy to just and strong-arm me into buying a vat of bubbles. Anyway, this project sucked. I made the Pat Catan lady do most of it for me, expecially the parts that required using pliers to wrap the wire, which was probably about 50% of the project. I didn’t even attempt to try, I just handed it to her and said, “Here can you do this thanks.” Then I picked out beads and actually put them on without help, if you can believe it. And then as soon as I was finished, and she curled the bottom for me, I immediately had bead remorse.  I wish had put more thought into my bead combo! Chooch’s is all summery and festive — he went with a simple, yet effective, red white and blue pattern. Meanwhile, Henry was hulking around nearby aisles, rolling his eyes at us while checking out macrame kits and jewelry supplies.

• On Sunday, we went to Unity Cemetery in Latrobe to search for Mister Roger’s grave, per my friend Octavia’s request. Of course, we went there blindly, and spent most of the time roaming around aimlessly looking for a grave that may or may not exist. I assumed that it would be easy to find, probably covered with cardigans and puppets and Crayola factory tours (what? people leaves bottles of Heinz Ketchup on Andy Warhol’s grave), but alas — it did not stick out like a sore PBS thumb. Henry finally found some information online that mentioned a private family mausoleum, and we did not see any of those with the name Rogers on the front, so either by “private,” they mean “deep within the forest and also invisible” or the family name is different. Or we just weren’t paying attention, which is entirely possible.  Of course, I had a prime opportunity to scare the shit out of Chooch, which I definitely did not pass up, causing him to totally act like a bitch and then Henry had the audacity to be all, “OMG NO ICE CREAM FOR YOU FUCKERS!” and I was like, “Wha—?? Why!? I didn’t do anything!” and Chooch was all, “I DIDN’T WANT ICE CREAM ANYWAY, I HATE YOU BOTH SO BAD!”

• 15 minutes later, we had ice cream.

• Marcy still insists on sprawling out on top of all of Chooch’s school stuff, so that’s a good sign I think. I’ve always been one to smother my cats, particularly Marcy, but lately I’ve been totally asyphyxiating her with concerned pandering. Yesterday, I followed her around the house on my hands and knees, saying things like, “ARE YOU OK? HOW DO YOU FEEL? WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DO YOU WANT TO COME LAY DOWN ON THE COUCH?! DO YOU NEED ANYTHING?!” and then I tried to take her temperature by laying my hand on her head and she was like, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

• Since I’m a Regular Trolley Passenger now (thanks for nothing, Henry), I have become quite chummy with the trolley driver, who looks like HOLY FUCK Bob Ross is alive and living in the mountains! He says things to me like, “Here we are again, huh? Vicious cycle!” (Monday Greeting^©) and “Happy Almost-Hump Day, huh?!” (Tuesday Greeting^©, although sometimes he jumps the gun and lets this one fly on Mondays) and I’ll let you wonder wildly about the rest. I’m not the only one to whom he’s so salacious with his salutations: this man loves, and I mean loves to a point of compulsion, to beep his trolley horn at all his PAT Transit buddies. He beeps at buses, he beeps at other trolleys, he beeps at fare booth broads trying to enjoy their cigarettes, he beeps at construction people digging up roads. I mean, the entire trip to work is everyday is soundtracked by BEEEEEEEEP! BEEPBEEPBEEP!! BEEP BE-BE-BEEP BEEP, BEEP BEEP! It was kind of cute at first, until the time we were going through a tunnel and two buses and one trolley passed us, throwing him into beeping conniptions. It was like a full minute of the most obnoxious, we-are-inside-a-tunnel-you-motherfucker horn blaring that I have ever had to witness. It was kind of like being stuffed in a metal tube and thrown into a deep vat of hipsters screaming about Arcade Fire becoming popular, where the degree of screaming becomes more urgent and shrill the further down you tumble until you finally land in a junkyard of unlimited Fran Dreschers laughing to Jeff Foxworthy jokes. I could still hear it, faintly, an hour later when I was at work.  Totally ruined my afternoon. The one day, he saw one of his buddies in a parking lot, operating some sort of crane, so he was straight beepin’ his proverbial trolley dick, but the guy did not reciprocate the love. I’m 99.9% sure that this was intentional, so Bob Ross: New Career rolled the trolley to a halt and laid on the horn again. This time, the crane-operator doled out the most sarcastic hand-wave I’ve ever seen, and I could almost hear him screaming, “OK! I GET IT! MOTHERFUCKING HELLO! BLOW IT OUTCHER ASS!” Henry said that he was pretty sure that the horns on trolleys and buses were meant to be used as a warning, not a Salute Buzzer. The other day, I couldn’t imagine who Bob Ross of PAT Transit was beeping at, when suddenly I saw a squirrel dash across the tracks. So I guess he does occasionally use the horn as the warning siren it’s intended to be. Good for him. Super nice guy though, for real.
• I really hate it when Henry is talking to Chooch and refers to me as “your mother.” It just makes me feel like some old Donna in a housecoat, I don’t know. So I asked him to please stop calling me that. To Chooch, Henry corrected himself, “Oh, I’m sorry. I meant your 13-year-old friend over there.” See? So much better.
• On Monday, I didn’t notice until after I got to work that my pants had a stain on them. Not just any stain, but a translucent white, milky stain on the upper thigh, right by my crotch. Totally looked like a fucking cum stain and I swear to god it wasn’t because it’s been ages since the last time I wore any work pants to the sex club. I showed Henry when I came home and he was all, “Good one, jackass” but I think he was secretly turned on. WHO’S CUM STAIN IS IT!? he probably thought. Maybe that will be his next blog post.

I wanted to visit Speck and Don’s graves on Sunday, but first we had to stop and buy some flowers. The grocery store we went to is right across the street from a mini golf course, so I told Henry to stop there afterward.

And we all know when I tell Henry to do something, he does it.

The best part was that we didn’t tell Chooch we were going to play mini golf, so he was all surprised and doubly-excited when he realized that we were OMG going to do something fun without him having to beg for a fortnight.

Begrudgingly writing in all of my fantastic scores.

Reflections in Scorekeeping.

It’s a wonder I excel at mini golf considering Chooch and I are usually doing pee-squats the whole time from laughing so hard.

Ugh, grossest photo bomb EVER, Henry!!

Henry tried to teach Chooch how to hit a golfball at the driving range, but Chooch kept shrugging him off and doing it his own way. This made Henry throw his arms up.

“You can’t teach him anything! He knows everything!” Henry cried.

“Well, that’s what happens when you’re birthed by a genius,” I said and then I blew on my fingertips in real life.

(I won at mini golf, FYI.)

The next stop was Fallen Timber Pet Cemetery. Visiting Speck and Don, though it still makes me cry, brings me a little bit of peace each time. The gesture of picking out flowers and placing them across their graves heals my heart a little more with every visit and I’m really so glad that we decided to bury them there. I know that Marcy’s days are waning, and I live every day like it’s going to be her last. (In fact, she is going to the vet today and I have been trying every thing in my power to keep myself distracted so I don’t douse the department with the saddest tears to ever fall.)

Chooch picked out Speck’s flowers. They were glittery! I think she would have loved them.

Ouch. :(

Thank god I have a weirdo kid who makes ridiculous faces to cheer me up and says shit like this:

Chooch randomly started talking about the stuffed penguin he “won” at Kennywood.

“You didn’t win it,” I corrected. “You made Janna buy it for you.”

Chooch shrugged. “Same thing.”

On the way home, Henry decided that he wanted to have taco night, so we invited Janna over because tacos taste better when shared. Isn’t that Mexico’s motto? Too bad Henry didn’t even have beans or rice in his taco cafeteria.

“I mean, there’s Chooch’s leftover fried rice,” Henry joked. Motherfucker, don’t joke with me. I’ll eat that shit on my taco.

Fried Rice Taco, DGAF.

It actually wasn’t all that bad, sour cream and all. But I did get a pretty bad stomachache later. I think Henry may have tried to warn me about that but why listen?

Chooch, mocking Henry eating a taco. This made me lose my mind in laughter, which exacerbated Chooch’s dickishness, culminating in him kicking a ball in the house. It landed right in the middle of Lunch Lady Henry’s Taco Buffet, causing Henry’s head to explode. He sent Chooch to his room which is a farce because hello, it’s Henry sending Chooch to his room — ain’t no one shaking in their boots over Henry. When I was still writhing around on the couch in hysterical laughter after this, Henry got all tough guy and tried to send me to my room, too.

So I laughed harder.

Meanwhile, Janna was sitting there with an exasperated expression on her face. She’s just trying to eat a fucking taco, you know?

Being a dickhead.

Then we watched some hockey and I was thinking to myself, “Fuck, Self. This was a really entertaining weekend” and I started to get all sad until I remembered that there was STILL ONE MORE DAY. Thank you, Henry, for being a SERVICE person.

Life is actually pretty great when you quit driving yourself crazy with the whole “WHAT AM I GONNA DO WITH MY LIFE?!!?” panic sessions and just realize, “Wait, why isn’t ‘living it’ a good enough answer?” I don’t know when exactly that clicked, but once I let go of money and “career” obsessions, I suddenly had a lot more room for having fun and enjoying each day that I have with these two weirdos I live with*. I only wish every weekend had three days!

*(Don’t worry, I still cry and whine a lot; I’m not a complete Pollyanna. Something will probably piss me off real soon and then I’ll go back to channeling Hell’s typewriter with my fingertips.

)

Douchebag in Blue

So it seems again I have been asked to recap an event that Erin deems blog worthy. Me, I feel it’s just another day in the life. Chooch decided he wanted a funnel cake ,while Erin and him rode the scrambler I was instructed to get. It seemed easy enough since there was no line, just run up order it and sit down and wait. Ordered it,sat down waited, noticed the tall gentleman in blue at the order window above. He placed his order after me while I was taken the picture ( as instructed to by Erin) waiting for my funnel cake to fry up. I said gentleman in blue, which now is going to turn into tall douchebag in blue as he turned from the order window and went directly to the pickup window and proceeded to grab my just finished funnelcake. My mother who was sitting behind me ,just got the words ” he’s gonna take your funnel……” out of her mouth when he grabbed it turned and almost ran past me before I had a chance to get a word out of my mouth. He was actually walking very briskly almost like he knew what he had done. No big deal, by this time his had come up and was ready for pickup. All I had to do was wait for Chooch to get done, so I set ti down on the bench next to my mother not thinking that it might fall off , it was quite windy that day. Well of course right before Erin and Chooch returned the wind had proceeded to pick it up and throw it on the ground, and blow the plate clean across the park. Didn’t want it to go to waste, I mean it fell behind the bench and just hit the ground for a sec so no harm in eating it and Chooch would have eaten it. So by the time they got the I had devoured almost all of it except for the powdered sugar that was still on the ground. Well of course I had to explain what happened and after all the

” eww how could you eat that off the ground”

and the tears from Chooch , I went and replaced the first funnelcake. Got this one wrapped to go so there would be no accidents. We were now leaving and as always the wacky worm is always rode on the way out. As always I had to use the bathroom and walked right past the wacky worm. When I returned I noticed Erin frantically waving her arms at me. Like I’m supposed to know what that means, it also comes with the

” you asshole can’t you tell what I want”

looks. I noticed too late the douchbag was on the wacky worm directly in front of her.

[EDIT NOTE: I did not edit this for Henry. It’s time for him to spread his wings and fly. Also, the title of this is mine.

Some other things: now I know the TRUE story. Henry made it sound like he was loafing by the pick up window when Tall Douchebag in the Blue Jacket swooped in and snatched it right from under Henry’s nose. I feel less bad now!

Henry was taking a picture of the funnel cake place because I asked him to since Dutch things appeal to me. My phone was dead or I’d have done it myself.

Also, I was gesticulating wildly on the Wacky Worm because I wanted Henry to take a picture of the Douchebag (again, my phone was dead). But since Henry and I fail at Charades, the ball was dropped. Actually, I think he knew exactly what I wanted and just didn’t care. This sounds more accurate.]

I did this instead of paying attention to Henry last night.

I want to promise that I’m not going to be super annoying with this new app, but……

In other weekend news, I met up with my friend Kristy for lunch yesterday at the Smiling Moose. We sat at the bar with what turned out to be the oldest/lamest bachelor party ever and Kristy helped me choose beers that I wouldn’t entirely hate. And by beers I mean beer. I got some kind of watermelon ale that didn’t taste like watermelon at ALL but was actually not so bad and I drank it all before it got warm. Well, almost.

Kristy is a legit beer drinker. I feel confident that I’ll never graduate past “Sissy Beer Sipper,” but it’s nice to know that if I’m ever feeling like maybe I want to go out and try some kind of fancy wheat beer, Kristy will make sure I don’t wind up with some frosty glass of 12% swill.

I also had a cider and a mixed drink, and then went to Kohl’s where I “lost my balance” and almost put my head through the fitting room mirror. Thanks for being such a great influence, Kristy!

(The most important part of this post is that OMG I was sitting in the same spot that Jonny Craig sat at when he was at the Smiling Moose in March #%[^[**]]!!!!!!)

Today, we went to the flea market, which Chooch is apparently going to post about at some point this week. (I got a new phone, so he’s been using my old one and took a picture of nearly every cat stuffed animal and cat t-shirt he saw at the flea market today.)

Miserable in his Dance Gavin Dance shirt.

Terrorizing the water reservoir at Highland Park, which I am DISGUSTED by but that’s a post for another day, maybe. Ugh, water things.

Struck gold at the Asian market yesterday so expect a fruit review sometime. And I still have to write about DelGrosso’s from last weekend, Chooch’s pottery piece being in an exhibition thing on Friday, and the fucking vegetarian dinner I went to over a month ago which I started as a draft but just don’t give enough shits about it to finish it.

I know it probably doesn’t seem like it on your end because I’m all POST POST POST, but I’ve been having some terrible blog apathy lately.

I think that’s also known as suffering from hockey tunnel vision. Can’t a bitch just watch the Stanley Cup playoffs in peace, though?