Whenever I say, “OMG I MISS KOREA” I can promise you that Chooch has probably already said it three times more than me that day already. Don’t get it twisted though – I’m still Korea’s #1 stan up in this Brookline hanok, but Chooch is some kind of homesick for Hanguk.

I think it’s primarily the bibimbap though. He talks about the bibimbap he had during the DMZ tour at least three times a week like it’s his religion.

Since I didn’t have any plans Saturday afternoon, I decided that we should have a family lunch at Nak Won Garden so that Chooch could finally satisfy his bibimcraving. Nak Won is a traditional Korean restaurant and not some fancy/trendy Asian fusion joint,  so eating there kind of sort of feels a little tiny bit like being back in Seoul and my heart actually stung. I just want more than anything to be back there, you have no idea.

I also want to have the confidence to speak in Korean to the woman who owns this place, but I always end up just smiling like a dumb mute and mumbling, “Thank you” in English instead. I am literally the worst.

Chooch is such a bibimbap hipster. He was all, “I mean, it was ok, but it wasn’t nearly as good as that bibimbap I had at the DMZ….” and then he got all dreamy-eyed and caught up in a gochujang flashback.

Afterward, we went to Squirrel Hill to see “Parasite.” I didn’t think Chooch would want to go but then he really didn’t have much choice because we didn’t have time to take him home first.  In the end, he ended up being obsessed with it and watched YouTube videos about it that night.

It was just awesome seeing familiar faces from some of our favorite k-dramas here at home, in the theater. It was SO GOOD. Please go see it and try to avoid spoilers. I don’t see many movies in the theater, so you know it has to be something special.

Afterward,  I suggested continuing the theme of Korea Day by getting some 빵 at Sumi’s Cakery, a Korean bakery down the street from the theater. 

“Is it really Korea Day?” Chooch ask, slurping on his bubble tea.

“I mean, yeah, I declared it,” I shrugged.

“Oh I thought it was like actually Korea’s independence day or something,” Chooch said.

When we came home, Drew and I watched our favorite Korean cat YouTube channel, CreamHeroes. Henry doesn’t like when we watch it because he thinks it encourages my manic cat personality.

Then I followed along on Instragram as Taeyang and Daesung were discharged from the military so now we have 4/5 BIGBANG members back! (Seungri has yet to enlist but he’s retired from the entertainment industry because of the accusations/witchhunt against him but I have hope that his name will eventually be cleared and maybe in time he will be ready to come back and BIGBANG can be five again.)

One of the hashtags was #dope_discharge_congratz because Taeyang is notorious for wishing people a happy birthday by saying “dope birthday congrats” and I just can’t stand it, the most adorable hashtag ever.

And then Henry and I finally finished watching the k-drama “Romance is a Bonus Book” which we started months ago and was SO GOOD but I am terrible at finishing things in a timely manner.

OH! And I did an hour of Kpop cardio. It was an A+ day. Super daebak. Let’s end this with a BIGBANG video because I need for them to come back, you guys. I need it.

I just want to be back there already. Someday, I hope!

When I first started looking at information on Lake Compounce, their “haunted graveyard” was an optional event so if you just wanted to go to the park without doing the haunt, you could. I thought that would be a good way to get Henry to agree to, um, extending our road trip because he is a Halloween Scrooge and just doesn’t enjoy haunted attractions that much (“no one ever tries to scare the old guys!” he whined once, so there’s the truth).

But then on the way there, I went to their website to buy the tickets and that option was gone. Now the tickets were one price, and it included the haunt. Henry grumbled about this because he’s a tightwad who is always trying to save a buck, but….

TOO LATE TO TURN BACK NOW.

When we got there, there were little day-glo clown vignettes set up here and there and I was like, “Oh wow, I’m so glad we paid extra for this.”

Was this it? The Haunted Graveyard?! It was just a small plot of land dotted with tombstones, and apparently there were several scheduled performances of “Thriller” over there during the course of the night too.

It did make for a really cool photo op, though!

Eventually, we found the area where the actual haunt was. Our tickets said that our time slot was 9:30, and we almost didn’t stay that long because it was SO COLD, but then I was like, “Well, it’s included in our ticket, and it’s not that crowded here, so we might as well just go and check it out.”

HOLY SHIT. Thank god we did, because this ended up being the BEST haunt we went to all season, maybe even the last several seasons. In some little amusement park in Connecticut, no less!

We only had to stand in line for about 15 minutes, where I was harangued by a clown who was obsessed with questioning me about my jacket. Do you know that I have had this jacket since…maybe 1999 or 2000? And this was the first time anyone has ever made Cruella DeVille comments?! And it happened again inside the haunt when someone growled in my ear, “How many dogs do you have?” and I missed the perfect opportunity to say, “I brought two of them here with me.” Then a butcher said he wanted me and mooed, haha.

I’m getting ahead of myself though! The organization of the line outside of the haunt was fantastic – they split everyone into corrals so it kept the line moving faster. There was an older couple in front of us (the guy reminded me of Nicholas Cage and had really dorky commentary throughout) and a larger group of friends behind us so I was originally worried that there were too many of us. The lady at the door of the “church” was like, “Enjoy your 45 minute walk through” and we looked at each other, like, “There is no way we’ll be in there for 45 minuutes” BUT WE WERE and every single second of that time counted. I have to save the details for my haunted house journal but the Haunted Graveyard took us through a myriad of different scenes and themes, and each one was filled with scare actors who gave a shit about their roles.

It was le magnifique, you guys. I was sweating by the time we got out of there, and also, the large group we were paired with was hilarious without being annoying and I loved them.

I asked Henry the other day what his favorite part of the weekend was, and without hesitation he said, “Being there with you” JUST KIDDING he said, “The Haunted Graveyard.” That is really saying something!!

Now, please enjoy some photos of our time at Lake Compounce once the sun went down.

Y’all know we can’t go to a park without a carousel selfie.

We didn’t like Henry’s attempt so we got back on again after it stopped. “Who even re-rides the carousel?” Chooch mumbled.

Us, clearly!

Chooch always takes the best ones so we put him in charge.

But that means we have to take the whole “Chooch’s Carousel Photo Package” which always includes a picture of him patting his horse’s butt and usually a close-up of him forcing himself to have triple-chins.

There were only two downsides to the whole experience at Lake Compounce: it was really cold and I was woefully underdressed (I only let Henry get this close to me because I was that cold) and the s’mores stand, which cost us $12 for two s’mores while a group of morons shuffled around behind the flames, half-assedly toasting marshmallows, running out of Hersheys bars and then leaving their station without telling the customers what was happening, and then serving up s’mores that had no semblance of gooey, melty, campfire goodness. I took one bite out of mine and gave it to Henry. “I’m not wasting calories on this,” I said, and then pouted for a few minutes but I recovered quickly because everything else about the park was so nice and inoffensive.

No line-jumpers!

No weirdos!

No broken down rides!

They even had this county fair food trailer thing that apparently was seen on Stranger Things, Season 3!

The kiddyland area was closed for the season, but it was appropriately clown-themed and I was obsessed.

WTF lol.

DID YOU KNOW that Lake Compounce is the oldest continuously-operated amusement park in the US? Well, now you know, thanks to my blog and my mediocre Wiki-reading skills.

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I love riding the little cars in amusement parks to begin with, but it’s even better during the Halloween season!

I’d like to go back sometime during the summer and see what the park’s like during the day, maybe ride some water rides, but I think we got a pretty good feel for Lake Compounce during our 6 hours there last weekend and I would definitely recommend it, ESPECIALLY if you’re a ho-bag for wooden coasters like myself. Boulder Dash is just really on another level and I would even say it’s worth the price of admission—I think we paid $32/person because we had a $5 off code, but prior to the day we were there, I saw on their website that you could pay $29.99 if you were only going to the park and not attending the haunt, so I’m not sure what their regular season deals are like. Plus, it’s in a general proximity to other parks, like Dorney in Allentown, PA, and Six Flags New England in Massachusetts.

Another unusual thing is that there was no one there that pissed me off. Usually, at every park, there is THAT ONE PERSON that acts a fool in line or makes loud nose-noises or whatever I deem offensive at that point in time. And then naturally I see them 87 more times throughout the course of the day. But I guess Connecticut has OK peeps.

(Except for that Sandy Hook motherfucker. We passed signs for that town on the highway and it made me incredibly sad.)

Goodbye, Lake Compounce!

After we left, we drove for about an hour and stayed at some Super 8 in Danbury, and the hotel itself was actually fine and clean but since Henry is the king of waiting the last minute to book a room, the only thing they had available was a room on the smoking floor and Henry took it, thinking it would be fine, but my whole entire overnight bag still reeks of cigarette and I had to mouth-breathe until I eventually fell asleep because it felt like the pillow was smothering me with smoke.

I really liked the blue walls, though…?

We already had decided to go to Dorney Park in Allentown during the first weekend in November, because it’s included in our Cedar Fair passes, still open for Halloween festivities, plus we were on a quest to get Chooch to 100 coaster credits by the end of the year. This was a pretty easy one to convince Henry of, because Allentown is only about a 4 hour drive.

But you know what’s only another 3 hours away from that?

LAKE COMPOUNCE in Connecticut!

My reasoning was that we were already going to be out “that way” so why not tack on a second park!? Henry was like, “THEY ARE NOT CLOSE TO EACH OTHER AT ALL.” But I just kept nagging and harping and whining and then I had that really Bad Halloween which wasn’t even really that bad but you know me, Queen of Hyperbole.

  Finally Henry declared defeat and so we went to Lake Compounce on Saturday, yay!

I’m a spoiled brat!

The reason I wanted to come here is all because of one roller coaster – Boulder Dash. It always comes up in various lists for the best wooden coasters and everyone knows wooden coasters are my favorites. But then Chooch apparently watched a video about Boulder Dash on his own, so he started to bug Henry about wanting to go here too and Henry was convinced that I put him up to it (I didn’t, but that’s definitely not something that’s beneath me); sorry, Henry, you live with two coaster enthusiasts. You lose.

Anyway, we rolled up to the park about 30 minutes before they opened at 5:00pm and there were only about 20 other people there. This was our first time ever coming to Lake Compounce, so I wasn’t sure what kind of crowds to expect, but as it turned out, it never really got very crowded as the night went on and most rides were a complete walk-on.

Some young guy in line with us had on navy pants imprinted with sail boats. Oh, Connecticut.

Chooch wanted Boulder Dash to be his 100th coaster, so we had to go on two other coasters first.  Phobia was first on the list and we were the very first ride of the day! And we were the only people on it too which was creepy. This coaster was pretty much exactly like Tempesto at Busch Gardens Williamsburg and I forgot how terrifying it is.

Even Henry rode it because I think he’s going through some sort of midlife crisis where he’s trying desperately to be more a part of our lives and less of a bench-sitter? I mean, he even has his dorky safety-strap for his glasses just so he can ride coasters with us, what a team player.

Ugh, the second coaster of the evening was Zoomerang, the park’s Vekoma boomerang. We were also the first people to ride this one, and Chooch and I were the ONLY ONES ON IT which made it all the more terrifying. Henry sat this one out because he knew it was going to be a rough one, and boy was he smart to do so. This piece of shit was so rattly and jerky that I was honestly unsure if we were going to make it around for our return trip to the station.

I posted this on Instagram and my friend Veronica was like, “Girl you know it’s true” and a more perfect comment has never been crafted.

But yeah, there’s a fun fact for you guys! Who knew?!

OK, finally it was time for Chooch to snag that #100 so we ran over to Boulder Dash which was honestly the only ride in the park that had any semblance of a line that we had to stand in. Chooch and I immediately got in line for the back row because back row is the best row, le duh.

This was a bucket list coaster of mine and I couldn’t believe I was getting a chance to ride it! Boulder Dash is famous for being a terrain woodie – the lift hill is flush with mountain. On the way up, you have beautiful views of the actual boulders that dot the terrain, and the rest of the ride is practically a collision-course down and around the side of the mountain. Hence the name Boulder Dash, y’all.

I definitely felt out of control on it, and the train seemingly jumps the track through the entire ride so the danger-factor is there in full force.

This wasn’t my favorite wooden coaster but it’s definitely earned a spot in my heart for being unique and just flat out wicked!

The sun was already starting to set so it was hard to get any pictures of Boulder Dash, but you can see part of the track on the hillside over there.

We rode it 4 times that night – twice in the back, once in row 5, and I think the longest we stood in line was probably 25 minutes when we wanted to sit in the front seat. I always recommend the front row for night rides, because there is really nothing like seeing an expanse of utter darkness whirling past you, totally throwing off your orientation and bearings.

I think the peak ride for me was when Henry and I rode together in the back at night and the climax of Zedd’s “Clarity” was playing in the station when we came back in. I was so pumped!

Also freezing. It was very cold in Bristol, Connecticut on that November night and I needed approximately 4 more pairs of socks and to swap out my cute-yet-thin cow-print jacket with an Alaskan parka.

When Chooch and I were in line for the front, he decided TO TAKE OFF HIS JACKET to prove to me that it wasn’t that cold and I was like “YOU ARE CRAZY AND ALSO EMBARRASSING” because it was fucking knit-hat weather that night, you guys. I was kicking myself for leaving my gloves in the car (Henry said I wouldn’t need them!!) and here’s my weird kid flexing his hot blood in line for a roller coaster. Everyone there was bundled up but then I stupidly pointed out that some kid who was currently in the train waiting to go was only wearing a t-shirt, so that inspired Chooch to ROLL UP THE SLEEVES OF HIS SHIRT SO IT LOOKED LIKE HE WAS WEARING A TANK TOP. I can’t with this stubborn kid. I just can’t. He kept his shirt like that during the entire frigid ride in the front seat too.

Anyway, here he is on his 100th coaster! Also, I was too cold to put my arms all the way up. And could Henry look any angrier?

One of the times Chooch and I rode without Henry, there was a young couple in front of us in line and the girl said to the boy, ‘I appreciate you” and then was trying to get him to wear her gloves because she was so concerned that he was too cold. I remembered this last night and was telling Henry about it.

“I was like, ‘WTF is happening right now.’ It was so weird.”

“It’s called LOVE,” Henry spat and then gave me his signature “what is wrong with you” look that, now that I think about it, everyone seems to keep in their back pocket, ready to slap on, when they talk to me.

Chooch thought the left seat of the fifth row was the best for some reason, so he rode there alone while Henry and I waited for the back. I don’t know what he’s doing in this picture – pantomiming putting on exam gloves?

The only other coaster at Lake Compounce is Wildcat, a smaller, family-friendly woodie. It was….OK. Not as rough or painful as I thought it would be, but it also didn’t have us running back in line either.

Henry thinks he’s so cool.

I really liked Phobia a lot, and it was a walk-on every time we rode it (one of the times they let us just stay on). But I think Boulder Dash was just wonderful and it was a solid, classic #100 for Chooch!

Going to amusement parks became so much more fun once Chooch finally came around to the idea of keeping track of his coaster credits. Now it’s like a game, one that even Henry likes to play!

Hey guys, remember that time SWAT woke me up at 6am when they set off a flash bomb in my then-neighbor “Ned”‘s side of the duplex?

Well, here’s an update on him.

I still think his dumb girlfriend framed him!!!!

It’s definitely that point in autumn where winter is thrusting its pelvis on the horizon, because all I want to do is come home from work, put my cozy clothes on, and watch TV.

I had the day off on Monday which wasn’t that awesome because I also had my consultation with the periodontist and if you are a regular reader or like, talk to me in real life, you know that this is the reason I had been struggling to get my most recent X-ray from my former dentist which never happened even though they called me at work on Friday (the audacity!) and basically said it kept bouncing back with a tone that insinuated they felt this was my current dentist’s problem? Like, bro, maybe send a smaller file?

Whatever. I couldn’t stand the back-and-forth anymore so I just gave up and went to my appointment Xray-less.

My appointment wasn’t until 11:30 so I had all morning to pace around my house, wash dishes while staring out the window into a flashback sequence of my days skipping through meadows and splashing in babbling brooks while having healthy gums, wailing at the cats about how I’m dying of gum disease…you know, the usual things that people do before leaving for whatever appointments.

When I arrived, I immediately felt OK with the receptionist. She was normal and didn’t talk down to me like the broad at Former Dentist. I was taken back almost immediately (another thing that never happened at Former Dentist – I used to sit there for over 30 minutes, reading shit magazines) and within minutes of sitting down in the exam chair, the periodontist came in, asked me how I was doing (“Well, I’m here, so….not great” I answered while wringing my hands and he laughed), told me to call him Bob, did an exam and assured me that I was not dying and that he was going to get me all fixed up with another deep cleaning that will be done right this time. He promised me that the condition of my gums isn’t as bad as I thought so I immediately relaxed and WOW was I carrying a lot of tension over this in my shoulders!

Oh! And he took a brand new Xray, free of charge, and told me that he’s had problems in the past getting Xrays from FORMER DENTIST and I thought this was interesting because she rudely recommended other periodontists when she found out I was going to him. THERE IS SOME OF KIND OF DENTAL DRAMA GOING ON THERE.

So that part of my day off ended up being OK but now I have to wait for them to talk to my insurance or whatever behind-the-scenes bullshit happens before I can get anything scheduled so now I’m back to panicking again and dreading what’s to come because I’ve had one deep-cleaning already and it was AWFUL. However, it was a hygienist that did it and not to knock her because she was actually the only good thing about visits to Former Dentist, but I feel like having an actual gum specialist doing it this time has got to be better right? RIGHT?

Anyway, back at home, I was now doubled over in pain with cramps which I hardly ever get but that’s how you can tell that I was genuinely super-stressed out that day because wow, did it exacerbate it. So I laid on the couch and started watching last season of the Walking Dead, because I stopped at the first episode last year because my cable is dumb and was like, “Sorry, you have to pay to watch these episodes On Demand even though AMC is included in your cable package” but now the whole season is on Netflix so fuck off, Comcast.

Goddamn, I’m really glad that I didn’t fully give up TWD like I kept threatening because I fucking love Season 9! I’m almost done with it (how you know I’m ready to hibernate – I start binge-watching things) and now Henry is craning his neck and trying to see what’s going on while he’s sitting at his work bench (a/k/a the dining room table) making greeting cards, which is hilarious because he stopped watching this show way back in season 4, I think. But now it’s all, “Who’s that, where’s Rick, look out.”

I had been craving a viewing of Bram Stoker’s Dracula ever since we were at Cedar Point in September and that score was playing at one point during their Halloween event and I felt SO NOSTALGIC. I kept telling Chooch that he should watch it, that he love it, it’s so good, Winona Ryder’s in it, etc etc. He made it approximately 30-45 minutes into it because declaring, “This is boring” and peacing out. I was so offended, like I was Francis Ford Coppola himself. Or Bram Stoker.

When this movie came out, I was the same age as Chooch and I loved IT SO MUCH. I still have the soundtrack! Annie Lennox’s “Love Song For a Vampire” still gets me all choked up! I know this because I made Henry keep the movie on for the duration of the ending credits so I could hear it and see if it still made me cry. YEP. YEP IT DOES.

I thought Gary Oldman was THE GODDAMN SHIT because of that movie.

What else.

Oh! Super M collaborated with Korean Air and made a new safety video for them and now I am desperate to go back to Korea because we used Korean Air both times and loved it but now it’s clearly even better!!

That plane!! Ugh I miss Korea. I really hope I get the opportunity to go back again. ON THAT PRETTY BOY PLANE.

I’m also still kind of tired from the weekend, what with the time change, and also because we drove like 7 hours to go to Lake Compounce in Connecticut and then Dorney Park on the way home on Sunday, and this is how I can tell I’m no spring chicken anymore, because I was all whip-lashed and after that and still feel drowsy just thinking about it.

It’s fun doing these road trips with Henry and Chooch though. Henry actually slipped the other day and said that he likes going places with us so I quickly started firing off suggestions for other places we can do and he was like THAT WAS NOT AN INVITATION TO PLAN MORE TRIPS.

Don’t worry – I haven’t stopped fighting for Silver Dollar City. I am determined to get there during Thanksgiving!

I made popcorn earlier and burnt it so bad that giant tufts of smoke came billowing out of the microwave when I opened the door, and Henry started bitching about the stench as soon as he walked through the front door when returning from The Store.

(Honestly, how often do housewives go to The Store? Because this motherfucker goes like every other day! Shouldn’t he just spend the week clipping coupons and then getting everything in one fell swoop during one trip?! How does it work?! I have no idea! I used to get my groceries at the gas station down the street before Henry moved in with me!)

Nothing that exciting has happened this week aside from the news that my teeth aren’t going to fall out. Work has been quiet. The trolley commute has been uneventful. Today on my lunch break walk, I briefly thought a baby tree was a dead lumberjack being held up by a stick and I screamed a little while on the phone with Henry and he was like, “…………???????????????” so I sent him a picture of the tree and then he was like, “??????????????????????????????????????????????????”

Look, my eyes are very strange, OK.

When I came home today, I happened to glance at Instagram and saw that one of the girls from KpopX – Rachel – passed away and I am really sad about it even though I didn’t know her personally. She was in all the old KpopX workouts back from 2015/2016 when I first started following their YouTube channel, and she was my favorite instructor. She was so pretty and seemed like she had a great personality. A few years ago, the leader of KpopX posted on Facebook that Rachel had leukemia, and she stopped showing up in new videos. I’m really sad but I am glad she isn’t suffering anymore. :(

This was one of my favorite routines that she’s in. She’s the one with long hair and bangs (in the video’s thumbnail, she’s the one in the middle):

And now it’s after 11PM and I wish to go to bed, so goodbye.

What’s a road trip without a stop at some obscure, dilapidated roadside attraction? We had about an hour to kill on Saturday because Lake Compounce didn’t open until 5 pm, so I convinced Henry to finally take me to Holy Land USA in nearby Waterbury, Connecticut. And by “finally,” I mean that I suggested we stop there once in 2013 when we were on our way home from visiting our friend Alyson in New Hampshire and he said “N-O.”

But you know me and odd religious things. Gotta see ’em all!

(Ex: Ultraviolet Apocalypse; Giant Mary, Museum of Religious Statues; Troy Hill Relics.)

Chooch, who had his headphones on for 99% of the trip, was like, “The fuck are we?” when we rolled to a stop at the crest of a hill in what appeared to be a Mexican part of town (I kept begging Henry to stop at one of the Mexican markets so we could get candy but he was like NOT TODAY so I guess the next time we’re driving through Connecticut? Henry has no jams.

I guess this place was built in the 50s and was meant to be an actual, booming religious theme park. Were there going to be rides though? How can you have a theme park without rides? I wish this place had taken off because I could have sold them my plans for the Crucifixion-themed restaurant I’ve wanted to open for like 20 years now – The Rusty Nail. (Side of Pontius pilaf anyone?)

Up until 2013, the land was possessively presided over by a group of nuns called the Religious Sisters of Filippi Greco who got all nuts anytime they were approached by people who wanted to restore it, but apparently they could be bought for $350,000, which is what some car dealer and the mayor offered them on June 20, 2013. So I guess now those goons own the place and so far, all they have managed to do was replace the cross with a new and larger lighted cross, and I guess they cleared away some of the weeds or whatever.

I found this picture when scouring the Internet for more information on what this place was like in its heyday and I found this picture:

I 100% would NOT recommend crawling inside any of the structures that are still standing at Holy Land. Chooch made me look inside one of the windows and I had so much trepidation, expecting to see the jaw of a cat and Satanic symbols in dried blood, but there was nothing – just dirt and cobwebs.

Thank god.

Although I can’t rule out that there weren’t any demonic spirits swirling about. That’s where I would loaf if I was Satan’s relative.

The whole area was so scraggly and ugly. Someone’s comment on Roadside America said to check for ticks before getting back into the car so then I began obsessing about ticks and Chooch was like, “We’re wearing pants and long-sleeves, and it’s November. I think we will be fine.”

Thank god Henry wasn’t there when I was spiraling-out about ticks (he walked a different direction than us, and then went back to the car to look at Reddit probably) or else I would have received sedation in the form of a Hencyclopedia diatribe about ticks.

The view of Waterbury from the summit of Holy Land, USA.

Chooch slipped on a rock and almost slid down a hill by the cross and then denied it when I was standing right there and saw it happen with my own two eyes, and then wondered why I was all, “NO WAY, MISTER NIMBLE” when he wanted to scale some treacherous pile of rocks a few minutes later, so I kept imitating him slipping on the rock and it’s a wonder I haven’t won any awards yet for excelsior parenting.

I looked inside the Tower of Babel, expecting to see the remains of a Devil’s Night sacrifice, but all I saw was an empty water bottle.

NOT EVEN ONE BEER CAN!

Rando key.

Several other people showed up while we there, with the intent of casually poking around just like us, so Henry was less concerned about trespassing at that point. He is a big follower of warning signs. Like, if I ever wanted to just completely shut myself off to him, a strategically-placed “no trespassing” sign would easily get the job done.

THAT IS ALL I’M SAYING.

We walked back to the car, where Henry was casually leaning against the hood, scrolling on his phone like a teenager, when Chooch decided he needed to go geocaching and then got tangled in the bare branches of a tree and fell on another rock, so that was cool. If anyone came back with ticks, it was that careless dumbass.

I mean, Holy Land USA was a cool place to stretch our legs, but unless you’re a HARDCORE Roadside America app user and obsessed with marking sights as BEEN THERE, then I wouldn’t necessarily recommend going too far out of your way to visit this run-down plot of ruins.

Wow hey hello ok—let’s try something new here. It’s 6:07am and we just left the house for Connecticut and normally I would have the unbridled desire to live blog but I am also behind in recapping my totally not-that-exciting life so I thought, hey, let’s just combine the two. Henry’s being an angry mute right now and Chooch has his headphones on so chances are I won’t have much to live blog about anyway so let’s just jump right into last weekend’s roundup.

On Saturday, I met up with Jiyong and gave her some cookies from our G-Dragon Military Discharge Event at work and she was like O-M-G and immediately took a picture of them. I mean come one they were pretty spectacular!

We talked about nicknames at this language session. She has a great nickname (JangJong) but mine is just either ERINKELLY (ugh) or EK (this one is OK).

We have been meeting at this one Panera lately because it’s the most study-friendly but I think I am going to have to suggest a new place soon because their staff is just not great and the process of getting a coffee drink is tedious now that they hired this older woman who has no clue what’s going and talks loudly about the eye surgery she just had.

While I was with Jiyong, Chooch was at home spectating the local Halloween parade and conning candy off the shopowners.

When I got home, he started rapidly talking about his favorite part of the parade. “The dad was Hopper, the mom was Joyce, the daughter was Eleven, AND THE DOG WAS A DEMOGORGON. IT WAS SO CUTE AND I DIDNT TAKE A PICTURE BC IM DUMB.”

He’s distressed about this.

LIVEBLOG: we just left the Holy Sheetz at 6:50am and I’m now properly roadtrip breakfasted. Also, Sheryl Crow is a person I never really cared for.

I’m trying to stop saying “hate” with so much wanton abandon because I have realized over the last three years that there is really only person I actually hate in the whole wide world and that would be Donald Trump (not my President) so I should really reserve that word for just when I’m talking about him.

Speaking of not saying hate…

After my meetup with Jiyong, Henry, Chooch and I went to the Sewickley Haunted Church which has become our tradition over the last 5 years now I think? We just really like it: it’s cheap ($8), fun, and actually kind of scary too but the kind of scary that makes you crack up afterward.

It’s always interesting to see how they’re going to handle the line-formation, because it seems to change every year. This year, they had a giant U-shaped line of chairs set up, with three large tables in the back of the room. When we arrived, all the chairs were filled so the line coordinator (?) placed us at a table with another family. Then, as more groups were being let into the haunt and seats were freed up, we were moved into the chair queue. It was bizarre but perfect for anyone who hates standing in line, except that 75% of the people there could not grasp the concept of moving down as chairs were freed up. IG was hilarious but Henry was so aggravated about it. There was some vampire lady who was attempting to maintain order but she had her back turned when new people walked into the room, breezed right past the other line coordinator and took four empty seats near the entrance to the haunt?!?!?! All because a bunch of morons didn’t move the fuck down!! I was so mad about it but honestly we only waited for like 20 minutes anyway so whatever.

As usual, we had a good time and keeping with the theme of being behind on blogging, I am woefully tardy with my haunted house journaling today. It’s pathetic how much hand-writing cramps my hands these days!

LIVEBLOG: Henry just flipped out because GPS said we had 8 hours and 57 minutes until our arrival but I said, “I looked it up like a million times and I swear it’s only like 6ish hours away” so then he realized he had selected “no toll route” – 6 hours and 18 minutes to go!

The next morning we woke up early and drove to Sandusky, OH because I had the brilliant idea that we should go for the last season so that Chooch could try to get Maverick as his 100th coaster. I kept checking the forecast and it said it was windy so I did research and it was like “here are rides that usually close in these conditions” so I was prepared for some shit to not be running that day except that we got there, waiting for early entry, were let in with the general riffraff because the staff wasn’t even looking at passes and people were literally squeezing around the barricades like goddamn escaped circus animals, so that was great but ended up being a moot point because nothing was running for early entry, and then 90% of the coasters weren’t running all day, so…

Someone on Twitter was like “what’s open for early entry?” and someone replied “the gates.” Accurate!

I know CP can’t control weather but their public relations is pretty shitty and they were giving no updates as the day went on. I put a moratorium on it after about two hours, when only a handful of flat rides and Wicked Twister were running, and some jerk ride op watched Chooch and I standing in line for the kid coaster for like 15 minutes and waited until we were next in line to be like SORRY U NEED A KID TO RIDE and we were like WOW ET TU, KID COASTER?! Everything was letting us down! The dumb candy store didn’t even have the good sugar cookies.

Thankfully, we didn’t have to pay to be there so we decided to just leave and make the most of the otherwise decent day. I mean, it wasn’t raining or anything and once the sun came out, it was a really lovely day to drive around and enjoy the fall foliage assuming that we are the type of the family to do such a thing.

We stopped in some little Ohio town (Vermillion) to eat lunch and of course everything we found on Yelp ended up being closed because all humans but us fast on Sundays, but then we spotted this place called Old Prague Inn that looked visually pleasing to me because I love old world European bullshit. The menu outside said that had:

LECZO

They had veggie burgers – not great ones, but the kind you expect from a small town diner, and I was just grateful they had the option at all because all the other places I found didn’t even have grilled cheese without meat and yes I’m aware I could have ordered it sans meat but the point is that I was angry and you can’t reason with a hot head.

Also when things like this happen and I fly off the handle, I realize that wow I must really be bottling a lot of shit in during the week when I’m busy being “Professional Erin.”

We had a really good waitress, and the joint had one of those fancy jukeboxes that can play almost anything and it had free credits on it so Chooch was tripping over himself to get to it before any of the other patrons…none of which showed any signs of interest in requesting songs.

I was a little nervous, wondering what he was up there so thoughtful requesting, because you never know what weird shit 13-year-olds listen to on their own time when their moms aren’t funneling Kpop down their ear-pipes.

As he slid into the booth, the opening notes of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” filled the diner and he looked so pleased.

“Is this what he requested?!” I asked, and he smugly nodded. So random. The next song was “Come On Aileen” which he also requested because he’s obsessed with it now thanks to “Perks…”

The we gorged on strawberry shortcake and caramel apple pie and it was soooo satisfying and completely turned the day around.

Thank you, Oh Boy. I don’t really understand your secret Oh Boy sauce, but everything else really had it going on. I would be a regular if we lived in whatever town that was.

You guys. PAPRIKASH. I guess we were in a big Czech-populated area of Ohio?! I have never seen the word “PAPRIKASH” so much in my life!

LIVEBLOG: It’s 7:40 and we just passed a billboard for Penn’s Cave. I blurted out, “Are we ever going to go there?!” because it’s tradition for me to ask and tradition for Henry to murmur, “I don’t know” before going back to contemplating how to get out of the next road trip.

Creepy vending machine broad.

We stopped at approximately 27 rest areas on the way home and at every single one, Chooch was panhandling for quarters.

“I told you I don’t have any! Do you think they just generate in my pockets?!” Henry cried and then we had a sidebar conference with the sole agenda of: When Will Our Child Outgrow Claw Machines.

Somehow, Henry’s pants did generate quarters though because at one of the stops, he was like, “Actually…” and that’s how Chooch ended up with three bouncy balls which he hurled against the wall while we waited for Henry to go to the bathroom. He was doing it so aggressively though like he was playing racquetball and passersby were glaring at me for not being a better parent but sorry, that’s because I was in the process of stalking some guy who looked like if our Castle Blood friend Ricky was a big Willie Nelson fan.

“Ok let’s go,” Henry said, back from the bathroom.

“We can’t. Mom’s waiting for some guy,” Chooch said, slamming the bouncy ball off the wall.

“What guy?” Henry questioned, but by then I was too giddy to respond in anything more than Bobcat Goldthwait barks so Henry just sighed and attempted to steal the bouncy ball from Chooch he was actually starting to get sweaty that’s how hard he was playing with this dumb toy.

Yeah Boy!

Then we went to another rest area and he was there too!

On the way out of that one, we were walking through the parking lot when I heard someone cheerful call out, “ERINKELLY!!” Now look, only people from a certain era of my current job call me this, because it stems from when there were two Erins and an Aaron in the office. Some people from that time still work there so it’s inevitable that I still get called that, but there were other people from that time that weren’t so great and I still twitch at times when I’m called “ERINKELLY” because I can hear those other people saying it in their condescending tones and it always reminded me of “Cinderelly Cinderelly!” If that makes sense.

So I got kind of tense, wondering who it was that was calling me ERINKELLY in the middle of a rest stop parking lot in Ohio, but it ended up just being my friend Mary! She used to work in our department but moved to a different department several years ago (Jesus, actually about 7 years now I think?!). Anyway, it was a pleasant surprise! That Sunday had really shaped up to be something good.

Oh, and apparently none of the coasters started to run at Cedar Point until around 4 or 5. What a terrible way for them to end the season. :( I only found that out from irate tweets from people who were there. The official Cedar Park socials were too busy announcing various sales at the gift shops.

I think that about wraps up last weekend so now we can just focus on RIGHT NOW oh boy!

8:27am: Let it be known that I just offered to drive for an hour and Henry stoically waved me off like I just suggested that I join him on the battlefield but that is no place for a woman.

I got coffee at Sheetz (second Sheetz of the day) and usually I tolerate it but it’s not great; however, this cup of coffee tastes super reminiscent to Mister Donut so I began lamenting the fact that they all turned into Donut Connection and now I don’t even think they’re around anymore?! I hated Donut Connection because it was so modern (well, for the 90s) and one of the best parts of Mister Donut was that old, 1950s orange dinette feel it had plus it reminded me of my Pappap.

One time in high school, Psycho Mike took me to Donut Connection for Valentine’s Day. He had a coupon for a free coffee and donut which he used for himself and I had to buy my own, so that was really cool.

11:40am: Guys you’ll never believe it – Henry actually let me drive for 2 hours. I kept offering and he would say NO like a big whiny bitchboy because that way he can complain later on about how I never drive. Anyway, he slept for the first hour and it was glorious because I got to fly along like I used to in my youthful days when I wasn’t dating a professional driver who refuses to be a passenger. Then he woke up and was all OMG SLOW DOWN THE SPEED LIMIT IS 55 YOU ARE DOING 80 GOOD LORD THIS IS A DOUBLE FINE ZONE DO U KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS THE FINE WILL BE $1000 AND YOU WILL PROBABLY GET ALL OF THE POINTS ON YOUR LICENSE!

God, go soak your hemorrhoids, Hank.

Anyway, I just pulled over at an Exxon somewhere past the Promised Land which I thought was going to be a BibliCOOL theme park but it’s just a regular state park I guess. Henry used the unisex bathroom before me and left the seat up so that was cool. When I yelled at him he was like, “It was already up!”

“well you could have put it down when you were done!” I screeched.

And he said, “I wasn’t touching that thing.”

Wow, so leave it for me. Awesome. Maybe next he can procure himself some donuts and eat them in front of me, too.

OMG henry is trying to explain exit numbers to me and I kept saying OK COOL I GET IT COOL but he just kept talking and it’s hard to believe sometimes that he doesn’t teach drivers ed at the community college.

We’re in some town called Port Jervis which is apparently entirely under construction and Henry almost hit a kid on a scooter and then pulled out into oncoming traffic so I was like WOW MAYBE I SHOULD GO BACK TO DRIVING but Chooch said he was more scared when I was driving bc I kept asking what the speed limit was and still did 90.

12:02pm: At this place for lunch and STEELY DAN is playing. Also, Henry dropped his phone on the waitress’s foot.

Chooch just sent our friend Alyson a message to see if she wants to meet us at Lake Compounce tonight because it’s like 2 hours from her. She recently posted on Instagram that she ate a cinnamon roll so he said, “She just ate a cinnamon roll so she should be good to drive.” OK, Chooch.

STAHP. This place actually had a really delicious veggie burger and PURPLE SLAW and now America’s You Can Do Magic is on and I’m in love with this town. Also, bathroom decor on point:

I’m fairly certain our waitress hated us. I tried to compliment the place on their hearty veggie burger (lol) and she was like NO when I asked if it was made there, and then THANKS when I said it was really good.

I could have eaten it plain without a bun or anything.

Our Meanyburger visiting his home.

Of course Arlene & Tom’s has a babbling brook behind their restaurant.

1:48pm: The town of Newburgh, NY is really under Henry’s skin. He saw a CASH ONLY sign for the toll road and panicked that it won’t take EZ pass so he detoured through this town to use an ATM and people here could definitely stand to enroll in Henry’s driving school, also we’re back on the highway and there’s a big MUST HAVE EZ PASS sign so Henry is ready to explode. Lol.

But look how pretty!

Also:

Lol.

2:47pm People are passing us on both sides because Henry is driving below the speed limit. He is the worst.

3:18pm: After a million years, Henry finally brought me to the Holy Land, which is this dilapidated religious “theme park” from the 50s on a hillside of Waterbury, Connecticut.

I’ll do a separate photo dump of this another day. Right now we’re sitting in the car at the gate of it while Henry looks for a hotel and Chooch is crying because he can’t find a stupid geocache and also because he slipped on a rock but is denying it.

Well, I guess I will hit PUBLISH on this piece of shit blog post because we’re almost to Lake Compounce!

Per tradition, I used my floating holiday for Halloween (I always request it off at the beginning of the year, as though I’m actually racing anyone for that day) and I was prepared to just stew in my general creepiness, watch some horror flicks, maybe design some new cards. But then all kinds of annoying things happened right away, setting the tone, and then my day just stayed shitty and annoying to the point where I declared in front of witnesses (actual people, and not just the cats for once) that I was done celebrating Halloween. Let’s recap in bullets because I’m still too annoyed to even bother paragraphing.

• For the first time EVER, I didn’t have any last-minute costumer alterations to perform on Chooch, which was a miracle. He created his costume all on his own, with a tiny bit of help from Henry (only when it came to measurements).  But then that night I was laying in bed and in true Erin fashion, I had a last minute idea that would add a bit of SNAZZ AND PIZZAZZ to the costume. “Don’t we have a spare doorknob somewhere?” I asked a slumbering Henry. “I know I’ve seen a spare doorknob…” and then I found it because our house might be a dumpster of chaos, but there’s a system to the madness. “Before you go to work, can you attach this doorknob to the left side of his costume?” and Henry mumbled and snorted, so I was like, “Cool, goodnight.” And he actually heard my commands because the next morning, we found the costume with the doorknob added to it, but IT WAS ON  THE RIGHT SIDE NOT THE LEFT and have you not learned a thing about me? I am a Halloween pageant mom. This sent me OVER THE EDGE to the point where I considered complementing Chooch’s costume by going as Jack Nicholson’s character from One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest. THIS WILL MAKE SENSE LATER. Anyway I blew up Henry’s phone with texts calling him a moron and worthless and Chooch was like, “This is fine though, no one will notice” and then he left for school before I had a chance to burn down the house with my psychic rage.
• Then, at 8am I called my dentist’s office to see if I could swing by and grab the copy of the Xray that my old dentist was supposed to send to them BUT OH GUESS WHAT THEY DIDN’T HAVE IT. They were like, “Hmm it doesn’t seem like they sent it, can you call them and double check?” and like, NO but I guess I WILL because I HAVE TO. I called the old dentist and got their answering machine, so I waited an hour and called again and still got the answering machine so I assumed that they were closed and left them a borderline irate message about how it’s been two weeks and my new dentist doesn’t have the records they were supposed to send and I NEED IT FOR AN UPCOMING APPOINTMENT ON MONDAY GRRRR. Anyway, they called later that day while I was exercising and I don’t stop exercising for phone calls, sorry. So their rude ass receptionist left a smarmy message saying that they emailed the xray to my new dentist on OCT 15 and that I would have to call and check with them again so I called the new dentist and the receptionist even checked her spam folder but it wasn’t there!
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  She was so nice and apologetic and I was like “Look, it’s not your fault those other people are making this is chore” so she verified their email address and told me to tell them to email it again which meant I had to have another shitty conversation with Lady Snark and she was like, “HOLD ON” and literally put me on hold before I had a chance to give her the email  address and when she came back, she said, “YES WE SENT THESE ON OCTOBER 15 TO THAT SAME ADDRESS BUT I GUESS I WILL DO IT AGAIN” and my god, I hate that place so much. By this time it was 4pm and I just didn’t care anymore. I had no ounce of fucks left in me to call my new dentist back to see if they got it.

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  I just couldn’t. (UPDATE: Old dentist called me AT WORK this morning and said that when they resent the xray it was bounced back to them and it’s the correct email address so maybe they’re just idiots who are trying to send a too-big file!?!?!? Of course, the new dentist is closed today.)

• The mail came. I was excited because a pin order I placed over the weekend was delivered! I bought a Regan/Exorcist pin and these cool Redrum shoelace charms which took me forever to put on my shoes and then I realized that I HAD ORDERED THE BLACK NICKEL VERSION AND THEY SENT ME THE NICKEL NICKEL VERSION!!!!!

• Also in the mail was a 15-page court document because my grandma’s estate is being sued and of course my name, along with my brothers’ name, are all over that shit, so I had heart palpitations and the Pukes after that.
• Then, Janna texted me and said she was in the area and wanted to stop by and get the cookie dough etc that she purchased from Chooch’s dumb school fundraiser. Henry asked Haley if she would keep it in her freezer because we didn’t have room in ours, so Chooch went over to get it. When he came back, he said, “Oh and heads up, Blake didn’t know this was Janna’s and ate a piece of the cheesecake but don’t worry because he put some cookies in there to make up for it” and this would have been another Seinfeld-esque episode in our lives where, hahahaha, something dumb happened to Janna, EXCEPT THAT THE CHEESECAKE WAS FOR JANNA’S FRIEND SO I FUCKING LOST MY SHIT because how goddamn embarrassing! JANNA’S NAME WAS WRITTEN ON ALL OF THE BOXES SO I AM LOST AS TO WHY BLAKE THOUGHT IT WAS OK TO HELP HIMSELF. Then Janna arrived in the middle of WWIII, just dropped right on into our Den of Domestic Hostility from a helicopter rope, right as I was declaring that I was DONE CELEBRATING HALLOWEEN.

Honestly! The last several Halloweens have been so dumb! I QUIT! I stan Arbor Day now!

The one constant positive of the day is that the Halloween franchise was playing on TV all day throughout all of my stressful dentist phone tags, bad mail, and verbal evisceration of Blake. I did also make some new cards for non compos, so it wasn’t a total wasted day.

****

Meanwhile, the weather was shitty and rainy all day, which was apropos since Chooch was once again going to be swathed in cardboard, but I tried not to fixate on that too much. I was just really happy that at least I didn’t have to do any last minute bullshit with his costume. I just threw some gray eyeshadow on his face to give him the appearance of facial hair, armed him with an emergency poncho, and then let him go off with his pals.

Apparently, one of their teachers told them they’re too old to trick-or-treat and that made me mad. I feel like if a school-aged (including high school) kid wants to put on a costume and have some fun that doesn’t involve drugs and vandalism, then I will gladly give them candy if they come to my house. MAYBE EVEN TWO PIECES. Kids don’t get to be kids for as long as we did, so let them have this night for god’s sake.

Chooch has a really strong grasp on “crazed.”

Honestly, this was the only great thing of the whole day, seeing Chooch bask in the fact that he made his own costume. And you guys, the rain held off!

But back at the Murder House, I had decided that I was still in too bad of a mood to deal with kids, even though I did run to CVS earlier to buy my midnight hour collection of picked over candy. We live on a main drag in our neighborhood so even in good weather, we only get about 20 kids. It’s depressing, really.

So I employed Trudy’s help in passing out candy:

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Anyway, I called it – 4 trick-or-treaters. And they were all one family, so literally just the one opportunity for Trudy to shine. And she succeeded in making the little girl in the group cry. I was hiding behind the door, because that was the whole point – slowly open the door from the inside and let them take their own candy from Trudy’s basket. So I had to fling the door all the way open and yell, “WAS IT TOO SCARY?! I’M SO SORRY!” while Henry was in the background mouthing off his catchphrase: “Good one, Erin.”

The parents swore that it was OK and the dad was fucking loving it. He actually was telling me ways to make it even scarier. “You should put a hand in the basket so it grabs people” and then he was trying to see everything else in my house (I mean, to his credit, there is a lot to take in) but I was like, “OK bye now.”

And then Henry and I sat in the dark, with horror movie scores blasting from a Bluetooth speaker, for two hours. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting. BUT NO ONE ELSE CAME. I kept peeking through the curtains, pacing up and down the sidewalk, flicking the porch light off and on to draw attention, but our block was mostly deserted all night.

A few kids appeared here and there, but they would only go as far as the halfway house up the street, then turn around and go back.

Does my house have a reputation?! REALLY, KIDS WILL GO TO THE HALFWAY HOUSE BUT NOT 3021?!

Two older-teenaged girls, not in costume, walked by at one point and I tried to get Henry to call them over.

“Yeah, a 55-year-old man, yelling ‘Come here!’ to underaged girls. That’s a good way to get the cops here,” Henry said around a frown.

“Well…maybe the cops want candy,” I started to suggest, but then I quickly laughed that idea off because HAHAHAHA I HATE COPS AND WOULD NEVER GIVE THEM CANDY.

By the end of the night, I had finally calmed down a bit. I did some relaxing pilates and then watched The Blackcoat’s Daughter which was a bad idea to watch right before bed, but…Halloween.

*******

Earlier today, on the phone with Henry: “We should let Chooch have a Halloween party next year,” I suggested.

“I thought you weren’t celebrating Halloween anymore?” Henry said snidely. Ugh, I hate when he actually listens to me.