I’ve never been a very big shopper, so Black Friday does not appeal to me at all. I was, however, happy to have the day off work and spent it being leisurely with Chooch. We walked to Cannon Coffee on Brookline Boulevard and got some hot beverage.

Chooch somehow ended up with “100 People Who Are Screwing Up America” or something, and decided to read aloud from the first chapter, which was about shiesty lawyers turning us into a sue-happy nation and it coincidentally started off with a Simpsons analogy. Since Chooch is also OBSESSED with Simpsons Tapped Out, he was fucking thrilled about this.

Came home, tortured Marcy.

Henry came home around 3:30 and I abandoned him and Chooch. My friend Nina was visiting from Virginia and Wendy was hosting a small get-together for her. Everyone was all, “OMG Erin drove here all by herself!” like I don’t know how to drive or something! I just barely get to go anywhere on my own since we only have one car, you guys! I’m not THAT helpless.

Barb was there with her tricked-out boots, and also Sean and Angie who ditched the Law Firm last spring, so I was really happy to see them. Several of Nina’s non-Law Firm friends were there, too, but poor Sean was the only boy…

…so it was inevitable that he learned about Kegels.

Angie and Nina!

This is also the same face Wendy makes when ordering My Pretty Zombie eye shadow.

Barb and Baby Q!

OMG I miss working with Angie so much.

I think Wendy fed me an entire can of whipped cream while I was there. I need a fucking detox!

This just happened.

That is all.

When I think of Pittsburgh, abrasive Yinzers yelling about football, Mr. Rogers, and pot holes are among the first things that come to mind. Not wineries. In fact, I didn’t even know that a winery existed so close to Pittsburgh until two weeks ago when Corey and I were looking for things to tour and found the Narcisi Winery in Gibsonia! And then some of my friends had either been there or said that they heard of it, so I felt confident that this wasn’t going to be just a grape graveyard in some beer-bellied hillbilly’s backyard shed.

Our tour was scheduled for 10:30 Sunday morning, and we somehow made it there promptly without getting lost, no thanks to Henry who refused to give us directions as part of an experiment to make us grow our wings. Thank god for GPS.

There was a small group of women who walked in right before us and I felt relieved that this probably meant the tour was legit. Everyone immediately stopped in an awkward cluster on the other side of the entrance, and that’s where we stood until the BROAD emerged from the back and told us we could go stand in the gift shop, probably because she didn’t want to have to stand there and look at us. Corey and I looked at each other with wide and knowing eyes because OMG THE BROAD! So then we all moved into the gift shop where we could at least spread out from an awkward cluster into more of an awkward dotting.

Meanwhile, Corey had decided he hated all of the women right off the bat. Wow, that really reminds me of someone….

“Especially the one with the bangs,” he muttered. “Oh wait, there are several with bangs. The one that looks like that bitch from The Terminator, then. Sarah Connor.”

And I knew exactly who he was talking about because SHE DID LOOK LIKE SARAH CONNOR.

A younger couple showed up after awhile, and they seemed pretty inoffensive, and then more people arrived for the Bangs Party. “Oh, I think I know her,” Corey mumbled while quickly pivoting out of sight. He didn’t say anything else after that though so I figured he was just pretending to be a Pittsburgh Celebrity. The Bangs Party had grown into a group of about 8, mostly older bitchy women, but the group was also interspersed with a few younger ones holding Kate Spade clutches, too. It appeared to be a party of some sort, which I deduced after my hyper-observational skills noticed some of the broads arrived with GIFT BAGS. So then I decided I would hate them, too. Sibling solidarity and all that.

And then Broad emerged from a side door and said hi to us! To just Corey and me!! Like we’re celebriwinos! (If that wasn’t already a thing, it is now.)

Suddenly, Corey began to have a mild anxiety attack. “Wait—when we do the wine tasting, are we supposed to spit?”

I shrugged, because although I’m quite decorated in the whole spit/swallow debate, I have never been to a real life wine tasting. While Corey Googled, “to spit or not to spit at a wine tasting,” I started to picture several scenarios of me spitting wine back into a spittoon, one of which resembled wine spurting out of my mouth like water from a firehose, and I promptly decided that no matter what, I would just swallow. Unless there was an option to spit into a Kate Spade.

We must have been left to wither away in the gift shop for a good half hour staring at wine-relevant novelty items like wine charms and bottle stoppers before ROBERTO finally came out and started the tour by dripping his hot, velvety* Italian accent all over our faces. I imprinted with him almost immediately, but let’s be real here, we all knew I would.

*(Not to be confused with hot Velveeta. Although now I’m picturing him covered in hot Velveeta AND IT AIN’T BAD.)

He was thankfully not an old man like I had been anticipating, but somewhere probably in his late 30s/early 40s with a beautiful shock of perfectly manicured Italian hair and probably a Vespa in his garage, if you know what I mean.

(Do you? Because I don’t really.)

Over top of a loud Frank Sinatra jam, Roberto began telling us the history of the winery. Here is what I learned:

• It was opened in 200-something when the Narcisi family moved here from Somewhere, Italy.
• Roberto also moved here from Italy in 2006.
  • He is not a Narcisi
  • But I am in love with him still
  • His accent, OMG
• They grow some grapes on the premises. Other grapes are grown somewhere else.
  • Lake Erie, I think
• Roberto is fucking Italiamazing.

Then the tour moved into a warehouse-like room with big tanks and more talk about wine, a lot of which I had a hard time hearing over the bombastic Michael Buble Pandora station. I took pleasure in cutting off Corey’s Enemies-With-Bangs on the way out to the tank room, because it was a race, after all.

It’s always a race.

In this room we learned how wine is made and Roberto really started to get into his wine zone and even began telling some jokes, all of which I laughed SUPER HARD at while maintaining rape-y eye contact with him.

A LIVE RECORDING of Edwin McCain’s diarrhea-inducing hit “I’ll Be” came on and I wanted to curl up in one of those tanks and die a slow, drunken death. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, various members of the Bangs Party began ASKING QUESTIONS.

In particular, Shirley MacLaine’s doppelganger asked, “Which wine has the least amount of sugar? Like for, say, a diabetic.”

Roberto answered, “Any dry wine. Dry wines actually have zero sugar in them. Are you a diabetic?”

Shirley MacLaine, confused: “No.”

Roberto went on to explain the mysteries of dry wines and fermentation and other things that I couldn’t hear very well on account of the noxious collective fumes of the Bangs Party perfume penetrating every orifice of my body.

Shirley MacLaine interrupted. “But which dry wine has the least amount of sugar?”

Roberto: “None of them have sugar.”

Shirley MacLaine: “Yes, but which has the LEAST?”

Roberto: “Literally, all dry wines have zero sugar.”

Shirley MacLaine: “So, like a Cabernet—-”

Roberto: “If it is dry, that means it has no sugar.”

Shirley MacLaine: “So—-”

LOOK LADY, ALL DRY WINES ARE AS DRY AS YOU, SO STFU.

I couldn’t make eye contact with Corey at all during this because I knew I would start choking on throaty laughter.

And then one of the younger members of the Bangs Party decided to ask a question just to hear herself talk, and it was so pointless. “How many employees do you have here?” she asked. WHO CARES? WHEN DO WE DRINK??!

Then we looked at a bottling machine while the Bangs Party People said things like, “Oh wow” and “Huh” before it was finally time for the wine tasting.

P.S. Erin + Roberto 4ever.

[Up next: Part 2, where we move the tour upstairs for the wine tasting, eat a Tuscan sundae and INTERACT WITH THE BROAD.]

This morning, Henry woke up and resumed all the cooking that he started last night. Meanwhile, I’m catching up on the X Factor (OMG those stupid dancers they insist on using have got to go!!

) but it’s really hard to hear over Henry and his persistent mixing of foods in the kitchen. God.

I think only three people are coming over tonight but we have enough food for probably three dozen.

WE EVEN MADE HOMEMADE CHEESE! (We=Henry. I got bored and took a bath instead.

)

This used to be my least favorite holiday but I’m really starting to like it. Happy Tofurkey Day!!!

It figures. I’m having a super good hair day & my supervisor texted to tell me to just work from home today because the roads are supposed to get icy. So since I had some time to kill before I start working at 1:30, I decided to walk to the Wines & Spirits in Brookline to get the stuff I need for the two Thanksgiving punches I’m making. (That’s my big contribution! I’m taking it REAAAAALLLLY seriously, too. Finally picked my two punches last night and I’m so stoked! I guarantee Henry will have to take over at some point though. The one recipe I found required BOILING THINGS and SIMPLE SYRUP, wtf. That sounded way too involved for me so I had to keep looking.)

Anyway, it seemed like a great idea at the time, so I stuffed one of Henry’s stupid hats on my pretty hair and set off down the road to good old Brookline Boulevard. I even said hello to some old man who was shoveling in front of a barber shop.

Got to the liquor store and rounded up my ingredients without having to call Henry because the liquor store is pretty much the one store where I’m able to get shit done on my own, but then when the cashier asked me if I wanted my three wines and one Brandy double-bagged, and I said yes because I’m walking, I realized, “OH FUCK, I’M WALKING.”

Back on my street, some man stopped me and asked how much snow we were supposed to get, I guess because that perma-dumb look on my face just SCREAMS, “Ask me questions, for I am an almanac!”

“I don’t know, like 100?” I said with a shrug.

“Wow, that’s a lot,” Michael said. And I know his name is Michael not because I’m also a census registrar, but because just then some guy drove by and rolled down the window to literally bellow, “MICHAEL!!!!!” like he was trying to save him from being fucking murdered, and then Michael waved his rolled-up umbrella in response and I took that as my cue to resume walking.

So I continued to lug this heavy bag of breakables back home while being pelted by perpetual snowfall and suddenly, I’m not having such a hot hair day anymore.

As Thanksgiving gets closer, I’ve been feeling a little less depressed and MAYBE even slightly excited. We spent most of the week getting some things together for our version of Thanksgiving (Hanksgiving) and keeping busy has been extremely helpful. We’ve only ever hosted one holiday dinner at our house (with the exception of the Xmas Eve soiree we did last year) and that was all the way back in 2008! I can’t believe we waited so long to try it again. I couldn’t remember if it was a success or not, so I went searching through my blog archives the other night and after reading it, I still can’t tell if it was a success. But Henry apparently burnt himself, so I’ll take that as a win.

It’s not Throwback Thursday or anything, but we can just pretend that Memory Monday is a thing so that I can repost this 2008 Thanksgiving tale. The format of the original post is all wonky and I can’t fix it. So sorry. Mayeb after you read it, you can leave a comment and tell me what your favorite Thanksgiving side dish is, because we haven’t finalized our menu yet and that’s just what Henry needs is MORE OPTIONS.

******

The night before Thanksgiving, Henry stayed up until 2:00am, rifling through his grandma’s recipes like a normal man rifles through porn. I don’t know what he was looking for, considering that I procured an entire feast worth of gourmet recipes from this little thing I just heard about recently called the Internet.

Of course Henry found something wrong with every selection: Too-expensive-ingredients (“That will cost more than the turkey!”). Lack of industrial kitchen. Not enough education completed to comprehend recipe wording.

In the end, he settled on:

Smashed rutabaga with gingered pears

Turnips gratin (hello new edible husband)

Scalloped corn

Meatless stuffing

Mustard mashed potatoes (“OMG Tyler from the Food Network made them!”)

Sweet potato pie

Oh, and that over-hyped turkey bullshit that everyone is always buzzing about.

My contribution to the day was taking Chooch to my dad’s house so that Henry could cook in the highest, most divine level of tranquility. Now, you should know that I only see my dad on holidays. Shame on me, sure, I know. But it’s awkward because our relationship was once more strained than the ab muscles of a man attempting to suck his own dick. Technically my step-dad, he legally adopted me when I was in the fourth grade. We engaged in non-stop battles of wits and psychological warfare for the entire duration of my teenaged years. Then he and my mom divorced and ironically, we now get along famously; and in an incredible twist, he was the only family member who talked to me while I was pregnant.

Corey, who was staying there while home from college, failed to tell him that Chooch and I were coming over, so my dad was genuinely shocked when he saw us on his doorstep. It was probably 75% of an act, but he seemed happy to see us and proceeded to dole out peanuts, JuJu Bees and cans of pop. He even gave me some Bagelfuls to take home, complete with single-serving packets of cream cheese. A trip to his house is always like a mini-grocery trip.

While he cooked, I made sure Chooch didn’t fall down the basement steps, eat paint chips, or break any of my dad’s classic car memorabilia, while Corey acted disinterested in our presence and my other brother Ryan napped on the couch. I got roped into sitting down for dinner with them, wherein my dad immediately picked a fight with Ryan, who evidently didn’t load his plate with enough food. “I told you not to eat all day!” my dad steamed, to which Ryan grunted, “Jesus Christ, Dad, I only ate some cashews!” My dad countered with a surly, “I saw the cheese you opened up in the fridge!” at which point Ryan hunkered down lower over his plate which seemed plenty decorated to me.

In an effort to break the ice, I chirped, “These mashed potatoes are really good, daddy!” He muttered that they were too runny, but really, anything tastes delicious when the butter ratio is 50/50.

Corey and Ryan didn’t speak at all throughout the painful meal, and I’m sure they were just thrilled at how kind our dad was being to me. He even noticed my hair and enthused about its aesthetic merits for just a note longer than natural.

 I love my dad, but I was glad that I had a legitimate reason to shirk my way out the front door. Tension, it just doesn’t sit well with me.

Dinner at my house was supposed to be at 7, so that those who had other dinners to attend (Janna, Corey and Blake) would be newly starved by the time they came over for seconds. However, Henry’s tardy ass didn’t serve shit up until EIGHT O’CLOCK and everyone was bored, angry, hungry. Look at those mugs on Janna and Corey. You’d think they were watching a slide presentation of Henry’s mom dusting her ceramic kitten collection, that’s how glazed with ennui they are.

Sensing that a revolt was on the rise, Henry served up deviled eggs for us to stuff our mouths with while he frantically finished cooking.

For some reason, Henry was really impressed with himself. He kept boasting that the eggs were deviled with STONE GROUND MUSTARD. I’m not even sure what that means. They tasted regular to me, like he could have squirted in a quick fart of French’s for all I know. Something weird clearly went on in my house while Chooch and I were at my dad’s, because no one gets THAT excited over deviled eggs.

Finally, the moment for feasting was upon us, and we all loaded our fancy paper plates with mounds of seasonal slop. Blake pretty much questioned everything aside from the turkey, which was easily recognizable (good job, Henry). I explained to him that I wanted to eschew the expected and serve new twists on tradition. “You mean, you wanted my dad to make things that even YOU can eat,” Blake corrected. And oh how we laughed. (As I silently wished for Blake to choke on a turkey bone.) (Just kidding, Blake.) (No really.)

As I tore into my plate, I realized Corey didn’t have a fork. “It’s OK,” he promised. “I don’t mind waiting. I’ll just have a roll.” He paused, considering that statement, before holding up his broken hand and adding with the slight hint of chagrin, “Though, even THAT is a challenge.” He should have been giving less lip and more thanks for the fact that he has a hand AT ALL.

It would sppear that Henry is in the middle of saying an intense delivery of grace, but really he’s just acclimating to his newfound seated position after standing in the kitchen all day long.

Later, he momentarily lost his appetite when he mistook the really expensive paper napkins to say “Joyous Fetus” instead of the much less interesting “Joyous Fetes.” We all laughed, but I don’t think Henry understood what was going on because he probably doesn’t even know what “fetes” means.

We’re so classy that we used our best plastic serving bowls. Not even TUPPERWEAR. Just generic, microwave-ravaged plastic. And there’s the gravy that burnt Henry’s hand and thank God it did because I really enjoyed hearing him cry about it all night long. I thought his mom was going to rush him to the Veteran’s hospital. I could almost see Henry’s mind churning: “Remember what they taught you in the SERVICE, big guy. You will pull through this! YOU WERE IN THE AIR FORCE, GODDAMMIT.”

And then Henry’s mom called Janna a myriad of other J-names (Janet, Janice, Joanne) but never Janna, and swore she hated sweet potato pie before admitting that she had never had it. Now she’s had it and likes it, though I maintain that Henry’s version (apparently it was EMERIL’S RECIPE, what a fucking carving knife to my heart) tasted unlike any sweet potato pie I’ve ever had. Ever. Like, no semblance at all.

Overall, I thought it was pretty good for our first time hosting a holiday in my ridiculously small dining room.

I know I had fun, and Blake and Henry’s mom seemed content. Janna basically looked like she had just finished watching a double feature of “Benji” and “Old Yeller,” and Corey just looked bored as usual. The shit Henry made was good, and even the gravy was vegetarian. I learned later that my mother translated Corey’s spot at my table into meaning that –oh my god — he’s on MY SIDE. And this is exactly why I was happy to do my own thing this Thanksgiving.

Last night, I yelled, “I can’t wait to have Christmas here too!” but Henry remained curiously silent.

Very rarely do I ever call Henry when I’m at work. Text him? Yes, constantly. So any time I do call him, he’s usually pretty leery. This is how our phone conversation went Thursday afternoon:

Me, in a hushed, urgent whisper: “Henry.”

Henry, sounding braced for emergency: “What.”

Me: “What are you doing March 21st?”

Henry: “I think I have a date  with my other girlfriend, why?”

Me: “BECAUSE THE SOUND OF ANIMALS FIGHTING ARE PLAYING IN PHILLY OMFG WE HAVE TO GOOOOOOOOOO!”

Henry, sighing: “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

What you need to know is that I was OBSESSED with this band from like 2005-2008. But the band is comprised of members from various bands (my favorite being ANTHONY GREEN), so touring was logistically impossible. I think they only ever did 4 live shows all in one fell swoop and they all would have required boarding a plane. I mean, maybe in my other child-free, American Express card-holding lifetime, that wouldn’t have been a hurdle at all! So when I saw that they have decided to reband long enough to finally perform some songs from their last album released in 2008, and that two of those dates are in PHILLY, I knew I was going to have to start working on Henry. This was, of course, after I was moved to TEARS at my desk. I didn’t think I would get any closer to seeing them live than the DVD I have.

By the end of our phone conversation, I had whittled him down to a non-committal “we’ll see” but I have ways of turning those into “Whatever”s and “Do what you want”s. AND THAT IS WHAT I DID! By Saturday, he was totally tired of hearing about it, and after I swore that he won’t have to buy me anything for Christmas (yeah right), he completely threw his hands up in the air and now I have two tickets to see The Sound of Animals Fighting at the Trocadero in Philly and I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE IT. If you give even a shit and a half about music in general, then you understand.

I feel very fortunate right now. <3

Me: “Do you think you’ll ever like Anthony Green?”
Henry, with no hesitation: “Uh-uh.”

Even though I keep a paper journal for this stuff, I still like to have a list here on my blog for easy access in case I forget just how much I absolutely hated a certain haunt or which one had the hot Michael Myers. You know how it is. I realize this is way late, but you know…I do what I can, OK?!

• Freddy’s Haunts in Aliquippa: I’ve had a lot of fun at this one in the past, but my last several trips out there have basically ended with one loud Sad Tuba. This past go-around, my friend Jess and I got stuck going through with a horrible group of middle school-aged girls (there were at least 15 of them and they were total fuckerbrats). We went on a Saturday night and it was absolutely dead, no pun intended. Even the chainsaw guy was apathetic and no one bothered to scare me and Jess at all because the few volunteers who actually showed up that night were too busy fucking with the teenagers. It was a total let-down and I’m officially writing Freddy’s off for the rest of forever. That’s $12 I can spend somewhere else. When I was telling Henry about how annoying those teenaged girls were, I realized, mid-sentence, that “Holy shit, I just walked through a haunted house with 15 mini-Erins.”
• Haunted Hills Hayride in N. Versailles: This one is so fucking hit-or-miss. I went last year and it was ridiculously fun. This year, we went on a night where it had been raining, so the trail was closed and only some of the hayride “exhibits” were in play. Laura, Janna, Chooch and I went back a week later to cash in our trail raincheck and it was just downright lousy. Just like the hayride, there were a bunch of stations along the trail that we just walked right on past because no one was there. And then some Yinzer bitch in the group with us started a fight over FLIP FLOPS with our equally-as-Yinzerish guide and it was just a real white trash display of awkwardness. So awful, and then Laura was all, “THIS IS THE WORST EVER THANKS FOR BRINGING US HERE, ERIN.” No, thank YOU, Haunted Hills Hayride, for making me look like an asshole in front of my friends!
• Hundred Acres Manor: Granted, this is one of the haunts that every Pittsburgh publication collectively jizzes on themselves over, but it’s mostly worth it. They do load up on a lot of the cop-out animatronics that I hate so much, and there is also a lot of dead space, but it is mostly super entertaining and LONG. You get your money’s worth for sure in this one. The first part (it’s split up into several themes) has always been my favorite. The actors in that section are incredibly made-up and take their characters to the extreme, and the décor is like fucking eye candy for weirdos like me. (They have a doll room, you guys. And I want to live in it.) This one gets super crowded so I always always always go on a Sunday, and I have even gone on Wednesday nights after work in the past. This one could easily suck if you end up going through on a busy night with a group of 20.
• Castle Blood: Still one of the most intelligent and entertaining haunted houses ever. It’s like a show and a haunted house for the price of one! We always have so much fun here, and I credit it as the haunt that immersed Chooch into the whole Halloween scene. I love that some place I’ve been going to since I was 16 has become a family tradition.
• Terror Town: Total waste of that prime for-real-haunted real estate. This joint was so fantastic in its inaugural year (2011) but then they quit caring about the theatrics I guess and resorted to lots of dead space and a few mediocre volunteers. Maybe I just went on an off-night….two years in a row. And then one of their “actors” posted a shitty, classless comment on a mutual friend’s Facebook status about how “volunteering”  and that pretty much drove the nail into the coffin for me. I wipe my hands of thee, Terror Town. At least now I’ll have more room in my schedule now for an out-of-town haunted house.
• Rich’s Fright Farm: OMG OMG OMG I hadn’t been here since I was in high school and it was on a seriously awkward date so I have blocked this place out of my mind since 1996. But since I had some weeknights off in October, Janna and I decided to check this one out on a Wednesday night. I know for a fact that Rich’s get PACKED on the weekends, so we really made a wise choice because the line was super short and we were on the hayride within 30 minutes or so, after Janna spent 10 of those minutes attempting to take a group photo of the two couples in front of us.  (Not like, from behind a bush or anything. They asked her to take their picture.) Long story short, this was the most expensive haunt I went to this year but it was entirely worth it. I screamed so loud a few times that I HURT MY BACK. I think that means I’m officially old. It took about an hour to do the hayride (which was on a wagon-thingie that didn’t have any sides so our legs were dangling and I was so scared that Janna was going to roll me over a cliff for all of the horrible blog posts I’ve written about her), and then all of the walk-thrus, which included maybe the most frustrating maze ever where I lost my fake-boyfriend du jour. Oh and we got to go down a huge tunnel slide which deposited us right smack in a courtyard of dead Victorian women waltzing with each other. This was definitely in my top 5 of the season and now I’m really excited to go back next year, only I won’t wear boots that are meant to be slippers.
• Scaremare: Shit you guys, this one hit really close to my heart because it was so fucking OLD SCHOOL. Chooch, Henry and I went through with a group of 4 people and they were extremely pleasant as far as strangers in a haunted house go. Some of the actors were kind of (hilariously) off their game, but to me that’s all part of the experience! I love laughing in a haunted house. And we were ALL in a very WTF state from the get-go. There were even several moments where I found myself wondering for real if I was going to get hurt, and there was one part where we all had to crawl through a padded pitch-dark tunnel. It had a loose “Depression-era gangster” theme and was even housed in an old bank building, so I really enjoyed that aspect of it too, plus the fact that our 1920’s-dressed guide was totally cute. The very last part was a pitch-black maze that everyone was supposed to walk through alone (Henry literally cut in front of everyone while we hemmed and hawed and proceeded to disappear through the doorway, thanks for the support Henry). The guide let Chooch and me go together, probably because he didn’t want to be responsible for psychologically damaging a 7-year-old. We were the last in line, so it gave me a chance to totally schmooze him by telling him how much I enjoyed Scaremare. I HOPE HE DREAMT OF ME THAT NIGHT. Anyway, after Chooch and I emerged from the darkness, we walked into a small room with blinding white light and an angel, and that’s when it dawned on me that this was a fucking religious haunted house. Everyone else from our group was in there too, and the angel told us to choose either the lightness or darkness, and literally every single one of us went out the “darkness” door. She seemed really disappointed. I liked this one so much that I actually kind of wanted to go back, but there were still too many others that I needed to visit.
• Sewickley United Methodist Haunted Basement: Chooch’s review pretty much covered it all, but I still wanted to give them a shout-out. It’s so much fun! Total pandemonium and there was definitely a man dressed as a dead Vanna White in one of the rooms, and a babydoll hanging from a tree. I also got Silly String’d in the mouth, since my mouth is ALWAYS OPEN! Even Henry showed some sign of life by LAUGHING. We tried to get Janna to go with us but she was all, “Blah blah blah I just got a new kitten and can’t leave him alone!” Lame Janna’s lame.
• Cheeseman’s Fright Farm: I thought this one was just so/so. I’ve had a lot of fun there in the past, but the actually walk-through seemed kind of rushed and lackluster. Chooch and Laura really liked it though. The scariest part for me was when I was the ONLY ONE who walked through the stupid birth canal thing and I slipped when I was halfway through and almost fell and would have happened then!!? WHO KNOWS?! I had a mild panic attack because I hate those things so much but they’re even worse when no one else is in there with you helping to push through. I wouldn’t mind axing this one from my list.
• Ghost Lake: OMG this night was so much fun. So it was me, Chooch, Henry and Janna; luckily we got our tickets through a local BOGO site because they were $25, which was actually worth it considering it took us about 3 hours of my non-stop screaming to get through all of the attractions. Our local amusement park, Kennywood, converts to a haunted attraction every fall, but I would gladly eschew that one and drive two hours to the half-defunct Conneaut Lake Park. There were 13 different haunted attractions!! And they were mostly all set-up in abandoned houses around the premises, and the actors were allowed to touch us! IT WAS SO EROTIC. I thought the park employees did a bang-up job keeping the lines moving at a good pace and the whole thing was pretty organized. You had to go through each attraction in order, so there wasn’t too much mass confusion going on. Again, Chooch’s review was pretty spot-on, but I just wanted to add that my favorite part was trying to close Janna inside one of those stupid inflatable birthing tunnel things that I hate so much. (Is there even an official term for those bullshit props?) And when she tripped when we were walking to the next attraction and I mocked her, as usual, and then proceeded to twist my ankle. One of the attractions had FOAM IN IT YOU GUYS! So that was novel. The only one I thought was lame was the Vampire’s Lair, which one of my friends pointed out was spelled “Liar” on the ticket and I didn’t even notice at the time so that’s a good sign that we were having lots of fun. We skipped out on the 13th attraction, whcih was actually just a ride on Conneaut’s rickety-as-fuck wooden coaster. Good thing too because apparently several people sustained facial injuries on it that night. Anyway, I can’t wait to go back again next year oh my goddddddd. Even stone-faced Henry was like, “That was fun.”
• Grimm Manor: You know how we’re members of the Dark Ride and Funhouse Enthusiasts Club? (THAT NEVER GETS OLD!!) Well, our fearless DAFE prez, Rick Davis, has a home haunt in Vienna, Ohio. It’s only an hour or so away, so we decided to pair that one up with Ghoul Mansion in Sharon, PA. Rick turned his entire front yard into a cemetery, complete with movable figures straight out of dark rides! It was so vintage-y and wonderful that we lingered alongside the fence for a few minutes just admiring it all. The haunt itself was free, short and sweet. Very entertaining, though! It impresses me so much when people literally turn their home into a haunt. (I mean, look at Castle Blood!)
• Ghoul Mansion: Chooch and I already wrote about this here and here. This was only my second time visiting GM, but it was in my Top 5 for the season, seriously. They’re such assholes, but in the best possible scare-actor way.
• Demon House: I don’t know why I thought this would be a fine haunted house to take Chooch to. It’s fucking scary! Especially the upstairs of the house—I kept looking over at Chooch, expecting him to be in tears, but he held it together way better than I did. I just kept nervously laughing because I didn’t want him to start mimicking my own fear. There was one part where some asshole guy told us we had to play hide and seek and then yelled for us to run and if I had grown up with an alcoholic dad, that PROBABLY would have given me terrible flashbacks of repressed memories. Anyway, we ran straight into a hallway that had all those old, heavy clothes hanging in it—I couldn’t breathe in there and all these bloody people were screaming at us to run and I wanted to cry especially because JANNA was in front and she was literally moseying along like we weren’t potentially about to get slaughtered. Thanks, Janna. The last part of the house was a day-glo Alice in Wonderland theme and I really loved it but it wasn’t scary. Then we hung out for a little bit afterward and watched some of “Ghostbusters” on the movie screen outside while Chooch and Janna drank their hot beverages like elderly people and Chooch almost left behind his stupid stuffed dog, which miraculously made it through the entire haunted house under Chooch’s jacket, and then the dumbass sets it down on a picnic table afterward and walks away. Then I missed a turn on the way home and we ended up on some un-lit backroad with a truck tailgating us and Chooch almost started to cry. The end.
• Cavern of the Dead: Henry and I were going to go to the Trundle Manor halloween party on this night, but I was feeling grumpy and VERY anti-social, also totally lazy in regards to putting together a costume. So instead we decided to go to dinner and a haunted house, but since it was November 2, our options were limited. Then I saw that Cavern of the Dead in Wampum, PA was still open and I thought Henry was going to be all, “THAT IS TOO FAR AWAY AND ALSO TOO EXPENSIVE. YOU AREN’T WORTH THAT.” But instead he was like, “Whatever you want to do” which I’ve learned over the years is his canned response when he’s losing all will to live. Since it was kind of far away though, I decided that we should just go to Sheetz and get sandwiches to go, so Henry started driving down all of these scary, dark roads and god forbid I had the nerve to ask him a question and this is how that panned out: Me: “WHERE ARE WE?!”
  Henry: “DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT. JUST SIT IN THE CAR & SHUT UP.” Thank god he actually was just taking me to Sheetz though and then he pouted because he apparently wanted to go to a real restaurant but didn’t say anything so he ended up not eating dinner that night, boo hoo. Anyway, Cavern of the Dead was amazing. I even accidentally found something online that said if I liked their Facebook page, I could get a FREE ticket for that night, so it only cost us $20 instead of food for the week! And there was only one other couple there, so we waited in approximately zero lines. Cavern of the Dead is literally in a mine, and it was really wet and muddy in there from all the rain we’d been getting, thank god I was wearing my WHITE TOMS. Anyway, I feel like this one wouldn’t have been scary at all if it had been a busy night, but since we were alone, I screamed like a bitch through the whole thing. Then a zombie made me hug him. We got to ride on some kind of mine bus thing that took us even further into the mine AND THEN SHUT THE LIGHTS OFF OMG even Henry was whimpering. Blah blah blah, there was a really frustrating hallway of doors that were all dead ends and some girl kept singing, “No, over here! You’re going the wrong way!” and Henry was all, “I hope she wasn’t 13 because I bumped into her boobs a lot of times.” Then Henry asked me to marry him on the way home and I said sure.

And that sums up the 2013 Haunted House Experience. Ciao for now.

When I brought out my “Christmas decorations” at work the other day, I got all sentimental over my beloved voodoo Santas that Andrea and I made almost two years ago. TWO YEARS AGO! :(  So I thought it would be fun to re-post this for Throwback Thursday. It also includes a link to the original tutorial by my crafting genius friend Brandy, you know, if you felt so inclined to make your own.

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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.

• I’m currently combating Holiday Season Depression. One of my strategies was to host a small, informal Thanksgiving at our Pit of Despair so that we’re not roaming around, hoping someone will take us in at the last minute.  I got Henry on board and even officially named it Hanksgiving (get it? Henry –> Hank? HANKSgiving? Because Henry will be doing everything on his own?!) and then set the time for later in the evening so that it could be like a second dinner for my friends who have real family. I think only Laura, Mike and Janna are coming, but at least it’s better than just me, Henry and Chooch eating at a Chinese buffet. So now I have side dish researching to keep me busy, which Henry just loves, because I always pick the things that involve expensive ingredients. And I’m also excited to have an excuse to pull out the pie pedestals and use them for hors d’oeurves and the homemade cheese that Henry is going to make! (Oh yeah, Henry—you’re making homemade cheese.) We’re hoping Blake, Robbie and Corey will make an appearance, too. Henry is still wildly against the idea of me finding a random homeless person to bring to dinner. :(

• Chooch was sick all weekend and it was so sad and pathetic. I told him Hershel (if you don’t watch The Walking Dead, just skip to the next bullet) was watching over him and he got all panicky and said, “He might think I have the virus and stab me in the head!!!” He was miraculously well enough to go to the zoo on Sunday though, even though it was raining steadily all day. Kris Letang (one of the Pittsburgh Penguins) was there with his son, getting a private tour. Henry saw him through the glass of one of the restricted areas and sent me a picture of his back. Thanks, Henry.
• Aside from a morning jog in the cemetery, I didn’t go anywhere at all this past Saturday (see: Chooch was sick). This is a fucking miracle, really. Instead, I got completely sucked into one of the new shows on the CW, “Reign.” It’s about Mary Queen of Scots and kind of “Gossip Girl”y and everyone is so fucking pretty to look at it, plus it’s on THE CW, hello. Of course I’m going to like it. So I power-watched five episodes in a row and Henry wanted to kill himself. That show and “The Originals” are totally ruling my TV time right now. (Plus, The Walking Dead, Homeland and American Horror Story. And hockey games.)

• Henry took my umbrella when he went to the zoo on Sunday (MY umbrella!!!!) so in retaliation, I wore this hair thingie that he totally shamed me for buying last year. (See also: I watched five episodes of “Reign.”)
• A group of us are doing Secret Santa at work! Today was the name-drawing event. The hardest for me is definitely going to be keeping my mouth shut (and my fingers off the blog) about it until it’s over next month. I haven’t done a Secret Santa since I worked at the Tina and Eleanore Company back in 2007 and of all people, Tina was my Secret Santa. Sometimes I really miss that place. Even though I still have no idea what I actually did there.
  • On my wish list, I put “cheap jewelry; exotic, weird fruit; nail polish.” It took me awhile to think of realistic things. If I knew for sure Debbie S. would draw my name, I would have just put “photos of dead people; more photos of dead people; all of the photos of dead people.” But there are people participating in this fun little event who might not know that I enjoy photos of dead people, and then who knows what would happen.
• Speaking of Secret Santa, the last time I was a someone’s Santa, I was happy to unload this dangerously sharp wrought iron picture frame that some strange broad gifted me at my baby shower in 2006. I would have also given her the out-of-date boxes of Tasty Cakes that came with the frame, but I had already thrown those away. I had a really weird baby shower.

Marcy through a tube.

• You probably don’t remember, but many, many months ago I alluded to the fact that me and my bestie Andrea of My Pretty Zombie fame were going to team up and make an eye shadow collection based on my stupid blog, in which “team up” loosely translates to “Andrea does all of the hard stuff while I sit back and giggle.” But then I k ept dropping the ball on my LONE TASK, which was designing the labels. I blame Henry for buying a new computer and upgrading Photoshop. I am practically paralyzed by change. I hate it. And so I just stopped using it, like any other five-year-old would do. I mean, I was barely even using my good camera anymore because the thought of having to edit photos in that newfangled Photoshop contraption made me seethe. But then last week, I sucked it up and dove in. And just like that, the Oh Honestly Erin Collection is pretty much ready to be launched on Black Friday, you guys! It’s going to be awesome! I can already attest that the colors are fabulous, because Andrea sent me samples last year. Next week, I’ll be having a giveaway for TWO SETS! That means TWO PEOPLE can win, just in case you forget how to do math as much as I do. Below is a sneak peek at one of the new shades, Melon Shirt! Um, and I promise I won’t make you jump through hoops like I typically do when I host giveaways. I can’t help it—I was actually born this obnoxious.

•  Yesterday at work, I randomly stumbled across this ice cream company in Portland that churns out the most amazing flavor combinations, weird pairings that make a lot of people dry-heave but make my taste buds come alive like depressed drag queens at a Lady Gaga concert. I was like, “Who else here would appreciate this? Oh, right, my Weird Fruit Bestie Chris!” So I sent her the link and her response was “PEAR AND BLUE CHEESE!? YES.” (Just pretend that I actually checked my emails for her verbatim reply, thanks.) So then we did what normal people would do and discuss the possibilty of traveling to Portland just to eat their hipster ice cream and Voodoo Doughnuts, when I noticed that you CAN ORDER PINTS ONLINE!!! Unfortunately, they come in 5 one-pint sets. And it’s $65. So I frantically texted Henry, “Can I buy five pints of ice cream for $65?” and his immediate response was “no.” HE DIDN’T EVEN ASK ME WHAT KIND!? Chris asked her girlfriend Monica who is way less Henry-ish and CONTROLLING but even she was like, “Well, I mean, it’s your money, but….” And then I had a brilliant idea! CHRIS AND I COULD GO HALVSIES!! We were excitedly talking about it at Chris’s desk when Mean Amber2 and Lauren asked us WTF was going on so we started telling them about all of the flavors and Mean Amber puked up some of mer meanness and Lauren was like, “No, that’s disgusting” until she went to their website and saw that they have Coffee and Bourbon so now she’s considering partnering up with us. This is basically a lot of words to say: I AM GOING TO MAYBE BE EATING SOME FUCKING WEIRD ICE CREAM SOON. (Not all of their flavors are “weird,” just the ones Chris and I care about.)
• My Jonny Tree is back in action!

• We’re pretty much done with the paper mache portion of a project we’re working on. Hopefully the next two stages pan out the way I hope. Meanwhile, Henry is totally obsessed with himself now because he thinks he’s so fucking great at paper mache and actually said he hopes that Chooch needs to make something for school soon so then the school can also see how fantastic Henry is. STFU, seriously. Go build a car or something like a real man.
• My friend Lisa had a baby girl last month! Her name is Genevieve and I got to hold her last week! That’s more of an exclamation of horror. Don’t get  me wrong—that child is adorable! But it”holding a baby” is not something that comes naturally to me, even after having one of my own. Lisa said I did fine though, so there. Sometimes I REALLY WANT A BABY. But then I remember those dark and lonely nine months and I snap out of it. Except that two weekends ago, it came up in conversation again and I was all, “Let’s just do it” but then Henry pointed out that my due date would be around next summer’s Warped Tour so then I was like, “Just scratch my back instead.” I feel like I told you this story already, but maybe I’m mixing up my social media.

• I listened to Barbara Streisand’s “Guilty” album the other day and it made me so happy/sad. She will always be the GREATEST FEMALE SINGER in my opinion. And her songs remind me of all the good parts of my childhood, especially sitting at the kitchen counter at my pappap’s house on a Saturday night, eating grilled cheese and getting ready to watch the Golden Girls and Empty Nest, and sometimes Hunter if I could stay awake. I miss my pappap all of the time, but even more during the stupid holidays. I wish my mom could get it together long enough for us to have a peaceful holiday meal together. Unfortunately, she’s even worse than ever.
• THE PENGUINS ARE WINNING 1-0 AGAINST THE STUPID CAPITALS!
• I’ve been embroiled in the age-old “should I get bangs again?” quandary. UGH, I JUST DON’T KNOW.
• I’m a LITTLE BIT on edge because I’ve been locked out of my stupid Simpons Tapped Out game since Monday. MONDAY! I even brought Chooch’s phone (my old iPhone) to work with me yesterday so that I could log on as myself on his game. I have a real problem. :(
• PENGUINS ARE BEATING THE CRAPITALS 2-0!!!

It’s that time of year! Whether you like it or not, you’re probably already having the yuletide shoved in your mouth like an unwashed weener, son. Perhaps some serial killer Christmas cards will make the season more palatable? Or not. I’m proud to say that I’m up to 17 different holiday card designs this year! I bet my deceased grandma is also super proud that her only granddaughter has accomplished so much….in the serial killer greeting card industry.

For those who are new around here, I started making these cards as a joke in 2006 when a Christmas Card exchange was going around LiveJournal. I wanted to participate too because I love getting mail, but I couldn’t bear to buy boxes of some shitty Thomas Kinkaide-inspired Christmas card. I guess a normal person who had just given birth to her first child that year would have just sent out photo-cards with said child’s mug plastered on it. But c’mon. That’s not who I am. So I got the idea to make tongue-in-cheek serial killer cards, not because I’m a “fan” of serial killers or condone violence (well….it has its time and place), but because I wanted to do something that would shock my unsuspecting friends when they withdrew my card from its envelope. And the response was fantastic! Even from my straighter-laced friends! So I decided to polish the cards up a bit (the originals were handmade—LITERALLY; I cut and pasted all of the faces onto folded pieces of cardstock and then handwrote everything in silver gel pens) and threw some up on Etsy just to see what would happen. Seven years and (only!) two “HOW DO YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT!?!?” Etsy convos later, Henry and I are still chugging along and have even expanded our line. Granted, it’s very niche and not very lucrative, but it’s fun to provide people as twisted as myself with an alternative to all of that Hallmark garbage. And I even got to make someone serial killer vow renewal invitations!

And now I’m going to take a few minutes of your time now to pimp out some of the newest cards in the series. The first two were new for the 2012 season, and the last one was made just this morning.

Aileen Wuornos

Need a date to your office holiday party and have no idea how you’re going to ask that vagabond who’s been popping a squat behind the hardware shop for the last 4 months, drinking dog urine out of an old tin can of baked beans?

Measures approx. 5X7″; comes with an envelope – we keep it classy over here.

Richard Speck

He only meant for it to be a good old burglary. Goddammit.

Comes with an envelope, which can then be used as a nurse’s cap.

Carl Panzram

When Carl Panzram was 14, he was gang-raped by a group of hobos. He then grew up to murder 21 people and sodomize 1000s of men. Hell hath no fury like a man violated by hobos.

Give this card to your favorite person to let them know that this is not the future you want for them. It’s a really sweet card when you think about it!

This card comes with an envelope, which you can either use to mail the card in or light it on fire a la Mr. Panzram, who also dabbled in arson.

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And if these names aren’t in your wheelhouse, I’ve got a slew of other big-namers over at non compos cards, like Manson, Bundy, Dahmer…and don’t forget to check out the Valentines, too!

Readers of this blog can enjoy a 20% discount too by entering “ohhonestlyerin” in the coupon code box at checkout. Good until 12-5-13! Pass it on!

I know I’m supposed to be on this stupid diet or whatever, and I swear to god that I’m mostly good about it, but sometimes my sweet tooth prevails. And it can get pretty scary when I try to fight it, so I just basically throw my arms up and concede.

It’s fine when it’s only one “bad” thing per weekend, but this past weekend I really went hog wild. I couldn’t help it. Sometimes you just have to have your fucking cake, you know?

It all started on Friday when I went to lunch with some of my bosses and co-workers. We went to a new-ish pizza place called Proper, except that by calling it a “pizza place” gives the impression that it’s some ordinary bullshit Domino’s. It’s not. They use all kinds of fancy, fresh ingredients and their seasonal menu stopped me dead.

First of all, they had a Harvest Pizza, which had a pumpkin puree sauce, squash, nutmeg, globs of some sort of wonderful homemade cheese that I forget, and sausage which I ordered without. But this is not the point of this post. The point is that also on the seasonal menu was a QUINCE AND PERSIMMON COBBLER, are you fucking kidding me. You guys know that persimmons are basically my favorite fruit other than apples, right? Well, now you know.

I didn’t order it for two reasons:

1. I didn’t want to be That Person who ordered dessert when no one else did, because I wasn’t with a group of people I was all that comfortable with, and I also wasn’t paying for myself. (That probably would have been most people’s go-ahead to order dessert, but I have a Guilt Complex, OK?)
2. One of our bosses ordered two flights of beer so we all could have one without getting too hammered, and I was fortuitous enough to choose an apricot wheat that didn’t activate my gag reflex! In other words, I was able to drink all of my beer and felt pretty full.

Alas, I went back to work with no persimmon cobbler stuffed inside myself. And I pretty much spent the rest of the day thinking about it. And also that night. And then the next day, too. I feared that this could be a repeat performance of the Waffle-copia Letdown. I just can’t go through that again. Not so soon.

And that is how Henry got suckered into driving downtown Saturday evening and grabbing thsi sacred and seasonal cobbler to go. And then he proceeded to get stuck in Pitt football traffic on his way home, which I would normally laugh about except that MY HOUSE MADE VANILLA BEAN ICE CREAM WAS MELTING.

GODDAMNIT.

It was still so fucking good though. I have only ever eaten persimmons fresh and on their own, never baked alongside quince and sweet crumbly things! Mother lord, I can’t wait for Henry to perfect this recipe. I don’t give a shit that this picture looks like a pile of dirty albino vomit. I just wanted to eat the fucking thing.

***

On Sunday, I had plans to go to the grand opening of French patisserie Gaby et Jules with Corey and Janna. This classy joint has technically been open since August, but they celebrated their grand opening all weekend long and the reason I really wanted to go was because I saw “free samples!” And I am a sucker for the free shit.

However, it was rainy and miserable all day on Sunday, and I was starting to feel those initial twinges of Sickness. I almost bailed on Corey and Janna, but goddamn am I glad I didn’t!

So excited for French shit!

I learned that “et” means “and” in French and that diets can GTFO when it comes to patisseries et macarons. It was a really cultural day on so many levels.

When we walked in, I was prepared to be treated like your basic Walmart Shopper looking for Twinkies and Ding Dongs. But instead, the people behind the counter were super friendly! God, I can’t believe Janna judged them on their accents. She was so sure they were going to be dicks!

(That’s how it happened, right Janna?)

HATS!! Gaby et Jules’ Instagram account really had me hyped for hats.

After a nice lady plied us with samples of their new Noel collection (so delicious and out of my pay grade), we proceeded to stand in everyone’s way and act like complete dessert dunces. It was so overwhelming! And that was before I even turned my attention toward the macarons.

Luckily, everyone was very helpful and jovially answered us when we jabbed our grubby fingers at things like mute hitchhikers. A very proper Frenchman even offered us more samples and when I said we had already been given some, he laughed and thrust the small paper cups toward us once more. “Bonjour! Have another! Oui Oui!”

I don’t know. It went something like that, anyway.

I ended up buying one patisserie each for myself and Chooch, plus a white chocolate basil macaron and a pumpkin macaron just for my own piggy mouth.

The woman who administered our first round of samples was the one who rang me up and she broke character long enough to tell me that she likes my purse. (Ha ha, Chooch! IN YOUR FACE!) It was like being in a haunted house and having Jason Voorhees lift up his hockey mask to tell you that he likes your Nickelback hoodie. Seemed weird.

I mean, she could have at least said “le purse.”

Once the three of us were sufficiently patisseried, we went to a coffee shop across the street so we could indulge like True French. This was actually Janna’s first good suggestion in approximately eight years, so I have to hand it to her. I was prepared to just eat my purchases with my hands in Janna’s backseat.

Corey’s lemon boob. It was delightful! I will probably get this the next time I’m there, because I love when things are lemon.

We each ordered a different holiday specialty latte. My soy pumpkin was great but I wish I had went with plain coffee to offset the sweetness of my French spread.

Corey Instagramming his glistening lemon boob, croissant and passion fruit macaron.

Janna got a rasberry cylinder and a caramel cylinder. She saved the caramel one for later but I can attest that the raspberry one was really great! Perhaps she can tell my two readers what the caramel thing was like in a comment. Go on, Janna.

I got the L’Orient, not to be confused with L’Oreal, which I had been salivating over since the first time I saw this glorious green creation on their website. I LOVE pistachio-flavored things and if that’s an option, I will usually pick it every time. Especially if it’s gelato. Sorry that these pictures are so banged up but do you really think I was about to sit in a coffee shop and food-style when this log of L’Orient could be in my mouth? No. It’s amazing I had the restraint to take a picture at all.

That chocolate thing up there was for Chooch. First he told me to bring him back a cupcake but when I was like, “French people don’t care about cupcakes” he said, “I don’t know. Chocolate, then.” Just chocolate. I took my task seriously and made sure that I chose the thing that had the most kinds of chocolate. Henry took Chooch to the zoo that morning so I needed to compete with that.

After Corey, Janna and I succeeded in putting ourselves in a sugar coma, we deemed the day a win and vowed to turn “Frenching up our palates” into a habit. Crepes are definitely on the agenda.

A door that has nothing to do with French foodstuffs.

Chooch and Henry were on the loose when I got home, so I took some time to get Chooch’s Le Royal Chocolat plated and ready to be presented to him on bended knee. And of course he turned his nose up at it.

“BUT THAT IS A REAL GOLD FLAKE ON TOP!” I cried, and that was enough to make him backtrack and give it a whirl.

This is his “I’ll tell you if it’s any good” face. He declared it delicious, or course. I mean, its entire consistency is chocolate, how bad can it really be? I strong-armed him for a taste and I can hereby attest that it was DIVINE. And not in a John Waters sense.

Then Henry was all, “Wah, let me have some too” and we shouldn’t have given him ANY since he acted like he’s better than a French bakery when I asked him if he wanted anything. What a l’douchebag.

To summarize: Gaby et Jules needs to open a second shop in my backyard. The landlord just sent some inbreds to weedwhack our mini-rainforest back there, so there’s plenty of room!

GHOUL MANSION:

when we were in line a bloody nurse tried to lick us not daddy though. When we were inside we had to go down in the basement we got separated from henrys beard we had to stand in the dark which we didn’t have to it was all erin’s idea. erin was too scared to move and leave daddy alone I thought she hated daddy!

this dude came and scared us and we said “where is henry?!” and the dude said “I ate him” and we were like “no seriously” he was like “HENNNRRRY!!!!!” Then when we went around the corner after henry finally came back a clown had one of those little horn things and it was like BEEEEEP.

then we had to go up steps and a kid was down there and was like “Can I eat you” and then we finally got up the steps. and then like four rooms later we were walking down this hall then the same kid that was under the steps saying can I eat you and I was like “aw crap” in my mind. and he was like “remember me? I was under the steps! I wanted to eat you! can I eat you alive? can I eat you alive” and then finally we got through that hall and had to go through another hall and that kid was still following us. henry was in front of us and I was like “i’m gonna push you” I said that to the kid, so I pushed him and still I couldn’t get past him.

“I gave a high five to a clown it was awesome I really liked the haunted house”.(:

DEMON HOUSE

Erin got off work at nine picked up JANNA “GOD FORBID” Erin got lost because Henry gave us bad directions mommy scared me bad. Mommy lied to me and said that demon house wasn’t scary. when we finally got there, well we didn’t get to the haunted house yet, we had to drive on a bus because mommy crashed into a tree, just kidding. there was no one there so we didn’t have to stand in line. I brought Murder Victim with me, a stuffed dog.

when we got to the demon house for real we sat by a fire and a dude called our number so we had to go up and he talked to us about something and made janna knock on the door. it wasn’t scary though. it was just a cave. like a fake cave made out of fake stone. it was like a mine. Murder Victim was scared.

Once we got out of the cave we had to walk through a forest and then this clown said “follow me!” Then we heard vrrrrooooooooom three chainsaw guys came out of the forest we pushed Janna into one. Me and mommy went the wrong way one chainsaw guy said “that way.” Then we got to the real haunted house.

I hate writing.

My favorite part inside the house was going upstairs and playing hide and seek when these two people wanted to play hide and seek and they said “if you find ME, you’ll be dead!! If you find HER you’ll be safe!” So we found her. In the second room this guy said IS THIS YOUR MOMMY I was like “yeah who the eff would she be??” He was like “well she’s a terrible mom for bringing you here!!!”

Oh yeah at the end of the haunted house Dr Who was there! He was like ready for time travel? Scream YAY TIME TRAVEL! Louder! YAY TIME TRAVEL! I can’t hear you, louder! So we had to go through this maze thing that wasn’t really a maze he was like GO THAT WAY!

I like Dr Who.

At the end, Janna god forbid wanted APPLE CIDER but I wanted hot chocolate.

What a good day for hot chocolate.

I got to have a glow stick and we sat and watched Ghostbusters first then when that was over we say by the fire. It was really warm. I put Murder Victim on Janna’s lap and Erin was like “where’s Murder Victim?” I was like on Janna’s lap you dumbass! But before that I lost him for real but I got him back.

I liked Demon house I was not scared. Erin and Janna were.

My brother Corey and I have had plans for several weeks now to  take a tour of Nemacolin Castle on Sunday. I was really excited because it seems like the kind of place perfect for giggling in corners while old people on the tour finger doilies and say things like, “Oh my!” when given historical facts. Also, we were going to have lunch at a place where we could also buy a firearm and have our computer fixed.

However, when I went to Nemacolin’s website yesterday to verify that I knew where the hell we were going, I was met with large red letters that stated:

Nemacolin Castle is Currently Closed While It Retools For Christmas Candle Light Tours!

Whomp whomp.

I texted Corey, who was equally as devastated, but we refused to give up. We tossed around ideas of touring a mine and some park in West Virginia that has rusted farm equipment strewn about. “What about a winery?” Corey suggested and I was definitely on board with that. There is one that’s actually in the same area as Nemacolin, but Corey called and they aren’t doing tours because some asshole had to go and leave town.

Then I found one closer to Pittsburgh and nothing about it really seemed all that revolutionary or postcard-worthy, until I found it. The Picture.

And then this happened:

So then it was determined for sure that the Narcisi Winery was going to have to show these two motherfuckers around its facility. Because now we were OBSESSED. It HAD to be this winery! No other!

I called this morning, because I learned on the website that 48 hours advance notice was needed for a tour. When I was greeted by an elderly woman, I knew, JUST KNEW, it had to be Broad.

“Tour?” she repeated me in a very WTF tone. “Oh, I don’t know anything about that.”

I insisted that I saw it on the website, and at that point I could hear her shuffling papers around.

“Oh, I don’t know what the hell happened,” she disgruntedly sighed, and then began asking me normal reservation-ish questions, such as “how many people?” and “will you be having lunch also?” so I began to feel hopeful. “OK, Roberto will call you back and either confirm or, I don’t know, tell you otherwise, I guess,” she said, and suddenly my Boob of Hope started to sag a little. In the meantime, Corey and I were having a texting flurry.

“This sounds very promising that Broad will be there,” he said, “and possibly a guy named Roberto.” So then we suddenly also became obessed with Roberto.

Dorothy called me back herself and I knew it was going to be Bad News Bears when her tone had suddenly changed from Harried Wine Pourer to Sympathetic Grandma. Turns out no one was going to be there on Sunday to give a tour, but there was one tomorrow at the same time. I told her I’d have to call back after discussing with Corey.

And when I did, a very bored-sounding guy answered and was like, “That’s great. You’ll have to talk to Roberto.” AND THEN I GOT TO TALK TO ROBERTO!

Mean Amber2 told me that she’s been to this winery numerous times and, in her typical “You’re a dummy!” tone, she said, “I DON’T THINK THAT THEY GIVE TOURS THERE, ERIN.” She loves making me sad. But too bad Sandy and I had just had a conversation about this and SANDY said that her mom recently went there on a bus with old people and that she had a wonderful time and the winery provided lots of fun activities for them.

So now obviously Corey and I are hoping that we get to play wine BINGO.

“I hope there actually is a tour,” Corey texted me after I told him about Mean Amber2’s tour-ignorance.

“There better be,” I replied. “Roberto made me pre-pay.”

Anyway, Mean Amber2 knew exactly who I was talking about when I asked her “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE OLD LADY.” Mean Amber2 insists that we should see Broad as soon as we walk in, because she’s the wine pourer.

“She’s always there,” Mean Amber2 said. “If you don’t see her—”

“—she’s DEAD!” I interjected.

“Um, yeah. Or, she’s just NOT THERE,” Mean Amber2 said meanly.

She didn’t know Roberto, though.

Later, she even emailed me a picture of her from the website and asked “Is this the woman?” No, that’s the BROAD, Amber. God.

So. yeah. The whole point of this is that my brother and I will be going to a winery next Sunday, but unlike normal people who visit wineries for the wine-tasting and wine-learning, we are going for a broad, Roberto and a fucking Tuscan sundae.

And potentially BINGO.

Last night after work, Henry, Chooch and I met our favorite Castle Blood friends (Ricky, Dawn, Chris, Kari and Katelyn) at Cambod-Ican Kitchen on the Southside for some late night dinner. The last time I saw them, we were going through Castle Blood so we couldn’t very well stop the tour and talk about the weather with them. Dinner was definitely in order!

I was so fucking hungry by the final hour I was here at work that I was full-on chewing on my hair. (My friend Kara lectures me about this all of the time, but I can’t help it!) I don’t generally go out after work since my shift is so ridiculously inconvenient (I need to work on changing that, and if the Fates are reading this, I DO NOT MEAN THAT I WOULD LIKE TO BE FIRED), but if we waited until the weekend, I would not have gotten to see my friend Dawn before she returns to Canada. And that’s just bullshit. Thankfully, almost immediately after we sat down, Cambod-Ican Dan slide two plates of Moon Sauce-bathed wontons down on the table and I was like “FUCK YES!” and then “HOW DO I EAT THESE?!” because I’m really weird about picking up food with my hands. (Don’t worry, I figured it out.) They were so delicious that even CHOOCH ate them and he is so goddamn picky when it comes to eating things that haven’t been shat from a vending machine or boxed by General Mills.

We had to beg Chooch on the way there not to be an asshole.

He reaches that point at night where he basically goes insane and you never which way it’s going to go: careening down It’sNotFunnyAnymore Avenue or wanting to drown myself in the Here’sDamien Canal. Luckily, he wasn’t being too bad, but he did get pretty hyper by the end of the night because his GIRLFRIEND Katelyn was there. He even breakdanced at one point, which is proper restaurant etiquette in Pittsburgh, not bad parenting.

Chooch and Katelyn mostly competed with each other over who knows more math and on one hand I was like, “Wow, this is awesome to hear kids giving a shit about math!” but on the other hand, I was like, “But I don’t give a shit about math, so STFU.”

Also, I was a little bit on edge because my Simpsons: Tapped Out app WOULD NOT FUCKING WORK for me almost all day! I was waiting for goddamn Spinster City Apartments to finish building, too. It was a big day for my fucking Springfield, so thank you EA Games for fucking my life with a pine cone.

Henry made everyone laugh and it was so annoying.

Chooch was trying to hide behind a chair (thank god we were the only diners there) from Katelyn and everyone was like, “She is totally going to see you, asshole” and then Henry was like, “He gets his poor hiding skills from his mother.” I got super defensive about this because I AM GOOD AT HIDING, so I reminded Henry of the time Chooch and I hid from him in a wheat field and he had no idea where we were.

“Yeah, and I didn’t care, either.”

Chris actually choked on his water and Henry was SO SMUG. He’s going to be riding THIS horse for weeks. Maybe even longer.

But then all of the grown-ups had to figure out the bill so it got really serious.

Chris said his favorite part was when Chooch stunned Dan by not only ordering tofu, but actually knowing what tofu is and liking it. THAT’S MY BOY. We also bullied him into eating a dragon pepper. That didn’t go over as well.

Here is Henry’s review:

Normally, I don’t like beef at Asian restaurants, but this beef was good.

PLEASE start a food blog.

In other news, I can’t wait for Dawn to move here. She likes crafting so I’ll be able to say, “Here Dawn, turn this Band-Aid into a pillow” and then she also loves to bake so I can also say, “And when you’re done with my Band-Aid Pillow, bake me some snickerdoodles in Jonny Craig’s likeness.” And she will do those things.

Just like that!!

It was after 11 when we left. We’re all such great parents, keeping our young children out that late on the Southside of all places. The Catholic school moms reading this will probably have a lot to say!

Anyway, what a great night. It’s always so good seeing my haunter friends because who else really gives a shit about how I rate all of the haunted houses I went to this year?

SHAMELESS PROMOTION: I’m really looking forward to the Castle Blood Christmas show on December 14th and 15th. If you live in the Pittsburgh area, you should totally go. You could even go with ME, OMG!!!

(They didn’t even pay for my dinner, and I STILL pimped them out! I guess I’m still riding on my Food Bank high.)