[Ed.Note: Apparently roller skating was all I had going for me this year, because these seem to be the only events I find worthy enough of an end-of-the-year repost.  So take a break from Christmas Eve freak-outs and read this shit. IT IS ALL I WANT FOR XMAS. Seriously, make your friends and bail bondsmen read this, too.]

Henry and I went to the Adult Skate two weeks ago alone, kind of like a real life date, I guess. He didn’t even seem to mind when I blasted Dance Gavin Dance on the ride there while pantomiming in his face. (That’s his favorite part anyway, who’s he trying to kid.)

This particular adult skate was way less soul, more cracker because it wasn’t hosted by the Steel City Rollers. They did play my Return of the Mack song, though, which I’ve decided is my all-time favorite skating jam. But still — way too many whites. It was almost embarrassing. And maybe if I didn’t already have knowledge of the Steel City Rollers, I’d have been impressed by some of these Opies, but they just looked farcical out there. Especially the one older man who was fist-pumping aggressively to Queen.

Queen.

I was definitely the best white-girl skater there that night though, so I took satisfaction in that. And Henry even skated with me a lot, even to the tail end of “Rush, Rush,” and even after I admitted that I was pretending he was Jonny Craig. Henry is willing to role-play to keep me.

It became suddenly very apparent during this Adult Skate why Neville Roller Drome isn’t open all year. It was unseasonably warm that Sunday in April, and even at night the rink was trying to smoke us alive. The windows were open, and the exit door at the far end of the rink was propped open (which lured neighborhood children over to watch the grown-ups acting like teens on the rink; I raised the roof to them every time I skated past) but even then my whole body was moist with skate-sweat and I was starting to get scared of passing out. For the first time ever, Henry and I  spent more time sitting off-rink and downing fluids in the snack room than actually skating. That’s when it became apparent that we needed to find a new rink. (Though we’ll still be going to this one just  for the adult skates until the season ends.)

***

And that was the catalyst that led us about 40 minutes out of the city to Donora last Saturday. We let Janna come with us, even though she is A ROLLER BLADER.

Immediately upon entering the building, my tongue was slathered with a horrible taste as a Valley Skate-shirted woman darted around a corner and, in a very condescending tone (don’t listen to Henry’s version of this) asked, “Can I help you?” Her bug-eyes were sizing us up, realizing we were city folk, probably wondering what our motives were, like, why weren’t we at a martini bar?

I continued to stare back at her, making my eyes into slits of intimidating fuck-you-uppery, while Henry calmly told her we were there to skate.

I mean, I understand some people go to rinks to sell drugs to minors and have sex behind the skate rental counter, but bitch please. I have all the intensity of a professional roller dancer, but just to be clear: I AM HERE TO SHOW YOU WHAT A DREAM ON WHEELS LOOKS LIKE.

“Oh. Well it doesn’t start til 2.” And with that, we were made to go back out to the stench-laden vestibule, which was muggy as Hell thanks to the rainstorm performing directly outside the doors, where we had to stand with another family for an entire 10 minutes. (This will now be known as The First Thing That Pissed Me Off.)

And you know I was motherfucking that broad up and down, which prompted Henry to release his years-perfected elbow-clench (which, by the way, hurts but never makes me shut up). “She’s right on the other side of that window!” Henry hissed, pointing to the open plexi-glass of the ticket booth. “She can hear you!”

“OH I HOPE SHE CAN! THE DUMB WHORE BITCH!” I replied with my outdoor voice. (Which doubles as my Church Voice.) “LET’S JUST LEAVE! I DON’T WANT TO SKATE HERE ANYWAY, IT’S A DUMP.” (It was not actually a dump.)

“Don’t start,” Henry seethed. And then he tried to block me from taking her picture. NICE TRY, ASSHOLE.

Turns out (or, if this were Henry talking, “Come to find out”) she’s the daughter of the owner and also the go-to girl for purchasing skates, which is what I want to do, but now I’m not sure if it requires talking to her without the aid of a translator. Or a paper bag over my face.

They got the Ode to a 1987′s Trapper Keeper carpet pattern down to a T. I completely approved, even though I tried to act disgusted by it at first when I was still hating the place.

The Second Thing That Pissed Me Off: The kid working the skate rental counter did not put enough attention into assuring that the skates he plucked from the wall were in my best interest. As soon as he handed them to me, I said (apparently to no one, since neither he nor Henry appeared to notice my presence), “I can already tell these are too big.”

And they were too big. So I threw a small fit, which Henry took as his cue to go get me a smaller size. Meanwhile, I decided to utilize the facilities before skating-up.

The bathroom was clean enough, but it was concerning how low the stall doors were. Any adult could have stood on the other side and watched from above as I proudly peed currents of rainbows and the blood of  Christ, which is also rainbow-colored and serves as an astringent for anytime a Katy Perry fan might lay a hand on you.

Which leads me to The Third Thing That Pissed Me Off: getting bested by a motherfucking sink.

A SINK, I SAID.

After lathering my hands up real good (I’m not even so much of a germ freak), I held them beneath what I could only assume was a faucet and hopefully not the piece of farm equipment it actually looked like, and nothing happened. I fiddled around with the invisible knobs on top, banged around a bit with the heel of my hand and felt my face heat up as panic crept in.

I considered walking away, but I had this thick sheath of pink antibacterial soap on both hands and of course there was only a hand dryer at my disposal, nary a paper towel dispenser.

Suddenly, it was 2005 and I was in the lounge of a funeral home, waiting to be interviewed for a job. “Have some coffee while you wait!” I was told. But I couldn’t figure out how the coffee maker worked, which made me light-headed with anxiety. I didn’t really want coffee, but I was told to HAVE SOME COFFEE so I felt that I should do just that. I spent the whole time (at least a half hour, because the interviewer double-booked himself), slamming the carafe against the counter, sweating through my blouse, crying. Oh, I cried. And when I finally figured out its twisted puzzle, I was called back for the interview.

This sink was the new funeral home coffee maker, and I found my eyes were welling up much in the same manner. WHAT COULD I DO?! To my right, I noticed a water fountain. I tried to covertly assess how many people were nearby, and which of them appeared to be noticing this grown woman completely spazzing out in front of a sink (did I mention this sink was located OUTSIDE of the restrooms?)

I could rinse my hands in the water fountain, I thought, momentarily awash with hope. Just as I started casually walking over the fountain (to be clear, the Erin Version of “casually” is suspiciously clod-hopping with unbent knees while furtively glancing over my shoulders and drawing every last bit of attention to my person as single-handedly possible), a young girl skated over and took a hearty gulp from it.

I froze, like a priest caught with my hand up an altar robe, and she and I locked eyes for what seemed like an entire episode of that shitty television program where F-List “stars” pretend to dance. Then I decided to do that thing that people are always telling me about, where one human asks another human for help. So that is what I did.

“Oh! Here I’ll show you,” she said cheerfully, skating over to the trough. “You just step down on this,” and as she did so, glorious streams of water poured forth like a waterfall of promise. “And it’ll turn off on its own.”

I thanked her with way more enthusiasm than necessary, and she was like, “Um, OK,” then left me alone to have what I can only explain as my Virginal Hand-Washing Experience.

Meanwhile, I had been gone so long, Henry probably thought I was giving birth to my Internet Boyfriend’s lovechild in one of the stalls.

“You’ll never believe what happened to me over there,” I wheezed, out of breath from running the length of the building with jazz hands. I explained the situation and Henry, with a bemused smirk, said, “Let me guess—-did you have to step on something?”

“Fuck you,” I sighed in defeat, sitting down to put on my skates. Of course Henry would know! He’s so fucking old, ain’t no sink he hasn’t encountered.

Once Henry scraped the gum off my wheel, I was set free and it only took me .0002 seconds to understand just how perfect the rink was. It was smooth as silk, twice the size of Neville Roller Drome, and even had a small children’s rink off to the side, so the idiots could stay over there and learn how to act like proper human beings.

The Fourth Thing That Pissed Me Off: Really awful music. In a three-song span, I was ear-assaulted with Miley Cyrus, Who Let the Dogs Out and Smashmouth. SMASHMOUTH, REALLY? I almost had an angry-cry session right there on the rink.

“It’s probably just because the session hasn’t officially started yet,” Henry reasoned, like he always does because he’s a professional father. Eventually, the lights went out and the colored track lights came on, at which point the rink was soundtracked by a mix of somewhat appropriate pop (there was only one Katy Perry song, I couldn’t be too hateful), 80s rock classics and a little bit of 70s soul for a little flavor.

An hour into the session, I noticed that there were still really only about 20 or so people on the rink, and most of those were children who actually knew how to skate well. There was only one incident where a boy younger than Chooch decided to change directions and came careening into me. We completely crashed into each other because I have little to no reactionary instinct, though I managed to stay on my feet while he rolled a good five times before coming to a stop.

My heart was racing.

“I COULD HAVE KILLED HIM! WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE RINK REFS?!” I screamed at Henry, because he was obviously responsible for the near-carnage. There are two rink refs at this joint, the one with bleached blond hair was nowhere to be found, and the other (the asshole who gave me my skates) was sitting in the corner of the rink with some kid, yukking it up.

UNACCEPTABLE.

“I’m saying something to that lazy asshole!” I yelled with determination, because it makes me mad when patrons do not abide by the rules of the roller rink. YOU DO NO SWITCH DIRECTION MID-STRIDE. There were literally no more than 15 people on the rink together at any given time, so collisions should not have been a worry.

“Please don’t,” Henry said quietly. So I didn’t, because we were newbies after all, and I guess I didn’t want to get black-listed right after we finally found The Perfect Rink. (It’s where I’m having my birthday party this summer, probably. It will be at the end of July so if you want to come, just tell me. I need all the people I can possibly get to pose as friends.)

After a minute or so, Henry added, “You should just be a rink guard.” (He refuses to call them rink refs like I do.)

“I KNOW RIGHT!” I yelled, even though he clearly didn’t READ MY BLOG a few weeks ago when I wrote about just that.

“No one would come on the rink.”

That’s actually a pretty good possibility.

From some undisclosed location, the voice of Whore Bitch filled the rink and announced that it was Game Time. All fifteen of us gathered in the center of the rink for the Hokey Pokey, at which point we were all instructed by Whore Bitch to sit down for Spin the Pin. “The adults can remain standing,” Whore Bitch went on to say. “I know it can be kind of hard to get back up!” And she laughed, along with Henry who knows all about being old and unable to stand from a seated position. I sat with the kids because I’m not old. Janna and Henry stood like old people.

Spin the Pin was a crock of shit. The bowling pin was clearly about to stop while pointing at Chooch and me, but the tow-headed rink ref did something to make it keep spinning, I fucking swear to god, because he probably wanted a townie to win. So some other asshole got to win a free pass to come back, while Chooch and I sat there with our mouths twisted in the shape of WTF.

It was Katie’s birthday! I don’t know who she is, but she couldn’t skate for shit. She got a fucking purple balloon and I kept cheering and wishing her a Happy Birthday in a very exaggerated fashion, which was really pissing off Chooch because I think he thought I cared more about her birthday than his, which hasn’t even happened yet.

Then we played a game called Corners! How exciting! Along the rink, there were six numbers painted on the walls. Everyone had to split up and stand under a number. I went for 6, which was located above the DJ Booth. Whore Bitch was explaining where all the numbers were located and when she said, “And then number 6 is right above me!” I turned around just in time to make eye contact with her on the other side of the DJ booth glass. I don’t know why, but it hadn’t occurred to me this whole time that she was the DJ. Janna, Henry and Chooch were across the rink, standing under the number 1. Janna laughed when she saw my expression of extreme disdain.

One of the Rink Refs came out with a large felt die and had some asshole toss it. I’m chanting “666!” over and over, like some sugar-fed Satanist, and the die landed on 6! I was like, “HELL YES BITCHES! WOO!” but then Whore Bitch was all, “Oh, sad. Everyone under the number 6 is out! You must now leave the rink! Go stand somewhere over there.”

LONGEST SKATE OF MY LIFE. I had my head hung low, especially when I inevitably had to pass Henry and Janna, who were belly-laughing at my loss.

“I thought I was supposed to root FOR my number,” I hissed at them, before sitting sadly and alone on a blue carpeted bench.

Stupidest fucking game ever.

Chooch got to roll the die and rolled Janna, Henry and himself right the fuck out so I made sure to jeer and heckle them loudly from my spot in exile. Assholes.

AT least they didn’t piss around with Limbo. I hate Limbo.

The rest of the time was All Skate, with an occasional Couples Skate thrown in (I tried to get Henry to twirl me but he was too embarrassed to have to publicly place his hands on me).

By the end of the session, I was a hot mess of frizzy hair and brow-sweat, which is how I look at Warped Tour. That’s how I know it was the best day ever. And I didn’t even find a single skater I wanted to hate! Except for Janna. Obviously.

Henry and I get along best at the roller rink, it’s become quite clear to me. I’m thinking—we have hardwood floors, so maybe if we just go about our homelife while wearing skates, we might actually be able to achieve full-scale Love.

Came into work today to find a large box beside my desk, all wrapped in a candy cane print. It was from Barb and she told me to open it immediately; within seconds, a small crowd of people privy to the box’s contents had gathered at my desk

I opened it and immediately almost pissed my pants. A few weeks ago, I was at the flea market with Tommy and Jessy and took a picture of this creep-factory of a doll. Of course, by the time I got home that day, I was kicking myself for not buying it. I even checked when I was there two weeks ago with Andrea, but didn’t see it and felt extreme sadness and regret.

Barb knew that I was coveting it and went back and bought it for me for Christmas and I can’t even believe it I am dying of happiness right now punctuation what!?

Of course, everyone was like, “That is so creepy! Why do you want that?!” and then it was fun to watch as they realized they had already answered their question.

Sean came over and caught me cradling my new (old) doll. He shook his head and said, “Hey, if you’re happy, I’m happy.”

Bridget was like, “OMG THAT’S SO DIRTY HOW CAN YOU PUT THAT SO CLOSE TO YOUR FACE!” or something equally as chastising and oh look she just came back and said, “I wouldn’t touch that if you paid me and I sincerely suggest that you anti-bac your hands.”

Nina and Wendy cried a little bit when they saw it. Mitch and Lee seemed to approve. Chris, who was here when I opened it and looked thoroughly flabbergasted, just walks by now and gives me leery motive-questioning looks.

He fits in so well with all my creepy shit and Jesus pen!

He’s coming home with me this weekend for our annual Christmas picnic in the cemetery, but I think after that, he’ll reside here in The Law Firm. I like the reactions he’s provoked.

This just solidifies what I already knew: Barb is the best co-worker ever and most attentive friend. (Plus, she reads my blog like a good girl.)

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

• I just learned that Barb bought this the same day I was at the flea market with Andrea looking for it.
• I have been carrying it around the department with me and it occured to me that I am holding it with more natural panache than I have ever held a live baby. 

Imagine Andrea’s chagrin when she had to walk away from the front door and follow the group upstairs for more German wonderment. Me? I was stoked because I just knew there were going to be secret passages up there.

Burnt Offerings Lady opted to sit down on a chair in the foyer because her legs were not stair-savvy. I  noticed Andrea casting her longing glances, probably because she wished she had the foresight to feign a physical handicap. Too bad Dick noticed Burnt Offerings camped out downstairs and put a kibosh to it.

“Oh dear, is this an antique?” Burnt Offerings asked after Dick got all flustered at the sight of her resting her brittle bones. She labored herself out of the chair as he hot-stepped it down the staircase to join her.

“No, it’s just that my boss would have a fit if he knew anyone was left down here alone. I can’t let you stay down here, so we’ll have to take the elevator.”

Andrea looked at me, eyes all slit, and hissed, “He is such a dick!” So suddenly Scary Old Lady from the parking lot had become Poor Old Lady in Andrea’s eyes. I think it also made Andrea realize that there was NO WAY OUT OF THE BAYERNHOF.

We all milled about the upstairs landing until Dick and Burnt Offerings joined us from the elevator. Apparently, there was no staircase that couldn’t be swapped out for an elevator, yet I never actually saw the elevator, thus solidifying my theory that Dick was actually a warlock, latching on to Burnt Offerings by her hair and flying her in through windows.

The first upstairs room we saw was one of the guest rooms and hoo boy, do I wish I could sleep over! Paintings of castles, curtains that opened with the press of a button, a mini kitchen tucked away behind a cabinet door, the bedspread a paroxysmal splatter of burnt oranges, reds and yellows – it was a room fit for a German Dan Tanna. Dick told us that in his room, he puts a coffee pot on one of the stove burners and even has a small microwave tucked in there, too. I noticed Andrea flushing a distinct shade of chartreuse, probably because she was picturing Dick in his tightie whities, brewing coffee and popping prunes while doing the Charleston to wound-up music boxes.

The next room was a game room with a riverboat theme. It had a large poker table, a music box with a real banjo encased in it you guys!!!!, and a hexagonal domed skylight featuring painted images of, oh my God, Germany. But the best part of this room was the fortune teller box. Dick, having caught on by now to Andrea’s unchanging dour expression, volunteered her to crank the arm and get a fortune.

She reluctantly did as she was told, and then Dick made her READ IT OUT LOUD; it was some horrid string of words about how the one she is engaged to is not the one she will marry, and everyone began tittering and giggling at the absurdity of this fortune, but Andrea looked ready to self-combust on the spot. And if the Bayernhof wasn’t already haunted, it was sure to be if that had happened. As everyone retreated from the room, Andrea whispered, “I’m going to kill you” in the iciest tone I have ever heard in my whole entire life, and I used to watch A LOT of Soap Operas.

In the master bedroom, we learned that Chuck only wore blue Brooks Brothers shirts, and after he died over 200 were counted in his closet. What a fucking weirdo. All I really remember about this room is that it was overrun with Hummel figures and some fucking Walt Disney collection. Dick pointed out that this was one of the few rooms in the house that did not have its own bar, which made everyone cry out in surprise (myself included, albeit only to irritate Andrea). But then Dick opened a door with a flourish and yelled, “That’s because he has an entire kitchen and bar attached to his room!” and everyone (myself included) chortled joyously like the audience of Hee Haw.

Except for Andrea, who merely sighed exasperatedly.

Also in the master bedroom, we learned that Chuck had a long-time girlfriend, some German broad named Erma. “They never married,” Dick said, pausing dramatically. “Because she never wanted to! I bet you thought it was him that didn’t want to get married!” he directed solely to Andrea, pulling back his lips to really give her a good shot of his gums.  I could sense her recoiling. Listening to Jonny Craig in my car probably never sounded so appealing to her before.

One of the men in our group, Burnt Offering’s son I believe, began whistling through his teeth right about the time I began noticing someone’s sour, pungent breath swirling around me. Old people suck.

There was a narrow, winding staircase in this room and it was all I could fixate on the whole time Dick talked about the worth of the Hummel collection and what kind of toothpaste Chuck preferred. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally instructed us to ascend the stairs (I AM OBSESSED WITH STAIRS) while he whisked Burnt Offerings off to the secret elevator and promised to meet us up there after he finished snacking on her blood.

I was like a giggly school girl on that staircase! It was so narrow, twisty and wooden! Oh my god, I wished it would have went on forever. Fuck, I love a staircase. (I just jumped up and down at the memory!)

At the top was another bar which spilled out into a small, dark  and curved room decorated with large murals of constellations. At the center was a metal ladder which led up to a gigantic orange telescope underneath a small observatory dome.

“Totally did not see that coming!” I enthused to Andrea, who retorted with, “This is fucking stupid.” Dick and Burnt Offerings joined us from the other side of the room (WHERE THE FUCK WAS THIS SUPPOSED ELEVATOR?

!) and then told us some stuff while the old lady in feathering coral lipstick who came late to the tour kept trying to share with us her own observations that no one cared about and too bad she missed the part about not talking over Dick to your neighbors because I only had one half of a fake smile left in the bank for her. Andrea’s signature response to everything was an effective deadened stare and taut lips.

Back downstairs, we saw some other bedroom, and someone jokingly asked Dick, “When do we get to see your room?” to which Dick laughed and said, “Mine is one of the rooms with the closed doors. Trust me, it’s just a bachelor pad and you don’t want to see it!”

I bet at that point, Andrea’s mind was taken to a room full of palpable flatulence, piles of worn and ear-marked Hustlers and skid-marked underwear festering in discarded heaps.

Finally, in the master bathroom (which featured the same grand bathtub that’s in the master bathroom at my grandparents house), Dick pulled open a hidden door and I almost wet myself.  FINALLY A GODDAMN HIDDEN PASSAGEWAY! I was an excited mess, fumbling with my phone and spontaneously breaking out into jazz hands. Andrea’s reaction was to grimace and look at me with disapproval.

At the bottom of the steps, we emerged through a gun case into Chuck’s office.

“I guess you could say we ‘shot right through’!” said the old lady who loved to talk. I laughed really obnoxiously and exaggeratedly at that and Andrea just rolled her eyes.

In the office, we learned that Chuck liked to display framed photos of Nixon and that “The Andy Griffith Show” was his favorite. He used to watch reruns in the kitchen while preparing for dinner parties, you guys!

“Any guy that has that many pictures of Nixon in his office has got to be an asshole,” Andrea said later. She really, really, really hated poor dead Chuck.

Apparently, when Dick first met Chuck (Dick used to come up from the South to repair the music boxes), Chuck had told Dick that Nixon was his cousin. When Chuck died in 1999, Dick came up for the funeral. He said that the house was packed with well-wishers, and that Chuck was laid out in the LIVING ROOM (so glad he waited until after to tell us that), but he couldn’t locate any of the Nixons. Finally, he asked someone who laughed and said, “Chuck wasn’t related to the Nixons!” Oh, that Chuck; such a trickster.

On a shelf near Andrea was one of those old school penny-flinging mechanisms. I’m not sure what they’re called, but I’ve seen them a million times, and so has Andrea, which really made for a crestfallen Dick when he tried to impress her with one. Really all he was doing was preparing us for the real wonder, which was the SECOND SECRET DOOR! The entire shelf spun opened and let us out into a boardroom, but not before Dick got all close to Andrea and sneered, “You have such a pretty smile.” In her best Ben Stein, she mumbled, “Thanks” and then later bitched to me that he was only singling her out in an effort to be an even bigger dick, but I will always believe that he wanted to make her the house fraulein.  And that is where I will pick up again later.

(I just can’t sit long enough to bang this all out!)

As I mentioned the other day, Chooch’s Kindergarten class got strapped with “Up On the Rooftop” for the school recital, so I had to endure two weeks of random “CLICK CLICK CLICK!!!!!!11” outbursts. The recital was this morning, so I have high hopes that perhaps this nerve-prickling carol will be put to bed.

Remember a few weeks ago when I went to Saint Anthony’s and the Holy Ghost anally entered me, deluding me into thinking that I should start going to church? That was obviously a very fleeting consideration, because from the moment I set foot in that church this morning (Chooch goes to Catholic school, remember? Please swallow your need to put out this glaring irony), the mark of the Devil on the nape of  my neck began to singe and I was afraid to open my mouth for fear of the parseltongue that would come somersaulting out.

Most of those parents are True Catholics. I watched in disgust as some of them genuflected every time they went in and out of their pew. Get a fucking grip, you God nerds. This is just a bunch of beaten-down moms watching their tone deaf kids sing obnoxious Christmas carols. There wasn’t even a priest in sight!

Fuck, some people have a lot of respect.

Before the recital started (if the 8th grade band honking and squelching on their ragtag instruments counts as kicking off a recital), the principal got up on the podium and reminded everyone that this is, after all, a church (don’t let those stained glass windows fool you into thinking you’re in a gothic strip club) and that all cell phones should be turned off (make me) and all hats removed. Because God hates a fucking hat.

“Dude, take your hat off,” I whispered to Henry.

“No,” he said defiantly.

After the band wheezed and puffed their way through some handicapped version of a Christmas carol (“Away in a Manger” maybe? The mind has a funny way of blocking out traumas), the prinicpal once again took her spot at the podium and reiterated in a very Mussolini-tone that THIS IS A CHURCH, HELLO YOU HAT-WEARING MOTHERFUCKER, TAKE IT THE FUCK OFF YOUR HEATHEN HEAD.

Again, Henry made no effort to take off his hat. People were starting to turn around, scanning the heads of the audience for that douchebag with a covered scalp.

Henry was the only one wearing a hat.

I waited a beat for God to blast his Heavenly spotlight upon Henry’s cotton-topped pate.

“Take it off!” I hissed.

“Me?” He asked. No, the other blue collar beverage warehouse worker. He finally pulled his beanie off his head, and then promplty started muttering about how his hair was still wet. I didn’t even care at  that point. I hate having people look at me and I’d rather be the poor lady next to the douchebag who dared come to church straight from the New England fishing boat than the lady next to the man who needs a hairdryer for Christmas.

Hatless Henry.

O Come (the Fuck On and Finish the Goddamn Song), Emmanuel. WHAT. Seriously, this is the longest song in the history of songs I have heard and been annoyed by. Some of the upper classes would sing like, two stanzas and then pause to have the fucking principal read some religious shit.

It went on and on like this. Singing. [ME, TWEETING] Religious shit. [BABY CRYING] Singing. [OLD PERSON COUGHING] Religious Shit. The parents were encouraged to sing along and everyone (but me) made a mad dash for the Missalette. Even Henry eventually grabbed one, but I think it was just so he could distract himself from the shame he felt for being That Douche In the Hat.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was actually only fifteen minutes (which, in church time, IS ETERNITY), the Kindergarteners finally took the stage (altar?) and there was a rush of parents into the aisle, cameras and phones in hand. I was actually a Good Mom and joined them because I wanted to record it on my phone.

I am a Very Good Recorderer, as you are about to find out. Plus, you get to hear my whiny voice in the beginning and Henry having no patience.

I am so happy that after all that “practice” he did in the house, in the car, in my nightmares, he just STOOD THERE SMILING and NOT SINGING. He didn’t even do the arm motions!

Oh well. At least it was a short song.

Right after they were done, Henry said all quickly, “OK, gotta go back to work see ya bye!” and LEFT ME ALONE IN CHURCH. Some little girl in the pew in front of me kept turning around and gawking at my finger tattoos and I was feeling extremely uncomfortable and kept averting my eyes. God, I don’t like little girls. And this one wouldn’t just sit the fuck down, either. SIT THE FUCK DOWN! DON’T YOU KNOW GOD IS WATCHING YOU?

It seemed like I was there all day. My lower back was burning from sitting on that goddamn pew. The principal made this smooth transition from school recital to MASS by ending with some lame ass prayer and making us all do the Sign of the Cross (I remembered how to do it! Then I was like, “I can’t believe I just mindlessly followed along like a fucking sheep! I hate myself!”) and it ended with a part of church that I had forgotten about: that weird Flanders-esque “Peace be with you” segment where everyone engages in a mad flurry of spreading viruses and pestilence through clammy-palmed handshakes.

I found my shoulders rising as the rest of me slid lower and lower still in the pew. I knew at least the little girl wouldn’t turn around, wanting to shake my weird tattooed hands, so what a blessing after all.

I made it out without having to touch anyone or look anyone in the eye or speak to anyone about anything in general. And the roof didn’t collapse. All good things.

Oh, and I got to see my kid wearing cute antlers, which was the whole point, right?

Finally had the chance to make the Jonny Craig gingercrack house ornament that I wanted to make at my canceled Pornament Party. Now it truly feels like an Erin Appledale tree. Henry is going to be so thrilled when he comes home.

In other Christmas news, Chooch’s class is singing that fucking Up On the Rooftop song for the school assembly tomorrow, which means that is ALL I HAVE BEEN HEARING FOR THE LAST TWO WEEKS, him rehearsing it: in the car, in the bathtub, during hockey games, while he’s pooping. I wish I could set that song on fire. Or at least punch it in the throat. You know, since I can’t morally do those things to my kid.

We went to Ogelbay, WV two weekends ago with Tommy and Jessy for the Festival of Lights. I’m not really all that into Christmas, but I do enjoy looking at lights. It makes me feel happy, and it was a healthier alternative to sitting at home and mourning the death of my cat. Tommy and Jessy really cheered me up, and Tommy even bought me some buttered popcorn Jelly Bellys, after teasing me mercilessly as he’s known to do.

Jessy kept making Tommy stop the truck so she could take pictures and he was getting so irritated, which made me even happier.

My favorite part though was when Tommy reached into the backseat to squeeze Chooch’s leg, who had been antagonizing him.

“Um Tommy, you know that’s my leg, right?” Henry said quietly, and I detected a distinct thrill in his reaction. Totally solidified their bromance.

We finished up the night with candy from the gift shop and I felt like a little kid.

The tour commenced as Andrea and I strangled inside a balloon of old lady perfume. It was this acrid, palpable bouquet of marzipan candy dishes, yellow and burnt orange afghans, dainty doilies and Maude reruns, and I thought for sure my flesh would become moist with their sickly odor if I got too close.

Dick first learned us that the man who once owned the Bayernhof, Chuck [Something], had become wealthy through some sort of industry here in Pittsburgh and really, I mean REALLY, liked Germany and music boxes for some reason, so in the 60s or 70s he built the Bayernhof to house his collection of obnoxious noise machines and Bavarian bric-a-brac.

(I don’t pay attention very well.)

(Also: I was too busy masticating my bottom lip to keep from upchucking with giddy laughter.)

Chuck had a penchant for dinner parties, so his kitchen had lots of fancy (for that era) appliances and Germany shit on the wall that lit up. I emitted “ooh”s and “ahh”s with all the stinky liver spotted-hags at all the precise moments, which made Andrea glare at me.

Just imagine all the spaetzel and streudel he must have whipped up in that kitchen while shadow-dancing to the melodious plunks of his music boxes. Fucking weirdo.

“Wouldn’t it have been awesome to have been invited to one of his dinner parties?” I whispered to Andrea.

“No,” she said flatly.

The dining room was where Dick first struck up a music box, and I utterly lost my mind, laughter came projectiling out of my shitty-grinned lips like piss from an octogenarian’s bladder. I couldn’t control it, had no idea music boxes could ever be so funny to me, and I had nowhere to run; I was directly in Dick’s line of vision, so I tried to play it off like I was just THAT HAPPY and overjoyed to be hearing a goddamn tinkling box. Luckily, one of the younger of the old broads was legitimately pleased to be hearing this, so she too let out several cries of jubilation. I tried to just piggyback off her from then on. Especially since she laughed out loud at all of Dick’s “jokes.” This enabled me to get some of my immature giggles out of my system without arousing suspicion.

Dick then played another music box for us and was so disappointed that no one knew the 100-year-old song that came clinking out. It actually was rather surprising considering how old some of those ladies were.

The old lady with the cane had “Burnt Offerings” attic written all over her.

Leaving the dining room, I came perilously close to knocking some chintzy figurine off a pedestal with my ass, as previously mentioned. Andrea did the “hand to the heart” nervous Mom motion.

On the other side of the dining room door was a sunken living room with stark white carpeting, in true mod fashion (though, if he really wanted to do it right, Chuck would have opted for white shag like my grandma has in her living room). There was some grotesque Germanic wall-hanging above a fireplace, an obtuse music maker that practically housed a full-scale orchestra, and two player pianos. Dick instructed everyone to take a seat, but there was no vacancy on the couch so I was left to sit on the steps.

Another old bitch arrived while we were having our ear drums perforated by boxed music. Since she missed Dick’s lecture about not speaking to our neighbors, she sat next to me on the steps and immediately began regaling me with her feathered-lipstick asides. Bitch, don’t you know that’s what Twitter’s for?

Sometime during Dick’s spiel about repairing one of the player pianos, I happened to glance down and notice that my TOMS had tracked in a good bit of mud, which I had inadvertently ground into the WHITE CARPET while mock dancing along to the stupid old-timey music. I hurriedly stepped on it so Dick wouldn’t see. I pointed it out to Andrea as we were all herded out of the room, and she deemed it the highlight of the tour, something about “that fucking house deserved it.”

In a hallway, we listened to more music boxes and player pianos! The novelty was really wearing thin and I started bouncing from foot to foot in anticipation for the secret passageways. It was all I could do to keep my hand from springing up so I could ask him about the basement.

This was also about the time I learned that Dick is an avid fan of the rhetorical question.

The music box-filled hallway spilled us back out into the foyer and I could see the look of hope on Andrea’s face as she prayed to every relic we saw at Saint Anthony’s for this to be the end of the tour. Too bad for her there was still an entire upstairs and like, THREE SECRET PASSAGEWAYS that we were yet to explore.

There was a guest book in the foyer chockful of elderly scrawl. I added our names before we left, with a little note that said, “THIS PLACE IS REALLY OUTTA SIGHT!”

Dick was showing us, wait for it……..

….another music box, which was located in kind of a tight space, so he was having everyone come over one at a time to get a load of its innards. One of the old broads gave it a cursory glance and then offered to move out of the way so Andrea could look.

Andrea’s response was a throaty, “No.”

Not a “no thank you” or “I’ll pass.” Just a very curt and Pee-Wee-Herman-Wet-In-The-Alley-esque “No.”

I was beginning to think that maybe Andrea had some sort of music box phobia, something that dates back to her childhood and she had kept repressed up until this fateful trip to Pittsburgh. Perhaps she walked in on an uncle dressed in drag and doing unspeakable things to a gutted Thomas Kinkaide music box.  Hopefully my not-yet-started music box collection will be in full swing by her next visit.

Maybe if there had been one that played Lil Wayne, the music box world would have won her over.

Here, Dick spins some yarns about Chuck’s grandfather, who never actually wore Lederhosen.  This was one of those times I got to exercise my fake belly laugh.

And then we went upstairs, with Andrea “motherfucking” me every step of the way. I’ll get into the wonders of the upstairs next time.  And believe me, the wonders were copious.

It was almost like we weren’t meant to have a tree this year. I was so excited to get one, too, but wanted to wait and do it while Andrea was in town. I thought maybe that would be a fun thing to do together, maybe even have Andrea make some zombie ornaments for me while I watched the hockey game instead. We were going to do this on her last night in Pittsburgh, but Henry and I both got pummeled by some terrible intestine-scouring virus so in lieu of picking out a Christmas tree, we found ourselves unwittingly picking out hallucinatory grave plots instead. I thought initially that it was karma getting back at me for dragging Andrea to the Bayernhof Music Museum, that maybe I ingested some Bavarian parasite by getting too close to a Hummel figurine or wooden edelweiss wall hanging. But that wouldn’t explain why Henry was sick, unless my Saint Rita medallion is cursed and now my house is full of demonic energy. Oh my god, I never should have laughed at that hole in her head.

But anyway (as I slowly remove Saint Rita from my throat), we were going to do it the following weekend, but that’s when Speck died and I would have rather fucked myself with syphillis-coated pine cones than do something joyful like twirling around inside an enclave of Douglas fucking Firs while giving Henry a wallet hemorrhage.

Sometime last week, while I was taking my daily pity bath, I decided enough was enough and that my kid shouldn’t be punished for my prolonged pet bereavement so I told Henry to just take him out to get a tree one night while I was at work. That’s what they did on Thursday and even though it was still wrapped and leaning against the wall when I got home, I knew right away that I hated it.

“IT’S ALL WRONG!” I wailed, and then slumped in the chair where Waterworks part 87 of the day queued up. Henry, who had been very patient with me all week, allowing me to cry and snot all over his chest every day, had officially used up the last smidge of patience in his reserves  and yelled, “Then go buy your own tree!” before storming out of the room. Literally, I sat in that chair, coat still on, arms folded across my chest, and cried and cried until my eyeballs stung.

It was all very melodramatic and Lifetime movie for one little (fat) tree. But of course, this was all projection. It wasn’t the tree, had nothing to do with the tree. It was me feeling disoriented and directionless with a huge void in my heart. I think Henry knew this, even though we didn’t speak again that night.

By Friday, the tree had been erected. It was all stout and squat and I hated it even more, nevermind the fact that all my friends were reminding me that I should look at it as a gift from Henry. I mean, I like my rings big, but no way was that bastard fitting on my finger. And the worst part was that while I was at work, Chooch broke my Penguins ornament! THAT FUCKING DICK.

I finally let him decorate on Sunday, mostly because I just didn’t care. Chooch’s decorating style is basically to see how many bulbs he can hang on one bough before it snaps. 3/4 of the tree was bare, while the other 1/4 had enough shit hooked to it to be sincerely mistaken for a skirt in Lady Gaga’s dressing room.

I acted like I didn’t care, even posted on Facebook saying that I didn’t. But an hour later, while Chooch was upstairs pretending to poop but really cutting open my makeup with scissors, my ornamental OCD got the best of me and I reordered the entire scheme, helping the boughs bounce back to their original positions and just generally tried to make it look halfway civilized, not like it was reflecting our household or anything.

Who doesn’t love a random revolver dangling inconspicuously from a branch?

Henry and I sat on the couch after Chooch went to bed, and I couldn’t stop staring at the tree.

“It’s so stupid,” I spat.

“No it’s not. It’s cool,” Henry corrected sharply, because he’s suddenly the Sally Struthers of Sad Christmas trees.

And then I just started to laugh, like really laugh, tears-in-my-eyes belly laughter. It’s the fattest fucking tree I’ve ever seen, and then it just abruptly stops. You would expect it to be like, 15 feet tall. But no. It’s only as tall as Henry, which is like average man height. (Of course that would be his height, because Henry is a very average man.) I’m used to trees tickling the ceiling, not waving to it from six feet below. This tree is so fucking fat that it’s almost hard to pass through the front door without it reaching over and lifting you up by the collar, like some fucking territorial bridge troll demanding a pregnant fairy carcass in exchange for safe passage.

I spent a lot of time alone with the tree today, and I’m starting to love it. Mostly because I’m reminding myself that mysurly disapproval wasn’t about the tree, it was about whose paws are missing from beneath the tree. And I know that Speck would have loved this tree. (And by “loved,” I mean “tormented.”) So I am going to love it too.

However, Henry conveniently lost my homemade star tree-topper that I made 2 years ago from a disposable baking pan and McDonald’s straw, and it just won’t feel right until that god-awful tetanus factory is plugged on top of the tree. (Also, I noticed today that SOMEONE removed my Warped Tour ornament, but don’t worry – I found it on the fireplace mantel.)

So we had the Liberatree of 2009, the Mediocritree of 2010, and now the Obesitree of 2011.  Martha Stweart would have a fit. Happy fucking Holidays.

“Are you getting me anything for Christmas?” I asked Henry. (We don’t always get each other presents because a certain 5-year-old rapes our bank accounts.)

“Yes,” he replied, to my surprise.

“Does it have anything to do with—”

“No,” Henry cut me off.

“How do you know what I was going to say?

”

“Jonny Craig. And not unless it’s a death notice.”

“Damn,” I mumbled, all defeated. (Like its anything but predictable.

Someone who’s only read my blog 5 times could have finished my sentence.

)

Took Henry’s son Robbie and his girlfriend Karen out to eat at the Sharp Edge tonight.

Chooch was borderline brat-like, but it was nothing a mini sundae bar couldn’t pacify.

Bonus: two pictures of Henry the Surly Douche.

One is from breakfast this morning. He was in good spirits because he got to share morning meats with his bromance, Tommy.

This is what my kid does at his aunt Kelly’s while Henry & I are in Cleveland for the Craig Owens show.

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.

“We’re going to be so late!” I cried to Andrea, after she had purposely tried to sleep through our appointment at the Bayernhof Music Museum last week. She was against this part of the Pittsburgh itinerary from the get-go, especially after I had Wendy call and make us a tour appointment when we were hanging out two days prior, since Wendy enjoys talking to people and I do not enjoy talking to people and Andrea just flat out wanted no part of it. Wendy got reamed out by the curator for having the audacity to try and schedule a same-day tour. That’s what we in the biz call a tourism foul.

“Of course he’s going to be a dick,” Andrea said when Wendy got off the phone. “He’s into music boxes. He’s a music box dick.”

But I had been trying to tour this place for years and years, ever since I saw a billboard for it. IT HAS SECRET PASSAGEWAYS. My friend Kara and I tried to go back in 2007 but didn’t realize we needed to call ahead, so we ended up going to look at glass shit at Phipps Conservatory instead. Now that Wendy had secured me an appointment for that Wednesday at 2:30, there was no way I was letting Andrea off the hook. I kept hoping she would choke so I could save her life and then she’d owe me. But since the words, “I don’t want to do that” never actually came out of her mouth, I considered her locked in without the aid of any of my usual manipulation tools other than puppy eyes and pouty lip. I’d say that’s an unfailing combination, but there’s still no ring on my finger. So…

After whining about how she tried to sabotage my music box dreams by sleeping in so late, I rushed her out of the hotel room. In my car, the roller skating mix CD had restarted from the beginning, so Andrea got to re-enjoy Billy Ocean, and by that I mean she texted all her friends about how Mean Erin in Pittsburgh had been aurally torturing her all week.

Halfway to Sharpsburg, I looked at the clock and said, “Oh my god, we’re going to be really early.”

“I tried to tell you!” Andrea yelled, sighing with frustration. And right as we reached our destination, one of many Jonny Craig joints came on the radio just as it began snowing. “Son of a bitch,” Andrea muttered, scowling out the window. And this is how I learned that the trifecta of Jonny Craig, snow-tinged frondescence, and music boxes is enough to morph the pupils of Andrea’s eyes into red undulating “FML”s. I took great joy in this and was nearly in tears from all the laughing. Torturing my friends is one of my greatest pleasures.

Since we were so early, we parked on a cul-de-sac across from the gated Bayernhof estate, like the most conspicuous burglers of all time. I was all but bouncing in my seat with excitement and anticipation while Andrea wondered what she had done wrong in her life to deserve this. I kept saying things like, “This is going to be fantastic” to which she would emphatically counter with things like, “No, this is totally going to suck and I hate it already. Fuck music boxes.”

But again, not once did she say, “I want to go home.” (Not that I would have obliged anyway.)

“I hope this tour is at least 2 hours,” I said all dreamily. I could not wait to get inside that house and surround myself with Germanic opulence.

“I hope it’s less than 5 minutes,” Andrea countered.

After a few minutes, another carful of early birds arrived, but they were braver than we and drove past the gates and onto the driveway. I followed their lead, throwing the car into drive and officially entering Babylon. Out of the car emerged a couple who appeared to be in their 50s and an even older lady who I assume was the mother to one of them. She walked all hunched over, slow, and with the aid of a cane.

“See? Old people. I knew it,” Andrea mumbled, after claiming the broad with the cane gave her an angry look.

The curator of the house came out and summoned us inside. I caught the eye of the old lady and she smiled at me. I took this as a small victory in my secret war against Andrea.

Inside the foyer, the curator introduced himself. At least, I imagine that’s what was going on when I completely LOST MY SHIT and began laughing so profusely that I had to turn and practically stuff my face into the corner so no one would notice. Because my shuddering body wasn’t a giveaway or anything. Little squeaks kept sneaking their way past my lips, my face had to have been beet red, and tears were starting to stream down my cheeks. I turned slightly and made eye contact with Andrea; she did not look amused.

It was totally like being a child again, being struck by a laughing fit in the middle of church.

The curator, I’ll just call him Dick because I’m sure that’s what Andrea was calling him in her head, came around and took all of our coats from us, so I had to collect myself quickly, which I did mostly by biting the inside of my cheeks and digging my fingernails into my palms.

Dick said he was expecting more people, and led us into a sitting room, where he left us alone with CNN while he went and made phone calls.

“I hate you,” Andrea said for the first of 100 times that afternoon. I continued to have giggle fits while sitting on a couch and tweeting furiously about how it felt like I had landed in Munich. German knick knacks and processions of beer steins all over the room, a large bar in one corner, and the signature stench of the 70’s circulating in nostalgic wafts to tickle our nostrils.

Andrea would have rather thrown herself off the balcony than be forced to hear the current affair opinions of the elders of our group. She texted me, “I’m praying to Saint Lucy to have my eyeballs poked out” and “Crying on the inside.” This just made me start laughing all again.

“But think of the secret passageways!” I whispered. She just scowled and went back to texting SOS’s to her friends, far far away in California.

Another “older couple + old mom” combo arrived and Dick decided he was going to just go ahead and start the tour, but not without first drilling some ground rules into us, such us:

• No talking to your “neighbors” during the tour, because it’s hard for him to talk over stage whispers (literally, he said stage whispers). I felt like I was in grade school again.
• ABSOLUTELY NO TOUCHING ANYTHING.

I broke both rules in the second room when I turned around to say something mocking to Andrea and my giant ass banged against a pedestal holding some stupid German figurine, which proceeded to teeter precariously.

I will get to the tour in the next post, so you better come back.

Is it weird that I still don’t feel like writing much in here? Trying to push through the pain by writing about the night from several weeks ago when Henry and I were in Cleveland for the AP Fall Tour. There was a guest list mix-up and I ended up not having a “plus-1” so Henry almost lucked out. However, Jason was standing right there and called over Dawn, the AP marketing person, who hooked Henry up with a laminate. He thought he was such a superstar after that and it was nauseating.

This tour’s lineup was: Sharks, The Swellers, Title Fight, Gallows, and Four Year Strong. I had previously seen all of these bands except for Title Fight, and Gallows had a different singer when I first saw them at Warped Tour in 2007. I had a feeling that Henry would enjoy himself more at this show because all the bands are pretty bro-centric and have an older fan base. No Minnie Mouse-bowed scene girls in the crowd dyking out over Craig Owens this time.

Personally, I was really looking forward to seeing Sharks again, since their set at last summer’s Warped Tour got rained out. These guys are so young (all under 21 I think), yet they remind me of a band that would have played on the Young Ones. Skinny British kids, straight-up punk rock, no gimmicks or schtick. It’s refreshing and full of heart. Even Henry looked relatively undaunted.

Since it was the last night of the tour, some of the other bands passed out signs for the kids in the audience to hold up during Sharks’ set that said “Go home, wankers” and rolls of toilet paper were being hurled from the sides of the stage. Watching the bands fuck with each other was my favorite part of the night.

I liked the Swellers so much more this time around than when I saw them in 2009 with Alisha. I think I wasn’t really into that kind of music much back then, this newer wave of pop punk, but my musical tastes are constantly in flux and I have grown to appreciate this genre of music over the years. I think that’s the one of the most fun and exciting things about being a music fan, is when you suddenly realize, “Hey, this band actually is kind of great” and then you have an entire back catalogue of records to dive into. I could never be that pigeon-holed fan who won’t give anything else but their favorites a chance.

Except for ska. I am done giving ska a chance. Me and ska are never going to prom together.

The Swellers ended up being Henry’s favorite of the night. I offered to buy him some of their albums when we came home, but he was all, “No, that’s OK” because Henry doesn’t ever like anything enough to want to buy the album unless it’s Judas Priest.

Title Fight ended up being the sleeper hit of the night for me. I had a vague interest in seeing them, but they definitely weren’t my priority. However, they killed it and totally won me over with their 1995-high school boy looks. Henry did not like them at all, so I made sure to play them constantly in the car for the next week.

Still not a fan of Gallows. I just don’t like that kind of hardcore punk and their new singer really got under my skin. However, some old drunk dude got whisked out of the pit by security, so there was that. (Except that I missed it because it was the ONE SECOND I glanced at my phone to check the score of the Penguins game.)

Four Year Strong closed out the tour, and it was bittersweet.

And then shit like this happens:

After the show, we got a table in the after party’s Foundation Room with Terri and Christian, at which point we filled up plates with cookies, cheesecake squares and heaping mounds of whipped cream for dinner. I was excited to hang out with them some more and talk about music (it’s not easy finding other adults who want to talk about music with me), yet we ended up talking about hockey the whole time. And amicably too! Even after I lorded the recent Penguins win over them. Jason kept coming over to check on us, and seemed alarmed when he found out that Pens and Flyers fans were discussing hockey.

“Did you check Erin’s purse for a knife?” he asked Terri and Christian. What little faith he has in me!

Eventually, it was time to call it a night. We had a two hour drive ahead of us and it was after midnight. A few years ago, that would have been no biggie, but I am Old now (kind of) and I didn’t want to stay over because I was in a big hurry to see Chooch. I guess I really am a mom after all.