Henry and I went to get plant stuff earlier today in an area that’s about 45 minutes away from us and as we drove past this one shopping center, I casually mentioned that I have never been there.

Henry said that’s untrue, that we went to a Subway there once and just like that, super vivid memories came flooding back and I screamed, “OH YEAH IT WAS WHEN WE WENT TO THAT ONE WEIRD PLAYGROUND AND BLAKE AND ALISHA WERE WITH US AND THEN WE WENT TO TCBY” and Henry was like “…………………”

I distinctly remembered the pictures I took that day and found them on Flickr. They’re from August 2009 and somehow, I NEVER posted them on here, nor did I even write about the day because I guess this was back when I had a life and didn’t blog every single fucking thing I did because I had a better understanding back then of the idea that NO ONE CARES.

Well, since I have no energy for anything else right now (I expended a lot of it on the squirrels, picking out flowers, and exercising, aren’t you jealous of my full life?), here are the pictures I took that day because Summer of 2009 Chooch was so fucking cute (and sweaty) and also Blake wasn’t a dad yet which is wild and now Alisha lives in ARKANSAS and probably does not miss me making her pose for stupid pictures.

So proud of these ground apples.

Seriously though this playground has a certain type of vibe, yikes.

Well, that was a fun trip down memory lane.

Maybe I should start taking out my “real” camera more often like the olden days.

And speaking of Dance Gavin Dance (see: Blake’s shirt), their singer Tilian Pearson has a new solo album out and this video is making me CRAVE A DGD CONCERT.

I really love Easter so much and this year’s bunny day did not disappoint. The weather was perfection (in the low 60s and sunny!) and we actually all got along even though Henry’s chewing and breathing was really beyond extra that day.

First, we had to wake up Chooch and give him his “basket.” Chooch is definitely my kid, in that he is nearly 15 and still wants TOYS and FUN and all the things his little niece and nephew next door are enjoying as toddlers. We decided to fill a small basket with what Chooch claims to be the only sponges he can use to wash the dishes which is clearly just an excuse to not have to wash the dishes. I plopped in one piece of candy for good measure and then at the last minute, I added a bath bomb that he had gotten earlier that day when he was at the store with Henry (not pictured).

Of course it took us forever to get him to wake his ass up. I left the fake basket on the dining room table for him to find, totally exposed so there was no fun involved. He actually took it all in stride, and laughed a lot, so I’m not sure if it’s a reflection of the GREAT JOB Henry and I have done raising him that he didn’t act like a petulant shit when that was “all he got,” or if he’s been conditioned over the last decade to know that there was something better in store if he just rides it out—probably the latter, lol.

Then I needed to get him BACK into his room because Henry left DOLL on his computer desk with one lone Easter egg. OMG for a kid who never wants to leave his room, it was surprisingly hard to get him to go back into it! Granted, the reason I used was probably a bad one: I told him that our new Easter tradition was going to Church with Blake, Haley and the kids and that he needed to go change into something nice, which made shit hit the fan. he became INEXPLICABLY distraught at the prospect of suddenly having to go to church after all these years of living in the lap of heathenism.

Finally got him to go into his room, where he hurled himself down on his bed and proceeded to cry some more. God, this kid!! We should have kept him in Catholic school! Why did we ever pull him out? Oh right, my blog. LOLOLOL.

Anyway, I had to point out DOLL to him just to speed shit up and that set him off even more. “OMG YOU MADE ME GO THROUGH ALL OF THIS JUST SO I COULD SEE DOLL?? UGH!” and he stormed off back downstairs without even realizing that DOLL contained an Easter egg, because DUMB HENRY stuck the egg up her dress instead of just setting it in her lap like I told him to, so then I had to carry DOLL downstairs and thrust her at Chooch, who refused to take her and instead gave me this bewildered look, like “I’m used to you acting insane but you are being TRULY STRANGE this morning” so then I had to EXTRACT the egg from DOLL’s dress and chuck it at Chooch, who finally started to realize that this was an effort to make Easter fun for a surly teen. Except that now DOLL’s egg message didn’t make sense since he was supposed to open it IN HIS ROOM, but now he was in the dining room so he asked, “All of the eggs are hidden in the basement?” Ugh. This dumb scavenger hunt WAS NOT THAT COMPLICATED.

We only hid 8 eggs the night before, just on the first floor, so this hunt should have been over relatively quickly but instead my DENSE SON dragged it out for nearly an hour because he is sooooo obtuse! We were giving him all these dumb hints and he was just standing in the middle of the room, looking lost.

Although, to be fair, one of my hints was “Something you could find at the circus” and he cried THAT COULD BE LITERALLY THIS ENTIRE ROOM!

Anyway, all of the eggs contained a piece of Russian candy and a “coupon” for things like “trip to the Columbus Zoo” and “Dad takes out garbage for month of April.” (In response to that one, Henry wrote out a coupon that says “Geocaching with mom, no less than two hours!”

I hate geocaching.

After he found all of his idiotic eggs, he was sitting on the church pew (oh the irony) watching TV so I ran upstairs to get his real basket, which I’m not entirely sure he was expecting after going through the rigmarole of collecting Easter coupons.

I wish I still got an Easter basket! I am fully planning on giving Chooch an Easter basket (and any future partner/spouse he might wind up with) for the rest of my life.

Later that afternoon, we drove out to Economy Park, which we haven’t to been to in quite some time but the playground is cool because it has this big electronic game that Chooch and I always think we are obsessed with until we get there and remember that it’s broken. The road to the pavilions is closed so we had to park at the playground and walk for about a half mile (??? I’m really bad with measuring distance!), all of which was without Henry who had to go back to the car when we made it out of the parking lot because he forgot the BUNNY PLATE I bought specifically for our EASTERgayo sandwiches, so he ended up being way behind us on the walk which was hilarious to me and Chooch but probably actually super peaceful for Henry.

You might remember that I deemed these sandwiches our “new Easter tradition” two Easters ago. They are based off the Inkigayo sandwich in South Korea, which is a multi-layered sandwich served in the cafeteria to idols performing at the Inkigayo weekly music show. The idols love them so much that various convenience stores in Korea attempted to recreate them and let me tell you, we ate some v. tasty ones on our last trip! Anyway, there are several variations floating around the Internet.

Here’s my OG post about it if you’re interested!

Easter 2019: Idol Sandwiches & Crappy Woodland Treasure

After lunch, I made these lugs pose for family pictures with me. I also *tried* to coordinate our clothes so we were all wearing Easter-y pastel shades, which made Chooch happy because it meant he could wear his pink/salmon hoodie and not A DRESSY SHIRT OMG BOO HOO.

You guys, we got Henry to jump!!

Oh man, what a GREAT DAY, honestly. I mean, I almost threw up on a spinny thing at the playground afterward, but it was still just a wonderful holiday. I love you, Easter.

I know there are vocab purists out there that will argue that EVE only applies to the EVENING before whatever day, but I’m going to be talking about everything that happened on Saturday, pre-Easter, that was note-worthy OH WELL!

Don’t worry, there’s not too much to talk about, haha ugh covid.

In the morning, Henry and I went to some new Russian/Turkish/Easter European market that opened in Robinson. There is one right down the street from us too but this one is brand spanking new (I just literally realized that this refers to a doctor slapping a newborn?? Wow, tons of things suddenly make sense when you’re in your 40s, I guess) and 3x the size of the one by us. ALSO THE YOUNG GUY WORKING THERE WAS SO FUCKING CUTE.

I mean, they had lots of candy! We wanted to get some additional things for Chooch’s, Calvin’s, and Lily’s Easter baskets. (Henry, the laziest grandfather of all time, hadn’t even considered getting Calvin and Lily baskets, that was all me. See? I’m OK sometimes.) Hershey’s and whatever is all well and good but I do love adding some international candy flava to the holiday mix, yanno?
I don’t think Calvin and Lily care yet (they just wanted their toys), but Chooch was like, “Fuck yeah, some kind of Russian juice box, thanks Easter Bunny!”

I bought a bag of these sugary corn curls based on the packaging alone, but holy shit are these GUD.

Literally thought these were BBQ-flavored marshmallows but Henry was like, “USE YOUR BRAIN, DUMDUM THOSE ARE FOR S’MORES.”

Wow.

But I bet somewhere in South Korea, you can find BBQ-flavored marshmallows.

Speaking of Korea, this joint had a decent Lotte Choco Pie selection!

I also bought some filberts, almonds, and pecans for my Buddys and Mr. Gray Guys! They LOVE filberts. The one Buddy takes them across the street and buries them at the church. Whatever makes you happy, Buddy. (It’s actually the Buddy that let me feed him outside the other day! I can tell which one he is because he has a little smattering of tawny spots on his left side by his butt, lol. I am so fucking pathetic. Please send help. Or a friend. I need a friend. A human one.

Later that afternoon, Henry and I went for a stroll at our favorite cemetery and it was OK except that I was wearing a pair of TOMS that I got last summer and hadn’t yet broken in, in an attempt to, you know, break them in, and my one heel was sah-creem-ing. Then we went to pick up our Trinidadian vegan Easter dinner from ShadoBeni, who introduced us to the famous Doubles a few years ago at a farmer’s market and I had been obsessed ever since. How lucky Pittsburgh veg/vegans are to have this awesome guy here cookin’ up delicious meatfree Trinidad cuisine!  There was no way that I could wait an entire day to eat this so Henry prepared it that evening for a pre-Easter dinner and it was ALL SO GOOD but hoo boy, I had to roll myself away from the table afterward.

You guys. Doubles.

OH YES.

It is so messy and sloppy and spicy and ugh, just SO FILLING AND DELICIOUS!

This was after Chooch and I were like YOU ARE CHEWING SO LOUD, lol. Ah, family dinners.

You guys. My patience and obsessive nature finally paid off yesterday. One of the Buddys let me hand-feed him! Normally, the brown squirrels (never the gray ones; they’re super skittish) will accept snacks from my hand through the window but I wanted the challenge of feeding them from outside of my house.

Two weekends ago, I was getting RULL close to success but the Buddy I had targeted kept doing the handshake-fake out on me every single time, like to the point where I expected him to run his hand paw through his hair fur.

Yesterday on my lunch break, I was sitting on the porch, trying to coax my favorite of all the Buddys to TAKE THE FUCKING PECAN when Haley came outside to water her plants. She started laughing at me because this is like A Thing now, not a secret, and I wailed, “I AM DETERMINED!”

“I mean, he’s sitting right there on the porch with you so he’s clearly not afraid of you, you’ll get it!” Haley said, in the encouraging words of a True Mom. And you know what? I took her words and ran with them and I DID INDEED GET IT!

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It turns out he didn’t want a pecan – he wanted a WALNUT! Good thing I have a veritable squirrel buffet inside my house to choose from. We currently have: peanuts, walnuts, pecans, filberts, and various types of seeds. Don’t worry – I always check first to make sure what I’m feeding them is safe! For instance, not all peanuts are good for them!

Squirrel watching has really kept me going through the pandemic. Being home so much, especially WORKING FROM HOME, has been pretty depressing but these little guys are so entertaining and I don’t care what anyone says–they’re my best Buddys. Sometimes when I feed them through the window, their tails brush my hand and IT IS THE BEST FEELING I LOVE THEM SOOOOO MUCH OMG HELP ME I NEED A LIFE.

This picture cracks me up – squirrel soirée! Also, don’t mind the messy porch/yard. Henry started redoing the flower-area and true to form, he moved on to other things before finishing. (He will read this and start yelling about how IT IS TOO SOON TO PLANT FLOWERS AND HE WAS JUST GETTING IT READY blah blah OK Farmer Henry’s Almanac.)

Happy Easter Sunday to those who care about that holiday!

And if not, happy beautiful spring day in April!

We had a lot of quality time together as a family today (which is happening less and less the older Chooch gets – ugh, teenagers!) and I will definitely be recapping our Easter happenings soon. But first, here are some pictures I took after our Easter lunch at a playground!

Hey, it might not be cherry blossoms in South Korea, but these are still beautiful and give me HOPE THAT THINGS ARE GONNA GET BETTER.

He looks so freaking tall here and I hate it.

Remember when he was *this* small on Easter??:

Petal Face.

(That’s my beloved sea-glass from Busan around my neck, FYI!)

Wish I could always use flowers as a mask! This picture was actually an accident but I kept it because I look v.

srs. which was 100% not how I actually felt all day. Also, you can see my eyebrow piercing scar, which I often forget exists but this was a nice reminder and now I’m reliving that ER visit in my mind and cracking up. I think I have referenced it here once a long time ago but perhaps I will write an updated account of my eyebrow-piercing-gone-bad, because it was a Bad Idea from start to finish—lemme know if you want the story, haha. I mean, I have nothing else to blog about!

My signature dumb, unflattering pose.

Today was just really nice. Easter continues to be my second favorite holiday (behind Halloween, obv.).

Hello to everyone on this fine Good Friday! Easter is my second favorite holiday after Halloween, not for Jesus-rising reasons, but I think mostly because Easter = spring even though it was 30 degrees here in Pittsburgh yesterday AND SNOWING, OK April. So even though I’m working dreaded Late Shift today, I’m still in pretty good spirits knowing that we have a pre-Easter Trinidadian vegan meal to pick up tomorrow, and we’ll hopefully be noshing on our now-traditional Eastergayo sandwiches on Sunday, hopefully in some lovely forest-type of setting?? HOPEFULLY? HOPEFULLY I CAN SAY HOPEFULLY MORE TIMES IN THIS POST??

(HELLO, THIS IS ERIN FROM THE NEXT DAY, STOPPING BY TO SAY THAT I DID NOT GET VERY FAR WITH THIS POST YESTERDAY SO NOW IT’S SATURDAY AND LET’S SEE WHAT WE CAN ACCOMPLISH.)

• Last Saturday morning was super nice and sunny so Henry and Blake went outside to do yardwork. At first I was like NO THANKS because I wasn’t feeling social, but then I heard Blake and Henry start to gossip so I was like DID SOMEONE SAY LASCIVIOUS THINGS WITHOUT ME? So I went outside to eavesdrop. UNFORCH, Blake’s kids were out there and immediately latched on to me because, come on, I’m the super mysterious cool girl next door. I’m pretty sure they literally have no idea who I am in relation to them, but that’s OK because I’m too young to be a grandma anyway. I mean, we were playing some fun make-believe zoo game and that was cool but I was desperate to get in on the adult convo. I may have had my own thoughts to share, depending on the subject! I AM A GROWN-UP TOO! Except that you would never know it because I am literally forever at the kids table. Then Buddy made an appearance and I was like “oooh it’s Buddy!” and got up to go play with him but Calvin was like, “No come back and play with me!” and I was like “BUT SQUIRRELS!” and yeah.
• Speaking of Blake, he and his wife Haley had a new baby on Monday! His name is Milo. Haley’s mom was staying at their house watching Calvin and Lily, so we were all outside playing on Tuesday, waiting for them to come home (baby turnaround time is a lot quicker these days, it seems?!). I found a bunch of Chooch’s old action figures and took them outside for Calvin and Lily. One of them was a muscular man with a big shark head. Calvin kept asking me who it was and I was like “the fuck if I know” but in a more kid-friendly fashion, and then Chooch was like “I DON’T KNOW, STOP TALKING TO ME” and Haley’s mom was like, “Surely you must know, it was something you played with at some point!” but he insisted he had no idea and honestly, it might as well have been the first time seeing this damn thing for me. Then Blake and Haley came home with the baby and as Blake walked past our porch, he shouted apropos of nothing, “Ooh, Street Shark!” Of-fucking-course Blake would know.

• Recently, one of the bigger names in the kpop pin community passed away. She was an American expat in South Korea and made some really stunning pins, and while I never had an online relationship with her, I still knew her name and was actually shocked to find out that she had died. Someone started a hashtag for her and asked everyone to post a picture of their kpop fan lightsticks last week, using the hashtag. I was honored to have a chance to contribute to this online outpouring of love and I only hope that her family and close friends were privy to this so they could see how much of an impact she had on the kpop community.
• I’m glad that April Fool’s Day doesn’t seem to be a thing anymore.

• Drew’s face was me after doing two noon-8:30 late shifts in a row. I don’t know why, but these late shifts really do a number on my sanity. I was blessed with two relatively quiet nights but last night, one of my co-workers asked me to help him with something at 8:27 and I was like YOU ARE SO LUCKY YOU HAVE BEEN NICE TO ME FOR THE LAST 11 YEARS.
• This morning, Henry and I went to a new Russian/European market for some last-minute Easter basket stuff. We got Turkish cotton candy and now I am disgusted at the SHIT that we have been fed at American carnivals and circuses all this time! Um, I guess I will talk about that in a future weekend recap though.

BRB WALKING TO THE LIBRARY TO PICK UP SOME BOOOOOOOOOOOKS!!!

• We babysat for a bit Thursday evening (it was supposed to be Henry and Chooch doing the entertaining since I was working late shift but guess who’s more fun and Calvin knows it?). Here’s a picture of Uncle Chooch being completely put-out and knowing exactly how it felt for me and Henry every time Young Chooch wanted to “play” Mouse Trap, lol, fuck that game.
• Matt Gaetz did it.
• I didn’t have too many side effects after my first Pfizer shot – just a mild headache and an ache at the injection site that actually got PRETTY uncomfortable later that night and hurt when I lifted my arm for most of the next day. But I am preparing for the worst after I get my second dose. I requested off work for the day of and after already so hopefully it’s approved and I can be miserable on the couch with the cats all day. I’m low-key a little scared! But thinking of having somewhat of a “normal” summer & not potentially dying from Covid is all I care about right now. I was Kakao’ing with my friend Kyoung who lives in Korea and he was asking me about how the situation is here currently and I was like, “Well, there are still a lot of people who won’t wear masks and are therefore making it worse for the rest of us normal, sensible people” and he is like, FLABBERGASTED that there are Americans who are still anti-mask and his response to that was “They can have their freedoms after corona!” EXACTLY. WHEN WILL AMERICA WAKE THE FUCK UP.
• Henry found this timelapse he took the first time we were in Korea and only thought to send it to me last week, wow, thanks.

• In case you guys were wondering about what I dream about now, it’s feeding squirrels and animals that either shouldn’t be in my backyard (sea otters) or don’t exist IRL (miniature gray-boxy-furry alligator things on leashes), also men dressed in unicorn onesies. (Yes, I was feeding the unicorn man, too. Carrots, if you were curious.)
• In case you were also wondering about my current culinary quests, I recently decided that I was grown-up enough to tackle the creation of smoothie bowls on my own, unsupervised. Henry went out and bought me a ton of healthy, vegan ingredients, powders, mix-ins, etc and even bought a better blender-thingie for me to use and can you guess how many times I’ve used it since this all started two weeks ago? If you guessed any number other than zero, then 딩 동 댕! Sorry Henry, but I am just too chicken to use this damn thing! So instead, I just wait for him to come home from work and he makes me smoothie bowls for dinner. His presentation is lacking though. And the one he made me last night was brown so I thought he went the chocolate PB route but no, it was acai and pineapple?! It was so hard for me to get past the color, knowing it wasn’t chocolate! It never tasted like anything other than “brown” after that.

Well, it’s almost time for me to eat some pre-Easter Trinidadian vegan foods so I will wish you all a wonderful Easter and leave you with a picture of Penelope and Jackson Wang’s newest MV!

THE 80S VIBES WITH THIS ONE!!

I didn’t have to log on to work until noon today so I decided that I was going to turn off my alarm and actually try to sleep in for once. But then my Boss Amber texted me at 7am and said that Spartan Pharmacy had opened up their vaccination site today for ALL RESIDENTS 16+. I was like “LOL OK, we’ll see” because Janna had also recently sent me something similar and that sucker was booked up before I could even click the link.

BUT THIS ONE WORKED!! I was able to snag an appointment for later that morning!! Screw sleeping in, I’m getting that sweet pfizzy arm cocktail, boooiiiii!!

Chooch is on Spring Break this week so I dragged him with me for moral support. I mean, he sat in the car the whole time and watched YouTube videos, but knowing that I had someone waiting for me was ENOUGH FOR ME, YOU KNOW?

The vaccination station was actually at a firehall that my ex-friend Keri had her wedding reception in back in 2003 and I kept periodically cracking up over this as I stood in line for nearly an hour, through bursts of snowfall and blustery winds. Of course the climate would revert back to winter vibes on April 1!

I was really impressed with how quickly the line moved though. There was very little “standing still,” and everyone mostly shuffled like the most lethargic zombies. Shockingly, nothing exciting or weird happened the entire time I was standing in line, which is outrageous because when have I stood in line and not been, at the very least, bothered by something??? I think also, it’s been SO LONG since I’ve stood in a line so my threshold was pretty good. In fact, I kept pretending it was training for all of the roller coasters I’m going to be standing in line for this summer!!

(Yes, I know, just because I’ll be vaccinated doesn’t mean I can go hog wild! I will still be super smart about what I do and obviously I’ll be social distancing and still wearing a mask when necessary, which doesn’t bother me one bit!)

Anyway, once I reached the entrance, I started panicking because I could hear a volunteer up ahead telling everyone to make sure they had “1 and 3” of their consent forms but mine were 2 & 3?? I was starting to sweat at this point was waiting for her to sigh and slap a clipboard against my chest so I could fill out whatever form I was missing but she looked at what I had and was like “OK YOU’RE GOOD” and then from there it was like literally being led around like cattle. “Go see Dave, he’ll photocopy your license and insurance card.”

“Go wait at that table to sign in.”

“Go stand behind that tall guy in the puffy jacket.”

“Go to the lady with her arm raised.”

(This was when I finally got my coveted jab! It literally only took the amount of time needed to shrug out of my coat, sit down, tell the lady my age because I missed that question on the form, and then BAM DONE.)

“Take this card and stand by the green sign.”

“Here’s your next appointment. Go sit down for 15 minutes. If you feel OK, you can leave.”

I was dizzy from all the directions.

And then swirly and pfizzy from The Science.

Someone there said they liked my coat too and I was like “WELL ISN’T THIS JUST THE GREATEST DAY EVER!?” I was in such a great mood, and I even had enough time to take Chooch to Sheetz before logging on

I had to stand in the weirdest pose to get this, and apologies to Marcy (RIP!) for the headshot, but it is my favorite puncture wound of all time. (Well, maybe tied with the one I’ll be getting on April 29th!)