TOP from BIGBANG has officially enlisted in the Korean military, and then Taeyang posted this fan art on Instagram and Chooch and I literally cried. 

Real tears – you can ask Henry. Here, I’ll do it for you. 

Me: Henry what did me and Chooch do when TOP enlisted in the Korean military?

Henry: Is this a test? Cry?

PASS. 

Liking Kpop is the worst thing ever because groups disband constantly and super early in their careers, and then the boy groups all eventually have to enlist and in BIGBANG’s case, TOP is the first, and then supposedly G-Dragon and Taeyang will go later this year, and then Daesung and Seungri in 2018 (although some things I read said 2019 for Seungri). So it could be like 5 years until they’re all out and together again and who knows if they will continue as BIGBANG? I might never ever ever get to see them live and that makes my heart feel like its bloated with poisoned pond water. BIGBANG has been my security blanket these last several months, like from morning until I come home from work it’s all Misery Business, and then once I’m home it’s all LETS WATCH ANOTHER BIGBANG VIDEO/BIGBANG APPEARANCE ON A VARIETY SHOW/BIGBANG LIVE PERFORMANCE and I feel so happy and safe. 

Let me put this in perspective: I get notifications that Emarosa posted something on Instagram and I’m like, “oh. It’s just Emarosa.” It’s like BIGBANG has pushed every other band out of my heart — there is no room for anyone else to swim in the poison pond water! 

G-dragon was there with TOP when he got his military haircut yesterday and posted this picture, breaking a million+ hearts. 

Chooch wanted me to sign off with Last Dance, which will end up being the last song they ever made if they don’t continue as BIGBANG after all this dumb military stuff, ugh. </3 I need to find a support group. 

And my choice for the sign off of this depressing blog post is the equally depressing video for Haru Haru, which will actually make my eyes well up just by thinking about it. Also, I love young BIGBANG!

The balloons we got for the baby shower two weeks ago are still lingering. I guess Henry paid like, a whole dollar extra for some sort of helium steroids. I don’t know. But there are numerous survivors, clinging on to their last high-pitched super helium breath.

It’s to the point where I’ve grown accustomed to having them in the house, like unpredictably relocating pieces of home decor.

Drew’s still not a fan though.

So I decided that now I need to always have balloons in the house. The current ones are almost all sunk so maybe this weekend I’ll go get more. WHAT COLORS THOUGH?!!

But then Henry snapped, “These fucking balloons have got to go!!” and started popping them right in front of me. What a brute!! TT.TT

I guess he forgot when I woke him up in the middle of the night last week to tell him that we need to always have balloons in the house and he said OK.

Here’s some weekend pictures and words, like a PICTUREBOOK. Which is really more than I’m capable of producing anymore. My brain. It’s deflating. For instance, today I couldn’t figure out why the elevator wasn’t coming and then I realized, “OH IT’S BECAUSE I’M STANDING HERE SLAPPING MY ID BADGE AT THE BUTTON INSTEAD OF ACTUALLY PRESSING IT WITH MY FINGER.”

Anyway, proceed to the bullets.

• There was only one low point to the weekend and of course it was Boots related. First, here’s a picture of his refrigerator, a/k/a his bedroom window ledge. I think I mentioned recently that he has some dude living over there now. Well, they were fighting like TWO BITCHES Saturday morning. From what I could gather, Boots was angry because Guy had his bedroom door locked, and Guy was like, “BECAUSE I’M TRYING TO REST, MOTHERFUCKER! I JUST WANT TO DRINK MY COFFEE AND EAT MY FUCKING DONUT WITHOUT YOU BOTHERING ME!” and then Boots was all “*BACKWOODS BARKING*” and all I could get out of it was “RENT” and Guy was like, “I PAY MY RENT MOTHERFUCKER! YOU’RE THE ONE WHO DOESN’T HAVE ANY MONEY!” and then more shit about how Boots doesn’t have any friends (the recurring theme here is friends and money) and then Guy said something about going in his bag and seeing that three packs were missing so it sounds like Boots is stealing from him, JUST LIKE HOW HE STOLE PHYLLIS’S CEREAL! It sounds like Boots was following him around the house like a pest, and then Boots left and slithered down the street like Gumby (that’s what Todd calls him because he said when I was imitating him at work, I looked like Gumby).
  • The rest of the day was SLAM SLAM SLAM with that front door and finally I straight lost my mind and started screaming at the wall and Henry hissed, “ERIN STOP” but I couldn’t! I have so much pent up rage from every part of my life that I just funneled it all out against our shared wall and called him every insulting synonym for “uneducated motherfucker” that I could muster and I started throwing my shoes against the wall for good measure and Henry was just like, “OK whatever, you cant be stopped.”
    • My favorite part was later that night when we were walking home from Eat n Park and Boots was walking down the sidewalk toward us, which made me excited because I wanted to do something, and I could see Henry visibly clench and attempt to grab my wrist which is what that big brute does when he’s trying to box me in (lol, just kidding – he can’t contain me), but it was too late: as Boots passed us, I started making full-body vomiting noises, which naturally cracked up Chooch but totally disappointed Henry. “Why do you have to act like that?!” he cried, and then stormed off ahead of his preteen kids.

• Henry made gyeranmari for breakfast on Sunday and I said a low key religious spell in my head so that I NEVER EVER EVER LOSE HIM. Find yourself someone who can keep up when your lifestyle changes on a whim.

• That time Chooch was singing “Summer of ’69” and then it came on at Eat n Park. 🔮
• At some point over the weekend, I had to explain to Henry what “shipping” means, as in “I ship this fictional character with that fictional character” or like, “I ship Donald Trump with a fiery pit of acid tires.” He just can’t ever grasp the concept of shipping, I guess because he’s a 51-year-old man and not a teenager or 30-something woman on the Internet.

• Saturday evening nap (see also: proof that I sometimes “allow” #poorHenry to sleep).
• Guys, Chooch has finally crossed over to the beautiful Korean side of the house and has admitted that he likes BIGBANG and that TOP is his bias. He even designed his Sims character after TOP! I also tricked him into doing KpopX with me at first he was so put-out about it, but then last night he ripped his headphones off and cried, “You’re doing Russian Roulette without me?!?!” and ran over to join me in whipping my hands around like guns. He’s also really into a routine we do for Hyuna’s “How This” which is basically one long aggressive pelvic thrust.
  • Speaking of Sims, Chooch had a 45 minute meltdown Saturday night because he couldn’t get TOP to go into his house, and then, very calmly, he said, “Oh. I didn’t have a door on my house.” And then the house went back to being quiet. LOL JK our house is never quiet are you kidding. It sounds like one endless concert in here always.

• Fucked with Chooch’s hair and seriously peed my pants a little when it came out like this. I made him an actual hair appointment for Friday and he chose one of TOP’s hairstyles to show the barber! I tried not to squeal too loud because as soon as he knows that something pleases me, he’ll do the opposite.
• There’s a picture of the barber on the salon’s website and he looks like a total hipster so if he can’t curate Chooch’s locks in a similar fashion as TOP’s, I’m going to kick over his PBR.

• This is not the barber. This is TOP. He’s enlisting in the Korean military in TWO DAYS ugh. TT.TT

• My favorite thing about Sundays is that Chooch has his piano lesson and his teacher Cheryl lives minutes away from the Asian market mecca otherwise known as the Strip District. These are the only grocery stores I will willingly walk into. We stocked up on more dragonfruit and I bought more questionable candy for work. IT’S KIND OF WHAT I’M KNOWN FOR. Well, maybe just in certain circles.
  • Henry bought more Samanco for himself. He think he’s so fucking cool.
• Todd was so disappointed on Monday when I told him that not only did Henry not watch the Superbowl, but he WENT AND DID LAUNDRY during it and then came home and watched Korean variety shows with me and Chooch. “And he seemed content!” I said. “Henry’s killing me,” Todd said with faux-sadness.
  • Honestly, I really dislike football. I was really shocked that I even knew that the Patriots were in it! However, I for real have never even heard of the Falcons. I wasn’t convinced that it was a real team.

I think my new sign-off is just going to be a different BIGBANG video every time. Get into it or get over it. YOUR CHOICE.

Well guys, one of these days Chooch is going to smother me in my sleep and can you blame him? His little neighbor friend walked over when we were taking these pictures in the backyard, stopped abruptly, and then slowly backed away.

Chooch was like, “Great. Awesome. Thanks.” Meanwhile, he had told the kid that he couldn’t play right now because he was “doing chores.”

“Yeah, I’m uh…’doing the dishes’. I’ll be over in a half hour,” he said when the kid called him on Henry’s phone*. THIS IS MY LEAST FAVORITE NEIGHBORHOOD CHILD TOO. Of course he’d come snooping.

*(All the kids call Chooch on Henry’s phone. Chooch knows better than to give out my number. #kidallergy)

One of the things I wanted to do this year was actually use my half-broken camera more often instead of relying on my iPhone all the livelong day. Little did Chooch know that he was going to get roped into helping me uphold this fake resolution.

LOL who are we kidding, he totally knew.

This only took about 20 minutes though, and then he was back to being a normal 10-year-old kid again, running amok with that jerky neighbor kid.

“Just think,” I said. “Someday, we’ll have an entire portfolio of fashion shots for you to show your future girlfriends.”

“Future girlfriends? I’m not showing them this shit!”

Lol duh. That’s my job, dummy.

I made Chooch a hair appointment for this week, and I’m sure he’s really glad about that now after being tortured with hairspray and clips. I honestly can’t believe he lets me do this shit. Which makes me believe that he secretly finds this SO MUCH AWESOME FUN.

Right? Look how much fun he’s having!!

“FML.”

Oh well, I got paid back later when Henry went to do laundry, leaving me with the daunting task of making dinner for Chooch, and as if microwaving his French bread pizza wasn’t hard enough, he wanted it cut into quarters as well?! I BURNT MY HAND trying to cut that shit.

And then he could only eat three of the quarters because the one was rock solid from over-microwaving. So there.

Before I start off, I’d like to give a shout-out to the person who gave me this book, Octavia.

I just finished “Through The Woods” by Emily Carroll.

The book was really well  illustrated but one thing that I hated was how creepy she illustrated the teeth and how close she drew them, look closer. It’s hard to explain just look at it yourself.

The teeth were very crooked and deviously shaped and were very wide gapped.

The storyline was awesome, and there were five different stories that took place near the dark abyss also known as the woods, In most of the stories either the main character’s friend or sister/brother dies and it gets very creepy. Also Janna is in this story and I wont spoil the role she plays because you have to read it yourself to find out.

And honestly I recommend this to people who can handle horror I’m looking at you Janna and Mommy (Though I could just tell mommy because she’s beside me right now watching Big Bang videos, though I shouldn’t disturb her)

Next time maybe I’ll write about a book you recommend me to read… No history books plz!

Bonus here’s a book I’m reading that my mom and I made together. Most of you should have already heard of it because it was our gift to daddy for Fathers’ Day. But yeah just going through Memory Lane and looking at what we did in 2013!! Omg!

Signing off for now! Leave a suggestion in the comments for a next review. :P

The pros and cons of being a cat:

Pros- I’m a cat…

Cons- None to be heard of

-William Shakespeare

Things have been fantastic in Little Korea (that’s what Glenn calls my house)! I mean, everything else ranges from so-so to poo-poo, but I love being home these days, learning Kpop dances, trying to read Hansul, inhaling the stench of gochugaru permeating from the kitchen.

Honestly, open our refrigerator and see all the traditional Korean kitchen staples!

Which is why I think Henry doesn’t mind my new lifestyle as much as you would think. Henry is just really great at adapting to whatever phase/crisis I’m going through (Chooch is just really good at ignoring it altogether.) And if there are three things Henry FUCKING LOVES to do, it’s: cooking, grocery shopping, and watching instructional cooking videos on YouTube. So learning the ins and outs of Korean cuisine is a challenge he’s happily accepted.  (I don’t think he likes it when I call him oppa, though.)

And I love reaping the rewards! Henry makes some bomb jjigae! And I get to use chopsticks everyday!

Henry’s Hallyu Hell….or HEAVEN?!

We hit up the Asian markets every weekend and sometimes Henry even goes without me during the week, WTF?! When I found that out, I felt cheated.

Chooch is only interested in the Asian candy and ice cream, and is known to yell things like, “I wish Korea never happened to you!” to me. Chooch hates when I like something before he does.  However, I heard him in his room last week singing Black Pink so what’s up now, Chooch. I hear you.

Henry made me bibimbap for dinner last Sunday and I cried because it was so great and brought back memories of when I used to order that all the time at Ginza, back in the beginning of our relationship when we used to eat all sorts of international fare because we didn’t yet have the pickiest child in the world.

Exotic fruit salads back in action.

Henry treats himself to Samancos after eating his Korean dinner. He bought these FOR HIMSELF and when I ask him to share, he yells, “You have a box of B•B•Big in the freezer!” Well yeah, but I want something that’s not mine.

And now Henry’s mom is suddenly very interested in my new k-diet. When she was at our house last week, she sat enrapt on the couch hanging off my every word. Then I made her watch some KpopX routines and I pointed out my bias during a BIGBANG live video. She considered what she was watching and then said, “Yeah. I like this better than our music here. I don’t know what they’re saying, but I can tell they’re at least saying something. Unlike AMERICAN music.”

And there you have it. Judy’s kpop review. Maybe next time she’s here, I’ll live blog her reactions to Red Velvet and EXID videos.

***

Aside from food, we’ve been watching tons of Korean variety shows, especially the ones that have had BIGBANG on, because welcome to obsession. And you would think Henry would reject this, retreat to the bathroom and watch Blacklist on his phone in peace, work some more on the curious ditch he’s digging in the backyard….but no, he sits down and ACTUALLY LAUGHS! Sometimes he gets irritated if the subtitles aren’t good, which only means he’s afraid of missing out on something good.

Lately, we’ve been watching a lot of Running Man, Weekly Idol, Infinity Challenge, and the BIGBANG making-of reality show and every single time, I say, “He really is fabulous” when they refer to G-Dragon as the fabulous leader in the opening credits. And Henry just nods like it isn’t the 10th time he’s heard it this week. Anyway, last night’s viewing inspired this convo:

Henry: I read that Se7en is the reason things changed for celebrities in the Korean military.

Me: OMG you’re reading about Kpop on your own time?!

Henry: …what? No…on someone else’s time.

And then he mumbled something about wanting to know more than me.

Later, we were getting ready for bed and I noticed Penelope (see also: Peen Lop, Jon Benet, Penis) perched on my dresser.

Me: if Penelope was a member of BIGBANG, who do you think she’d be?

Henry, muffled by sleep: I dunno.

I thought for sure he wouldn’t answer, but then…

Henry: Taeyang.

Me: Good assessment! What about Drew?

Henry, no hesitation: Seungri.

Me: OMG I WAS GOING TO SAY THAT TOO

And then Henry mocked my laughter and fell asleep.

***

I guess this was my subconscious New Years Resolution. Like how some people quit smoking, I wanted to quit being the person I was in 2016 when all the shit happened. And I  just happened to be getting back into Kpop aerobics toward the end of the year and it all just kind of fell into place. All these Korean vlogs started playing on YouTube after I’d finish up a KpopX workout and before I knew it, I was learning about sasaeng and tteokbokki, and watching Canadians give a tour of their Korean apartments, and realizing that holy shit BIGBANG is so much more than just music for fun KpopX routines.

And then the next thing I knew, I had imprinted with Korea. A whole country this time. That’s how empty my heart is, it needs a whole entire country to fill it.

When Boots comes home and starts stomping around and slamming doors and fighting with his new roommate (some younger guy and they fight about the same shit he fought with Phyllis about: $$$$ and friends, or lack thereof in both cases), I giddily blast kpop so fucking loud and pretend like I’m South Korea and that motherfucker in North Korea.

And now this is honestly one of the few joys I have in life, and I am fucking bear-hugging it so step off.

***

I will conclude with this week’s Friday Video pick, because I felt everyone in my little group here at work needed some cheering up:

But even better, here is a video of MY BIAS G-DRAGON dancing to Cheer Up, which Amber2 and Lauren both said cheered them up even more than the actual song because G-DRAGON.

But then Amber mused, “Wow. I like his nude turtleneck. What look is he going for…like, Michael Jackson and….old office lady?”

And it was at this point that I had to remind everyone that he’s a fashion icon so BACK OFF.

Thank god it’s Throwback Thursday, because I’ve got nothing. Here’s a story about a time Chooch and I went geocaching together. It was a year ago. I don’t even have the energy to Throwback Thursday further than a year. Screaming in the woods sounds good right about now, but it’s cold and dark outside so instead I’m just going to dance to the Wonder Girls. #life
******
Chooch and I went geocaching last weekend and we are now, together, co-blogging about it. I’m not writing this with my hyperbolic plume either. This experience was particularly blood-boiling, and I have an extremely low boiling point to begin with.

Short-fused.

Tightly-wound.

Hot-headed.

I’m all of these things.

Hey its yo boy Chooch, I’m gonna tell you a little things about Geocaching. K, First things first, I learned about Geocaching in school in a book. Geocaching is basically a High-Tech Treasure Hunt Game where you get the app or go on a computer and look for a Gray, Blue, Orange, Light Green, or Dark Green dot and you click on it. It will tell you what the coords are and you just go look for it.

Erin here: I thought he learned about it from YouTube, so I am currently pleasantly surprised.

So I thought there wasn’t much to do, I thought me and mommy could go Geocaching. Daddy didn’t think it would go well, but I did. He said we would kill each other cause’ we’re so competitive. So we went on a Saturday and went to South Park. Because usually there is a lot of Geocaches in the park. As soon as we got there mommy flipped out. Two minutes in she just wanted to go home. I was in the wrong area the whole time.

Erin here: Geocaching with Chooch is terrible because he thinks he knows but HE DOES NOT KNOW. He took us to some area that had an older man like, DIGGING something or someone in the woods and we had to walk near him. That was incredibly unpleasant. Chooch was putzing around with the app and I kept screaming, “AREN’T THERE COORDINATES?! HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHERE TO LOOK?!?!” and we were literally just standing there, walking in tiny circles, staring at the ground and toeing rocks. Chooch isn’t wrong — two minutes in, I completely flipped my lid and screamed (and I mean BELLOWED), “This is fucking ridiculous! I am going THE FUCK HOME!” Volaries of birds burst out of a nearby tree. The man with the shovel was like “…the fuck is that lady’s problem?” and according to Chooch, everybody hated me when this happened.

“Everybody.”

We were in the fucking park in January! There were not many people around!

Except for a biker who said hello to me RIGHT AFTER MY OUTBURST and because I’m a fucking psychopath, I switched on Sweet Erin and jovially bid him a fine afternoon in the fakest fucking baby voice I could muster.

OH, SUCH DEMURE.

Back to Unicorn Chooch: After looking for like… 7 mins or so I was just looking through rocks, and I saw some weird looking rock. I felt the bottom and it was flat. I turned it over and it was a sliding rock cache. I found the cache. We put some inappropriate mommy cards* in there. I mean like the cards she makes. I was so happy. But… I forgot to bring a pen to sign it. So I made mummy go check the car for a pen.

No luck.

Me again: When I went to the car, some dumb elderly couple cheerfully said hello to me, as they were getting their idiot bikes out of their minivan. I said, “HI-YEEEEE!” in return and they kind of stepped back a little because I guess I sounded like I was being an asshole. BECAUSE I WAS.

*And he’s talking about my Totally Awesome Blog Cards, thanks!

I just put a card in and went on the app and said I found it. I wrote “Took forever I thought me and my mom would kill each other! My god”

So then mommy wanted to go home but I told her there’s one 0.3 miles away. We walked down a muddy trail next to a golf course.

There was a tree tipped over so it was like a tunnel. I wasn’t going off trail I was totes on trail. We got to some torn down outhouse because I thought it was right there but nope. Farther down by a log. I was getting stabbed in the leg by tons of thorns almost dying. Then I tried to climb over a log but fell. I could’ve died. Mummy couldn’t see because she was in some crack. Lol sounds weird.

Me, with anguish: Hello, it was a GORGE and I was trapped in it, OK?

Erin’s turn: Chooch had us going totally off-trail and it was getting late in the afternoon. I felt like I was on some Blair Witch expedition and bitch, I wasn’t dying for no fucking Tupperware container in the woods.

And then we get to these decrepit outhouse ruins and I thought for sure we were going to perish. I kept having future visions of tumbling into that hole and getting dragged down into Hell. Because that would be my luck.

So Henry and I used to occasionally go letterboxing back in the day, which was like the pioneer version of geocaching in that it didn’t give you GPS coordinates and you had to rely on good old-fashioned directions to find your booty. Like, turn right by the crushed Michelobe Lite can. The problem with this though is that most of the time, that fucking beer can wasn’t there anymore, you know? However, with this particular cache we were looking for, it said that it was near “an old source of water.” For some reason, Chooch felt that this meant “look for an ancient outhouse and try not to get murdered.”

Spoiler alert: it was not anywhere near the outhouse. Chooch fucking left me there and started scaling some mountain to get back to the trail that we had long-since abandoned and here’s something to add to the Erin Fact Book: I tend to get crippled with fear anytime I’m faced with walking down a steep hill. So it took a good five minutes of me standing millions of yards away from Chooch, screaming, “I CAN’T DO IT! I’M SCARED! WHY ARE YOU LEAVING ME!?” before I finally ran at full speed down the hill and then let momentum carry me up the other side of the “crack” as Chooch effectively called it.

I was rewarded by finding the stupid cache literally as soon as I joined Chooch on the other side. I stubbornly spat, “The clue said that it’s by an old source of water and I don’t see AN OLD SOURCE OF WATER” and then a split second later, I said, “Oh, right there” and pointed to a rusty water pump a few feet away.

And let me tell you, all of my homicidal rage completely evaporated and I was suddenly a completely different broad, jumping up and down and screaming, “Yay geocaching!”

So Chooch, back from playing GTA-V: We opened up the cache and put a card in. I took tw bouncy balls and a picture of a cat. I replaced it with the card.

We saw there was a bridge on the way back to the car we completely missed. I walked up really easily but on the way back down mommy cried for help and I was so disappointed in her. I thought she could do it until I told just to jump and she whined even more. Eventually like 24hours later she jumped.

Erin, Terrified of Heights: I WAS HIGH UP THERE, OK!? And I didn’t jump down. I cautiously and slowly scooted down. Anyway, it’s amazing how much my attitude changed after winning at geocaching. I practically skipped the whole way back to the car with a crown of blue birds swirling around my dome. Also, I was completely shocked at how calm and patient Chooch was during our trying times. He never gave up! So there’s one quality he didn’t get from me: the endurance of a champion quitter.

Bootiful horse ass! So cute with the tail and riders! I was like neigh and they were like moo! Then I just started singing The Killers.

That was a fun day maybe we can do it again!

Me: Probably not. Except for right now, since this was how I got Chooch to write on here. Fuck.