Today is the day all of us Taemints have been dreading. Military enlistment day. But I know that he will do well because he does well at everything!!

Anyway, let the countdown to discharge commence!

Henry, about our cat Drew: she’s so whiny today. She was upstairs crying, then she was on the porch crying, then she was at the window crying.

Me: Because Taemin enlisted.

Henry: I…don’t think that’s it.

What a miserable Memorial Day weekend! It’s currently rainy and like, 50 degrees here in Pgh so I’ve spent most of the day huddled on the couch with a book (already a contender for Top 10 of 2021), roller coaster videos playing in the background.

What a dumb intro for a post of cat pictures!

Hopefully the rest of the weekend is more exciting. K bye.

OK, I have nothing bad to say about Knoebels AT ALL. This might actually be the most perfect family park in existence. I’m not kidding. We have never had a bad experience here, and we always magically seem to get along.

Where Chooch and I stood in line together like strangers the day before at Hershey, at Knoebels we were chatty and excited, pointing at Henry on his respective benches as we climbed up lift-hills and shouted JANNNNNNNA!!!! in lieu of “woo hoo!” as an homage to the Wacky Worm days of yesteryear. 

Henry loves Knoebels because it’s a free admission park. So old people like him can stroll right in for free and just spend the day eating, sitting on benches, playing games, etc. But if they’re feeling frisky after eating their BBQ sandwich, they can stroll right up to an old-fashioned ticket booth and buy some tickets for any damn ride they want. This is what Henry did. He literally bought tickets just to ride the carousel so we could get our traditional carouselfie.

We have the dumbest traditions but I also love them, too.

Also, the park opens early so you can EAT BREAKFAST there which somehow we didn’t know about this or else the GREAT HASHBROWN DISPUTE might never had happened that morning!

Since we got there an hour before the rides opened, Chooch declared that his self-appointed ban on mini-golf had been lifted so he and Henry entered that hellscape while I spent the time walking around and enjoying the SCENERY like an old lady. It’s not often we get to slow it down and really enjoy amusement parks, and Knoebels is SO BEAUTIFUL AND FOREST-Y!

Good luck with that, Henry.

Knoebels lifted their mask mandate for vaccinated people and I’m sure Chooch would have been fine to remove his mask while mini-golfing because no one was around but I think he is now just so accustomed to masking up that he doesn’t even notice it.

Knoebels has Mr. Gray Guys!!

Anyway, let us take some time and enjoy the quaint Knoebels vibes, shall we?

Phoenix is THE MOST IMPORTANT reason why we keep coming back to Knoebels, if you know, you know.

Also, I hate when people say that but wanted to see how it felt to say it out loud as I typed it and as expected, I felt like a smarmy asshole. But why stop there….

WHAT HAPPENS AT KNOEBELS STAYS AT KNOEBELS.

OK, I’m done now. Whoooof.

Another great woodie!

WE GOT PIZZA FROM HERE AND IT WAS DELICIOUS. Amusement park pizza just hits different. It’s also pretty much the only time that I can eat one slice and be satisfied because I’m always in such a hurry to get back to the rides!

Chooch played this idiotic game while we waited for our pizza. He won a stupid dino egg, the kind that you have to marinate in water and it hatches into a toy. He was way too excited about it.

I wanted Henry to go sit at that table in the background because it was filled with people wearing the colors of the Henry rainbow.

OK LISTEN. Even if you’re just *mildly* into dark rides, you gotta splurge and pay the extra $3 to ride the Haunted Mansion because it is one of the best classic dark rides I have ever ridden. That’s actually how we first ended up at Knoebels several years ago – for an event with the Darkride and Funhouse Enthusiasts group we used to  belong to! Then we stopped renewing our membership because the people in the group acted like they didn’t know us* at every event and it was really uncomfortable because I wanted to make friends.

*(Except for our friends the Handas!!)

BENCHIN’ IT.

Oh also Knoebels has really unique, delicious, and AFFORDABLE food like these delightful Tiger Tails! And Henry had the most delectable sweet potato as a side with his BBQ sandwich which made me have slight pizza-regertz.

Oh and also part 2: Knoebels has a carousel where you can catch brass rings like they did back in VICTORIAN AGES when women straddled horses in flouncy evening gowns and probably their CHIVALROUS MANS hoisted them up there in the first place. Wish I had had a CHIVALROUS MANS to give my big butt a boost because these horses are hard to mount! (Somewhere, Chooch is screaming THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID.) But instead, Henry the Mannerless Milquetoast Man was too busy daydreaming of the time he went to Magic Mountain while he was IN THE SERVICE. I asked him if he rode a carousel when he was there and he mumbled, “I don’t remember what I rode.” PROBABLY A TOWNIE HOOKER.

Here’s a reflection of Henry talking to Chooch about that probably. “AND SHE WAS MISSING AN ARM SO I HAD TO GRAB HER LIKE THIS…”

Definitely one of the more elegant carousels I’ve ever taken a ride on.

OH BOY THEN IT WAS FASCINATION TIME.

Some bitch sitting nearby was definitely cheating somehow and no I’m not referring to myself, I wasn’t playing.

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This ride was a real motherfucker and had me screaming into the atmosphere an on-the-spot Living Will. However! My favorite part was before the ride even started. We had just gotten into line when these two teen girls came flopping over. Their friends were three people ahead of us in line and they were like COME ON, CUT IN LINE! and the two flopping girls were like WE CANNOT CUT THE LINE and the other two girls, one of which was CLEARLY the alpha and definitely smokes Newports in the trailer park, was like DO IT NOW so they were like SORRY SORRY and guiltily pushed past us and three other girls. I was like I WILL NOT LET THIS BOTHER ME because I was having a great day now that the HASHBROWN INCIDENT was but a memory, but the three girls in front of us did NOT think this line-jumping was cute.

I mean, I didn’t either, but FWIW, when they cut, two other people near the front were in the process of leaving the line so it all evened out.

You know?

Anyway! We almost made it the next ride but the line got cut off right at the pair in front of the CUTTERS. But then the ride never started. There was clearly some drama going on and then we realized that some small kid was like freaking out at the last minute and the ride attendant had to unlock everyone’s restraints so the kid and his parents could leave the ride.

This left four seats open, so the ride attendant was all, “Yo, we got any groups of 4 out there?” and the Newport bitch shot her skinny, jelly-braceleted arm into the sky and did a weird hop. But there were two girls who were next in line, and they made an audible exclamation of disgust at this. So the ride attendant was like, “Well, these two girls were first” so she let them on and then asked the girls behind the cutters if they had two people in their group and one of them said yes BUT THERE WERE THREE and two of them were seriously going to leave their friend behind, so she cried, “Hey!

” And they were like, UGH FINE so then I raised my hand and proudly said, “WE HAVE TWO!” So we got to cut in front of the Cutters and Newport was SO PISSED!  She made the standard “UGH!!!!” face that all dumb teenage girls spend their entire time in the womb perfecting, and it felt SO GOOD to flounce past them.

I was so excited to tell Henry about this afterward and Chooch kept saying “Oh my god” while making the “speed it up” motion, probably just like you are doing right now. LOOK, IT WAS REALLY EXCITING FOR ME OK.

Sadly, Knoebels closed at 6pm that day since it was still technically “pre-season” so we didn’t get a night ride on Phoenix, but it was still honestly the perfect day. I mean, everything post-hashbrouhaha. Hashbrownhaha. You know?

If Knoebels was closer to Pittsburgh, I’d have my birthday party there, seriously. OR THE PIE PARTY. We could all eat pie and then puke Problem Child-style.

We haven’t been able to spend any time with Henry’s mom Judy in forever, since even before the pandemic started, so now that we’re all vaccinated (Chooch still just has that one dose but at least he’s 80% protected, right CDC!?) we invited the ol’ Judester (literally have never called her that until right now) over for some vegan food and hangs.

Onion Maiden was doing a brunch-themed pre-order that weekend so Henry was like WE WILL TAKE ONE OF EVERYTHING and then we split it all four ways and brother, oh brother, it was perfect. It was also Judy’s first time eating vegan food and she was really excited because not only did it taste good, but it didn’t hurt her stomach. I made sure to let her know that vegan food is not always synonymous with HEALTHY CHOICES because I have had some vegan junk food that has left me feeling like my stomach is going to drop out of my ass. Some vegan food can be HEAVY AF!

But Onion Maiden is pretty safe in that regard. I think so, anyway. Of course, you can always over-eat no matter the cuisine.

Regards,

Erin the Dietician*

*(I just got my degree from the back of a matchbook from 1976.)

On my plate, you will see matcha waffles with strawberries, kale salad, tater tots, mushroom’d and gravied biscuit, grits with kimchi, and an “omelette” with fake bacon. I can’t remember all the fun names (aside from Gorilla Biscuits) but rest assured, Onion Maiden will always hit you with the best heavy metal food puns.

Polished that shit off with some vegan morning desserts!

I think my favorite part though was when we were showing Judy the kitchen and I bragged that I “cook all the time” now because I love being in there so much.

Henry and Chooch glared at me.

“Well,” I qualified, “I make myself breakfast everyday now.”

(Chooch mumbled, “She doesn’t make me breakfast.”)

“I’m really good at making eggs.” The Brag Barge was still sloshing down Ego River.

“Oh! Can you make over-easy? That’s my favorite,” Judy said.

“…can you make those with Egg Beaters?” I asked with a frown.

Judy stared at me for a second, before dead-panning, “No. No, you cannot.”

[Yo, speaking of my eggs, I dunno what paprika is but ever since I accidentally started using it, my scrambled eggs (beaters) have been next level. I’m going to start exclaiming PAPRIKA! now instead of Eureka, assuming I would ever exclaim Eureka in the first place.]

Then Blake brought his entire brood over and I was annoyed because Henry bought them kinetic sand TO TAKE HOME WITH THEM but they were like OPEN THIS. OPEN THIS FOR ME. OPEN. OPEN OPEN OPEN. And I am such a fucking pushover and also just didn’t want them to cry, so I fucking opened it and I am still sweeping it up and picking tiny clumps of it off the cats. Ugh.

I was so mad because Judy, Blake, and Chooch started playing some card game that perhaps I wanted to play too but Calvin and Lily were demonically chanting, “PWAY WIF ME. PWAY WIF ME EWIN” and I kept saying NO I DON’T WANT TO and Lily moved on with her life but Calvin was so persistent so I was like “LET’S HAVE A CONVERSATION INSTEAD” because it was 90 degrees in my house and I was tired AF and also I do not like playing with children.

At one point, I cried, “I AM FOREVER AT THE KID’S TABLE THIS SUCKS.”

Then I took this picture of the grandkids and great-grandkids. Aw.

Also, Chooch was getting super mad because Judy kept calling him “Blake” and “Robbie” and then sometimes she would dip into the grandkids from the other family tree branch and if you know anything about Chooch, you know he can be pretty solipsistic so this was supremely bruising his self-worth.

I tried to make him feel better by sharing that my grandma used to call me the names of all three of her daughters and then she’d dip into the dog’s name too before finally settling on Erin. (My grandma also low-key hated me, so.)

Haley, who had arrived around this time from work, commiserated with me on this and shared that her family used to do the same.

“Although to be fair, the dog’s name was Bailey….” she admitted.

“Oh,” I frowned. “My grandparent’s dog’s name was Wally….”

Anyway, that was a fun afternoon but holy shit I was so tired. I am not used to talking to people’s faces for that long. + humidity. x kids. = BURNT OUT ERIN.

The weekend we went to Hershey, we patronized FOUR Sheetz. Three of them were on Sunday alone, and the first was TERRIBLE. I mean, don’t get me wrong – I am Team Sheetz all the way (Wawa can sit on a dick) but our experience at the one in Elysburg that morning was an exercise in blood-boiling.

FIRST, when we arrived there was a sign on the door that said the KITCHEN WAS CLOSED. I stormed back to the car and Henry, who hadn’t even made it out of the car yet because he is an Elder, asked what the matter was. I told him as we all got back in the car and drove away.

“But, did you even go inside and check? Maybe the sign was old…” Henry started to say because WHY DOES HE DO THIS WHY CAN’T HE TRUST THE INFO I AM PROVIDING. We went across the street to a Subway but I DID NOT ACTUALLY WANT A SUBWAY BREAKFAST SANDWICH BECAUSE I WANTED SHEETZ so we left that place too and Henry was flipping through his mental Rolodex of WAYS TO DISPOSE OF A BODY.

“I have to get gas so I’m going back to Sheetz,” he muttered, so at that point, I was resigned to just go inside and get a protein bar and a fucking banana (SOMETIMES GAS STATION FRUIT IS OK) but when I walked in, I saw people ordering at the touch screen stations so I guess the kitchen was open after all HAHAHAHAHAHAugh.

Even though the CDC relaxed the mask mandate earlier that week, most businesses—including Sheetz—still required people to wear masks before entering. Welp, aside from the employees, we were essentially the only people there wearing masks. And, judging by the customers and the area we were in, I’m guessing we were also probably in the vaccinated minority. To make things even better, there were a group of kids who were probably somewhere between 19-22 standing near us while we were waiting for our orders. The ringleader, a lanky dork-ass motherfucker in a camo yarmulke, kept cutting past everyone to peer back into the kitchen in search of his food that he hadn’t even paid for yet. THEN he started rambling on to his friends about how the Democrats created Covid-19 just to get people to buy masks (WHAT—-WHY!??!?! HOW DOES THIS BENEFIT THEM??) and get vaccinated. I looked at Henry and growled, “I’M GOING TO GET A TABLE OUTSIDE.”

I kept chanting in my head, “I will not let this ruin my day” because hello, we were going straight to Knoebel’s after this and I just wanted to have a good day but now I was worried that all the idiotic rural people I encountered inside Sheetz were also going to Knoebel’s that day. Henry was supposed to say, “I doubt it” when I brought it up, but instead, he said, “OH YOU KNOW IT.” Sometimes I just really really really want him to give me the answer I want to hear, but he clearly did not ace the “Easing Your Fake Wife’s Worries” quiz in the back of one of his 1980s PORNO RAGS.

When Henry joined Chooch and me outside at a table in the back of Sheetz, he withdrew a small pouch of hashbrowns that he ordered along with whatever gross breakfast sandwich he got. While he was busy complaining about the fact that they completely doused the inside of his sandwich with Ketchup, which he did not ask for, Chooch and I eagerly stole a hashbrown round from the pouch.

ACTUAL PICTURE OF SHEETZ HASHBROWNS TAKEN FROM THE INTERNET

“AW COME ON!” Henry cried, but he should know damn well that anything he gets for himself that doesn’t have meat in it is fair game.  Chooch and I are like fucking boxcar kids on the run from the orphanage, the way we scavenge and pilfer food.

I mean, there were still two left, get a grip, Hank!

Henry went back inside to get more napkins to aid in his Operation: Ketchup Scrape. Chooch grabbed another hashbrown and I was like I WANT ANOTHER ONE TOO but noticed that there was only one left. “Were there only four?” I pouted, figuring that we should at least leave ONE for Henry. Chooch groaned guiltily and split the third one in half so we could share. Then Henry came back and focused for a bit on sopping up the pools of Ketchup from his sandwich innards while explaining to us for the fifth time that no, he did not ask for Ketchup on his sandwich, he asked for Ketchup for the hashbrowns.

And speaking of the hashbrowns, he jammed his big meat paw into the grease-laden pouch only to withdraw what appeared to be a crumb. And for the 87th time that morning, he cried, “AW COME ON!”

Immediately, Chooch lurched across the table to follow the path of his jutting, accusatory finger. “MOM ATE THEM ALL!” he screamed.

“No, I didn’t!! I had one, plus the half that you gave me!” I fired back.

“Yeah, and then you had the last one, too. I watched you!” He was now hiccuping through GUILT-GIGGLES. Readers, let me explain something to you that I know all too well because he gets this TELL from me: my son cannot lie without laughing. It’s physically impossible for him.

Now I’m fucking pissed. I hate being accused of things, even the pettiest of things like EATING ALL OF THE HASHBROWNS. So you’ll understand why I, at this point in the story, shrieked, “Stop accusing me of eating it, you little pigbitch asshole!”

Henry tried to interject that he only got a quarter of one hashbrown round and I verbally bitch-slapped him with a, “STFU NO ONE CARES THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOU” and went back to The Real World-levels of bickering with Chooch while Henry quietly murmured, “But they were my hashbrowns.”

I DID NOT EAT ALL OF THEM. Now, I also can’t verify that Chooch did either because he’s 15 and Mommy doesn’t have to “keep an eye” on him constantly, and knowing me, I was probably cruising Instagram while he was over there hoovering Henry’s hashbrowns.

I started pounding the heels of my palms on the table to accentuate each syllable of my passionate declaration that I DID NOT EAT THE LAST FUCKING HASHBROWN.

“I had one, Chooch had one – THAT IS TWO. Then Chooch and I split the THIRD ONE. There should be ONE LEFT,” I screamed in my throaty Angry Satan voice.

“Well, there isn’t,” Henry said, all deflated. First the Ketchup and now this.

“WELL THEN CHOOCH ATE IT,” I screamed at the same time my lying son word-vommed, “YEAH BECAUSE MOM ATE IT!”

I was so angry that I had tears in my eyes which almost matched Chooch’s except that his were borne from LYING-LAUGHS.

Meanwhile, Henry refused to say who he believed and this was infuriating me even more and if the fucking table hadn’t been bolted to the sidewalk, I would have flipped it.

Henry gestured up to the security camera pointed at us. “I can go inside and ask to see the security footage,” he said and I was like “YES DO THAT!!!! THEN YOU WILL SEE THAT IT WAS CHOOCH!” and Chooch was laughing even harder now and almost puking and if you think I wouldn’t sift through his stomach contents to try and reconstruct TWO AND A HALF HASHBROWN ROUNDS, well, you’re probably right.

This went on for a good 8 minutes and hoo boy, was I HOT.

You’re welcome, Sheetz patrons, for the Sunday morning show.

We went to a second Sheetz on our way home from Knoebel’s and Chooch was whining because they didn’t cut his pizza so Henry told him to just go back in and ask them to cut it but this was too much for Chooch to handle so Henry wrenched the pizza box from Chooch’s hands in the backseat and, on his way inside to do Chooch’s dirty work for him, announced to the whole parking lot that he lives with idiots.

(I originally typed Heresy Park in the title and now I want there to be a Heresy Park that sounds really fucking raise-the-pitchfork amazing.)

This post is mostly going to be about ROLLER COASTERS because that’s all we rode that day, but first I want to say that when Chooch was updating his dorktastic Coaster Credit spreadsheet to add all of the Hershey coasters, he realized that he left out every single coaster from Dollywood somehow, which means that the coaster in Lake Compounce that we thought was his 100th was actually his 107th or something like that so now we have to sit down and try to organize everything by date to see what his actual 100th coaster actually was, maybe something from King’s Dominion? WHY ARE WE SUCH LOSERS.

Shall we begin? After the loooooong pandemic hiatus, our first coaster was none other than Hershey Park’s brand new hyper coaster, Candymonium. It actually opened last year, along with several other highly-anticipated coasters, and as tempting as it was to still go to parks last summer, we decided to wait and it was EXCRUCIATING!! I couldn’t watch coaster videos for most of 2020 because I was so fucking depressed and choking on FOMO.

Candymonium is right by the entrance and any coaster expert will tell you to immediately go to the back of the park and work your way through it that way to avoid long lines, but for this one, the wait was about 30 minutes when we got there and I was like “No, we are mounting this motherfucking NOW.” Henry was being a bitch-boy about getting a locker for his man-purse and finally just yelled, “JUST GO WITHOUT ME” – why does he do this shit to himself??

Thoughts on waiting in line for the first time since 2019:

• still hate it
• still makes me yawn uncontrollably
• Chooch doesn’t talk to me
• dorky white families still play Heads Up like no one is around them
• BUT OMFG I’M IN LINE FOR A ROLLER COASTER!!!!

The line moved pretty steadily because they were running three trains and the ops were pretty efficient, so I couldn’t complain too much. However, I noticed that even though each row seats 4 people, they were sending trains with just two people in some of the rows so I wasn’t sure if it was because they weren’t mixing groups due to Covid restrictions, but then I realized that no, people are just assholes and groups of two were purposely sitting in ways that prevented other people from getting on with them, because later in the day, we rode Skyrush twice with other people in our row.

DON’T BE THAT ASSHOLE!!! Get in and move all the way down so other people can get in after you! Jesus fucking Christ!

Also, I think the same song was playing over and over the whole time we were in line. Also #2, there was a young sister and brother duo in front of us who were fake-fighting the entire time and it was SO FUCKING ANNOYING and a very quick reminder that I hate being around people and I wish that social distancing was still being enforced while standing in line, because that little fucking boy almost fell into my 87 times and it wasn’t until we were almost at the station when the older sister finally said to him, “BE CAREFUL THERE ARE PEOPLE BEHIND YOU!”

Wow thanks. At the very end.

Thoughts on Candymonium?

• super smooth
• a nice first coaster of the pandemic
• kind of underwhelming though

We rode in the back on our first ride, and the front on the second ride. We are usually Backseat Riders, but I will say that the front row was better on this one.

Anyway, while we were on the break-run, waiting to come back to the station, we saw Henry walking like a Man on a Mission.

“HE HAS SOMETHING!” Chooch cried, and we were straining to see what it was.

Turns out he splurged and for the first time of our lives, Bench-Warming Dad bought us Fast Lane wristbands!!! Of course he went for the cheapest tier which meant we could skip the line once on all coasters and a selection of flatrides, and it is a REALLY good thing he did that because those lines were wicked. In fact, after we got off Candymonium, the wait time had shot up to 170 minutes.

No. Thank. You.

The next one we rode was Great Bear. We opted not to use our wristbands for this one because the line was pretty short (15-20 minutes) and we wanted Henry to ride it too since he didn’t get the Fast Lane for himself. Those things are exorbitant, it’s actually criminal. Why can’t all parks be like Disney?? Disney has the greatest fast pass system in the whole fucking world. You’re already paying $$ for the ticket, plus $$ for parking, and you’re inevitably going to spend $$ on food, so why the fuck should these asshole themeparks make you pay $$$ extra to ensure that you’ll get to ride things that you ALREADY PAID FOR. And all it does it make the general queues move even slower. Set up complimentary fast pass reservations for the best, most popular rides, and let people get to select a time for 3 or 4 of them. One time use. Bam. Not everyone can afford to pay $99 extra per person to do this!! Luckily, Henry had his “FOR FUN TIMES” cash on him and was like “Well, hard-saved cash, it’s now or never.”

And thank god he did this because the day would have been even worse (I mean, it wasn’t a TERRIBLE day but it could have been!).

Anyway, I was happy to have Henry in line with us because now I had someone to talk to since Chooch is 15 and everything I say is so dumb or if he doesn’t hear me, he spits, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU” in the most disgusted grunt ever. I AM SO TERRIBLE TO BE AROUND, YOU GUYS.

Great Bear is an unsung hero!!! Holy shit, I fucking LOVED this coaster! B&M inverted coasters are so much fun to ride in the back because you literally have no idea what is coming next and everything was a pleasantly surprise. I laughed through the whole ride!

By now, the park was P-A-C-K-E-D and lines were spilling out onto the walkways. Chooch and I used our Fast Lane to ride Skyrush, except that when Chooch scanned his wristband, it lit up red. The young and very ambivalent girl working the Fast Lane gate said he would have to go to customer service, but he quickly said, “I think it’s because I scanned it twice.” She didn’t even question him and let him slide right on in.

So we ended up only having to wait about 5-10 minutes from there, and was it worth it? Um, no? This fucker is painful. And I knew that too from all the dumb videos I watch but I was like, “Well, these videos are all made by sissy-lala men who think everything hurts because they are so precious, so I’m sure I’ll be fine.

BITCH. This motherfucker KILLED MY THIGHS. It felt like I was simultaneously stung by Murder Hornets and being whipped by the rosaries of 5 nuns. It was RELENTLESS. I couldn’t even tell you if I enjoyed this fucking ride, to be honest, because I was in tears of pain by the end and could barely breathe.

Skyrush more like THIGHCRUSH. Fuck you.

Sooper Dooper Loop was next and it was basically just Baby’s First Upside Coaster. We stood in the regular line for this because it was so short, figuring that if we liked it, we’d be able to come back later and use the Fast Lane, but nah. The best part was watching the geese hang out along the water while waiting in line.

I probably would have thought I was hot shit for riding this as a kid in the single digits, though.

Comet was next – just your classic smaller scale woodie, and the line was outrageous. We used our Fast Lane (the girl didn’t even make us scan it, just asked, “did you buy them today?” and then let us through) and lemme tell you, once was enough. Also, GIGANTIC BEES were buzzing around when we sat idly on the brake run for a solid three minutes it felt like.

*Break from riding to argue over food*

It was around this point that I realized we could track our lines on the Hershey app so we could see which rides we had left for the Fast Lane. It had all three of our names on the account when I accessed it, but the word “Activated” was only next to my name. So this explained why when Chooch scanned his on Skyrush, it came up as red. And thank god that girl on Comet didn’t make us scan them or it wouldn’t have worked there, either! So now Henry was all LET ME SEE THAT because of course I must have been doing something wrong since I’m a natural dumbo, but after examining the app, he was like, “WE WILL JUST GO TO THIS FAST LANE KIOSK AND ACTIVATE IT” but it wouldn’t scan Chooch’s barcode.

We had to walk all the way back to the entrance plaza so that Henry could go and talk to a real person inside the Fast Lane building. They were in there for quite a while, but Henry said it was OK when they came back. We started to walk away and after several minutes, something made me check the app again. Now, it said “activated” next to Chooch’s name, and NOT MY NAME. Henry was like, ‘IT IS PROBABLY FINE’ and I said, “Look, bitch, they took my Fast Lane account and applied it to Chooch and now I don’t fucking have one.” Because Chooch’s Fast Lane had Skyrush taken off of it, when he didn’t actually “have” a Fast Lane at that point.

So back we went, through the mass of traffic-jammed baby strollers (seriously, baby strollers ruin everything, leave your fucking babies at home lol no I’m serious), back to the Fast Lane building which now had a line because some douchebag guy WITH A BABY STROLLER was there to collect all of his pass holder perks so he was tying up one clerk, while a family of n00bs was making another old man clerk explain in GREAT DETAIL the differences between the two Fast Lane options (NOT ROCKET SCIENCE: one can only be used once at a selection of rides; one is UNLIMITED – OMG do you have a CHART to explain that? A whiteboard?!). Meanwhile, NOAH THE 19-YEAR-OLD MANAGER was sitting behind his computer screen with an ultra-relaxed and bored posture, languidly counting money while the line continued to grow. I could feel the bubbles popping as my blood was brought closer to a boil.

We had a very kind but flustered woman helping us and I felt extremely bad for her because, LONG STORY SHORT, Noah had to come over and offer his completely blase managerial assistance (literally the way he ever-so-slowly rose from his chair and sighed on his way over made me want to punch him in the nose). Essentially what happened was that HE FUCKED IT UP IN THE FIRST PLACE so the woman had to sort through all of the receipts from that day looking for both mine and Chooch’s so that NOAH could re-activate them PROPERLY this time, and the whole fucking time she looked so defeated as she continuously apologized to us while NOAH let her take the fall.

FUCK ALL OF THE NOAHS IN THE WORLD, SINCERELY.

Also, let it be known that shit was straightened out the second time because I was in charge of clearly explaining the sitch because GOD ONLY KNOWS what bullshit nonsense Henry mumbled on the first try.

Apparently, they were having trouble with this all day though because we heard some dad tell the Fast Lane guy on another ride that everything was screwed up, they paid for the Fast Lane, go ask Customer Service and that was enough for the Fast Lane gate keeper to lift his arm out of his puddle of ennui long enough to unfastened the chain and grant them entrance.

So maybe there was some type of computer glitch. I will give them a pass on that, especially considering all of the Fast Lane attendants were so quick to let people through regardless. BUT I WILL NOT EXCUSE THE BULLSHIT BEHAVIOR OF NOAH AND HOW HE TREATED THAT POOR LADY WHO WAS TRYING SO HARD (way harder than his fuckboy ass) TO FIX SHIT FOR US.

And! They gave us a “bonus” ride for any ride of our choice, which is how we were able to ride Skyrush a second time later in the day and I tried to cheat the system by raising my feet onto the toes to bring my thighs up higher when the attendant came around to push down the lap bars, to prevent them from stapling me. JOKE’S ON ME THOUGH because even though I earned myself some wiggle room, as soon we descended that first hill, the lap bar came down one more click on its own, successfully stapling me in and ensuring that I would have another joy ride in the Iron Maiden.

Fuck that ride so hard! I’m glad I got the credit because I don’t think I will ever ride it again unless I strap a ring of maxi pads under my jeans.

Here’s part of Storm Runner which was closed and I was REALLY SAD but also prepared for this because I follow Hershey on Instagram and they have been trying to get a part for this coaster since last year. I heard it might open on Memorial Day weekend so MAYBE at some point in the fall, I will MAYBE consider going back but right now the thought of returning is not very appealing.

If you’ve ridden one boomerang, you’ve ridden them all, but if you keep a spreadsheet of every coaster you’ve ridden, then you still have to ride it. Ugh. This one was at least less terrible than the one in Lake Compounce, but man, there is something extremely terrifying about that first lift hill. I can’t even remember what this was called, but it was like “Name of Coaster: Sponsored by Name of Corporation” which I thought was tacky.

Hold on. I’ll look it up.

Sidewinder: Presented by Penn State Health.

Cool story.

Oh! When we were in line for this, one of the ride operators kept running back and forth past us, and then Hershey EMTs arrived with their big ass cooler of supplies and we were like WHAT IS HAPPENING because they were still sending trains. Turns out some older lady was like, overheated or having some kind of spell because they had her sitting on a stool while they applied ice packs to her and took her blood pressure. It was exciting to watch. I mean, because she clearly wasn’t dying! She was sipping her water and seemed like she was OK, leave me alone!

I mean, Wild Mouse is Wild Mouse. Nothing to really say about it except that while we were in line, some DAD completely waded through the landscaping and then scaled a wall just so he could join his family in line in front of us and I would have REALLY CAUSED A STINK over this except that they were already going to need to be in two cars anyway so it didn’t affect us.

Across from the Wild Mouse was the Wildcat, a woodie that turned out to be unexpectedly fantastic. There was about a 20 minute wait and we couldn’t use our Fast Lane on this because the regular line started PAST the Fast Lane entrance so it was pointless. So basically, even if the queue was full, using a Fast Lane will still have you waiting 20 minutes, which doesn’t seem very Fast Lane-esque to me.

I was trying very hard all day to not let people piss me off that day and I was doing a pretty fine job, I think, until this ride. I kept hearing wet slurping behind me. I knew there was a couple in their late 20s / early 30s behind us and I was like, “OMG ARE THEY MAKING OUT” and then became convinced that this is what was happening. Eventually, I stole a glance over my shoulder, and nope, it wasn’t that at all. The Discount Duff Goldman part of the couple was eating Dippin’ Dots. WHO EATS DIPPIN’ DOT THAT LOUDLY AND WETLY? Oh, I was in so much aural pain.

Chooch and I bonded over this later. The anguish over other people’s mouth sounds is truly something that never fails to unite us.

The only other coaster Henry rode all day was Lightning Racer because the line was not long at all. Chooch decided he was going to ride by himself so he crossed over to wait for the opposing train. We tried to align ourselves so that we would be able to race each other but he couldn’t get anyone to go ahead of him, so he ended up riding on the cycle before ours which was a bummer because WE WOULD HAVE BEATEN HIM!

Lightning Racer was so good! It has cemented itself up there as one of my favorite racers – it’s definitely better than Kennywood’s Racer (although that one is iconic because it’s a Mobius loop and also vintage at this point) and that shitty one at King’s Island, but I also REALLY like Gemini at Cedar Point and Racer 76 (I think??) at King’s Dominion. There is a racer coaster out in California that got the RMC treatment so I’m sure if I ever got to try that one on for size, it would be an easy #1!

However, Lightning Racer had a TUNNEL and I love when coasters have TUNNELS and I scream-laughed, “UNEXPECTED TUNNEL!!!!!” in my Bobcat Goldthwait bray as we cruised through it.

I actually wish we had ridden that again before we left.

The other coasters we rode that I have nothing really to say about was Trailblazer, which was just a mediocre family ride, and LaffTrakk which is an indoor Crazy Mouse-type of coaster similar but inferior to Kennywood’s Exterminator and also, even with Fast Lane, we waited for a solid 45 minutes and this was 100% not worth it. The queue was all indoors and it was so fucking hot in there that I getting pretty swirly.

I guess the only other notable thing, coaster-wise, was that when we were waiting in the loading area for our second ride on Skyrush, there was a group of Chooch-aged boys in front of us who thought it would be cute to chuck candy over the railing at their mom, who was waiting below with other family members. They thought they missed so they ducked back in line, leaving Chooch standing there alone, looking like he had been caught red-handed. The loading station for Skyrush is elevated so we were several feet above ground level making it easy for them to not be seen from the ground when they moved back from the railing. Their mom made an “I’m watching you” gesture to Chooch and he nearly melted into the ground lol.

Anyway, that concludes my titillating review of Hershey. I feel like it can’t always be as shitty as it was on this particular day because I have legit never heard anyone complain about it, so sorry Covid–but I’m blaming you!!

Stay tuned for my Knoebels recap because we also went there that weekend and, spoiler alert, IT WAS THE PERFECT DAY.

I have sad news. Well, sad news for me. You probably won’t care (who are you anyway, hello out there?). My dear friend Jiyong, whom I met via the Hello Talk language exchange app in 2019 – actually it was about three years ago to the date! – is moving back to Korea next week. We lost all of 2020 due to Covid obvi and my 한글 process suffered greatly but I mostly just missed seeing my friend every week, inevitably spilling my coffee, and just having really amazing conversations about cultural differences and getting to know each other.

I do not make true friends very easily (acquaintances, yes!) and she quickly became one of the VERY FEW people I had consistent contact with. So when she told me a few mths ago that she and her husband are leaving Pittsburgh, the tears squirted out. Still though, I am SO HAPPY for both of them!

Very grateful that we both had the incredible opportunity to receive the vaccination because that made it possible for us to safely have one last hang out (hopefully just here in PGH and not forever!). Jiyong asked me to take her someone cool and I couldn’t think of a better place than the Mattress Factory, which, in a way, reminds me of Korea because of the super outrageous and trendy sunglass company, Gentle Monster. Their flagship stores are basically Mattress Factory, but add sunglasses for sale.

Oh man, I had such a fun time sharing my favorite Pittsburgh place with her!

And if she hadn’t been there with me, I’d have never known that these are actually very old Korean coins!

It was also blessedly not crowded.

Afterward, we got some burritos at El Burro and ate them on a bench at a park across the street. It was a really great but extremely bittersweet day!

Oh! And I asked her if we ever make it back to Korea (henry says we will!), if we can go to the Han River and have a picnic because it’s something we always wanted to do but the process of ordering food (you can literally order ANYTHING and have it delivered right to you ANYWHERE, because Korea is the delivery capital of the world!) and she said YES OF COURSE and I am so excited to have a real life friend that I can visit if I ever make it back there.

Then her husband came to pick her up and he had a huge box of Korean snacks for me!!!! Omg what a beautiful day. I am going to miss Jiyong sooooo much, though. Who else will insist that I repeat the dreaded “려” sound over and over until I sound at least fairly coherent?! (That was not one of my favorite days with her, lol!)

Ugh goodbyes are literally the worst. I even let her hug me twice that’s how you know the sadness was real.

OK listen, Linda. I know what you’re thinking: wow, Erin was such an avid avoider of all of the things during the pandemic and now suddenly it’s cool to go to an amusement park? Listen. Listen, listen, listen. We made reservations in advance, knowing that Covid-restrictions were still in place and that Henry and I would both be past the 2-week point of our second Pfizer dose by then. And then it worked out that Chooch was able to get his first dose before we went so he was at least partially vaccinated. I was starting to feel OK about this.

But then.

The dumb CDC announced the new lax mask rules, and almost immediately after that (i.e. two days before our trip), Hershey was like GREAT NEWS, NO MASKS REQUIRED FOR OUR VACCINATED GUESTS.

Oh boy, the honor system!

In America!!!!

And I get it, HIPPA or whatever other legal bullshit prohibits places like this from requiring guests to show their vaccination cards as proof but DAMN I wish they would have! Give us a special wristband or something, you know? But instead, all three of us wore our masks for the entire day because I do not trust my fellow Americans and because Chooch still would have had to wear his anyway so we wore ours along with him out of solidarity. We are nice parents sometimes.

Another thing to note is that we, for some incredibly strange reason, have never actually been to Hershey Park (well, Henry was there when he was 10 and they probably only had, like, those peddle scooters and a Ferris wheel back then) and I have a vague recollection of also being there very briefly when I was very young because we 100% went on the Chocolate Factory ride which is separate from the amusement park, and I think we may have just walked through the park while I cried because I wanted to ride stuff and for some reason THAT WAS NOT HAPPENING THAT DAY.

So I’m not sure if the crowds we experienced that day were normal, but for a park that was allegedly running on like 75% capacity because of Covid, the hoards of people were poppin’ off. The picture above was taken after we left, but the entrance was just a gigantic, fluid, undulating mass of bodies when we got there 30 minutes before the gates opened AND SURPRISE, barely anyone was wearing masks. Luckily, we got behind the coolest, least annoying family: two dads and their two young kids, all of whom were decked out in head-to-toe Adidas and the kids were wearing Keith Haring masks. YOU KNOW I HAD TO GIVE COMPLIMENTS WHERE COMPLIMENTS WERE DUE! This caused us to have a nice, low-key civil rapport which is all you can ask for when you’re crammed into a mess of “lines” with thousands of strangers.

We saw them again later and when I pointed them out, Chooch made the universal I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT ALSO STOP TALKING TO ME IN PUBLIC disgusted face/shoulder raise often performed by American teenagers.

Before we got to the park that day, I declared out loud that I wasn’t going to let myself be bothered by the general population that (Henry laughed out a sarcastic “Ok.”) and following that same POSICORE mindset, I’m also going to focus more on the good shit about the park rather than the bad, because I am 99.9% positive that Hershey Park is not always like how it was last Saturday, which was: super fucking crowded with two of their most popular rides closed. I never hear anyone complain about Hershey so I have to believe that all of this was a combination of vaccinated people tryna live their lives, Hershey dropping their mask policy, the pandemic causing the park to be understaffed, and season pass holders showing up in droves to collect their swag and free cookies.

Most importantly, we got to do what we love so much: RIDE FUCKING COASTERS.

Before I get into that, let’s look at pictures of us frumpin’ around the park, being THOSE LIBS IN MASKS.

(Also, I’d like to point out that Chooch was chatting away on some dumb Dischord server thing pretty much all day and we barely talked at all in any of the lines and that’s pretty depressing.)

Me: Go stand by the statue of that dude…whoever the fuck that is.

Chooch: Uh….it’s literally the Hershey guy? But ok.

Henry only rode two coasters all day. This was one of them,

Henry always managed to capture me at my BEST ANGLES. Ugh.

This whole area was a FUCKING TRAFFIC JAM all day.

And we got to take a carouselfie!!!! I panicked when I first looked at this picture because I thought my underarms were flabby AND creped but then I realized that it’s actually part of Henry’s horse, lololol ugh. How I yearn for the day when I’m not completely preoccupied with my weight.

What you can’t hear is Chooch hissing, “WHAT???? WHICH PARENTAL PLEBE DOST DEIGN TO SPEAK TO ME?”

THIS WAS MY RIDE.

My favorite area was the Frontier Land part or whatever it was called.

In my next post, I will recap the rides we rode (all coasters, no time for anything else!), but I will end this with some non-ride observations:

• The soft pretzels were REALLY GOOD (especially the jalapeno ones!). We’re not “full meal eaters” typically when we go to amusement parks unless it’s a smaller park which allows us to live our lives more leisurely. Hershey Park is notorious for their gluttonous milkshakes and while I would have LOVED to fuck with one of those, I also…wanted to ride aggressive coasters.
• We were REALLY harried since it was our first time and didn’t really get to explore much but my initial impression was that the park was not very picturesque. I actually hated the entire area by the entrance because everything around Candymonium is dirt and it gives off construction site-vibes. Hopefully if we go back (I’m sure we will – we’re missing two coaster creds!!), we will have more time to really take everything in and also explore the ZOO, yes, there is a ZOO there!!
• The chocolate chip cookies tasted like childhood and I was in pure bliss as I scarfed them down. Henry and Chooch were like, “Eh, these taste basic” but then they ate more than their fair share so hope they enjoyed their basic shits that night.
• I saw the same lady with face tattoos (and not “face ladies” as I originally typed…) in the same spot twice, which was weird, like did she move at all that day? But it also reminded me of this and I laughed to myself, except it was out loud when Henry and Chooch were walking ahead of me so I was literally laughing alone and some people side-eyed me.
• ANOTHER PARK THAT MAKES YOU PAY FOR PARKING. How is this acceptable?! How are they not already making enough money off of us?!!?
• I didn’t actively hate anyone that day (I mean, aside from Henry and His Nose-Whistle).
• They seemed to have some good flat ride options that I would like to sit on next time.

Drew and Penelope were bitching about how I don’t post about them enough so here is a CAT PHOTO DUMP god they’re so pushy.

I have an entire weekend of amusement parks to recap but catch me posting pictures of cat instead. IT’S MY BLOG AND I’LL CAT-POST WHEN I WANT TO.

They both still prefer to drink their water out of people cups.

I’ve created monsters.

Someone’s happy to have her chair back! (It used to be in the living room but we moved it to the back porch after getting a church pew, and then Henry took the whole thing apart because he wanted to restuff it and whenever he says he’s going to do something, it usually takes a few months.)

I should be relaxing back here with Penelope and one of my many Asian Read-a-thon books but THERE ARE CHILDREN PLAYING/SCREAMING/YELLING/CRYING on the other side of that wall SO NO THANKYOU.

I yawned when I looked at this picture.

Probably I should go to bed soon. Chooch does REAL, IN PERSON SCHOOL on Thursdays and Fridays and my dumb ass thought it would be a nice motherly thing to drive him so he won’t have to take public transportation (do not even get me started on how LUDICROUS his school’s bus situation is; they’re lucky they’re such a good fucking school or I would have been like JUST CHOOSE A DIFFERENT SCHOOL FOR HIGH SCHOOL THIS IS DUMB). Anyway, it’s such a drag, not because there’s traffic (there isn’t) or because it takes a long time to get there (it doesn’t), but because he is SUCH A JERKY, SULLEN TEEN IN THE MORNINGS and I feed off his negativity and then come home and want to set things on fire. Last week, I came home and danced* to the new NCT Dream song “Hot Sauce” for approx. 17 minutes until I realized I was smiling and not looking to commit arson anymore.

*(By dancing I mean jumping up and down and shadow boxing while screaming YEAH THAT’S OUR JAM to the cats, PICTURED ABOVE.

)

Ever the hardest working artist in Korea, Taemin wasn’t about to sit around in the weeks leading up to his military enlistment and has instead gifted us with a mini-album and new MV.

NO ONE does it better than Taemin. The fact that he never looks the same in any comeback, continues to glide along that gender fluidity tip, could dance better than your fave even with his limbs bound, AND pours those dreamy vocals into our ears at the same time?

! LEGEND.

Also, that opening piano solo was in my head all day it was bothering me because it sounded very reminiscent of something that I love and it finally occurred to me on the 87th listen that it has Chiodos vibes to it GOD ONLY TAEMIN COULD WED MY LOVE OF POST-HARDCORE WITH KPOP.

Actually, now that I’m thinking about this, there is another older song of his where he sounds like the singer from another post-hardcore band I love, Artifex Pereo.

I think my past life in the Warped Tour scene was all part of the plan to lead me to Taemin.

Herein lies the second half of the books I read in April. May they rest in peace.

8. The Ex Talk – Rachel Lynn Solomon

The premise of this one sounded so PROMISING: two rivals at a radio station are forced by their shady-ass producer into pretending to be exes in order to host a new show called The Ex Talk, in hopes of saving ratings. The rival arc didn’t feel very fleshed out to me but I really did like both of the characters and when they inevitably fall in love (not a spoiler), I had already been shipping them.

I read contemporary romances occasionally as a palate cleanser and they usually do the trick because I go into them with the lowest expectations possible, lol.

9. The Leavers – Lisa Ko

HEAVY. This wasn’t an easy read but it was rewarding. We follow the story of an undocumented immigrant Chinese woman who may have abandoned her young son in NYC (I think he was 10 or 11 at the time?) and we watch as he’s eventually adopted by a fairly well-off white couple and is forced to assimilate in a new town and school while wondering wtf happened to his mom, and we get to find out in the mom’s own chapters.

I just thought this was a wonderfully written deep exploration into family and race and I cared so much for Polly, the mother, especially.

10. Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

Oh man, what a quirky, sometimes uncomfortable, coming-of-age fantasy romp of a trans Asian girl who runs away from an abusive household. There were parts that made me laugh out loud, but also moments of transphobic violence that quickly stomped you back down to reality and reminded you that while this book may be wildly and fantastically written, the underlying conflicts are very, very much rooted in reality.

My favorite parts were the letters she wrote to her little sister.

11. The Other Americans – Laila Lalami 

The way this book is set up reminded me a bit of Miracle Creek. It revolves around a Moroccan immigrant who is killed in a hit-and-run, which is initially written off as an accident but his daughter is all HOLD UP WAIT A MINUTE and start pressuring the police to investigate. She gets her own chapters, the deceased father gets his own chapters where we get to learn more about who he was when he lived in Morocco.

The mom gets her own chapters, as does the lone witness – an undocumented Mexican whose wife is all YOU NEED TO TALK TO THE POLICE and he is all I DO WANT TO GET DEPORTED.

I really loved how this was written. It was a slow burn of a multi-character study, culminating in the finding out exactly what happened that night and why.

If you’re a decent human being, it will have you seething about racists more than once.

12. The Wife Stalker – Liv Constantine

Just a domestic thriller. It was OK. I don’t feel like recapping it because I have literally no thoughts or feelings, but I guess I could say, “This would be a nice book to read on the beach.”

13. Everything, Everything – Nicola Yoon

This is a quirkily-written YA book about a teenage girl with some rare disease that keeps her confined inside the house with only her mom and nurse allowed near her.

I figured out what was going on pretty early and it got VERY FAR-FETCHED toward the end, but it was entertaining and endearing (of course there is A BOY) and I fucking cried in real life while reading it in the car on the way to the Columbus Zoo last month.

The nurse was the best character and I was obsessed with her.

14. Milk fed- Melissa Broder

UM…Melissa Broder is my new obsession. Her writing is so my style. This book was SO WEIRD, and sad, and funny, and creepily erotic that I was screaming out loud during some parts of it. It was also relatable in a way because the main character’s (Rachel) life is driven by a crippling obsession with counting calories brought on by being fat-shamed as a child by her mother.

Now, Rachel’s in her early 20s and the book starts off with her therapist recommending a 90-day detox from her mother.

Around the same time, the boy at the froyo store – who never questions the Rachel’s insistence on never filling the cup past the top and her staunch refusal to add toppings – is replaced one day by his sister, who pressures Rachel into splurging, which sets Rachel into a bingeing spiral of doom. I FELT THAT.

Anyway, this book is much more than that and I want to recommend it to everyone but I have a feeling it won’t be for everyone but if you do pick it up, prepare for some uncomfortable fantasies and super fucking real moments. I mean, her other book is about a woman who fucks a fish, so…

15. Before the Devil Breaks You – Libba Bray

What a way to end another reading month of April. I cannot recommend the Diviners series enough (Henry just finished the first book and is hooked!). It’s set in the 20s, the characters are so fleshed out and each one adds their own flavor to the story, the writing is perfect (not too hokey for a YA fantasy series and not too try-hard either), and the banter IS SO FUCKING QUICK AND WITTY. I highly highly highly recommend the audio book for this series because it’s narrated by January Lavoy and she is MASTERFUL at voicing these characters. She breathes so much life into each one of them!

Anyway, this book has Umbrella Academy vibes, government conspiracies, a bit of history woven in for the Realness, some spooky goodness, believable love lines, and a bunch of teenagers with super diverse backgrounds coming together all found family-like.

SAM IS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER. EVIE IS HENRY’S FAVORITE CHARACTER.

I AM TRYING TO GET JANNA TO READ THESE BOOKS.

Greetings from the car ride home from Elysburg, PA! This weekend was one of many Firsts Since Pre-Pandemic Days, such as: FIRST AMUSEMENT PARK(S)!! But we’ll get that in a later blog post.

The other firsts: EATING INSIDE A RESTAURANT. I realize that both of these things were technically possible before but none of us felt comfortable pushing our luck with no vaccine and soaring numbers.

Things are finally starting to seem like they’re getting better (hopefully??) so we’re making our entrance back into society I guess.

This whole weekend was set in motion several mths ago when one of my oldest Internet friends (as in – we met in the late 90s on Darkchat!) Eresbet sent me an IG message and asked me if I wanted some of these awesome antique carnival toys that her mom collected. Of course I said yes because that’s my aesthetic but mostly because it was an opportunity to finally meet her! It’s crazy because I remember we had even talked on the phone occasionally back in the day, as in: the days when I wasn’t scared of talking on the phone!

We met her at the Soda Jerk diner after leaving Hershey Park yesterday and I was so nervous because hello, I haven’t had to be social in a long time and even before that, my social muscle does not flex very often.

But I feel like it went swimmingly!! She brought her daughter Lana with her and we got to sit in a big round booth which I love and the waitress was so nice (I missed waitresses!!!) and I got to chug diner coffee and eat my veggie panini as soon as it was brought to me instead of driving around and looking for a place to sit outside and eat, and I got a stomachache from a delicious chocolate milkshake and the conversation was easy and comfortable! I am typically the living embodiment of the sweating emoji in these circumstances but this time I felt like the sunglasses face.

Why do the people I get along so well with aways have to not live in Pittsburgh??

Chooch accused me of saying “yeah I’ll meet you but you have to bring me toys.” Also, he claimed the carousel.

Then we drove for a bit to accomplish another First since the pandemic happened: CHECKING INTO A HOTEL!

Henry came out to the car after checking in and gave us the room key and presumably directions to the elevator and we were like Yeah Yeah Ok Mmm and walked away from him. Inside the lobby, we assumed that we had to walk down the hallway because we didn’t see the elevator anywhere.

“Oh this door must be for the stairwell,” I said when we reached the end and still had yet to uncover this mystical elevator. But when I pushed it open, it just went out into the back parking lot.

As we Tweedled our way back toward the lobby, we saw the elevator just as Henry oafed his way through the doors with all the bags.

“What are you two idiots doing?” he asked suspiciously.

“We couldn’t find the elevator,” I said.

“I told you where it was!” Henry cried, and now we had the attention of the ladies at the desk.

“Oh, I stopped listening before that,” I shrugged.

“We didn’t know where they were going or we would have helped!” the one lady said.

“I told them to come inside and turn left,” Henry sighed.

“No left turn was made,” the one solemnly lady said and I am still internally cracking up over this. NO LEFT TURN WAS MADE.

Meanwhile, Days Inn is in the process of remodeling this property and im not sure if anything is going to be added but our room had a gigantic area of open space, it was really crazy. For our first hotel since December 2019, I have no complaints! It was clean & comfortable and the way that lady at the front desk so seamlessly inserted herself into one of our signature family squabbles made it way more memorable.

Another emotionally exhausting week, coming to a close. Let us celebrate with a photo-dump from my phone and WELL I DON’T KNOW, five things!?

1. In the Words of My Dad…

I think about this a lot, but it’s funny how similar I am to my dad considering he’s not my biological father. I guess living under the same roof as him for…14 years I think (???) really influenced me. Nature vs. Nurture. Etc etc. He gets super obsessive about things, little things like certain ice cream flavors that will have him pulling a U-y to tail a Reinhold’s delivery truck culminating in an UNDER THE COUNTER ice cream deal in the parking lot of a school.

But now that I am an Older Person, I find that I am also talking like him, in that I sound like a dorky 1950s white man drinking a dorky egg cream in a dorky soda shop not realizing the enormity of his dorkitude.

Except in this case, it was not a soda shop but a cafe in Brookline that I swung by on the way back from my morning walk on Monday. I’m very contrary in the fact that while I usually savor silence in a public place, sometimes I also feel frantic about filling it. And on this particular day, the silence was overwhelming as I stood there waiting for the barista to finish making Chooch’s latte (sometimes I’m a sweetheart of a mother and will bring something back for Chooch depending on how I feel at that given moment, like: did he piss me off at all yet that day, did he use a tone I didn’t appreciate, did he make me FEEL LIKE AN UNCOOL MOM….you know the drill). I needed to say something, and FAST.

Behind the counter is this giant glass contraption that looks like someone was assigned the task of making a four foot tall Days of Our Lives hourglass but then ate some shrooms and wound up with a swirly mess of beakers and tubes instead. I always look at it when I’m at this joint, but on this day I felt INSPIRED TO INQUIRE.

“Do you guys actually use that thing or is it just decoration?” I asked, jutting my chin toward it because I had no idea what it was called.

The barista glanced at me to see what I was referring to and said, “Oh, we use that. It’s how we make our cold brew.”

And then, in the most DORKIEST, THIGH-SLAPPING, CHOKING ON ENTHUSIASM VOICE OF ALL, I exclaimed, “MAN, I’d like to see that in action!”

Man. I’d. Like. To. See. That. In. Action.

Such a Dennis Kelly thing to say. So over the top.

Then she said, “Oh it’s not very interesting. It moves very slowly.”

I just stood there awkwardly, wind sucked out of my sails, and she asked, “You asked for almond milk right?” And life went on.

I still don’t know what that thing is called.

2. Chooch the Half-Vaccinated!

When the vaccine was approved for ages 12-15 this week, I kept refreshing all the various pages waiting for appointments to be available. I was able to snag one for Chooch for yesterday!

He was annoyed that I wanted to take a picture BUT IT IS A BIG MOMENT, OK. Note that he got the worst band-aid out of all of us. I got that weird UFO thing and we all know that HENRY got the best ones out of everyone.

Chooch sincerely didn’t care though. He basically showed no emotion at all because he’s 15 and has none, although he did express mild interest in watching the vaccine being pushed into his arm. I sadly wasn’t there to witness this though because I was working motherfucking LATE SHIFT which hopefully will be over for me at the end of summer but who knows.

Anyway, I posted this picture of Chooch on Instagram and ONE OF MY FAVORITE BANDS LIKED IT because OH YEAH THEY FOLLOW ME.

Yes, I screenshot this bitch 5 seconds after it happened. I live a very full life.

Anyway, we are going to the first amusement park since 2019 tomorrow so I feel better knowing that Chooch is at least 1/2 way to ClubVaxx.

3. The Subject of Selcas

To the horror of many, I am trying to post more selfies and also attempting to stop being so rigid and averse to having someone else take my picture, which is why I have been asking Chooch  to take some of me occasionally if I’m wearing a cute shirt or whatever. I’m doing this because there are YEARS UPON YEARS where I shied away from the camera in general and only shared very curated selfies because I am/was so self-conscious and vain, but now there is like….no evidence of my existence.

First of all – I’m not perfect. I’m not a model. But…that’s not a secret?! So, I’m trying to have fun and live my life and share more so that one day Chooch can show his family pictures of GRANDMA having fun at an amusement park or whatever instead of being like, “Here are 8734984739823 pictures of me and yr granddad (GrandHimMan??) at Kennywood but none of PRINCESS GRANDMA because she wouldn’t let us take any of her because she FELT FAT that day or HER GRAY HAIRS WERE STANDING OUT TOO MUCH.”

Like, get over it, Erin.

P.S. Selca is Korean for selfie OMG I TEACH YOU GUYS SO MUCH.

4. WHEN WENDY MET BUDDY

Wendy stopped by my house yesterday to drop off Chooch’s birthday present and of course she had stuff for me too, LIKE  THIS ACCURATE COFFEE CUP!!

It was exciting because aside from Blake & Haley (who had no reaction to the changes to the house) and the Landlord and his appraiser (SEE #5), no one has really been here to see the changes we made! I was very happy to show Wendy all of the stuff we did around here in the past year, especially the kitchen! BUT the best part was right as Wendy leaving – she opened the door and said, “Oh! The squirrel is here!” And sure enough, Girl Buddy was camped out in front of the Bistro, noshing casually on her peanuts. She adjusted her position slightly so that she could look up at us.

“She’s not even running away!” Wendy said, “this is so cool!”

“Yeah, she’s very accommodating,” I explained. “She lets us use the porch as long as we don’t get in her way.” And then I got to show Wendy how I hand-feed her walnuts! In my head, I was like, “COME ON BUDDY, TAKE IT – DON’T MAKE ME LOOK LIKE AN ASSHOLE” and thankfully, she took the walnut from my hand because if she hadn’t, Wendy certainly would have reported back to the rest of the group at work that I’m a liar.

What I think is the funniest though is that both of my cats were at the window, watching Wendy get out of her car and as soon as they saw that she was walking up our sidewalk, they bolted at breakneck speed. Yet Buddy was just like “‘Sup” when she saw Wendy. Lol.

Brief intermission to drool over the latest batch of Sugar Spell pints: Funfetti Chip, Mother’s Day Mudslide (POSSIBLY MY NEW FAVORITE?), White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake. OMG.

5. THE HOUSE TOUR

On Mother’s Day, HNC called Henry to see if he got an email from the landlord re: BRINGING AN APPRAISER OVER. Henry was like OMG OOPS MISSED THAT EMAIL and yes, it’s true, an appraiser was scheduled to come over the very next day and I started panicking, not because the house was a wreck because it’s almost always presentable now that we essentially started from scratch during the pandemic and uncluttered the fuck out of it, but because DOES THIS MEAN HE IS GOING TO TRY AND SELL AGAIN??

This happened a few years ago and it was so scary because we were 100% in no position to buy a house and you guys, our rent for half of a house is ridiculously cheap. Like, I had no idea how cheap it was until people around me started looking for apartments to rent in the city and told me what the average rent is and I was like OMFG I COULD NEVER AFFORD THAT, WE HAVE TO LIVE HERE FOREVER.

Now we ARE in a good position to buy a house but I don’t FEEL LIKE IT right now??? I’ve talked about this before and it’s super boring so let’s skip this part of the story.

I wanted Henry to ask the landlord what the meaning of this was but he was all calm about it and said HE IS PROBABLY JUST TRYING TO TAKE OUT A LOAN OR SOMETHING CALM DOWN but hahaha do you know me? The next morning, I had my monthly check in with Wendy at work and instead of saying hello, I blurted out I AM SO STRESSED OUT. Anyway, Henry had to come home during his delivery route and park his big ass Faygo truck across the street in the church parking lot because I threatened to not open the door for this lady, so per usual, Henry had to come home and be the adult for both of us.

The LANDLORD was in tow and I was like OH THIS IS FUCKING GREAT because he hasn’t been in this house in actual years so he didn’t  know that it looks like a literal clown car of interior decorators came in here and turned the joint into a Crayola box.

I took refuge in the bedroom, pretending to be ON A WORK CALL, while Henry waited at the front door. I knew JUDGEMENT DAY had come when I heard a woman scream, actually scream, “OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS!!!!”

Chooch, who was in his room “in class,” poked his head out of his door and made a face like, “and you were so worried.” Henry said the landlord didn’t really say anything, but also didn’t seem angry that we painted so much (we’re technically not supposed to paint) and if anything, he was probably happy that we made his dumb property look so good and impressed the appraiser.

She did have to come into our bedroom while I was on MY WORK CALL and I am such a bad actor, I just stood there in the middle of the room with a dead phone up to my face, while she waved and mouthed, “YOU’RE FINE I JUST HAVE TO PEEK, I’M NOT TAKING PICTURES!” She seemed really nice and now I’m kind of sad that my weird reclusiveness prevented me from actually talking to her and enjoying all the compliments she was apparently SHOWERING HENRY WITH.

When I heard her ask him, “Are you the artist of the house?” I almost dropped my WORK CALL act and slid down the steps headfirst to insert my ACTUALLY….into that moment.

Then I heard Henry ask the landlord, ever so casually, if he’s trying to sell the places again and Landlord said, “No no no! I’m just looking to get some seed money to acquire more property.” THANK FUCKING GOD. I did not want to be looking to buy a house with a landlord-lit fire under my ass.

And I will leave you with pictures of THAT BABE WONHO because he has really been flourishing since we brought him home in January!

Look at those new leaves!!

I remembered I bought these pjs the last time I was in KOREA DID U KNOW I WAS IN KOREA I WAS IN KOREA.

KOREA KOREA KOREA.

Look don’t think I don’t already know I’m fucking obnoxious.

But anyway. The pjs. I bought them in HONGDAE and then promptly forgot about them but then I saw a picture in my KOREA PHOTO ALBUM on Flickr which I definitely only look at once a day and thought wow those pjs would look nice in my kitchen.

Unfortunately, no one else was home today to wear them in my stead. Sorry.

I was planning on recapping the remaining books I read in April but then Wonho went and dropped the official MV for my favorite song on his new album and I was like STOP THE PRESSES and now I’m writing here today to not tell you to read books but to WATCH THIS VIDEO AND SUPPORT OUR (ex)MONSTA X BIAS Wonho because he has worked so hard and been through so much these last few years and this SONG IS FIRE. I usually am averse to Kpop collabs with Western artists but who this Kiiara broad is (my friend Veronica and I both had to google her lol), she really complements Wonho on this track and I approve. Thank god he didn’t go the Halsey-route, ugh.

Speaking of Henry, he was making greeting cards last night while mumbling Dad comments about Top 40: Machine Gun Kelly has a song that doesn’t sound *too* bad until Halsey comes on & she ruins it & then he has another song that sounds exactly like that one but it’s with someone else.” I want Henry to start a music zine.

This all started because I was on Instagram and saw that Avril Lavigne commented on Britney Spears recent post (of course I follow Brit!!!!) and I was like “But is that really Avril, I thought she was dead*” so then I fell down the rabbit hole of Avril’s Instagram and saw that she has a song with Mod Sun which made me die because he was such a Warped Tour hanger-on back in the day and I think he was part of Jonny Craig’s “entourage” even until they had a falling out. Now it appears he might be dating Avril? I couldn’t tell and got bored with it pretty quickly but not before also seeing that she also recorded a song with MGK which is what prompted Henry’s MUSIC CRITIC outburst.

Also, Avril looks the same so are we sure she wasn’t in a cryo-vat all these years? “Ew she still has that nose,” I scoffed and Henry just looked at me like, “why wouldn’t she.”

Anyway, Henry likes this Wonho song and I think that he is OK with Kiiara.

P.S. OK curiosity got the best of me and I googled: YES MOD SUN AND AVRIL ARE DATING LOL WHAT. Also, here’s a picture of him back when he was Jonny Craig bootlicker: