Speck’s burial was yesterday. After a week of crying, beating myself up over not noticing a problem (if there even was a problem with her), and eating nothing but candy (it was all I could stomach), I really needed closure. I needed to stop dwelling, to stop associating everything with her, to stop going over and over in my mind the last time I saw her and feeling guilty for not paying as much attention to her as I do to Marcy.

It was one of the worst weeks of my life and I felt like I was trapped in some sick nightmare. It’s hard to explain what was going on in my head and heart, but knowing that I’m emotionally immature and extremely sensitive would probably help to understand. Speck might have been “just a cat,” but in a life full of changes and dysfunction and being let down time and time again by my family, she was a constant. She was unconditional love. Her death triggered something in me that I had been repressing since the death of my Pappap. A huge chapter of my life closed with her passing and I have got to be OK with that.

I let myself grieve to the fullest one last time as we stood in a small mourning room with her tiny white casket on a table. And then up on the hill next to her freshly dug grave, I buried my face in Henry’s chest while Chooch accepted the offer to dump the first shovel of dirt upon her casket.

And then I just felt peace, like that raging fire in my heart had finally been put out.

Before I went to work, I was sitting on the couch with Chooch. I was still a little tearful and would sniffle here and there. Without looking up from his coloring book, Chooch said to me, “It’s OK. She’s happy where she is now.”

And I think she’s got to be. Choosing to bury her at that pet cemetery has made me feel better about things. She got a proper burial and she’ll never be alone there. She lives on a hillside with hundreds of other treasured family pets.

When I got to work, Barb sent me an email saying she would come see me when I was ready, that she didn’t want to make me cry, but I was fine. I was really OK. After a week of spontaneously bursting into tears at work, I just couldn’t cry anymore. I was literally all cried out. In fact, one of my tear ducts is even all jacked up from it.

I realize I’m processing this like a 12-year-old and I want to thank all my friends for bearing with me, especially my friends at work who had to see me crying every single day last week. I was an absolute fucking mess. I was really surprised at how nice the guys were, particularly. Even Glenn, who loves to make fun of me, was super nice and didn’t make me feel stupid when I cried in front of him.

And the other day, when our old department friend Derek stopped by for a visit and asked me, “How’s your kid?” what I heard was, “How’s your kitty?” which made me blurt out, “Which one, the one that died?” and then I burst into tears. Derek quickly said, “No, no, your kid! I said kid! Oh my god, I’m sorry!”

It was an awesome scene.

When I came home last night, I made a little nail art tribute to her. Speck will never be actually be dead to me.

When I start eating apples again, you’ll know I’m all the way OK.

I was able to get Speck a burial plot after all, thanks to the recommendation of my friend Jessy. Totally withdrew from my mutual fund to make it happen, but it is what I want for her and she is more than worth it to me.

Henry wrapped her up in her favorite blanket (“She’s peed on it enough times,” he tried to joke, but I silenced him real quick with one sharp look) and we took her out to an animal shelter in Elizabeth, PA, where I was left to stand alone near a young couple adopting a kitten.

“He’s gonna die someday!” I wanted to scream like a crazy old hobo lady, because I couldn’t bear to see how happy they were while I was standing there openly weeping, waiting for someone to bring me the burial paperwork.

And that was a bag of dicks, sitting in a drop-off room with a shelter employee while she asked me questions like, “Do you want us to seal the casket today or do you want to be able to see her again on the day of the burial?” I just wanted to die. “Can you bury me too?” is how I wanted to respond.

And there were no tissues in that room!

So then a woman came in with a cat mewling in pain. She calmly stated she was there for euthanasia and then proceeded to stand RIGHTNEXTTOME and watched as I started to cry harder.

After that, it was time to hand over Speck, and Chooch insisted on carrying her in himself. Look, I get that he’s only 5 and he really has little to no concept of what is going on, but when he brought her into the room, he loudly spat, “Ugh, this is disgusting!” at which point Henry snatched the blanket-wrapped Speck from him and I had to drag him out of the room because he started saying rude things about the cat who was there to get euthanized.

He totally made it a million times worse for me.

While Henry took care of Speck, I kept Chooch in the room with all the cats up for adoption and it was totally unbearable. None of them looked cute to me. None of them were Speck.

We ended up leaving at the same time as the lady who brought the cat in to get put to sleep. “And she talks like a man,” Chooch announced in his typical invisible megaphone voice, pointing right at her. It was utterly embarrassing. But then, an hour later, Chooch burst into tears while eating a waffle. This was after berating Henry for seemingly unrelated things, but I guess he was just projecting, just like me.

“I have never seen two people be so sad & mad at the same time as you two,” Henry said wearily. It’s enough that he has to deal with me and Chooch on a daily basis, but it’s a whole different story when it’s a mourning me and Chooch.

Today was one of the worst experiences of my life and I’m just going to go ahead and rank it up there with the death of my pappap. I just can’t stop crying. God, she was so annoying at times, but she was my Speck and I will never have another.

Chooch is the one that found her. She was laying at the bottom of the steps, like she had died in her sleep. It was his first encounter with death, really, and the tears came spurting out.

He seems fine now, and is already talking about getting a new cat (fuck no, not replacing her), but I went back up to my bedroom and I’m just kind of sitting here in shock, with moments of spotty sobbing. Held Marcy for a little bit. Looked online at the pricing of the pet section at the cemetery where my Pappap is buried and started crying because I can’t afford any of that so now what? Henry is going to toss her in a shoddy backyard hole? (Henry of course doesn’t give a shit. He knows I’m up here crying but hasn’t bothered to come up. Typical.)

She was my second cat. I got her two months after I got Marcy, who never really warmed up to her after 13 years. Speck had kind of become Chooch’s sidekick; she greeted him in bed every morning (mostly because she wanted fed) and seemed to quickly forgive him for cutting her ear with scissors two years ago. (Just a snip, not a lop.)

I did notice that she had become more solitary over the last few weeks. There were times when I would notice that I hadn’t seen her all day and I would have to call her until she would eventually come trotting out of the basement or from somewhere upstairs, like a happy, yet confused, puppy.

She was happy, gentle (except for the occasional times she would strike out at Chooch, and rightfully so); a perpetual kitten who was dopey, ditzy and quick to win over even the staunchest of cat haters. She is my first “I’m an adult & living on my own” pet to die and I’m not handling it very well. Kind of just want to drink a lot and stab a hooker.

I wish I could be like Henry and not care, but I’m afraid the trucker-creep moustache comes with that package.

This sucks. Fuck today. Pornament Party officially canceled.

I learned about Saint Anthony’s Chapel back when I was taking all these awesome religion classes at Pitt (I wanted to minor in religious studies, if you can believe that). It’s a private chapel on Troy Hill in Pittsburgh and it houses 5,000 relics. That’s the largest collection in the world, outside of the Vatican.

I never made it there but when Andrea said she was coming back to Pittsburgh, I asked her if she would be interested in checking it out, since she’s all into bones.

She said fuck yes, so we planned to go last Tuesday, when the gift shop would be open as well.

An elderly lady saw us standing in front of the closed gift shop and told us, “If yinz want to see the relics, you can just go inside the chapel and ask for Carol.” It was Andrea’s first time hearing someone say “yinz” in real life, since Henry and I don’t subscribe to any of that weird Pittsburgh lexicon; she practically squealed.

As soon as we walked in, we were instantly quieted by the churchly chanting subtly wafting through hidden speakers. There were several old people kneeling at the pews, some were lighting candles. I immediately felt like the biggest undulating heathen of all time. We read some signs asking us to not take pictures (like I can be stopped) and suggesting that we make a donation.

The chapel is lined on both sides by life-sized Stations of the Cross. We shuffled slowly past the ones on the left and I got all internally weepy (found out later that Andrea was, too).

When we got near the front, where all the relics are, a tiny old woman in a Christmas sweater emerged from a back room and welcomed us jovially to Saint Anthony’s. She said we were free to look around on our own, but also offered to give us a tour. We chose to take the tour, and she had us sit down in the front pew while she stood before us. Andrea said she felt like she was boring into our souls, and I tried to sit as Christian schoolgirl-like as humanly possible for a whore like myself. My hands were all clammy and I kept catching myself holding my breath, like she would be able to see my tangible evil if I exhaled too heavily.

But after a few minutes, I realized that Carol wasn’t judging us at all, and she never questioned why we were there (we were all ready to unnaturally blurt out that it was for a spiritual awakening, because that’s what I saw on the website). The first thing Carol did was give us a history of the chapel and the priest who brought all the relics there in the 1800s, Father Mollinger. He was from Holland and completely fucking awesome. Totally my new hero. He was a doctor too, so he became known around town as a healing priest.

Meanwhile, back in Europe, there were a lot of religious and political rifts going on and people began to fear that their houses would be raided and their relics would be confiscated. So many of his friends and family began sending them to America for Father Mollinger to keep safe. Since he was born into nobility, he had very rich tastes, and had this beautiful chapel built to house all of the relics. The reliquaries alone were enough to bring tears to my eyes.

When Carol got to the part of the story where thousands of people had gathered for the unveiling of the chapel, at which point Father Mollinger collapsed, I was screaming to myself, “NO, DON’T SAY IT. DON’T SAY IT!” But it was the inevitable part of the story where he died. Carol took that opportunity to interject her own personal opinion by saying that she feels we should all live the way Father Mollinger did and try until our death to accomplish that one thing that’s important to us and it was this totally epiphanic moment.

Carol taught us that there are three classes of relics:

• Class 1 is an actual piece of the saint’s body: a bone, a tooth, a fingernail clipping, etc.
• Class 2 is usually an article of clothing, like part of a cloak that was worn by the saint, or other personal effects.
• Class 3 is an object that touched a class 1 or class 2, like cloth or a medal.

Most of the relics were so small, you couldn’t really see them but the label that was identifying them. However, there were large, crossed bones and entire skulls of other saints. They also had a piece of the manger and True Cross, and that was where Miss Athiest got all choked up.

The tour took about an hour, at which point Carol asked us if we had any questions. I had been waiting for this moment during the whole tour and blurted out, “Is there anything of Saint Rita’s here?”

So Carol went back and checked the huge inventory book, and then directed me to a large glass case above a row of candles. Saint Rita’s relic was in the bottom row. I don’t know what it was exactly, but it was there, and that was all I cared about.

Afterward, we went back across the street to the gift shop, where I bought a shit ton of Saint Rita stuff (Andrea kept finding more and more stuff for me, so Henry can totally blame this holy charge on his credit card on her). I even got a medal of her that has a Class 3 relic on the back! I have been wearing it everyday since.

And Andrea found us rosary rings, which are so uncomfortable to wear, but look totally awesome.

Upstairs from the gift shop was a small museum for Father Molinger.

So fucking creepy.

Father Mollinger, you guys!

This was a life-changing experience. Andrea and I couldn’t stop talking about it for hours afterward, and Henry even kind of started to seem vaguely interested. I’m totally going to start going to church now. But only fancy ones.

I’m trying to post as much as I can while everything is still fresh in my mind, but so much awesome (and sweat-shoppish) stuff happened today that I’m ready to fall asleep as I type this. So this will be the condensed version for now.

We started the day by eating the best waffle ever at Waffalonia in Squirrel Hill. Seriously, Eggos can get fucked.

I’m a total waffle snob now. I don’t care how great your waffle iron is.

After that, we had to try to get from Squirrel Hill to Troy Hill to take a tour of the relics at Saint Anthony’s. I tried to call Henry to see what directions on their website we should follow, but he wouldn’t answer. This was after Andrea begged me not to call him. “He’s going to be so pissed,” she said. Earlier, Henry had said, “You and Andrea both have iPhones, so don’t even call me for directions.”

Yeah right.

So I texted him a succinct yet effective “911.”

He immediately called me back.

“Andrea made me call you. Are we west or east from Troy Hill,” I asked while Andrea was in the background mouthing off emphatically about how anti-calling him she was.

Apparently Henry had gotten out of line at the post office to call me back and it was all crowded because it was lunchtime. I was totally his favorite person after that, as you can imagine. He wasn’t mentally driving an icepick through my neck at all.

He told me what direction the city was and then hung up. We drove on the highway in the rain while listening to my Roller Skating Birthday Mix that I so fortuitously found in the glove compartment that morning. (When I picked Andrea up at her hotel, she had perfect Billy Ocean timing.)

“Shit, is this T’Pau?” Andrea asked, and I’m pretty sure there was a slight undertone of disgust and disappointment.

But we made it without getting lost! Andrea would occasionally spout off Supportive Friend catch phrases like:

“You’re doing such a good job!”
and
“Look at you, not picking up any hitch hikers!”

Troy Hill is apparently easy to get to. Who knew.

Saint Anthony’s was so amazing that it needs its own entry. It was a lot to take in, totally life-changing, and only served to exacerbate my newfound Saint Rita worship.

We also CRAFTED tonight. Can you imagine? Me? Crafting? Well, it happened. I’ll be posting my friend Brandy’s tutorial for a DIY voodoo Santa doll, and then later I’ll tell you about my trials & tribulations with following instructions and using a glue gun. Thank god Andrea was here.

Apparently, Andrea had such a smashing time in Pittsburgh last September that she decided to come back for an entire week this time!

I tried to go easy on her for her first day, so we spent a low key afternoon at my house, watching the Penguins 2009 Stanley Cup CHAMPIONS DVD (it totally won her over and she was crying into her Free Weezy t-shirt by the time—spoiler alert—they won the Cup in Game 7; Fleury is her favorite, in case anyone wants to send her trade her Pens memorabilia for My Pretty Zombie eye shadow), being terrorized by a mop-headed 5-year-old, and talking about apples.

I even gave her a slice of my Jonagold and she was like, “Did that really just happen?” When Henry found out later, he was absolutely bowled over. “She almost ripped my head off last night when she thought I was going to take her apple when all I was doing was moving a slice that was about to fall off the plate,” Henry confided in her and I could tell he was reliving the moment because he instinctively crossed his legs to protect his ballsack.

Seriously, I went so berserk on him last night in the kitchen that I even surprised myself. He’s lucky I only know how to cut my apples with one of those coring devices, otherwise it’d have been a sharp blade in my hands, ready to core his apple.

Ain’t no one be touching my apple, unless they’re Johnny fucking Appleseed and we’re filming orchard porn.

Later, Andrea had the pleasure of meeting one of Brookline’s savory half-schizo residents, who invited her to take in a performance of a barbershop quartet at the library. These are things that can happen if you stand on my front porch for longer than 2 minutes.

Long live Brookline.

(OMG she caught a glimpse of Hot Naybor Chris, too, who was in the driveway working on his muscle van. She was wowed by his hunky 80s ‘stache and could totally see why Henry would man-crush on him, for sure.)

Then Henry’s mom came over to watch Chooch while Andrea, Henry and I went to Primanti’s with my friends Rick, Tammy and the Castle Blood crew: Ricky, Chris and Kari. I only wish Dawn had been there too. Stupid Canada.

Through Andrea, I have become Facebook friends with this awesome mask creator and all around Halloween guru, Chuck. Turns out Chuck is some kind of Henry advocate and told Andrea he wants his autograph. This of course made modest Henry laugh bashfully, yet puff out his chest and rub his forearms like he’s wont to do when his masculinity has been boosted. (As you can imagine, this doesn’t happen very often.)

But then it occurred to me that Ricky probably knows him, being a fixture in the haunt industry. He does indeed, so I immediately made him pose for a picture with Henry, just to make Chuck’s head explode.

Wish you were here, Chuck! :( I’ll get you that autograph!

Rick’s new mission is getting me to eat meat again. He even suggested planning a huge party around it, like a true flesh-eating zombie party. At this point, the whole table was staring at me making me internally scream SPOTLIGHT! ABORT! ABORT!, and I had slammed back one whole Woodchuck on a stomach filled with one lone apple (and not even a whole apple thanks to Andrea guilting a slice off me) so I kept laying my head down on the table in an effort to create a
makeshift panic room; even after I (too quickly) devoured my cheese sandwich, I still felt completely giddy and immature. And Andrea was the one worried about being awkward.

“You’re a hot mess,” Andrea said, with a silent but implied “tsk tsk.” God, she’s here one day and she’s judging me! Thank god some waitress dropped a wad of sour cream, complete with all the nacho garnishes, on the floor next to Andrea, so she spent the rest of the time judging that chick & every Primanti’s employee who subsequently stepped over the slop while pointedly ignoring its presence.

It was a really big deal when some poor lackey finally came over and mopped it up. I thought Andrea was going to for sure give him a standing ovation.

Somewhere during all this, Andrea made disparaging remarks about Jonny Craig, Tammy made us think she killed a pet snake, and Henry prayed someone would ask him about the SERVICE.

Afterward, we all went back to Rick and Tammy’s to watch the hockey game. Chris and Kari stopped at Eat n Park and picked up some dessert. I was really considering having some apple pie, but now that I’m such an apple purist, I couldn’t bear to imagine an apple covered in all that non-apple stuff. I’ll just go home and eat a Jonagold, I said in the car, and apparently this was funny to Henry and Andrea, which offends me considering apple is my new religion.

(Oh my god, I just remembered my fake last name is Appledale! It’s all coming together. Please send me apple paraphernalia for Christmas.)

Thank you to my super cool friends for being so sweet and accommodating to my other super cool friend, Andrea. She will probably appreciate it even more by mid-afternoon tomorrow, after I’ve been dragging her around the flea market, throwing temper tantrums over Christmas trees and bending her (and Henry) to my will.

Barb and I found out recently that our co-worker Bob is dating some broad from Morocco, but we’re not supposed to know that Bob is dating some broad from Morocco which means we can’t outright ask him about it because then he’ll know we know when we’re not supposed to know.

So we have been thinking of ways to bring it up in conversation, when I realized, “Holy fuck! Let’s just talk about my Moroccan souvenir bracelet that I just got from the flea market!”

And that is just what we attempted to do earlier this evening, except that Bob wasn’t paying attention when Barb loudly exclaimed, “OH WOW IS THAT A PRETTY BRACELET WHAT IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE?” to which I giddily replied, “WHY IT IS A MOROCCAN SOUVENIR BRACELET. FROM MOROCCO.” And then I had to turn and face the wall to hide the fact that I was laughing.

Nothing. Not even a slight twitch indicating that he heard us.

But because I hatch plans like Michelle Duggar hatches flesh-suits for her Biblical name collection, I wasn’t deterred. One of the reasons I was at Barb’s desk in the first place was because I had brought an unmarked apple to work with me. The sticker must had fallen off en route.

Side Note: I am keeping a log of all the different apples I eat because that is what obsessed people do, and probably also people who murder their mother and use the corpse as a body pillow. Henry has been trying to purchase different hybrids of apples each time he goes food shopping; however, I had already eaten one of each of this last batch. So I knew that the apple in my hand was one of probably five, and not knowing wasn’t really going to affect my “research” considering I had already sampled one of its kind. Different apples really do taste different! I never would have imagined.

I thrust my right apple-clutching fist near Bob’s face and said, “Do you know what kind of apple this is?

” while creating subtle wrist quakes paramount for a good bracelet-jangle.

A thing you should know about Bob: he knows pretty much everything. So my inquiry was not dismissed, yet embraced by a do-or-die mission to prove to me that he knows some shit about a goddamn apple.

He considered this thoughtfully, turned the apple in his palm, held it up the light and began spouting off some nonsense about its shine. Of course Bob would be some sort of apple dork.

“I really want to say Honeycrisp, but something about it is screaming ‘Gala’ to me. Why don’t you just eat it and find out?”

I laughed at how nonchalant this suggestion was. “I’m just learning about apples, Bob!” I said. “I’m not going to be able to tell.”

Now, I really didn’t give too much of a fuck about this apple other than the fact that it had a hot date with my mouth later that night and we were going to go all the way. But now I felt like I had to pose my quandary upon Nate as well, who sits in front of Bob, to make it seem more realistic.

Nate immediately went for his phone and typed in “What kind of apple is this?” When that produced no results, he resorted the archaic methods of just looking at it. I believe he also guessed Honeycrisp, but I can’t remember for sure.

A few minutes later, I returned to my desk to find Nate, in a thoughtful crouch, gazing intently at my apple. He retreated with slumped shoulders, unable to be the apple hero of the day. I could hear him and Bob intently discussing the apple case behind me. A veritable produce parade of apple varieties were being tossed about in serious tones.

Then Nate came back with his phone, which he held up next to the specimen to compare it to photos of other apples. Bob soon joined him with a KNIFE and I was certain he was going to snatch my apple and pare into it in a manner better reserved for Grizzly Adams. Or that Survivor Man who drinks his own piss.

Barb was just coming back from the kitchen, so she stopped to watch Nate and Bob stroking their chins thoughtfully, knowing that this was all because of Bob not taking the bait when we loudly talked about my Moroccan bracelet. Glenn, who would rather be riding the Wacky Worm, paused to see what the fuss was about.

“Why don’t you just eat it?” he suggested in his “I’m Too Old to Understand All This Hullaballoo” tone. (Note: Henry has this same tone.)

“Because I eat my apple every night at 7pm,” I explained like that was the most natural thing in the world.

“Oh, right. Of course,” he said sarcastically while shaking his head.

Then someone asked me what the big deal was with me and apples and I said, “Oh, because I just learned that I like them.” I was met with no less than three blank stares, so I elaborated that it was mostly because I just learned to cut them.

Bob was incredulous at this point. “You don’t need to cut apples to eat them!” he exclaimed.

“You do when you don’t like to bite into them,” I said. Glenn was giving me one of those Henry Looks so I said, “I have fears, OK?”

“There’s a lot of issues going on in this corner over here,” he said, waving his hands around my desk.

I resented that.

Later on, Barb sent over George, whose family has apple orchards.

“It looks like a Fuji,” he said and looked at me with an ‘Am I Right?’ smirk. At his desk, I heard Nate say, “Ooh, that’s the first time Fuji came up!”

I sat in silence for a few seconds before realizing that George thought this was some type of afternoon work quiz and was looking for his prize.

“Oh, I have no idea what kind it is.”

“Where did you get it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know how you acquired this apple?” he asked slowly, with a hearty dose of skepticism.

“Oh. Some store, I guess. Henry does all that grocery store stuff.”

“You know, I wouldn’t be shocked if that was a Pink Lady,” George said, before walking away. Final answer?

Apple o’clock has come and gone and I have since eaten our little anonymous John Doe. At first I was like, “Oh this is not pleasing.

” But then by the second slice, I was all, “Wait. This is good.” It was crisp, which I actually do not like, and slightly tart with a strangely familiar, sweet aftertaste. My produce palate is about as refined as Flava Flav so that’s really the best I can do. Does that help?

Maybe pictures will. It has to be one of these type:

Gala, Pink Lady, Honeycrisp, Ambrosia, Jazzy (Jazzies?), Cameo. Whatever it was, I want another.

EDIT!! HOLD UP! I got in The car after work and was excitedly telling Henry about the night’s events. Before I even got a few sentences into it, he interrupted and said, “It’s an Ambrosia. Chooch took the sticker off but I made sure I checked first.” Oddly, another co-worker, Aaron, was telling me earlier that he recently ate an Ambrosia and it was the only apple he’s ever disliked. He said it had a soapy bite to it and now suddenly all I can taste in my throat is something akin to goddamn Palmolive. Sonofabitch.

Game over. Everyone loses.

I love when I split entries into parts and then wait over a week to finish it. That doesn’t fuck with the flow at all. It has taken me approximately two weeks to bang this out and I don’t care about typos at this point.

TerrorTown
I always get a little skeptical when new haunted houses pop up in the city. Oftentimes they end up being huge, overpriced, crowded clusterfucks that become nothing more than a bad memory after one season.

However, the idea of it being located in a basement with known paranormal activity in the Strip District did wonders to sway me. Laura and I got there as soon as it opened, and played it safe by choosing a Sunday night. As I suspected, there were very few people in line, but technical difficulties prevented us from entering the building until well after 7:00.

Once inside, we were immediately ushered downstairs into the basement of a very cold, industrial space which at one time housed a grocery store. We paid our way in and then wended through the rope-lined queue where we wound up standing in anticipation for another 20-30 minutes. The waiting area alone had us creeped out: it was illuminated in corners with red lights and a soundtrack of metal scraping and gears grinding loudly drowned out the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake which was playing on a screen at the front of the line.

Unlike Cheeseman’s, no one wanted to talk to us in this line. In fact, the young couple behind us kept no less than five feet between us at all times. I was kind of offended. But mostly relieved. When we got to the front of the line, however, the lady working the door gave us the 411 on the history of the space, which for real has been proven to be haunted. There used to be a paintball place on one of the upper floors of the building, and employees had reported sightings. The door lady told us that the actors of TerrorTown had been seeing a 10-year-old boy who had died down there years ago.

When it was finally our turn, we were sent inside the doors with the young couple in front of us, where we were then sequestered in a room and berated by a crazy-eyed funeral director.

He let the couple go and made Laura and me stay for some more ear-beatings and I thought I was going to have a stroke. We were then given permission to leave, but she and I were on our own after that and it was fucking scary. I kept imagining in my head that I was going to see that 10-year-old boy ghost and wind up spending the rest of my days in a rocking chair, listening to Katy Perry.

I almost don’t want to write about TerrorTown because I know in my heart my words will never do it justice. I go to a lot of haunted houses. The majority of them are hit or miss. But this one was near-perfection. It was literally like taking a schizophrenic tour through the underbelly of Pittsburgh, where the resident bottom feeders were free to antagonize us and scream in our faces. There was a contortionist dressed as a babydoll in a room that was essentially a landfill of flea market toys; there was a clown hanging out in a living room with Christmas lights (the thick bulbs that I love!) strewn haphazardly and stacks of static-screened TVs lighting up one wall.

It was like walking through the inside of my head and Laura often had to pull me out of each room because I couldn’t stop looking around all wide-eyed and whispering, “Whoa.” It was a creepy picture-taker’s wet dream, OK?

Numerous times we were taken off guard, nothing was predictable. The scares were intense, there were lots of moments that even left us laughing, and those actors were fucking legit. This was one of those places that didn’t need to rely on a chainsaw guy to evoke pee dribbles.

$17 and well worth it. They held us hostage in their twisted underworld of degenerates for at least 30 minutes and it was just a real visual feast. Well executed, scary, fun and I hope it returns next year!

Demon House

Regardless of the haunted house, this night was exciting because it was the first time my brother Corey, my sister Amy, and me were all together. Kind of a long story, but my mom had given Amy up for adoption when she was born and then found her again in 1998 I think it was. I never met her back then, but Corey did. Then Amy found me on her own two years ago and I’m glad she did because she’s an awesome sister and not like our mom at all. (Lucky for her!) Anyway, we all brought our respective date-people with us and it was a grand ol’ time. (Henry was a game time decision.)

As we were walking to the ticket booth, I was filling in Amy and her boyfriend Dick about what they could expect from this particular haunt.

“And the best part is, they give your group a number and then you’re free to mill about or sit by a bonfire, so there are no lines to wait in…

” I said on my know-it-all tone right before we stopped to STAND IN A LINE to buy our tickets. “…except for this line we’re waiting in.”

Because I’m used to being a sort of conversation conductor, I urged Corey to tell Amy about his latest bout with color blinded. I wasn’t even finished suggesting it when he and his girlfriend Danielle began to laugh and shared knowing smirks.

“We were taking bets on how long it would take you to bring that up,” Danielle laughed, I guess because I’m OBSESSED with this story.

Then we got to hang out by a fire while we waited for our number to be called, and I was harrassed by a man wearing a burlap sack over his head. I kind of had a crush on him. It was his heavy breathing that did it for me.

Demon House was decent this year however I was a little angry at one point during the first leg, which is outside and built to mimic a mine shaft. One of the miners was pretty rude and normally that’s part of the schtick, but this guy I think was just rude in real life. He yelled at me for standing too close but I didn’t know where else to go and then I pouted about that for awhile.

Before we got to the actual house, there was a chainsaw guy. I didn’t actually see him, but I heard him and that was enough to send me sprinting ahead of the pack. I made it to the front door of the house and then had to wait alone while the rest of my group calmly walked up the path like sane people.

When Demon House first started about six years ago, I thought their resemblance to Castle Blood was uncanny. I have since learned that it was no coincidence, that they were literally sending people to Castle Blood with video cameras and more or less doing everything in their power to ruin Castle Blood. They have since abandoned the interactive portion of the experience that they so desperately wanted to do better than Castle Blood, and I did have a decent time within the walls (the decor is really good and there are some creepy moments) but knowing what I know now, I won’t be giving them my money in the future.

But the important thing is that I got to hang with my sibs. And we got ride a short bus to and from the parking lot!

Screams

This piece of shit bullshit of a haunt is the biggest waste of money. Last year it was called Hobb’s Manor. So basically they changed the name to trick poor assholes into spending $12 to be completely underwhelmed by a bunch of indifferent teenagers in masks. Also, Laura and I spent longer than it took us to walk through sitting in my car just waiting for the assholes to get their shit together and open the doors.

After that, it took us approximately 10 minutes to walk, not run, through.

And then right outside the exit door, the chainsaw dick made me slip and fall in the muddy lawn.

I was displeased. We should have just went back to TerrorTown. I’m adding these assholes to the Blacklist with Demon House and Scarehouse, which is the haunt that made me start the Blacklist in the first place.

Dormont Dungeon
After getting ripped off at Screams, Laura and I came back to my hood and spent $5 to walk through a tennis court covered with black tarp and garbage bags ad inhabited by a bunch of middle school kids who put more moxie and vigor in their performance than any of those apathetic teens sullying the name of haunted houses.

I was especially enchanted with the little chainsaw boy who chased us through a laundry-line strung tennis court at the end. Laura and I were laughing so hard we were crying.

And THAT is the sign of a fun haunted house.

My friend Sandy and her husband Ben hosted Thanksgiving at their house this year and invited us along with two of their other couple friends.

Sandy said her one friend Brian reminds her of Henry and couldn’t wait for them to meet, but I have to disagree because Brian was definitely way more awesome than Henry. (This implies that Henry is awesome at all.)

Anyway, Henry’s contribution was some complicated mushroom and acorn squash risotto that took forever for him to cook. (“YOU CAN’T RUSH RISOTTO!” he kept screaming, so then why does Chef Ramsey expect his Hell’s Kitchen bitches to cook it that fast? And speaking of good ol’ Gordon, I prayed no one at Sandy’s had Ramsey-caliber palates.)

At one point, I heard him cry out, “OH FUCK!” which is probably not ever a good thing.

It turned out fine though; all the food was amazing. Props to Sandy for making Brussels sprouts taste like something super bad for you.

It’s always nice when my sweet son makes puking motions instead of just saying “No, thanks” when he’s offered something he doesn’t like. I don’t know where he gets that.

What?

Brian is Canadian and made some Yorkshire pudding things which I apparently missed the full experience of since they’re meant to be served with gravy and PETA tells me I mustn’t eat gravy. However, the fact that the puddings were cooked in bacon grease did nothing to deter me.

Meanwhile, Chooch acted like he lived there. He always does that, he has no modesty or restraint whatsoever. If he wants more chocolate milk, he’s going to have no problem telling Sandy’s friend Paul to get the fuck up from the table and prepare him a refill.

Henry and I spend a good portion of our social time doling out apologetic looks to Chooch’s victims.

After dinner, Chooch and Paul went downstairs to work on a 500 piece Charlie Brown puzzle that Chooch had spotted as soon as we got there and went upstairs to retrieve Ben after Henry told him to leave the puzzles alone and just play with the toys he brought in his backpack.

Ben of course pulled the puzzle off the shelf and once again, Sir Chooch got his way.

Then my friend Sarah shared a horror movie cast Thanksgiving photo on Facebook; I showed it to Chooch on my phone, who in turn shared it with his puzzle partner Paul and Brian’s wife Louise. He expertly roll-called all the villains for them, prompting Louise to ask, “Have you seen these movies?”

“Yeah,” Chooch started thoughtfully. “But mommy always covers my eyes so I won’t see the boobs.”

Everyone started cracking up and I was slowly dying on the inside.

“Boobs are bad, but all the blood and violence is Ok!” Louise laughed.

Later, Chooch shared with Paul that, “Mommy draws pictures of Daddy—”

I braced myself, expecting him to say “and his weener.” Instead it was, “with weeners all around him.” So, not so bad right? Henry pointed out later that either one was equally as horrifying for him.

Chooch was really doing a great job illustrating me as a horrible mom.

Henry was engrossed in Dora episodes with Elena, who is 2 while Chooch found two man-children to work on a puzzle with him. Later, all the adults watched three back-to-back episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba, even after Elena left the room to get a bath. I was too brain-dead and bloated to object. One of the episodes showed a plate with glistening slices of apples and then all I could think about was the bowl of apples in my kitchen and how Henry just refilled it that morning with a bunch of varieties recommended to me by my twitter friends and only then did it occur to me that I might have an apple abuse problem but it was still all I could do not pop up off the couch and cheer, “I’m thankful for apples, motherfuckers!”

Hey guess what? You don’t need family to have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Not when you have amazing friends who invite you to spend holidays with them. Thank you, Sandy and Ben. So this is what drama-free holidays feel like!

My friend Evonne and I are currently at Wendy’s, drinking wine, eating fruit and cheese. We messed around with the Psychic Circle for awhile, and it gave a shout out to Jonny Craig, y’all.

And that is what I’m doing on this fine Saturday night.

I also learned tonight that there are different kinds of grapes, more than red and white, and the ones I like are GLOBES.

I was on the phone with Henry yesterday when he asked if we were sending out Christmas cards this year.

“I don’t know,” I answered, followed by a suspicious, “Why?”

“Because it’s been a really long time since we sent out Christmas cards,” he said. I started thinking about that and realized the last time, not including the year I sent out homemade serial killer cards to my LiveJournal friends just to be an asshole, was in 2003.

That was kind of a long time ago.

We didn’t even send out “Our Baby Is Cuter Than Your Baby” cards for Chooch’s first Christmas.

“Can we put Jonny Craig on it?” I asked eagerly.

“Goodbye,” Henry said.

“Robert Smith was on our last one!” I wailed in argument.

“I don’t want a druggie on my Christmas card,” Henry growled.

So I guess we’re sending out separate Christmas cards this year. Holla at me if you want one! butgavincantdance@gmail.com

Here’s the last/only Christmas card we made. Thank god we only have FOUR cats now. Jesus Christ.

That was a pretty shitty card.

I always say that if it weren’t for Barb, I probably wouldn’t have lasted very long at The Law Firm; she made me feel welcome from the get-go, showed me all the ropes, and by the end of the my first night it became extremely clear to me why she’s pretty much everyone’s favorite in that department. Since April 2010, she has quickly become one of my favorite people of all time and has let me cry about my asshole family to her on countless occasions, which skyrockets her out of the plain and ordinary “co-worker” category.

Here are her picks!

I’m so glad that my blog waited until the week of its fucking birthday to break. There are error messages galore and I’m sure this is somehow Henry’s fault.

Blame Henry ’11.

(Which reminds me, I still need to make those buttons.)

Anyhow, while I’m at work decompressing from a long day on a juror panel (I didn’t get picked, but that’s a story for later), I figured I would round up the posts that some of my friends have picked as favorites and share them on this here blog. You know what’s nice? Not having shit to do. Thanks guys, for doing all the choosing for me!

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1. The Gingercrack House : picked by Chris, my new haunted house friend!

My first exposure to OHE was a link to your blog about Trundle Manor about a year ago when I was researching TM in one of those “how the hell don’t I know about this place already” fits. I enjoyed the insight as well as the writing style.

Then came the first Castle Blood Matinee article, which I still think is the best thing that has ever been written about us. The “hyperbole that rings true” struck a chord in all of us and we literally couldn’t wait for a visit that year. (I write a lot for the attraction and am VERY nit-picky when somebody else puts something in print, and this one raised the bar for all other articles.)

Omitting anything personal in the blog due to bias, I would say that my favorite things are the fair/amusement park trip reports because they relate so well to what Kari and I do in our spare time and the adventures play out in a similar manner. The stand-out exception to all of this is the “Gingerbread Crack House” story, which I loved from start to finish and wish that I had been so clever as to come up with that particular gem of an idea.

2. Alisha’s Secret & Turning Religious : picked by Brandy, whose blog you should be reading.

I can’t tell you exactly what it was about this post but when I read it I was instantly hooked.  and I can prove it with this post. It’s been a little over a year now that I’ve been reading your blog; one good thing to come from Blog Frog.

The following 3 were chosen by my brother, Corey:

3. From the Photo Album (totally forgot about this)

4. Signed, Sally (Sadly)

5. The Cure Pilgrimage, Part 2: Pat’s Pizzeria

6. ROBIN : this was chosen by the inimitable Sandrababy, who inspired the second part of it in the first place.

Well, why don’t you just take me to a buffet and ask me which is my favorite dish?! My dear, every one of your posts shines by itself. Even when you expound more than once on a particular subject, I find you are never repetitive. Do you realize how difficult that is to accomplish in the often unforgiving world of writing? Quite simply, I adore you. I adore your family. I adore your art. I adore your superfunk nail designs. Just…everything.

Oh, alright. My favorite LJ post was when I asked you to make Henry take a pic with your cracktastic neighbor (the one with the Bozo hair), AND YOU DID. How I laughed. How I still laugh! Poor Henry.

 7. If You Ever Wanted To Induce a Heart Attack : picked by Kara, because she laughs so hard she pees a little every time she reads it, so now I want you all to picture Kara with a soggy crotch as you read this.

Happy birthday, little blog.

Hello, I’m on my jury duty lunch break. The valiant Henry was waiting outside the courthouse, casually leaning against a lamppost, to take me to lunch.

ISN’T HE NICE. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have left the jury room.

“If it weren’t for me, you probably wouldn’t have left the HOUSE yet,” he said with a scowl.

This is not far from the truth.

So far it has been super interesting.

I brought a book and the new issue of Alternative Press, but to be honest, I’m too captivated by the CRIMINALS sitting in the front of the room to do more than gloss over a few sentences.

I’ve already been questioned for one of the cases and it was extremely scary and my palms were sweating and even though they were like, “THERE ARE NO RIGHT OR WRONG ANSWERS” I answered everything and then screamed to myself, “OH MY GOD THAT SOUNDED WRONG.”

And I know I’m not a fan of cops, but there is one CILF that keeps coming into the room.

More later. I have serious business to tend to.

Clearly.

I met Andrea through an Etsy street team, but I always thanked my blog for luring her in. I use it as a friend-capturing device to make people believe that I am really this cool broad from Pittsburgh and then by the time they realize that I’m pretty boring and average, if not wildly whiny and ditzy, in real life, IT’S TOO LATE. THEY’RE ALREADY IN MY WEB. I AM FEEDING FROM THEIR STOMACH CAVITIES RIGHT NOW.

Anyhow, Andrea has been such a big cheerleader for my blog and whenever I get down about it, she gives me a good dose of Tough Love; a kick in the ass via text message; and sometimes, if I’m lucky, a care package of new My Pretty Zombie eyeshadow colors and gummy body parts. Being able to call her a friend is one of the best things that came from this blog.

She has been supremely busy out there in California, yet still made time to dig through for some of her favorites. Thank you, Andrea! (Everyone thank her! God!)

***

1. McDonald’s Got Racy

Andrea’s favorite Chooch story.

2. Date Night at the Home

According to Andrea, this is a good cross-section of my BRILLIANCE, you guys. Take that, absentee SAT-score.

3. At Least It Wasn’t Chucky

“That one where you almost hooked up with that Chucky guy,” I believe is how Andrea referred to this one.

Fun fact: the actor who played Andy in Child’s Play actually found this blog post and we’re now Facebook friends because of it. Even though I was practically sexually harassing him via the Internet. Good to know I can get away with that shit.

4. How Not to Talk to Strangers In a Cemetery

5. Bullying, Chooch and Mommy-style

This is Andrea’s favorite one of all time. I could write a post that would lead to me befriending Lil’ Wayne in real life, which would then lead to me setting him up with her on a blind date and that would inevitably lead to a marriage full of shiny gold grills, facial tattoos and gratuitous jock spritzing and she would still say, “No, the one about you and Chooch being assholes is still my favorite.”

***

And don’t forget to come back at the end of the week to sign up for the Oh Honestly, Erin giveaway, which will include 5 full-size jars of My Pretty Zombie eyeshadow and one blush (your choice of colors)! If you’re a dude, you should still go for it. I’ll have a painting and a set of my zombie notecards in the mix too, plus other stuff which I have yet to decide. Besides, you might look nice with some lavender lids.