Speck and Marcy, 1998

Things haven’t gotten any easier yet. In fact, I almost feel worse. It was good to be back to work last night, because at least at the office, there are no memories of Speck. But I kept crying every time my work friends would tell me they were sorry to hear about her. It’s nice to work with supportive people, that’s for sure, and I really appreciated how sweet and sensitive they were being to me. Not a single “It’s just a cat” was muttered.

One of my bosses came over last night to see how my week off was, and I said it was fine, paused, and then blurted out, “But my cat died on Saturday!” and then started crying. I mean, I knew this day would come but no one could have prepared me for how heart-breaking it is. I don’t remember being this distraught anytime one of our family dogs died when I was growing up. I guess I hoped it would be easier as an adult, but no. No, it’s much worse.

Being in the house alone for the first time yesterday gave me way too many opportunities to dwell. I went upstairs and a Live song was on the radio and instantly I was taken back to when I got her.

It was late-spring of 1998, I was 18 and living on my own. I had already had Marcy for two months by that point, and even then, I didn’t consider myself a “cat person.” But Janna and I had been visiting her friend’s mom, whose daughter’s cat had recently had kittens. Janna immediately claimed one but I was more hesitant. I already had one. I was a dog person! What did I need another cat for.

But then I saw Speck, looking like a little Mogwai, and then I looked out the wide-open front door of the house and how it led right out onto a busy street. It seemed like dangerous living conditions for a cat. So Speck came home with me. Of course, she was named Nicotina in the beginning, because I was an idiot 18-year-old chain-smoker. The name was meant to be a joke, but it stuck. Speck became one of her pet names, and that’s the one Chooch chose to use the most.

I started dating Jeff a few months after I got Speck, and he subsequently spent the next three years in her life. I sent him a message on Facebook last night to let him know that she had passed, and just doing that made me cry even harder.

I think that’s the worst part, is that not only did she die, but so did an era. It’s forced me to remember all the different parts of my life that she was around for, how much things have changed, how many people have come and gone, and for a sentimental asshole me, I feel like my whole world is imploding. She essentially grew into an adult along with me. I can’t even look at Marcy and Don without bursting into tears. Henry told me I need to stop worrying about them dying too or I’m going to drive myself crazy, but it already feels like I’ve driven myself to Hell.

Last night, Henry and I were sitting together on the couch. I looked at him and said, “Now who will burrow under the covers when we’re trying to sleep?” but my voice got caught halfway through and I started to sob all over again. Now no one comes scampering into the kitchen every time the fridge opens. Now no one stands on my stomach every morning as a hint to get the fuck out of bed and put food in their bowls. “Please don’t die,” I said to Henry with urgency.

This is so hard. I don’t even want to eat an apple.

I’m not a crafter at all. Give me craft supplies and the end result will be nothing short of a horrific eyesore, with a trail of blood and tears in its wake.

But when Brandy gave me her Santa Voodoo doll tutorial to post on my blog, I was inspired to make one myself, but I decided to wait for Andrea to come to town to do it for me help me.

I thought this would be a good way to include Chooch in things, since everything else we did while Andrea was here involved nipple tassels, Mexican cock fights and butterfly knives. He got off to a much better start than me. I just sat there with a long-sleeved shirt spread out before me, not knowing where to start. Meanwhile, Andrea (having only read Brandy’s instructions once) began twisting up a shirt and shaping her Santa’s soon-to-be limbs with wrapped rubber bands.

Andrea was so sweet and encouraging to Chooch. She kept saying things like, “You’re doing such a great job, Chooch! That looks really good!” and I would start to say, “Nuh-uh, it sucks; mine’s better” but then I would quickly swallow my competitive spirit and mimic her sentiments in a begrudged monotone. Because really, at least he wasn’t being a crybaby bitch about it like I was.

I was so frustrated. Mine wasn’t looking like Brandy’s and I wanted it to look like Brandy’s! I’m very anal when it comes to following instructions. Once I see what the end result is supposed to look like, I have my blinders on to any deviations. So then I dropped my balled-up shirt in a heap and started whining pretty intensely while Andrea cooed and said soothing things about Saint Rita and Jonny Craig before eventually losing her patience and coming at me with straight pins and the hot glue gun.

Suddenly, it occurred to me to think outside the box (which I almost never do when it comes to crafts because in order to do that, you have to be at least mediocre with crafts to begin with, I’d imagine, and I do not craft enough to be mediocre or even whatever term falls below that). I decided it would be easier for an incompetent fool like me to work with something that had less girth, so I unraveled what I had accomplished (it wasn’t much, I promise you that) and cut off the sleeve, figuring I could just mold my Santa from that and have it be smaller and hopefully much less work. (I’m lazy and always looking for short cuts.)

Unfortunately, I didn’t know what to do with it once I cut it, so Andrea had to slam down her own Santa, hiss a pissed-off “Jesus Christ” through her clenched teeth, and make snips in the fabric so I could easily visualize where the arms and legs should be, probably wishing she was snipping my flesh instead of the thermal shirt fabric.

I was crying again at this point because I strongly dislike when things don’t go my way (i.e. easily). I had a fleeting image of Brandy whipping up her voodoo Santa with one hand while sipping on a cognac from a vintage rock glass and watching Michael Jackson videos, a homemade batch of cupcakes plumping in the oven and a fleet of freshly-painted DIY Peter Pan collared t-shirts drying on a clothesline. Brandy is a DIY powerhouse and I am not acquiring any of these skills through blog-reading osmosis like I had hoped, but I still keep reading and admiring her, that’s for sure.  Next time, I will probably just pay her to make an extra of whatever project she’s working on.

Henry came over to smirk and judge, probably calculating a hundred different ways he could have done this better than us. He should just shove his dick inside that “She’s Crafty” bitch and be done with it. To be honest, if Andrea hadn’t been visiting that week, I probably would have just had Henry make one of these for me. At least Andrea encouraged me to try it for myself. (She did give me a hefty pair of proverbial water-wings though, and I noticed she’d watch me from her periphery every time I would grab the scissors.)

Andrea’s arms turned out all chunky and elephantine compared to the legs so I derived great pleasure in mocking her. She sure showed me by embracing it so fully that she even decided to turn one of the arms into the neck instead, making it purposely ridiculous so every time I would jeer “That’s so stupid” what I really meant was “I’m so jealous of your crafting joie de vivre.”

The whole step where a head is fashioned from a sleeve cuff really had me perplexed. I’m not sure how that part alone wasn’t the catalyst to Andrea’s patience imploding, but she calmly walked me through the step and suddenly, my Santa had a head.

Chooch gave up around the time the roll of yarn was introduced into the mix, because like me, he wants instant gratification and was kind of like, “Wait, I have to do more work? This yarn isn’t going to wrap itself around Santa’s body? Fuck this noise.” He went in the other room and made up murder games with his toys, which was basically what I was doing with the craft supplies in front of me.

Thank god I had the foresight to buy two rolls of yarn, otherwise the night could have climaxed with a violence-laden ripoff of the Lady and the Tramp spaghetti scene, no sharing, love or even moderate mutual respect involved in this version. The first step of Santa-wrapping required the end of the yarn to be hot-glued to Santa’s body, and Andrea was quick to do that part for me. “No glue gun for you,” she said, making sure the cord wasn’t long enough to reach my side of the table.

Andrea handled her roll of yarn with panache while I struggled as expected. She had turned her Santa-wrapping into a smooth process, like she was a well-oiled sewing machine, even in spite of my cat Willie attacking her from the floor; meanwhile I was in danger of mummifying myself in the shit. I kept accidentally binding myself in between the yarn and the Santa. It was a fucking mess.

Andrea, spinning yarns while…spinning yarn. I told her I hated her (and her fucking stupid Santa) every other minute.  It took forever to cover the entire body and my hands felt all arthritic afterward, like I had spent all night doling out hand jobs at a truck stop and desperately needed a bowl of Ben-Gay to soak them in.

My favorite part was the buttons. I found a package of Christmas buttons at Pat Catan’s and Henry was like, “Those are $5, how about we get these stupid ugly buttons that only cost $1?” Yeah, fuck you. I’ll use the cheap ones when I decorate your asshole.

Andrea conceded and let me finally use the glue gun for the button part and I immediately got hot glue all over the pads of my fingers. “And this is why I wanted to do it for you,” she said.

It took nearly two hours to achieve the finished product. Spearing the Santas with straight pins was extremely cathartic after waging war with the crafting gods. At first I hated Brandy for making me want to try this.

But then I sat back and really took a long look at the Santas and was overcome with an almost crippling sense of accomplishment.

“So this is why people like to craft!” I exclaimed, knowingly, as if the spiritual awakening I was supposedly in search of earlier that day at Saint Anthony’s had finally ensconced me.

It was totally worth it, you guys. Even though everyone is all, “OMG I LOVE THE ONE WITH THE LONG NECK! BEST SANTA EVER!” while jacking off to images of that ginger claymation Kris Kringle. Go check out Brandy’s tutorial and make your own! If you’re not in it to win it like we were, you could probably make tiny ornament-versions from small fabric scraps, which is what I might have Henry do this week after he finds a spell to bring our cat Speck back to life. (Yes, I’ve seen Pet Sematary, but I’ve already spent the last 13 years with Marcy, so it shouldn’t be much scarier.)

The only thing I really remember about the night is cradling my face in my arms and crying a lot, but it was worth it. LOOK HOW CUTE THESE FUCKERS ARE! I dare you to make one. Please show me pictures.

Hanging out with Tommy and Jessy today has been a nice distraction and I’ve even smiled and laughed a few times. We just left Meder’s*, where god only knows what Chooch said to Santa, Tommy found ways to spin every ornament into something obscene to make up for my Pornament Party needing to be canceled last night, and Jessy gave me lots of hugs.

(*A local nursery which is bursting at the seams with overpriced Christmas ornaments, real life reindeers to feed, & elderly employees who skulk around watching your child with stern hawk eyes, but it beats braving the malls and standing in line for an hour among throngs of yuppies and their ugly-sweatered child-yups just to have a 20-second meeting with a nicotine-stained Santa.)

Now we’re on our way to Oglebay, WV to see Christmas lights. That will probably make me smile too. As long as there is hot chocolate and biting commentary involved. Glad to have non-sucky Sundays back.

Thanks to everyone who has been so sweet and caring to me since Speck died yesterday. Virtual hugs are just as special as real life hugs, and I’ve appreciated every last one.

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 sitting in Andrea’s hotel room while she gets ready after she purposely tried to sleep all day so she would miss our Really Big Appointment at the music box museum.

“I bought your Christmas present today!” I said all sweetly.

“Oh god. I’m scared,” she said while she adjusted her Mary Poppins hat in the mirror.

“Why?” I asked all sadly.

“Because who knows!” she yelled, going on to say it’s probably something “scary.

”

“You’re so mean.”

“I’m mean? Who’s making who go to the fucking music box museum?

”

Just you wait. It’s going to be the best time ever.

My friend Brandy is always busting out cool crafts and other projects on her blog, so I asked her to do something holiday-ish to share on here with you guys. I’m no crafter at all, but even I was inspired to take a trip to the craft store/fabric store/Goodwill/Dollar General (seriously we never have any crafting supplies in this house; just art shit) and try this out myself (with a TON of help from Andrea, who has a lot of patience, probably because of all those saints that she prays to. I’m starting to do that now too. It’s like a new game for me!). I will post about our experience later, pictures included (but no blood smears; that’s all dried up by now).

***

-Brandy

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.

I took Andrea to the Southside today to walk off our Pamela’s breakfast, over which I learned that she is morbidly terrified of old people and begged me to not invite some liver-spotted lone diner to join us at our table. I tried to get her to walk in vomit, because those are the types of things I do to my friends. And yet she still bought me the most amazing Sidney Crosby t-shirt of all time.

We had plans to meet Wendy at the Beehive for coffee at noon, and thank god we got there before she did because I almost had to move some guy’s crutches to sit down, but then I said, “I’ll just let Wendy sit here” and took the seat next to Andrea. When Wendy arrived, she tried to sit down and then realized the legs of her chair were entwined with crutches and had to reposition them against the wall, which caused the owner of the auxiliary legs to whip his head around and glare at her.

Meanwhile, Andrea was being aurally raped by the  man and woman behind us who were telling each other about their respective spouses and how unhappy they were. Between them, the Crutch Guy and yesterday’s Eat n Park breakfast buffet disappointment*, I think she was on the verge of writing off Pittsburgh for good.

(*Andrea said she only got the buffet because Henry got the buffet, so she figured it must be OK. “Yeah, but I can eat crappy food,” Henry retorted. He hates taking the blame for anything, which must make life stressful for him when you figure everything is his fault.

Anyway, if that were the case, I suppose we can expect Andrea to start wearing non-descript t-shirts and stuffing her pockets with individually-wrapped prunes as well.)

I kept trying to see what Crutch Guy was doing on the computer. Probably some sort of workman’s comp fraud.

HE WALKED TO THE COUNTER WITHOUT HIS CRUTCHES. WHAT A FUCKING FAKE. He left before we did, but not without giving each one of us a scrutinizing once-over. And then he barely put any weight on the crutches as he walked out. I was so appalled by this and kept saying so, but Andrea and Wendy continued to talk over me because he was old news by then.

Then we followed Wendy out to her part of town because she wanted to take us to a haunted cemetery called Hankey Church in Plum. We ditched my car along the way and rode with her (which was like a dream come true for Andrea because it meant a reprieve from the constant loop of Dance Gavin Dance in my car), but before we got there, I totally started to have a whiny, low blood-sugar meltdown and said, “I either need an apple or a cookie, like now.”

“Well, you can’t eat an unsliced apple, so I guess we need to get you a cookie,” Andrea deduced, because she has been reading up on the Keeping Erin Alive and Tempered handbook. Wendy pulled over at the first grocery store we came upon and Andrea bought me a Snickerdoodle and a Reese’s Pieces cookie. Then she bought two lame thumbprints for herself and Wendy.

At the checkout, the middle-aged cashier asked, “Oh, did you just get out of school?”

Andrea was completely perplexed by this, and as we walked to the car Wendy kept trying to assure her it was because she looks so young and she should be happy, but by this point I was going into apoplectic shock and they mostly sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher; all I could think about was eating the fuck out of one or all cookies.

“I guess because adults don’t come in and just buy four cookies,” Andrea laughed. “I should have bought a pregnancy test, too.” And then there was even more convivial chitchat between those two and why the fuck was no one handing me a goddamn cookie?

I finally got my cookies. I ate both of them so fast that I can’t even remember if I liked them. But I felt instantly better.

Hankey Church is a tiny cemetery semi-enclosed by a white picket fence, but not the kind that makes you dream of planting petunias and playing catch with your freckled kid, mostly because there are old, slanted tombstones beyond it, but also because who dreams of having a freckled kid?

Various supernatural websites  claim there has been reported activity there. “Weightlessness and loss of balance” was listed on one site as being common experiences in the vicinity, and Andrea did actually fall immediately after getting out of Wendy’s car. Oh my god, it was fucking outstanding; the slowest descent I have ever seen in real life.

In fact, it was so stupid how she went down that I actually for a second thought it was a staged pratfall, that she felt bad for hating so terribly on Jonny Craig and all of his ginger brethren, that she was all, “Hey, look at me, ginger gods! Lucille Ball shoutout!”

But then I realized that she had stepped into a slight divet in the ground and I started laughing. Just stood there laughing while she was in this sad, pathetically infantile crawl position on the damp grass.

She was fine, you guys. Don’t worry. Totally not as bad as when she bit it on roller skates the last time she was here.

Her head’s chipped like mine.

I didn’t really feel any weird sensations while we were there, but the creaking noises the trees were making was seriously disturbing me. It sounded like all of these invisible doors were opening down the hill from the cemetery and I whimpered a little.

One source says this headstone is the center for all of the paranormal activity, but my totally accurate EVP iphone app was not picking anything up.

Another source says it’s the vacant lot across from the cemetery, which was once the site of the Hankey Church, which burnt to the ground after the pastor was hanged from a tree out front.

Yet another source says, “There was never a church there, you dumbshits, and that cemetery is a peaceful place with the occasional BJ and date rape.”

However, when Wendy and I were still poking around the cemetery (we found two CD-Rs labeled as some strange Baptist sermons, tucked in a tree),  Andrea was sitting on a large rock across the street. Her back was toward the vacant field and she said she felt legitimately creeped out sitting there, like something was behind her but she was afraid to turn around.

She probably took a lot of amazing spirits back to her hotel room. And they’re probably still laughing about when she fell in a half-inch hole in the ground.

In either case, my Toms were fucked after trudging around that sodden field.

Driving away from the cemetery, I said, “Hey Andrea, remember when you fell and I didn’t help you up?”

“You’re a dick,” she mumbled from the backseat, quietly masterminding a plan to make me a special batch of acid-based eyeshadow.

The day started with breakfast at Andrea’s beloved Eat n Park, where Henry went on some weird breakfast buffet hate spree and some other man there had the SAME LAUGH AS HIS.  I could not wrap my head around this, which is weird considering how pliable it is.

Andrea was feeling a little run down* but was all, “Bitch, don’t think I’m missing out on a trip to the motherfucking flea market.

” I mean, all flea markets are basically the same, with their dirty ass rag dolls and rusted hacksaws, but at least you get different clientele based on the region. And nowhere but a Pittsburgh flea market are you going to see some asshole wearing head-to-toe Steelers logos. Jesus, go fuck yourself with your football.

(*I even brought her a Jonagold and she was like, “Holy shit, I can’t believe you’re giving me an entire one of your apples.” I know, I could hardly believe it either.)

The very first thing Andrea and I saw was this resplendent shadow box shrine to Saint Rita of Cascia. She had a fucking bullet hole in her forehead, you guys. A BULLET HOLE.

“That’s $75,” said an old man with a hugely distracting mole under his right eye. “Sixty-five years of selling at flea markets and I ain’t never seen nothing like it. One of a kind.”

FUCK.

I did my Phoebe-run all the way down to Henry, who tends to make himself scarce in these situations and it’s only a matter of time before he just leaves me there altogether.

“Do you have $75?” I panted. I tried to pull taut my best “YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW DIRE THIS IS” pained visage.

“What? No!” Henry spat, after doing that thing where he briefly stares at me in disgust to alert all the decayed-teeth, teased-haired Yinzer women in the vicinity that he’s free for the takin’. And then, curiosity getting the best of him (maybe it was a pony play starter kit I had spied, he might have thought), he finally asked me why.

“There’s some saint bullshit—-” I started but then he turned around and continued to browse bins of medicated hemorrhoid wipes.

Some guy there was totally eating an apple and I almost died.

Meanwhile, these assholes were strutting around like they owned the goddamn place. I kept trying to take their picture, but they weren’t actually stopping anywhere to peruse other people’s roughly-used merchandise, so I would have to literally run ahead of them, stop a few tables down, spin around and blatantly point my phone at them.

“Do you think people ever notice me acting weird at the flea market?” I asked Henry later.

He mulled this over for a bit before saying that everyone else there is just as weird as me, so probably not. I was momentarily relieved, but only until I became offended.

Almost every vendor has Steelers shit for sale. And even if they had no Steelers merchandise, they were all yukking it up with customers about today’s game.

I could scrawl the word “Steelers” on a Post-It note, have Ben Rapelisberger wipe his ass with it, and some jackass Yinzer would buy it.

Autographed picture of the Jersey Shore cast, anyone? Someone else was selling this for $400. That’s fucking criminal.

One of the sellers inside was blaring some super sad Jesus music, which totally engaged my stigmata. It almost inspired Andrea to buy a rosary from the Flava Flav collection. (I think that’s the second time I referenced him this week, for no good reason. I guess Snooki’s out, irreverent VH1 reality stars are back in.)

Inside the flea market, Andrea bought something off this lady who I am utterly obsessed with. She has permanent residence there, tables and tables that are absolutely dumped upon with chintzy pearls and ancient Happy Meal toys. If someone picks something up, she rushes over as soon as they walk away to make sure it was put back in the right spot. I want to go there someday and fuck with her so bad, just start pulling shit out from the bottom and watching with glee as she’s buried under an avalanche of 40 years of hoarding.

But, she’s nice to me sometimes so then I feel guilty for having such thoughts. I will say it’s a blessed miracle that Chooch hasn’t given her a stroke yet.

Andrea has decided that Marc-Andre Fleury is her favorite Penguins (and of course our back-up goalie was the one playing in last night’s game; she was so disappointed), so she was rifling through boxes of trading cards in hopes of finding one of his to keep in her wallet, finally replacing that one of Scott Baio that’s currently in there. When she wasn’t looking, I bought a set of the commemorative holographic tumblers that Pizza Hut was selling two years ago and gave her the Fleury one.

“Holy shit, you’re breaking up the set for me?!” she said in awe.

I know, it’s out of character. But I wanted her to have a goddamn Fleury something-or-other.

Right as we were leaving, the man with the saint Rita thing was packing all his shit up.

“Ask him if he’ll take $25,” Andrea suggested. I tried to make Henry do it, did a whole bunch of whining and even tried dragging him over there, but he was like “Fuck  you, no.”

“Will you do it?” I asked Andrea, and she locked eyes with my super-sad, pitiful puppy-eyes and she said, “Goddammit, fine.”

But as expected, he wouldn’t budge. We had to stand there and listen to his sob story (he’s going in for a heart catherization you guys!!) which basically climaxed with him saying that this was probably his last weekend there.

“Do you even know the story about Saint Rita?” he asked us, his mole bobbing buoyantly as he squinted at us skeptically.

We tried to say we did, and he goes, “About how she had twins and lost them?” He gave us this tired “You girls don’t know shit” sigh and filled us in on her story, which I completely forget but I can tell you this: it was DEEP.

I am so fucking pissed that Henry didn’t buy it for me. Even more pissed that I literally only have $23 in my account right now or I’d have bought it for myself as a pity present.

“You bought Chooch a puzzle!” I whined all accusatively, like how dare he buy our child something and not me.

“It was TWO DOLLARS! Besides, he knocked all that shit over so I felt obligated to buy something after that.

I guarantee that guy will be back,” Henry said in his dad tone, but I was too busy serving up red velvet cake on Bakery Story to give a shit about anything he said at that point.

Anyway, if anyone has one of those Saint Rita things,  I will buy it off you. Or trade you Chooch for it.

We dropped Andrea off at her hotel so she could “rest” (code for: have a little peace and quiet; I’m the type you want to have in small doses) and then Henry took me to Soergel’s so I could PICK MY OWN APPLES THIS TIME, OMG HELLO APPLELAND!

I was absolutely giddy, touching all of them and asking, “Will I like these kinds?” but then moving on to the next one before Henry had a chance to answer.

They even had little things telling me what each apple tasted like! (I am new to shopping for things like this.)

But within a minute, I had come full circle around the apple display. “Is this all they have?” I shouted in disappointment. “I’ve already tried half of these!”

“It’s not apple season!” Henry yelled in extreme annoyance. This picture was taken at the pinnacle of the aforementioned extreme annoyance. Bitch, I’m learning. Try having some patience.

But then beets caught my attention, at which point Chooch and I simultaneously mock-vomited, causing Henry to say “I hate you” and shoulder his way past us.

“Ew, this meat comes from the WEENER?” Chooch exclaimed in front of a yuppie mom and her son, who were trying to enjoy their scoops of yuppie ice cream.

“Buying two of each apple, huh?” the young cashier said amicably as he rang us up.

I was just about to give him my “I’M NEW TO APPLES” story, but I figured I’d spare Henry this one time. But someday I’m going to go back and ask to touch their apple trees. And I do mean hump their apple trees.

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.

“Do you guys want to go see ‘where the magic happens’?” Jason asked Terri and Christian, and then to me and Henry he said something to the effect that he figured we wouldn’t want to go back to the Alternative Press office since we were already there once.

But I was like, “Shit are you kidding, of course I want to go back.” That place rules. (From a non-employee perspective, anyway.)

And then Henry later said something about AP being a “magic castle” because he couldn’t remember exactly what Jason jokingly calls it, and I mockingly repeated him, at which point Jason thought I said “magic asshole” and was all, “Are you calling AP a magic asshole??” and I was all, “What, OMG no!” and tried to explain what happened but it was futile. Henry was so smug about this. Fuck off, Henry.

Jason asked us all what bands we were most interested in seeing that night, because he had some posters he wanted to give us. When I said Sharks, Henry quickly said, “You’re just saying that to suck up” and I wanted to fucking kill him.

Apparently, this was all because I took credit for the Boylans root beer. Henry and I are so competitive with each other, it’s kind of unhealthy.

Nickelback is Jason’s favorite band OF ALL TIME, you guys. But no really, check out the drawing right above it. That’s a Chooch original, hanging up at AP. I’m so proud of my kid.

I just can’t even explain how much I love AP. Well, apparently I can, but then I use too many words and get disqualified from contests. (Seriously, 6 years later and I still haven’t let go!)

Before the show, we went to a boutique, where Henry misread a sales tag to say size Huge instead of Large, and then we had root beer floats at Sweet Moses. Some of us even wore our root beer floats. (I’m not naming any names but it was definitely Christian.)

New friends! Christian and Terri are such a great couple, which was helpful considering we spent the whole entire day together, so hopefully they didn’t think we were douchy Pens fans. I mean, we totally are, but Henry at least can hide it pretty well. (I think Jason was prepared to assume the role of referee in case any Sidney Crosby arguments arose.)

I’m going to write about the show next, but Andrea is flying in tonight from California and spending a whole week with us this time (!!!) so I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to do it. I can probably just sit her down in front of some Lil Wayne videos and she won’t even notice I’m in the other room, pecking away at the keyboard with my tongue sticking out. (That’s seriously how I look when I write on here. There, I just let you in on something intimate.)

After lunch at Melt, Emily peaced out to run some errands (when I was little, I always thought people were saying they had Erins to run, and I still sometimes instinctively flinch when I hear this, like any minute now a car is going to come plowing through my torso) and the rest of us went to My Mind’s Eye. Going to record stores post-Chooch is bittersweet for me because I can never throw down like I once could. My music collection has all but flatlined since 2006.

“That’s why we only have a cat,” Terri said to me, and I was like GODDAMMIT I KNEW HAVING A CHILD WAS A MISTAKE. Just kidding.

Kind of.

Henry and I are currently aspiring to be the couple on the right. Except orange is like, my least favorite color. But I can definitely rock an antagonizing smile and smug stance.

“Can I get this?”

“No.”

“What about—”

“No.”

If it weren’t for Henry reminding me every thirty seconds that we need to worry about Chooch’s Christmas presents before “stupid music” (YES HE SAID THAT), all of our utilities would probably be shut off right now. I did buy two CDs, despite his sharp looks of disapproval.

I bought one called The Valerie Project by Jaromil Jires.

“You don’t even know what that is!” Henry criticized harshly.

“Yes I do! It’s based off the movie Valerie and Her Week of Wonders and we loved that movie!” I replied in a pitch dangerously close to tantrum levels.

“Did we?” he asked, trying to remember.

“Yeah, because it was weird.”

“That doesn’t mean we loved it!”

I also snatched up a Coffinberry album.

“Have you even heard of them?” Henry asked, in one of his staunch SERVICE stances, with arms akimbo.

“No,” I said thoughtfully. “But with a name like Coffinberry…”

This prompted Henry to ridicule me for purchasing music based on band names and cover art, but I have been doing this since high school! And the success rate is at least 20%. I never would have known that I love the Ultralounge collection had one not been swathed in faux leopard fur!

When we left the record store, Jason opted to ride with Terri and Christian this time.

“Why? Because you don’t want to listen to Coffinberry?” I chided, and that’s when Henry noticed the BIG FLYERS STICKER on the back of Terry and Christian’s car.

“OMG they’re FLYERS fans!” Henry sneered good-naturedly, and they booed the Penguins in response. I can’t believe I shared a meal with Flyers fans!

So a friendly war of the hockey fans was ignited. Henry even made a point of pulling his Penguins hat out of the trunk.

(Meanwhile, the first track on the Coffinberry CD was this slow dirge that sounded like Joan of Arc and Shudder To Think having a knife fight during a funeral.)

The next stop was Big Fun, which I always make a point to stop at when I’m in town. Emily met back up with us here and I bought Chooch some little things for Christmas, including a book about boobs. What? He needs to know about them.

Jason was sitting outside and when I went to join him, he said, “If you’re into vintage furnishings, you should check out that store,” while pointing at a place called Flower Child. Maybe he really was trying to be helpful, but I will always in my heart believe that he was just so jealous of my Coffinberry purchase that he wasn’t ready to be near me yet.

Nothing could have prepared me for the life-altering experience I was about to have within those walls. It was practically a catacomb of psychedelia. There were vintage cameras in droves making my knees weak (I quickly texted Henry: GET IN HERE NOW! after spying those slick shutters), mannequins luxuriating in posh positions, paisley percolating like sick hallucinations from walls and moth ball-scented clothing racks.

The basement level, which requires one to walk down a narrow staircase which appeared to be uneven, was replete with over-stuffed walk-in closets that made me feel like I was backstage on Laugh-In.

It was the most glorious place in the world.

But it only got better when I was engulfed by the pea green carpeting* of the basement: The granddaddy of all Jesus pictures, with its cheaply gilded frame, was resting sovereignly on the wall. It LIT-UP. It was 3D. I had to have it.

(*This may or may not be accurate. I also want to say that the walls down there were wood-paneling, but the truth is that my memory is clouded by all that Jesus glory. I will report back with details when I return in two weeks.)

I ran back upstairs to find Henry who, with no hesitation, said no.

“We’re coming back on the 17th. You can get it then,” he compromised after I made him come downstairs to see it for himself. Terri was down there with us too but she kind of had this nervous “I don’t want to get involved” smile on her face.

“IT MIGHT NOT BE THERE WHEN WE COME BACK!” I cried. Henry just shook his head in concession and rejoined Jason, Christian and Emily outside.

So I bought it. Took that bitch right the fuck off the wall and bought it.

“I don’t have a bag big enough to fit this in,” said the aging hippie behind the counter.

“That’s OK, I’ll carry it proudly,” I gushed, running my fingertips over Jesus’s face.

I walked outside with this lumbering slab of religious kitsch banging off my thigh. Everyone had a look of “Oh Jesus Christ” on their faces.

“And it lights up!” I proudly exclaimed.

Oh Jesus Christ, indeed.

This is what it looks like lit-up in my house at night:

Chooch stayed home from school today, which means I was able to get absolutely nothing done. It was basically one baby taking care of another baby.

I really knew he was sick when he asked to watch “Twilight,” never mind the fact that he was up puking most of the night.

Don’t worry, he’s already halfway to his healthy douchebag self.

I know this because he just said he wants the Crapitals to beat the Penguins.

Little fucker.