It’s my favorite time at the office you guys! The time when work SORT OF slows down a little (j/k this never happens anymore), co-workers ply us with cookies and nut rolls, Sue brings out all the Christmas wreaths and army of tinsel trees, and my little team has their annual Christmas lunch!

Every year, I try to make our boss Amber a…cute (?) card from all of us. I let Cheryl deal with collecting money for the gift card and got to work on this year’s masterpiece.

I think it might be my best work yet. When I handed it to Glenn to sign this morning, he barely even glanced at it, signed his name, and handed it back. He is truly dead inside when it comes to anything I do. IT’S ALMOST NOT FUN TO TERRORIZE HIM ANYMORE. I THINK THIS WAS HIS PLAN.

Fuck.

Whatever. Amber loved it and I think she is smug because she is always the only one in the office to get an Erin R Kelly original greeting card. I mean, it’s kind of my thing.

I also got her a candle from all of us. Not just any candle.

Courtesy of alwaysfits.com.

We have weekly meetings and I’m such a huge baby about them. I don’t know why—I guess because I feel like a trapped animal. I actually like everyone in my group so it’s nothing to do with them. So maybe I should have just given myself the candle…

After I presented Amber with her card and candle, she said, “Thanks, Erin!…..and everyone else.” When I walked past Glenn and Todd, I bragged that she only thanked everyone else as an afterthought, and Todd said, “See, I heard her thank ‘Todd’ and no one else.” Whatever! He wasn’t even going to come in today for our lunch because he was working late shift from home BUT I BULLIED HIM INTO COMING INTO THE OFFICE AND HE DID IT. I have a certain kind of pull around that office, you guys.

We had lunch today at City Works. Lauren and Cheryl were unable to make it, and two of other team members are based out of Chicago, so we missed them! BUT we got to bring Joy and Margie with us and that was a fine trade-off!

You guys, I got this cauliflower steak and I was so excited about it! Being a vegetarian, I have to plan ahead whenever I’m invited to any sort of work lunch, because it’s usually slim pickins for us meatfree lifetstyle people. When I saw that they had this in addition to the menu-standard veggie burger, I was stoked. (Although their veggie burger was actually an Impossible Burger and that was tempting!)

It was so nice to have an option aside from a veggie burger and salad! This bitchin’ slab of cauliflower was perfectly seared (that’s a thing right) and topped with some kind of greens, like arugula maybe. There was nice red sauce thing that was kind of like tomato sauce I guess, and also there were some slivers of almonds tucked away.

I WAS SO HAPPY! I was so fixated on cleaning my plate that I barely listened to the grown-ups talking about student loan solutions.

Then I made the waiter take a picture of us and he was like, “Can you plz hold the phone* until I clear out the dirty dishes so that you can actually have a nice picture?” and I was like, “WOW. SMART. Yes, let’s wait for that.”

*(Literally–I kept trying to hand him my phone and he was like chill girl you’ll get your damn picture after I do my job.)

(He was a good waiter.)

Before we left, Amber mentioned something about Santa and Joy was like, “Haha, OK” and we were like, “NO, WE ARE GOING TO GET OUR PICTURE TAKEN WITH SANTA AFTER THIS” and she was like, “Have fun with that” and I said, “JOY, YOU HAVE TO DO IT TOO” and I gave her my patented pout and she was like, “Oh for God’s sake how can I say no to that.” I KNOW RIGHT?!

But seriously, everyone thinks they’re getting a free lunch until they realize that the price they’re paying is succumbing to my whims.

This year, there was no line! Santa made a big deal of asking everyone their names, which they calmly answered in an adult manner. When he got to me, he said, “And that means you must be….” and I screamed, “I’M ERIN!” with my hands clasped and everyone groaned.

They took two photos and I’m posting both here because of Todd haha. Also, in the second one, they had Amber stand on a stool and afterward Santa said, “And that was the year you asked to be a foot taller!” and we were like, “OH SANTA YOU…SLEIGH!”

Ugh, I love that these people indulge me! And I love making these dumb office memories. We all spend so much time together, we might as well make it fun every now and then!

P.S. Margie totally wears that hand brace thing for attention.

As much as I love traveling and going on weekend road trips, it was really nice to stay home this past weekend and not have any obligations! Well, that’s not true – we had a family eye exam on Sunday except that when we got there, they were like, “Hello, we called you and left several voice mails because your insurance is denying your visit until after 12/23.”

First of all: insurance is so fucking dumb and annoying and I will never (want to) understand it. In fact, just a few weeks ago, I said to Henry, “OK don’t laugh, but what the fuck is a deductible and what does it mean when you’ve ‘met it'” and then THAT turned into a fucking snoozefest of a conversation, hoo boy.

And second of all: WHO LISTENS TO VOICE MAILS ANYMORE?! I know I surely don’t. And these rods* totally texted me twice too to confirm my appointment and I even texted back a “Y” like they instructed!!!

*(This was the first name that came to mind for some reason and now I’m laughing alone because eyeballs have rods! GOD, I crack myself up so much. I AM MY BIGGEST FAN!)

Ugh, OK fine. It was my fault. But yay! No eye exam until 12/something else now!

The weekend was nice and chill aside from that. Calvin came over Saturday morning to look at Trudy except the first thing he noticed was that his bin of toy cars (see also: Chooch’s old bin of toy cars) was gone. Henry put it in the basement until after Christmas and I said, “You know Calvin is going to have a cow over this” and Henry was like, “HE WILL NOT NOTICE.”

Yep.

Chooch and I have been labeling each other’s gifts in Hangul (Henry said he doesn’t care that he can’t read it but I think he secretly feels left out HAHAH) and this one killed me: it says to Erin from Taemin. I showed it to Jiyong and she was like, “he is so cute!” and I was like “I know Taemin is.”

Sigh.

Speaking of Jiyong, we had our weekly meet-up at Panera. I brought one of my Talk to Me In Korean workbooks with me and it’s a lot more productive this way because I always have a million questions (I sound like a toddler: “But why? Why though? Why is that way? Why?” and she’s just like “….IT’S JUST BECAUSE!”) and she challenges me to go further with each exercise too, OMG LIKE A TRAINER BUT FOR MY BRAIN. Guys, I’m going to be real honest here, I’m not sure I will ever reach a comfortable level with Korean but I am definitely learning a lot and my sight-reading is getting stronger. It’s just the part when she’s like, “Say something in Korean” and my tongue feels like it’s been cut into tentacles and tied together and then coated with peanut butter too.

It’s still REALLY interesting though and I enjoy meeting with her a lot. Especially because I can talk to her about the dramas I’m watching!

Currently, Henry and I are both watching When the Camellia Blooms and it’s a contender for the best Korean drama I’ve seen yet. IT IS SO GOOD. The storyline, the characters, the acting. The acting in Korean dramas is typically super stellar, and I think that’s why I was even more disappointed with the last several American dramas I watched on Netflix. Korean dramas have raised the bar for me!

Anyway, I would highly recommend this one to anyone looking to try out a Korean drama for the first time. It’s just really wonderful. But, as they all do, it makes me want to go back in the worst way.

The rest of Saturday was just really calm and nice. Henry finished up some house projects and started cleaning the kitchen while I dreamed of more projects for him.

Saturday’s theme bled into Sunday. We’re hosting a very small Christmas not-party next Saturday because WENDY wanted me to and I literally cannot say no to Wendy. It’s not that I don’t want to have a party, but I do not have the emotional capacity lately to be at the center of a social event, even though throwing parties is so much fun for me. So I agreed to host something small and I kept the guest list pared down to just a handful of people who I talk to regularly, and as usual, I’m panicking that other friends will get mad at me over it but…maybe next year I’ll have something larger. That being said, Chooch and I scoured the Internet Sunday morning for simple, easy, inexpensive Xmas recipes for Henry to make, but we also found some cute shit that he and I might actually be able to do ourselves?!!? It’s basically a fancier Rice Krispies treat and I think it might cause frustration but the end result will be worth it, maybe?

Since we got rejected at the eye doctor, we went to the nearby Joann Fabrics because Henry needed to buy glue since every time he buys glue, it disappears (Chooch probably has 8 tubes of it spread around his room at this point). I bought more Christmas decorations since everything was on sale, but I don’t understand sales that much so I got bored after awhile and left Henry there and joined Chooch who was at Petsmart (we were in a shopping center). Turns out, it was the day that SANTA was there so the store was poppin’ off with dogs in their best Christmas sweaters and Chooch and I were dying. One lady had this huge stroller with FIVE CHIHUAHUAS (I have never had to write/type that word before so thank you, Google, for guiding the way) all in different festive attire and my heart just couldn’t take it.

Meanwhile, Chooch sent Janna a video of two hamsters having sex and Janna was like THAT IS NOT WHAT THEY ARE DOING and we were like, “Aw, Janna is so naive.”

“I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD BE THIS JEALOUS OF SANTA,” Chooch cried as we peered through the glass of the room where Santa was posing with all the pets. “I changed my mind. THIS is what I want to be when I grow up.”

That’s good because we pretty much spent all of his college fund years ago, so see ya never, Carnegie Mellon!

These cats would NEVER allow Santa to get close enough for a picture, that’s for sure.

Went to Target – they had the Taemin version of the SuperM album! I should have bought it for Janna’s Christmas present.

Henry went to do laundry later that evening, so Chooch and I were left to our own devices. I was cleaning this one area of the house and found a bunch of old pictures that I brought home from when we were going through all that bullshit at my pappap’s house in 2016 which caused me to lose a bunch of hair (stress is cool!) so I made Chooch come over to look them with me but it just angered him because there were lots of pictures in there from one of my birthdays and I’m standing in my Pappap’s kitchen in front of a spread of new toys, and then there were pictures from one of the Christmases at his house where the tree and living room looked like the centerfold from a Better Homes & Garden holiday issue and the presents were literally spilling out from under the tree like the living room was being invaded.

“I HATE YOU,” Chooch said, flinging the pictures away from him. HAHAHA. I had such a precious childhood, lol.

Bored with being reminded that I was born with a silver spoon in mu mouth, Chooch went upstairs and got my photo albums from after I moved out and started walking down the path of near-poverty because, well, independence is expensive you guys. He likes these albums though because they’re full of pictures of my old cats (RIP: Marcy, Nicotina, Don, and Willie) but also pictures of me and my friends at the bar or one of my many house parties, but he always flips past those pages because they’re “boring” and I’m “annoying.”

However, we got to this one album that had pictures of the time my friend Wonka and I went to see the band Cold in Hershey, PA — we LOVED Cold and were basically groupies. On this particular date though, we had the privilege of sitting in the parking lot before the show with a couple other fans and the singer of Cold himself – SCOOTER WARD. Now, for all of the times I saw Cold, I could never really gather the courage to talk to him because he was, and this is so cliche but I don’t care, a god in my eyes. Cold’s music was so prominent during those really confusing years when you’re in your early 20s and just have no idea what the fuck you’re doing or who you even are. I wouldn’t go back to those years if you paid me, truly I wouldn’t, and sometimes I think back to that time and feel so amazed that I survived because I lived so recklessly and had zero value for my life. Honestly.

Chooch tried to flip past these pages too but I stopped him.

“Wait!” I yelled. “I have a story!” And then I told him about sitting in the parking lot, listening to Scooter Ward talk about his music, and how he gave us Starbursts. “He gave me an orange one and I still have it,” I said, and I could tell Chooch didn’t believe me. “It’s actually in the freezer somewhere, hold on, I’ll go find it.” And before Chooch could stop me, I was in the kitchen, rummaging through the freezer until I found it in the back:

I keep it in there because after the first year I had it, I noticed that it was starting to melt during the summer and I panicked, unlike a regular person who would have just thrown it out.

Or, you know, ate it at the time it was given to them.

“See? I knew I still had it!” I boasted proudly.

“Wow, you sure do,” Chooch said sourly, and then promptly almost puked.

Somehow that night, I got hung up on the idea of having hot chocolate bar at my not-party, instead of making a punch or sangria like I normally do. And that is how Chooch and I fell down the rabbit hole of hot cocoa bar DIY YouTube videos, which has since replaced “birthday party videos” as our favorite thing to mock-watch on YouTube. We were really diving deep into them last night.

“Basically, anytime she says it’s going to be super cute, it’s super not,” Chooch dryly said in response to this one totally basic white bitch whose whole video was how she made a hot cocoa bar for under $25 thanks to Dollar General (I’m sure it was sponsored). This one dumb bitch basically just set out her Keurig with Swiss Miss pods, filled a mason jar with crushed peppermint, and then lined up her FUCKING UGLY RAE DUNN MUGS and THAT WAS IT?! Bitch please, get off my YouTube.

Well, that was my weekend. Hope your’s was JUST DELIGHTFUL.

In spite of Henry’s back being broken and half the rides not running because of the weather, we still had a great time at Silver Dollar City! Here’s some photos of us being a moderately happy family. (Hey, we only had one fight and that was all the way at the end of the night when we were all cold and tired so that has to count for something, right?!)

Here we are on the shooting dark ride that I made Henry ride with us and he was all bent out of shape about it for some reason, maybe because he knows how competitive I get when it comes to these rides.

I actually really dislike it when a dark ride has the shooting element to it. It distracts me from the actual ride and by the time it’s over, I have no idea what I was even looking at aside from tiny targets and the score on my stupid gun.

Even still, I liked this one because it wasn’t just a dark ride, it was ON A BOAT.

I just tweeted last week about losing more weight but you would never know it because I still like a hunchbacked tree trunk in pictures. Don’t worry, haters! Anyway, I’m still posting this because Chooch looks cute and also we give no glories to your God so this picture is pretty hilarious.

In line for Thunderation, which I kept calling Thunder Nation, and then I was singing it in my head to the tune of Rhythm Nation and it was just a real mess inside my skull.

I wasn’t ready.

If you’re into posing with tons of Christmas character things, then Silver Dollar City’s got you covered, boy.

Just because you wear it across your chest doesn’t make it any less of PURSE, Henry.

The only thing that disappointed me about SDC, and this is really reaching, is that their carousel was SO SMALL. Like, it was so small that I was convinced it was just the Kiddy Land version and that there had to have been a real carousel elsewhere in the park BUT NO, this was it.

Also, the old people running the ride were adamant about NO CELL PHONES OR CAMERAS once the ride started so we had to fucking hurry and get our pictures while the ride was still being loaded. I was angry because the first time we rode it,  Henry and I claimed our horses behind the one Chooch chose, but then Henry got off for .000005 seconds to give Chooch my phone to take the picture and in that short amount of time, two fucking kids came and took the two horses next to me, one of which was Henry’s so I was like WHAT THE FUCK, KIDS and we all had to get up and run to another spot where we could sit together.

What inconsiderate assholes.

“They were like 7, Erin,” Henry said but please read this in WHITE KNIGHT font.

Love you, SDC, but your carousel is beat.

Because I’m a monster, I made them ride it again later so we could try to get a better family picture. This time, we were the ONLY PEOPLE RIDING IT and a different old person ride operator was really nice and asked, “OK, did you get your picture?” before starting the ride. We are such embarrassments.

Anyway, I love how the wind was blowing Chooch’s back in such a way that it looks like this was the most thrilling ride in the park.

(It wasn’t. That was Outlaw Run. More on that in another post, I guess, because why not drag this out for as long as possible so I can continue being stressed about having shit to do when none of it is even necessary but I guess I’m just addicted to never-ending To Do lists.)

Speaking of Outlaw Run, here is a picture of Chooch and me in line for Outlaw Run at the end of the night when we marathoned it. I don’t know why my face looks like I just had a stroke. I think I must have been squinting against the cold?! #excuses

There was this funhouse-type thing called Grandfather’s Mansion or something and it was just one of those roadside attraction-esque explorations in gravity. There was one room that had a wooden bed and the challenge is to lay down on it and then lift yourself up without using your arms or legs. We were watching all these people trying and failing to it, and it looked like some huge struggle, so then I tried it and expected it to be impossible but I popped myself right up. Henry was like, “Well you because you have abs” and I mean, I am constantly doing ab exercises subconsciously while watching my shows, so I guess I do “have abs.”

Don’t worry – I still have lots of fat covering them so don’t get all jealous, haha. There are no bikinis in this bitch’s future.

OK, I have “errands” to do today so I’ll come back another day and tell you about some of the rides, THE CAVERN!!!, and the Christmas lights. Silver Dollar City is a real gem – who knew that Branson, Missouri was so cool?!

Guys, today is probably the last day to order cards if you want them in time for Xmas. I say probably because I don’t work for the USPS but I use them a lot and know how UNPREDICTABLE they can be. For instance, a few weeks ago, someone bought $100 worth of cards from me. We shipped them PRIORITY MAIN in a sturdy box. A few days later, the customer contacted me because the tracking number said they had been delivered at her door, when they definitely had not been.

I was freaking out about this, but then the next day, she reached out to tell me that they had been delivered to the wrong house and had person was honest and kind enough to bring them to her! And by wrong house I mean that it was the same house number, but DIFFERENT STREETS AND ZIP CODES.

Yeah.

Anyway, I could make an entire series bitching about the USPS but I’m trying to be a better person.

On that note, here is a selection of serial killer holiday cards, ha ha.

********************

1. Jeffrey Dahmer

What better way to sprinkle friends, family, and enemies with holiday cheer than by tucking a card from my Serial Killer Series into their garland-wrapped mailbox?

The mug of Milwaukee’s beloved is sure to slap a smile on faces, especially when accompanied by such a heart-warming holiday poem. Envelope included!

2. HH Holmes

HH Holmes was a real nefarious fellow, and is considered to be America’s first serial killer. He would lure victims into his murder castle, which was full of mazes, stretching racks, and gas chambers. But damn if he doesn’t look dapper on the front of a Christmas card.

This card would be great for anesthesiologists, people who write fanfic about the Chicago World Fair, or anyone you know who uses the term “Holmes” as a synonym for “friend.”

It comes with an envelope, which you can lace with fruit cake if you want. I won’t tell.

3. Carl Panzram

When Carl Panzram was 14, he was gang-raped by a group of hobos. He then grew up to murder 21 people and sodomize 1000s of men. Hell hath no fury like a man violated by hobos.
Give this card to your favorite person to let them know that this is not the future you want for them. It’s a really sweet card when you think about it!

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

4. Ed Gein

The inside says: “Come trim a tree with me!”

(Sorry, I didn’t feel like getting a picture of the inside. I’m L-Z.)

Santa, snowmen, baby Jesus in a manger? Holiday cards are played out. This season, revive the spirit of your favorite serial killer by having these cards stuffed (like a dead hooker in a dumpster) in the mailslots of those you care about.

5. Aileen Wuornos

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

Might you consider utilizing the wily charm of Aileen Wuornos to do the deed for you.

Or maybe you’re looking to spread holiday cheer to that whore at the DMV who made you look like a triple-chinned stroke victim who lost a battle with electricity in your last drivers license photo.

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

6. Killer Group!

Ho ho ho, the gang’s all here for this merry holiday card, sure to delight even your most heathen-iest of friends. Etsy: where you can find a goddamn greeting card for just about everyone.

This card boasts the avuncular mug of Gary Ridgeway, David Berkowitz’s bashful smile, the cute & cuddly Jeffrey Dahmer, BTK’s friendly smirk, and Ted Bundy’s aw-shucks face. Perfect for the true crime aficionado, Satan worshiper, or that good little Christian you just can’t help effing with.

Comes with an envelope. Pentagram not included.

7. Typhoid Mary

Mmm, Christmas cookies abound in the office! Next time you deep throat a Lady Lock, ask yourself, “Did Mary from the mail room Purell her shit before rolling out the dough?” Your bowels will answer that more honestly than Mary. Send this card to your loved ones to let them know that obviously you want them to have a great holiday, but you also sincerely hope they don’t get food poisoning tied with a bow.

Mary didn’t mean to kill all those people, you guys. She just made a fucking killer secret sauce. I bet her Christmas cookies were the shit.

Comes with an envelope that I handled with clean hands, but I totally won’t be offended if you seal it with masking tape instead of your own saliva.

8. BTK

When you already have a shit ton of plastic zip ties, why not put them to good use?

This totally festive card comes with an envelope, which also could fit a floppy disk full of evidence, if needed.

*************

All of these and more can be found at non compos cards!

True to form, we got to Silver Dollar City right as it opened at noon. Henry LOVED the fact that they have a FREE PARKING LOT with trams so you don’t have to pay $25 on top of the already exorbitant ticket price. I was really concerned while we were sitting on the tram, waiting to depart for the entrance, because it was almost unbearably cold. The weather was allegedly around 38 degrees that day, but the windchill was a fucking Ice Queen. And Chooch almost forgot to bring a jacket AND packed all t-shirts, but thankfully we were only 10 minutes from home on Saturday when it occurred to me to inquire about his coat situation, and then he had a random flannel in the trunk.

Not that it mattered because Henry still had to go to the local Branson Target once we arrived that night in order to buy the dumb kid gloves. Mr. I Don’t Get Cold. Yeah, right. He’d have perished at Silver Dollar City in jeans, t-shirt, and bare hands!

For as much as we travel, you’d think we’d be better at packing. Nope.

You’d also think we’d be better at not leaving things behind in hotels. Nope x2.

As soon as the tram dropped us off (Chooch and I waved to other tram-drivers that passed us by on the way because we’re both in preschool and get super-kicks out of receiving reciprocal waves), we joined the small crowd at the entrance JUST as they were announcing that the gates were opening! Woo! Security was a breeze because only Henry was carrying a purse (lol) so we didn’t have much to be checked. However, I was low-key panicking because Henry the Dishonest LIED when he purchased the tickets online and bought the child’s ticket for Chooch who is TWO YEARS out of the age range for such a ticket!

“No one is going to know, and if they say something, I’ll pay the extra $10—it’s NOT A BIG DEAL,” Henry kept saying. But to me, it was! I never try to cheat the system! But Henry kept saying, “I’M NOT RIDING ANYTHING ANYWAY BECAUSE OF MY BACK SO IT ALL WORKS OUT” but I don’t think they have “bad back trade offs” at amusement parks!

So we stopped by the on-site chapel and asked for forgiveness.

Chooch made fun of me for like an hour because when we were walking out of the chapel, some old couple was on their way in and I jovially said, “It’s nice and warm in there!” THIS IS WHY I DON’T BOTHER MAKING SMALL TALK WITH PPL ANYMORE, BECAUSE SON OF THE YEAR IS SO QUICK TO POINT OUT HOW DORKY I SOUND.

I give up. Take my human card away. I’ll just talk to cats from now on. I have better rapport with them anyway, sigh.

You might be confused why a place like Silver Dollar City would appeal to me, since it’s down-home-y and Bible Belt-y, and this is also true for Dollywood. Look, if there weren’t rides here, there is no way you’d catch me loitering with a bunch of elder-dorks, watching shows and eating skillets. But since this place DOES have rides, I allow myself to enjoy the quaint charms it has to offer. I  mean, it is a theme park, after all, and the people who work there go above and beyond to make you feel like you’re in a world without swears and, I don’t know, porn. It’s very wholesome and sometimes I need some of that cheesy bullshit in my life.

It kind of reminded me of the time when I was a kid and I went to this festival in Ligonier, PA called Ligonier Days and it was like, a place for blacksmith enthusiasts  to really pop off. I remember kind of having fun except that I was with my friend Kristen and her step-dad was weird, but there was a place that was selling the motherlode of slap bracelets and people hadn’t yet begun reporting that the bracelets were slitting the wrists of their children, so I bought a ton of them in designs I didn’t have yet, because I’m sure you’ll be surprised to know that I was obsessed with slap bracelets and had a huge collection.

Me and collections, man.

Anyway, I sometimes say out loud that I want to go back to Ligonier Days sometime but, it’s been 30 years and this bitch ain’t been back since.

But yeah, if you’re into amusement parks themed after mining towns that also has a fantastic Christmas event, then get yer ass to Branson, Missouri, missy. Look at how fucking quaint it is!

During our weekly meeting at work, I was telling everyone about our trip to Silver Dollar City and Nate quickly googled it.

“Yeah, well did you get your picture with THIS?” he asked with a smidge more than a hint of smugness in his tone.

He swiveled his laptop around to show me a picture of the ABOVE SANTA BENCH and I was like, “What, you think I’m some sort of amateur?!”

DOT DOT DOT:

I love this coat so much but fuck if it doesn’t make me look like Big Bird’s chunky bluebird stepsister.

“I want to sit next to him so I can put my hand on his knee!” Chooch shouted, wedging himself in between me and plaster Santa.

We had only been inside the park for 30 minutes before our noses led us straight into the bowels of Nellie’s Homestead, where we got an apple turnover slathered with homemade apple butter.

I wish I hadn’t shared it. I wish I could go back in time and get my own and run to the nearest corner where I could hide and devour it in peace.

It made me think about when I was into Western music and really enjoyed the band Turnover and I went to see them one time and the singer was dressed in a very blatant “Papa H” style. It was weird.

And then we went to Brown’s Candy Factory to watch this pioneer broad making fudge and also to snag some samples. I always think that I’m not a person who eats fudge but then every time I actually eat fudge, I think, “WOW, FUDGE IS ACTUALLY GOOD.” But then some time passes and I go back to believing that I don’t care for fudge.

We really dropped the ball and FORGOT TO GET CINNAMON BREAD. Hopefully we will be going back in the summer though and can remedy this.

Somehow, I didn’t go into the taffy store but Henry did? It must have been one of the many times Chooch and I ditched his invalid ass. Also, we bought so much taffy at that one candy store in Historic Downtown Branson that my teeth actually just twinged while I wrote this portion of the blog post.

Chooch and I got wassail and I cried, “YOU’RE NOT GETTING ONE TOO?!” to Henry, who frowned in response. Chooch realized almost immediately that he didn’t like it so he gave it to Henry and then I couldn’t finish mine so I gave it to Henry, and now Henry had two wassails and mumbled, “This is why I didn’t get my own.”

There are also a bunch of shops that sell down-on-the-farm, Americana home interior bullshit. I’m not about that life, but I didn’t mind perusing. Mostly because it was warm inside those shops. But like, why is everything that boring Rae Dunn-style bullshit these days?!

It was pretty obvious that the temperature wasn’t going to reach the number it needed to be for several of the coasters to open, but I still kept refreshing the weather app all day like a girl sitting at the window waiting for her dad to come home when she knows deep down that he ran off to be with his mistress and bastard.

Chooch always has to get a park map for every amusement park we visit. We were standing near a chicken & waffles cart, trying to find which route we should take to get to Outlaw Run when they dropped the ropes, when some man came over and asked Chooch, “Where’s the nearest bathroom?” He looked like he was a security guard because he was wearing some dumb reflective vest, and he asked in such a jovial way that I thought he was jokingly giving Chooch a pop quiz, but it turns out that he was sincerely asking for the nearest bathroom for the people he was with.

ANYWAY, IT WAS FUNNY BUT I GUESS YOU HAD TO BE THERE.

(Henry was there and didn’t think it was funny.)

And here we are, standing in front of the famous SDC Christmas tree, pretending to enjoy wassail, before venturing over to one of the roped-off areas of the park and start the final countdown to 1:00pm when the rest of the park opened for business.

Stay tuned for more Silver Dollar City pictures and bullshit words.

Just wanted to share one of my favorite Twice performances in case anyone out there has had a bad day and is looking for an easy smile.

Everyone giggling at Sana’s monologue at the end melts my heart every damn time.

This is a tough season for a lot of people so let’s be nice, guys. Yes, even to your uncle who voted for Trump (assuming that’s his worst attribute. If he’s a puppy-kicker or whatever, then fuck that knob). But most importantly, be nicer to yourselves too. I’m trying to be nicer, too. I guess that’s why I’m so tired.

Every several years, I get bitten by the decorating bug. I’ve NEVER been a big Xmas bitch, but sometimes it’s nice to dull the pain of winter by stringing up strands of blinking lights, so that’s what we (lol, I mean Henry) have been doing. I’ll never be that broad who spends a pretty penny on yuletide decor, but we had to go to Joann for fabric for a non-Xmas related project, and I saw some bows that were on sale, so that is how Henry spent a large portion of Sunday hanging lights and bows on my Robert Smith self portrait wall which is my least favorite wall of the living room because it’s so unfinished and the idea I have for it is a large one so Henry is dragging his dumb feet.

Anyway, I told him he could take a break around 6 to make dinner.

I’ve had that Merry Christmas sign for probably 10 years now and it’s so janky but I keep pulling it out of the Christmas decoration bin year after year.

If you think I’d take down the BIGBANG bottles for Christmas, you’d be dead wrong.

We need to buy another box of white lights, but it’s OK so far.

Drew’s like, “We’ll see how long this lasts.”

At Joann, I got all these dumb pompom things on sticks, and other Christmas sundry on sticks, for like $1 on sale so I put my special bottles to use. Japan and Korea are representin’ on the mantle. <3

And these worthless things are on the coffee table. The bottles on the ends are actually vintage embalming fluid bottles so that’s a fun twist.

This was right after I yelled at her for eating the decorations UGH CATS.

J/K I fucking love cats.

While Henry was decorating yesterday, I decided to play my “top 2016 songs” on Spotify, which was all emo/post-hardcore/Phil Collins. I was crying within minutes and then got super introspective, depressed, and then ultra despondent to the point where Henry was yelling, “OK PUT KPOP BACK ON.”

Yeah, I miss some of those bands but I don’t miss that Erin at all. It’s actually amazing I made it out of 2016 not to be jinjja dramatic but that year was SHIT.

I’m glad I’m still here, 3 years later, to see another twinkling Trudy and to yell at my cats for gnawing on Christmas shit like it’s made by Fancy Feast.

Thanks, Kpop. <3

Wow. That took a turn.

We finally had some time to trim our sexy Christmas tree, aka Trudy the Dish, last night! I think this is her fifth Christmas with us, blessed be!

I can’t believe my childhood dreams have come true and kept on staying that way! You have no idea how happy this dumb Xmas tree makes me.

And Janna too, which is why she hasn’t missed The Trimming of Trudy yet!

Henry’s only job is to strip Trudy of her clothes (her everyday outfit is a sweater from the 80s that also doubles as a display for my enamel pin collection–Trudy has a lot of purpose in this house, probably more than even I have, if we’re being candid here) and then the super easy task of cocooning her in Xmas lights which I never fail to cry is NEVER ENOUGH by the time he’s done and then he responds by storming out of the room in a huff and then Janna chides me with an, “Ooooooooh.”

Henry provided the snacks because decorating a mannequin for Christmas takes a lot out of a person.

I went a different route this year by eschewing the boxy Christmas sweater we usually stuff onto Trudy’s torso, because it really hides her svelte figure. I had a vision of her swirled and striped in extra garland for 2019, so that’s what we did, and you guys….I love it. This is the look (never “lewk,” I hate that dumb word) that Trudy was poured and molded for at the mannequin factory.

Trudy, you are fucking WELCOME.

At one point, I looked at Janna and said, “Oh my god…..she’s Trudy….GARLAND.”

And then Janna was like, “Ha-ha” but I was laughing myself straight to the nearest improv club and then made Janna high-five me, and Chooch was just like, “I don’t understand why that’s funny. I googled Trudy Garland and nothing is happening.”

So then we had to explain about Judy Garland and a few more turns were made and that is how we ended up watching parts of The Wizard of the Oz synched with Dark Side of the Moon on Chooch’s phone.

But you know, once in the 90s was enough

I bought Trudy a new hat at Target. It lights up!

Poor Henry thought his decorating duties were over but then I was like, “HENRY THE ELF, HANG THE LIGHTS ON THE CURE WALL” so he spent a good hour fucking around with boxes of brand new lights that turned out to be lemons and look out Target, because Henry is going to ASK FOR HIS MONEY BACK.

I drank some wine and I don’t drink much anymore so I was a REAL HOOT, YOU COULD SAY.

This is what everything looked like to me last night. Also, I let Henry get some sitting in because now he’s back to hanging more lights today and also I sprung on him the idea of painting our front door because it’s white and plain, and I think he’s starting to look forward to the day when he gets to move into an old folks home and have shit done for HIMSELF for once, haha. And probably no one will come to him for help making gigantic art pieces of the Seoul subway map that lights up with corresponding colored LED lights.

Yeah, it’s on his current To Do list, haha.

Drew’s like why can’t we have a regular tree so I can climb inside it like normal asshole cats.

It’s hard decorating for a holiday when your house is always exploding with color and lights, but we do what we can.

Chooch made Janna play some cat collecting game, which should be a real life game for them.

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Janna was mad at first because Chooch wasn’t reading the directions in his own voice which was cracking me up because, wine, but Janna was like COME ON CHOOCH, GIVE ME THE DIRECTIONS and then I posted this video on social media and it got Kara all riled up because she is the QUEEN OF NOT FUCKING AROUND WITH GAME DIRECTIONS! If you want your game nights to run like a well-oiled machine, you gotta invite Kara. She’ll get the shit done and cut loose any dead weight.

And there was always dead weight at my game nights of yesteryear, believe me.

We kept Janna here until like 1:30am, making her watch videos of Korea and trying to convince her that joining us on our next trip there (hopefully 2021!!!) could be the best decision she ever makes. I think she’s sold! I love Korea SO MUCH and I can’t think of anything greater than sharing the experience with a friend!

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That door is getting fucking painted. Henry said “it certainly won’t be today” but it’s going to be this week, I promise you that.

…but five is “ise.”

My Cat Brian

I recently watched the second season of Mindhunter. Don’t even get me started on how much I disliked the first season! It took me forever to slag through because it was so boring and I FUCKING HATED “DEB” and kept waiting for her to go away because Henry, who watched the whole season without me, kept saying, ‘Oh don’t worry, she doesn’t last long” so then I thought MAYBE SHE WILL BE MURDERED and there was one scene in particular when she was in a bathtub and I was like YES, THIS IS IT! DROWN YOU DUMB BITCH! But then nothing happened and she ended up being in the whole season, so I’m not sure what show Henry was watching…

ANYWAY. The second season was better. But this here isn’t a TV show review, OK? I’m only mentioning this show because there was one scene with one of the character’s son—he’s like 7 and a budding serial killer, and his mom finds him standing on the periphery of a playground, glaring at some bitch on a swingset. The mom is all, “BRIAN, WE DON’T STARE” and later that night, I happened to look over at my cat Drew, who was sitting on the floor, GLARING at her sister Penelope in a very Brian-esque manner, so the next logical step was to start calling her Brian and everyone in my house hates this but I crack myself THE FUCK UP every time I scream, “BRIAN WE DON’T STARE!!!” at Drew.

Sometimes I call Penelope “Paige,” the girl on the swing, and this angers Chooch and Henry too because literally that girl was only in the scene for 3 seconds and we only know her name because her mom says, “Let’s go, Paige” but these are the things I latch on to.

I tried telling some of my co-workers about this because I couldn’t stop laughing to myself about it at work, but they were just like, “…………………….” similar to when I changed Drew’s name to Ursula’s Shoulder Pads.

Update on Henry’s Back

People keep asking me how Henry’s back is and I’m like, “Uh….*shrug*” But I can tell you that Manly Henry the Man-Man is wearing a Donald Duck bandaid on the delicate boo-boo that he recently received on his precious pinky finger.

It was pretty fucked up around here last Friday though when The Back Injury first happened because Chooch and I were like WHAT WILL WE DO FOR FOOD? I was getting ready to grab a basket and my hooded cloak before hitting the forest for some berry-picking, but then Chooch suggested Subway and I was like, “Yes, that sounds manageable” so we were going to go and do that but then Henry was like, “Well, I would like to eat dinner too….?” but he was afraid we’d fuck up his order so he made us order through the app so that he could be in control and prevent us from sabotaging his carefully crafted sandwich.

“What do I do when I get to Subway? Just say ‘give me’?” I asked Henry, wringing my hands. I don’t do things for myself very often.

But then something went wrong with the app-ordering, like a real life deus ex machina. “I’ll just go there. CHRIST,” Henry sighed,  rolling himself out of bed and slowly putting his pants on because whatever happened now required him to physically enter a Subway LOL oh the trials and tribs.

“I think I can handle lifting a bag of sandwiches,” he said in a tone t hat suggested he just had the wind knocked out of him.

I laughed so much.

But then he came back and my sandwich was fucked up so I guess: who’s laughing now, amirite.

Erin vs the United States

I was looking at a map of the US on my phone the other day, after being inspired by venturing out to Missouri for the first time, and I was surprised to see where it was located in relation to other states like Louisiana, Mississippi, whatever.

“Wow, maybe I should start looking at maps more often,” I murmured. “I didn’t realize we had come this far away from Pittsburgh.”

And Henry just glowered at me from beneath his angry caterpillar brows.

Also, today I realized that I was using the wrong abbreviation for Missouri since the weekend, which is fantastic since it was a part of one of my blog post titles. I kept using MO for some reason!? I think I need to go back to school, maybe audit a few 5th grade classes or something.

OK, maybe 3rd grade. You got me.

EDIT: Ok 2 weeks later and I just learned THAT I WAS RIGHT THE FIRST TIME, IT IS “MO.” My brain is a bean.

DEB STRIKES AGAIN

I had to pause what I was watching because Chooch brought his traveling talk show into the room, and he interrupted himself to shout, “organic big-bush patchouli sex? Wow, what the hell are YOU watching, mom.”

I’ll tell you what I’m watching: a not-great TV show, son, that plays out like a Lifetime movie but with swears and sex because…Netflix. Anyway,  this show was recommended to me by a co-worker and the first season was aight because Jessica Biel was in it, not that I’m like a huge J-Biel fangirl, I only know her from 7th Heaven lol. But the story line season 1 was more compelling to me than season 2, and I have stalled out on the 5th episode.

COINCIDENTALLY, in this season, there is some bitch who looked familiar and instantly got under my skin. Henry was like, “hey is that—-” and I cried in pain, “DEB!!”

Yes, the same bitch who played the worst character on Mindhunter is back to ruin my television-watching experience yet again.

What a stupid bitch. She’s really annoying in this show too.

Also, can we talk about how I had the hugest crush on Bill Pullman in the 90s and while all of my friends were going to the movies numerous times to see “Casper” because of Devon Sawa, I was going for HOT DAD BILL PULLMAN.

But…has he always been this bad of an actor and I just was  too blind to notice or care? Because holy shit, it’s like he watched the episode of Friends where Joey divulges his “smell in the fart” acting technique and fucking ran with it.

It ain’t good, Bill.

Meanwhile, the Korean dramas I’m currently watching are like French-chef-kissing-his-fingers good. But ya’ll don’t care about that.

(Or is it Italian chefs who kiss their fingers?!)

The Face of the Teen Center

Chooch told us off-handedly last week that he was interviewed at the teen center.

“For what?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Some lady was writing about it for something I guess.”

“Well, what did she ask you?”

“I dunno. Why I liked the teen center,” Chooch mumbled, and I could tell that I wasn’t going to get much more out of him than that because that kid is so oblivious at times. But then he said that he was the only one they interviewed because, “I’m basically the face of the teen center.”

OMG his ego. Where does he get it from.

Then the other day, we saw that the Teen Center used his picture again on Instagram (oh don’t worry, we signed a media release awhile ago).

WHY IS HE LIKE THIS. .Also that’s an old picture of him, but don’t worry – his current hair looks just as dumb as his Spring 2019 hair.

In other teen center news, two volunteers recently left (they’re all college kids so they eventually leave…right after the kids get attached to them).

“Wow,” I fake-cared for Chooch’s sake. “Are they having a volunteer-shortage now? Do you think I should volunteer?”

“OMG no! You HATE kids!” Chooch cried, as if I was actually serious. My time is valuable! I’m not wasting it in a basement full of screaming kids.

“Yeah, especially teens,” I pointed out.

So, that was short-lived.

Well, on that note, here’s a photo of Paige & Brian. And now I’m going to go and watch some more of Korean dramas while Henry is busy cobbling together serial killer Christmas cards. Thanks, Mindhunter, for making Ed Kemper and Richard Speck le chic even though I’ve had them in my card catalog (lol) for years. You’re still not that great of show, though.

Many, many, many years ago, during the heyday of Farmville and its brethren on Facebook, I used to play some theme park game where, in order to be able to advance or collect coins or whatever, you would have to send invites to your other Facebook friends, which oftentimes would cause you to lose said Facebook friends. So I would opt for the other ways to advance: signing up for “free offers” and by that I mean I would sign up Henry.

One of the offers was from the Branson Tourism Board. I provided them with his phone number too and I will never forget how perplexed he was once day when he said, “Someone called me at work about travel offers for Branson, Missouri.”

And then they sent him a bunch of brochures and literature, too.

I remember cracking up over this and thinking, “Why the fuck does some town in MISSOURI have a tourism board!? Who would ever go to BRANSON, MISSOURI?!”

Fast forward a few years later and some broad whose blog I used to hate-read went to a theme park there called Silver Dollar City. Now this chick was a hugely annoying blogger who came up during that whole TWEE INVASION and she wears dresses meant for children so I immediately figured, “Oh, if the Skunkboy family is going to this place, it must be lame AS FUCK.”

But then…they got an RMC roller coaster and by now you probably now that I am an RMC ho bag. (True fact: the word for “pumpkin” in Korean sounds similar to ho bag.) So Silver Dollar City was firmly set in my sights, much to Henry’s chagrin because it’s nearly a 13-hour drive (we will not get on a plane in this household unless it’s absolutely necessary – we’ll road trip to our fucking graves, I guess). Anyway, if you don’t know, RMC is the manufacturer of some of my favorite roller coaster and my new life goal is to ride all of them (Japan here we come again, I guess?). I decided over the summer that this would make a lovely Thanksgiving weekend getaway, similar to our Dollywood trip last November.

Henry quickly reminded me that Pigeon Forge, TN is a much easier drive but I stayed firmly planted in La La Land and refused to give up hope.

I liveblogged our drive here, which took basically the entire day/night last Saturday. We had to stop a lot because Henry hurt his back Friday morning at work, as previously mentioned. Honestly, it’s a miracle that we went at all because I didn’t even get him  to officially confirm that we could go until Thanksgiving Eve, and we were supposed to leave Friday when he came home from work so that we weren’t rushing to get there. When I found out he hurt his back and wasn’t going to be able to go, I bluffed and said that Chooch and I discussed it and decided we were still going to go, just without him, and that sent Henry into a panic because I’m sure he had visions of us Thelma-and-Louise’ing off a cliff somewhere outside of Columbus, Ohio because let’s face it: there’s no way I was going to last for more than 3.5 hours behind the wheel.

All of this is to say, we didn’t even have a hotel reserved until Saturday afternoon, which Henry booked when we stopped from lunch in Indianapolis. And bitch, you know I complained about it too!

Here’s the dinky Christmas tree in the lobby.

Actually, it wasn’t the worst. The room was really nice except that the bathroom was SO SMALL—the kind of small where the sink is actually outside of the bathroom. I thought that the beds and pillows were way too hard but Brokeback Mountain over here was all, “I stan a (hard-ass) queen (bed)” and kept gushing about how wonderfully he slept. Wow, brag much.

We ate breakfast at the hotel and it was fine. Your typical continental hotel breakfast but the breakfast room was spacious and clean, and there was an old lady working there who I originally hated because she kept being in my way but then she came over to our table to clear our plates and she was super personable and had a nice Southern accent so then I felt bad for hating her which prompted Henry to launch his daily lecture about how I shouldn’t be so quick to hate people and he can really just go fuck himself, you know?

We headed out of the hotel around 9:00AM, figuring we could drive around and explore. FUNNY STORY: the night before, Henry left the hotel to find a store to buy Chooch gloves because of course he didn’t bring any, and he said that some old lady in the parking lot was glaring at him when he came back and nabbed  the parking spot she was gunning for. He and I went back out to the car right after that to look for our phone chargers, and Henry was like, “Look! There she is, she’s still glaring at me!” and nodded toward some old lady who was getting stuff out of the trunk of her car. The next morning, we were loading our bags in the trunk of the car before leaving when Henry noticed THAT HE PARKED IN A HANDICAP SPOT, NO FUCKING WONDER THAT BROAD WAS GLARING AT HIM!

“Well, I’m temporarily handicapped,” Henry pointed out, using this as yet another opportunity to whine about his back.

I somehow have no idea what the Ozarks really are I guess and assumed that there would be a mountain we could drive up and you know, look around, but it turns out the entire expanse of land around Branson is considered “The Ozarks” so there was no actual mountain to look at, like the Smokeys. I think that was my first mistake – I kept seeing things about how Branson and Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg are sister cities…but it’s more like step-sister cities. Maybe it’s because we were there on a gloomy, super windy December day, but Branson just felt really sad and run down in comparison to Pigeon Forge. Both are full of Ripleys attractions, tacky museums, $$$ hokey dinner theaters…but Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg are just more beautiful areas.

Luckily, we weren’t there to ride go-karts or play mini-golf, so we bypassed the big touristy area and drove out to some Table Lake thing which is apparently mad-made and that’s kind of weird.

OMG the wind was so frigid. Also, Chooch’s hair, lol.

Our next stop was “historic downtown Branson” which was super homey and even on this cold day, everyone was all warm and friendly. Fuckin’ Missourians, amirite.

Anyway, downtown Branson was rife with variety stores, ice cream parlours, wig shops, whatever Henry’s Warehouse Outlet is…of course, most of the places were closed because Sunday is the Lord’s Day, but Henry kept harping about how DICK’S 5 & 10 was open, and I was like, “Why do you care about this place so much” and then we walked in and he went straight to the candy bar section like he’s been there before, I WONDER.

This was the type of place I hate, because it’s loaded with chintzy shit that I desperately want for my desk at work but also don’t really feel like paying for and no this isn’t my big dark confession about how I’m a klepto, thanks. And for every aisle of Erin-friendly bullshit they have, there are three more that are full of Americana decor bullshit, MAGA hates, and cooking shit.

BARF.

I kept saying things like, “EW VOMIT, THIS ISN’T  MY STYLE” and “EW WHO WOULD PUT THAT IN THEIR YARD” forgetting where I was, and then I would notice people giving me shifty side-eyes.

In the end, I ended up buying a Dick’s 5 & 10 magnet because I guess this is a legit Branson landmark, a mini marquee for my desk, and Henry got candy bars, one of which the cashier pretended she was going to steal and then asked where we were visiting from because we are obviously tourists everywhere we go, and 2 hours after I said “Pittsburgh,” I wailed, “OH NO SHOULD I HAVE SPECIFIED WHICH PITTSBURGH? WHAT IF SHE THINKS WE’RE FROM PITTSBURG, KANSAS? I DON’T WANT TO BE MISTAKEN FOR A DOROTHY!”

Whatever that means.

I literally know nothing about Kansas aside from tornadoes.

Amazingly, I managed to convince Mr. Hot-Blooded to wear a jacket. Getting him to zip it was a war I didn’t feel like waging that day, though.

We went into an antique store after that and I could hear Henry weakly murmur, “Please don’t find anything,” from behind me. Like what Henry? A WHEELCHAIR? A GIANT PIECE OF AN ARCADE GAME? A CHURCH PEW?

What I did find though was this one section full of vintage magazine ads so I texted my brother Ryan and asked, “WOULD DAD LIKE THESE” and he was like, “YES THE CHEVY AND OIL&GAS ONES” and I also found an old 7Up ad too because bottled beverages is another thing that my dad really enjoys – he has several vintage pop machines in his garage, next to his ’55 Chevy and whatever other old cars he has; he changes them up.

We walked out after only spending $9 and Henry mopped beads of sweat off his cheap-ass forehead.

Also, Chooch used the bathroom there because of course he did and then got pissed because we didn’t care about the dumb salt and pepper shakers he wanted us to look at.

Then we spent way too much time carefully selecting taffy from a candy shop run by a nice old lady and I have since eaten so much of it that I might as well get pre-fitted for dentures.

We eventually left downtown Branson because it wasn’t really that exciting and the only thing that interested me (Dino’s Cake & Coffee, home of the Famous 24K Cake?!) was closed. Dino, you motherfucker.

Chooch kept pronouncing it like “dino”saur but I said it was probably more like deeno.

“I know that because there was this guy named Dino who wanted to marry my aunt Susie so bad,” I explained.

“Didn’t everyone want to  marry your aunt Susie?” Henry scoffed, because apparently my family stories are jokes?!

I wonder what it’s like to have someone who wants to marry you….

Then we went to some lake thing where Chooch couldn’t skip a rock and I learned about ZEBRA MUSSELS because there were warning signs everywhere but thank god Henry the Pocket Biologist was there to mussel-splain to us that they are AN INVASIVE SPECIES blah blah blah LAKE ERIE HAD A PROBLEM WITH THEM TOO snore snore snore.

In between all of this, I checked the weather on my phone once every 7 minutes because certain rides are not operational if the temperature dips below a certain degree and I was OBSESSED with this all weekend. Henry was like, “Look, we’re here and it doesn’t really matter, you can’t change it, so let it go.”

OK Elsa.

Is that who sings that? I have made it this far in life without ever seeing Frozen or listening long enough to any media outlet to even know what it’s about. BIG DAB.

Then we drove around looking for a place for me  to pee (I’m really picky about public restrooms and we started to near a Walmart but my body language was a clear, undeniable, “DO NOT EVEN” that a speaker of any language would have easily understood, so instead, Henry found a Hardees and bought some fries* while I peed in a handicap stall next to some lady who was shitting.

*(I’m weird about going in a fast food place just to use the bathroom so I will always make Henry buy something.)

Then it was time to go to SILVER DOLLAR CITY!

I am very pleased to say that our Thanksgiving was very nice. We actually quit making a big deal about it several years ago because who wants to be stressed and depressed?! Now we go into it with very laid back non-plans and now it usually ends up exceeding expectations!

Even Penelope had a nice day cuddling with Doll!

Our day started off with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which I liveblogged for absolutely no reason aside from the fact that I was bored and needed to keep myself entertained while waiting fro NCT127’s performance. Then my mom texted me and, to my surprise, said that she changed her mind and would accept our invitation to come over if the offer was still on the table! I had asked her a few days prior to come over because I hate the thought of her being alone in her house on a holiday and even though we weren’t having a real “dinner,” I still thought it would be better that she came here and chilled with us and by that I mean we held her hostage on the couch and made her watch kpop videos and our Thanksgiving tradition of WATCHING RANDOM PEOPLE’S BIRTHDAY PARTY VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE!

This was the ONLY bad part of the whole day: while Chooch was searching for our favorite birthday party video, the one that started our obsession, we realized that IT WAS GONE. The YouTube channel was TheMommyAndGracieShow, a mom and daughter doll-unboxing duo who are SO FUCKING ANNOYING and purposely do that “derp” voice thing which is NOT FUNNY OR CUTE.

Anyway, we accidentally found dumb Gracie’s…11th? birthday party video several years ago, which incited so many inside jokes between Chooch and me, to the point where I even printed and framed a still from that video. But then recently, Gracie decided she didn’t want to be a part of Mommy’s dumb unboxing videos anymore, and I guess MOMMY TOOK DOWN A BUNCH OF VIDEOS THAT GRACIE WAS IN, INCLUDING THE BIRTHDAY PARTY ONE?!

“She was probably getting bullied at school for her lame ass videos and fucking weird mom,” I said and Henry the White Knight shouted THAT’S NOT NICE from his serial killer Christmas card-making jail cell in the dining room.

Anyway, we found some other birthday party videos to watch and my mom was just like, “The fuck is this.” Welcome to our traditions!

For the dinner portion of the night, Chooch and I had these glorious #ThanksLiving vegan premade dinner sets made with love and care by our favorite local veg establishment: The Zenith.

Chooch is picky and didn’t like the butternut squash soup, but I certainly did.

Henry’s only plan for himself was to make a pizza, so that is what my mom also got to eat, because we are such great holiday hosts. She seemed OK with it!

Conveniently, she had just given me this pretty Asian-style platter that was from my Pappap’s house, so Chooch was very excited to use it for our dinner. Turns out it made the pizza look way more classy and less like it came from the freezer section. (I tried a piece that didn’t have meat on it the next day and that pizza actually was pretty good – it was Detroit-style whatever that means.)

(Yes, from Detroit, I realize that. Thanks pizza’splainers – I KNOW YOU’RE OUT THERE.)

We had some makgeolli left from our quick trip to Fairfax, VA a few weeks ago. My mom didn’t want any at first because she doesn’t trust anything about me but then she finally said FINE JUST A DROP and admitted that IT WAS PRETTY GOOD.

Makgeolli is the greatest. If you’ve never had it, I highly recommend running out to the nearest Asian market (preferably a Korean one) and seeing if you can snag a bottle.

If you live near an H-Mart and don’t have like 9 bottles of the banana variant in your fridge right now, we can’t be friends because if I lived near an H-Mart, I’d have 9 bottles in my fridge AND a mini-fridge in my bedroom just for makgeolli nightcaps.

Anyway, makgeolli is a Korean rice wine — not really comparable to sake though. This is more…milky? Cloudy? Also fun fact about me, I can spell “makgeolli” in Korean with zero effort but I almost always misspell it when I’m typing it out in English.

NO TURKEYS WERE HARMED IN ORDER FOR CHOOCH AND ME TO PARTICIPATE IN THANKSGIVING.

The best part of the dinner was the pumpkin pound cake that came with it. Oh good lord, I was stuffed after shoving this down my fat American gullet.

Chooch also really loved the cake, not sure if you can tell by his “died and gone to dessert heaven” pose up there.

My friend Wendy gave me a DUTCH HAVEN shoo fly pie last week, so Henry and my mom we’re also able to have Thanksgiving dessert.

We REALLY went all out this year lol. It’s amazing that Henry actually brought out the decent plates and not the ones that have been microwaved a million times, have accidental stove burner indentations in them, and gouges from years of having food cut on them.

Chooch and I took my mom home around 8 that night and passed a really bad accident. Someone was slumped over in a car, and it looked like another person in very critical condition was being put into an ambulance. It was chilling and extremely sad to see; you never want to see something like that on any regular day but when it’s a holiday, it’s just so much more heartbreaking.

“I think I might have just seen my first dead body,” Chooch said quietly. So, that was a really stark and somber reminder to appreciate the people who matter most to you and not get all hysteric over dumb things like I did the next day when I thought we weren’t going to be able to go on our Thanksgiving Weekend road trip because sometimes Spoiled Solipsistic Erin forgets how to be grateful, there, I said it. Ugh I’m the worst.

I made Henry take this picture of Chooch and me before I changed into my workout clothes and proceeded to spend the rest of the night exercising my fat face off.

The end.

Blasting “Jackie Blue” while in the Ozarks can be crossed off my bucket list now (I only just added that to the list last night lol).

Anyway, this is apparently a “scenic overlook” and then afterward I screamed when I realized I’m wearing BLUE while listening to Jackie BLUE in the OZARKS.

It doesn’t take much.

This one time, years ago, I mentioned at work that I liked that song and BARB was shocked that I knew it but I have always listened to old ass music especially when growing up.

Then, some time later, I had a birthday party at the roller rink and “Jackie Blue” started playing exactly at the moment Barb walked in and we pretty much died.

Found a better overlook, btw lol.

Our Thanksgiving roadtrip to Branson, Missouri has started out pretty clunky. First of all, we almost didn’t go. We were initially going to leave Friday evening after Henry came home from work, but he ended up HURTING HIS BACK that morning at work, bad enough that he actually admitted it – usually he just swallows pain and conveniently manages to not mention injuries whereas I’m broadcasting mine all over social media and shouting it from the hilltops.

I mean, I was compassionate for.000006 seconds before diving into my self-centered whine-fest and sobbing, “So we’re not going now???!!” Finally though, he came home and said, “Look—let me lay down with the heating pad, drink this bottle of Ibuprofen*, rest, and we’ll just leave early in the morning.”

*(Did you know I can’t say this word out loud in real life?)

So that’s the truncated version of how I got my way and now we’re en route to Branson after having to turn around two miles from home because Irresponsible Son didn’t bring a coat.

We’re not going to Florida, sonny boy.

I was so mad at him! I hate wasting time! I mean, who really likes it?!

Chooch, I guess.

Then we stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts so Chooch and I could get Beyond Sausage breakfast sandwiches even though he doesn’t deserve to eat after the hassle he caused this morning.

Thank god for more and more fast food places providing veg options.

Henry just looked at me and, with a Sheetz muffin in his mouth, asked, “ARE YOU LIVE BLOGGING?”

It’s 7:28am and we are finally in West Virginia. We’re not going to get to Branson until 6:50pm tonight but obviously much later than that because Henry will have to stop a million times because of his back ugh. I offered to push him out of the car when we stopped at Sheetz but he declined. Ok struggle, then.

I’ve asked him so many times if we’re going to see the St Louis Arch thing that he doesn’t even respond anymore.

We’re somewhere near Columbus, OH and just left a Pilot where I tried to get Chooch to buy winter accessories because I always worry that he’s not going to be warm enough which is one of the few signs that I am, in fact, a mom. But then Tightwad Henry gruffly said, “WE ARE GOING TO STOP LOTS MORE TIMES WE CAN GET THAT STUFF LATER” so now poor Chooch go to school in his flashy truck stop accoutrements.

We’ve only been on the road for three hours. Thank god for this 2nd generation Kpop playlist that has zero BTS in it (no offense BTS but your fans have been poppin’ off even more hatefully lately).

I put on the new EXO and Henry turned the volume up super loud like OK Kpop dad.

Fucking Henry sneezed so LOUDLY a few minutes ago that I almost had a heart attack and the sound-memory is still ringing in my ears. Ew now he’s blowing his nose in Dunkin Donut napkins and we are STILL in Ohio – this is truly the car ride from hell.

Henry told me that some Sheetz back home has purple lighting in the bathroom so that the heroin addicts can’t find their veins oh lord please help me because all of my veins are twinging now at the thought of that, ugh.

11:38am, Spiceland, IN: We just stopped at Mr. Fuel to pee and refuel (ie I needed coffee) but it was weird there and I felt uncomfortable. The color scheme was black red and yellow like an ugly pair of boys roller skates from 1978. There were three old men in suspenders sitting at a table, talking about war stuff probably, and they looked at me weird. I didn’t appreciate it.

Next to it was some school bus garage and Chooch started blabbering on and on about how we should buy a school bus and turn it into an RV and then a minute later I was screaming, “YOU HASHTAGGED MAKEAWISH?? DELETE THAT!”

Ugh that kid.

12:26 and we’re here now, awaiting our vegetarian fare (we’ll not Henry. He got chicken.)

We’re in Indianapolis btw. In a strip mall.

You guys, this food was fantastic! I went with the house veggie burger which came with this tangy, spicy sauce on a ciabatta bun, and cassava fries. Chooch got the Beyond Burger and regular fries, and Henry got a chicken burger with cole slaw (I can’t believe I missed out on that photo op FUCKKKK) and potato salad which was FANTASTICO!!

I asked Henry if he liked his and he said, “IT’S JUST CHICKEN” and then INHALED HALF OF IT IN ONE SOLID BITE. Chooch and I lost it in tandem, like laughing to the point of tears, and Henry was like JUST STOP.

My second favorite of lunch was when Henry was walking back to our table but looking off to the side and didn’t notice that there was an old man standing there until he almost walked into him. He stopped right at the last minute so they were face to face, looking at each other, and then Henry mumbled, “Excuse me” and side-stepped him. It was SO AWKWARD. I LOVED IT.

HENRY STORY TIME: we just passed a billboard for BOOT CITY and he blurted out, “I had a pair of cowboy boots once. When I was in the service. I wore them once and they hurt so I never wore them again….”

“OMG DID U ACTUALLY THINK THEY LOOKED GOOD?!” I wheezed.

“No….I don’t know why I bought them. Actually, I don’t think I ever even wore them out of the house.” Now he has this faraway gleam in his eye, thinking about his SERVICE days.

Hello, I’m back in action after driving for the last two hours while Henry slept. Nothing too exciting happened except for when I thought I was getting pulled over for doing 15 over the speed limit but apparently the State Police were more concerned with chasing down a felon. Oh, and the time went back so it’s only 3:42 and we should be passing through St Louis soon.

Just crossed the Mississippi River for the first time ever and now we’re in Missouri!

We still have 3.5 hours left to go though.

I just made the mistake of saying out loud that this drive hasn’t really been that bad and the look Henry shot at me could have castrated a herd of cattle. I keep forgetting about his back which is actually hard to do considering how often he flinched, winces, groans, rolls himself out of the car like a Weeble at every rest stop. But I guess I’m just really talented at not caring about his problems lol.

Ew one of the traffic signs said:

Mash potatoes

Not your head

Buckle up

WOW.

6:55pm pit stop to the URANUS FUDGE FACTORY.

Because the best fudge COMES FROM URANUS.

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There were three kitties living there and we got to pet one!!!

Highlight of the day so far.

Also, the employees shout WELCOME TO URANUS every time someone walks in and it was quite lovely.

They also sold this gross Trump candy though. “Is Missouri Republican?” Chooch yelled and all the people in flannels and trucker caps side-eyed us.

I just freaked out because the moon is suddenly really low and Chooch said, “Yeah I’m pretty sure it’s because we’re on a hill now.” Also–8:29 and we’re still not there but we’re getting close judging by the giant tourist trap billboards that are stationed all over both sides of the road.

9:08pm: WE’RE HERE. I already forget the name of the hotel but they gave us oatmeal raisin cookies when we checked in and now Chooch and I are going to the fitness center.

10:03pm: Chooch and I exercised for 25 minutes while Henry went to the store to get Chooch gloves for tomorrow because Chooch packed for the beach, not the Ozark Mountains in December. Anyway, I asked him if he also got a heating pad for his crooked back like he said he was going to and he went, “AW SHIT.” So, that’s a no.

Then he sneezed and murdered our ears. I swear his sneezes are like military-grade aural assault weapons. And then he yelled at Chooch, “And we are NOT watching this* all night!!”

*disney.

I brought up some tourist guide from the lobby to see how to get to the Ozarks but it’s just all dinner shows and mini golf, and ads for places like TOOL TOWN USA where you “make unusual discoveries.” No addresses for Ozark Mountain!!

Henry claims he doesn’t need a brochure and that he can “figure it out” himself.

Well, it’s giddy time so ANNYEONG SUCKAS.

Every time I sit down to write about this night, I drift off to my own version of La La Land that’s located on a soft, velvet cloud floating right above Seoul. I told Chooch to make sure I actually get it done this morning for real though because we’re going on two weeks now but don’t worry, it’s not like I forgot anything — I watch YouTube videos from the show every single day.

I’ve made Henry watch them.

And Janna.

And my mom.

I tried to get Chooch to make Blake watch them too but I don’t know if that ever happened. I figured it would be a nice change from Boss Baby, which Calvin makes Blake put on 24:7, apparently.

The concert was at EagleBank Arena, which was George Mason University’s basketball arena. It was a nice mid-size venue and I was cool with that because the other closest show we could have attended was at Madison Square Garden, and I didn’t want to deal with a concert of that magnitude. (Also, please note that SuperM is the first Kpop group to ever play at MSG aside from KCON, which is an entire convention! Usually kpop groups play Newark for their “NYC” date.)

Speaking of, the first night of their tour was in Ft. Worth, but the members kept calling it Dallas throughout the night and some asshole sports writer who was probably just surly because he was assigned the show to review, wrote this totally curmudgeony piece berating them for “insulting” Ft. Worth, flailing on stage trying to stay in sync (dancing, I think that’s called?), and not having a backing band (hello, most kpop groups do not bring bands on tour with them; yes, G-Dragon and BIGBANG do, but certainly not a brand new group who basically had a whirlwind tour thrown together seemingly last minute and real kpop fans aren’t going to concerts to hear the music stylized by a live band – we’re there to see our idols sing and dance, so HUSH YOUR BITCH AS MOUTH, SPORTS WRITER). The worst part was then he proceeded to then tweet that kpop is music for thirteen-year-olds, and anyone over the age of 18 who likes it should reconsider their life. Excuse me, sir? I have liked many different genres of music throughout my life and got trashed on by co-workers and friends for every single one, so this was nothing new to me. But it still pissed me off because let people listen to the music they want to listen to! This guy got DRAGGED on twitter by journalists who actually are employed to write about kpop (h/t Jeff Benjamin) and and this guy named Jack Phan, who is a CEO and tech entrepreneur who accidentally went viral a few months ago by asking “What is MOMO?” when he was shocked to see that #momo was trending at #1 and not Apple. 

Look, I have seen bands tweet about coming to Pittsburgh and half the time, they spell it without the “h,” or when we see shows 45 minutes away at our outdoor pavilion concert venue which is closer to West Virginia at that point than Pittsburgh, bands still say “WHAT’S UP PITTSBURGH” and NO ONE CORRECTS THEM BY SAYING, “Sorry, Marilyn Manson, but this is actually Burgettstown.”

Furthermore, these seven guys are from South Korea and just know that they flew into Dallas/Ft Worth, so lay off.

Jesus, why are middle-aged men SO THREATENED by kpop?!

Anyway, Mark referred to the area as DMV several times (DC/Maryland/Virginia) so nice save, Mark!

Our seats were on the floor and Chooch was like, “Wow, these seats are great!” at the same time I was crying, “WE ARE NOT CLOSE ENOUGH!!”

“You could be in Taemin’s lap and that wouldn’t be close enough for you,” he sighed.

Anyway, the stage had a catwalk with a smaller stage at the end, which that security guy in the yellow shirt is standing next to in the picture above. So anytime the guys were on that part of the stage (which thankfully was a lot!), our view was divine. But when they were on the main stage, we had to rely on the screens at times. Which was fine, I guess. IT WASN’T FINE. I AM NEVER HAPPY.

I brought my Taemin lightstick from his Japan tour! No, I wasn’t at any of the shows, but someone from a Canadian Shawol (SHINee fan club) group was selling an extra one that she had left over from a group order and I was like WHY NOT I MIGHT ACTUALLY NEED IT ONE DAY but never thought I actually would!

Oh, and guess who was sitting next to us?! The older woman who was in line behind us when we were checking in earlier that afternoon! We started talking and she’s actually originally from Pennsylvania and works remotely from a Pittsburgh-based company! What a small world. She is also a huge Taemin stan, so I was in good company. She was wearing a Taemin headband and I had major remorse for not making one, or at least a sign, like I kept saying I was going to do. Why am I so lazy!?

Well, friends, here is the part where I lose my mind, forget that I’m a 40-year-old mom, and become the best version of my 16-year-old self that will never be put to rest because I’m pretty sure that’s when I peaked.

I honestly wasn’t sure how I was going to react when they took the stage. I have all kinds of different concert personalities: leaning against a wall in quiet introspection, sitting at the bar being too-cool-for-school, standing in the back with my arms crossed, in the middle trying to dance/jump/something, paralyzed and crying.

When I saw G-Dragon, I was “paralyzed and crying.” Literally just stood there, stunned, mouth agape, staring at the stage in disbelief for two and a half hours.

So I wasn’t sure which Erin was going to be present on this night, until the intro video ended on the screen and SuperM rose onto the stage amidst the fog and flashing lights, and I saw Taemin for the first time in real life and not on a screen. That’s when the rare “FULL-THROTTLE SHRIEKING BANSHEE ERIN” came out. I couldn’t stop it. It just happened. It was like this, “Oh….MY….GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHYWQIOR9328492!!!!!!”

I was a motherfucking mess. Chooch was like, “Here we go” and I’m not being hyperbolic at all when I say this, but he had to grab my arm twice because I was screaming so violently that I was knocking the wind out of myself. That couldn’t have been healthy but ironically I can’t remember when I last felt SO ALIVE.

I managed to avoid (most) setlist spoilers so I didn’t even know that their first song was going to be Can’t Stand the Rain, which is THE JAM. However, right after that, the lights went down and I was like, “OOH WHAT IS GOING TO BE NEXT??”

Taemin’s motherfucking solo, that’s what! I WAS NOT PREPARED. I really didn’t think this was going to happen so soon into the concert! I heard people in line outside saying something about “Sherlock,” which is a SHINee song, so I was confused and thought they meant he was going to perform that on his own, but what actually happened was that he did his debut solo song, “Danger,” with elements of “Sherlock”* – it was so good and the whole time I was blinking back tears and thinking over and over, “Holy shit, I’m watching Taemin dance. That is LEE TAEMIN dancing a few hundred feet away from me. How did I get so lucky?!”

*(Some parts of “Sherlock” were swirled into “Danger” and it was brilliant, really.)

And then the next song he did was “Goodbye,” and that choreo is legendary. I did cry for this one. Like, full-on scrunched up my face and let the eye water run like a faucet. Oh, I was a mess.

Here is a good video of it:

After that, Taeyong came out and performed his brand new unreleased sole “GTA.” Like I said, I did a pretty good job staying ignorant to the set list so I had no idea that new songs were prepared for this tour, so I was excited to hear them for the first time since I avoided it all on Instagram and YouTube!

Next, Mark, Taeyong, Ten, Baekhyun, and Taemin came together for “Super Car” which features Taemin’s legendary “vrooom”:

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I COULDN’T STOP SCREAMING MY FACE OFF.

Next, Ten graced us with his effortless dancing when he performed his two solos, “Dream in a Dream” and “New Heroes.” I yelled, “I LOVE THIS SONG!!!!” at Chooch’s bleeding ear when “New Heroes” began. Honestly, even if Taemin wasn’t in SuperM, the chance to see TEN would have had me tossing my wallet into the sky and dancing beneath the raining credit cards with wanton abandon.

This one is actually my video:

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Next, we had Chooch’s highlight of the night, Lucas’s unreleased solo “Bass Go Boom,” which was adorable and entertaining (I only know Lucas from NCT reality show-type videos on YouTube so I don’t have a very good feel for him as a performer – this was a really good showcase for him!), and then Baekhyun came out with “Betcha” and “UN Village,” which I love and the whole time I was thinking, “Wow, this is really Baekhyun.” I have never seen EXO and at this point, I’m starting to think I’m never going to now that a bunch of them are in the military and for some reason, SM Entertainment likes to deprive America of their artists.

I’ve said it hundreds of times, but I think EXO deserves more attention and accolades than BTS, the group they are always pitted against. Seriously, those two fan bases harbor extreme feelings of hatred for each other, it’s chaos.

Afterward, the whole group reconvened and hit us with an acapella intro to their new song, “Dangerous Woman,” which I am desperate for them to record and release because I think it’s my new favorite SuperM song!? Also, that dick-noodle sports writer who said SuperM lipsynched through the whole concert can suck a dick, because they were clearly singing. Granted, I will admit that there are times where they rely on the backing track but that’s because they’re busy dancing their fucking faces off. We made Janna watch one of their videos and she was like, “Whoa, look how sweaty they are!” YES JANNA IT’S BECAUSE THEY ARE WORKING HARD TO GIVE US THEIR ABSOLUTE BEST BECAUSE THAT’S HOW DEDICATED THEY ARE TO THEIR ART, GOD!

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This song is EVERYTHING to me. Watching Taemin sing so joyfully, so close to us, it just sent me over the edge. I had the vapors. Pass me my fainting couch, thanks.

Next was 2 Fast, and then Ten and Taeyong performed their NCT U duet, “Baby Don’t Stop,” which I totally called months ago when this tour was announced! The one thing I also called that I’m really shocked didn’t happen and really think SM slept on a golden opportunity, was to have Taemin perform “Pretty Boy,” one of his solos which features Kai! WHY, SM?!!?

Mark got to take the stage next with his brand new solo “Talk About” and Chooch went nuts because Mark is his bias. Mark is so talented! SM had him in every NCT subunit and there was this joke when it was announced that there would be a Chinese unit that they asked Mark to say hello in Mandarin, and that was enough for them to put him in WayV, lol. Shockingly though he’s not actually in WayV!

Kai also got a brand new solo to perform, “Confession,” and when he coyly lifted his shirt at one point, I was like, “OH DAMN HENRY IS REALLY MISSING OUT!” I did get a short clip to send him though and he was like, “Wow, thanks” afterward. He won’t own up to the fact that Kai is his bias but I think it’s cute because TAEMIN AND KAI ARE BFFs.

“No Manners” was next and I died because they performed this on our part of the stage and prior to the concert, it was my favorite song on the SuperM release!

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AGAIN, CAN I PAUSE TO SCREAM MY FAT FACE OFF???

Ugh, these boys! My heart! They have it! They took it back to Korea! OH WELL, GUESS I’LL HAVE TO GO BACK AND FETCH IT.

Another new song was next, they were really blessing us hard with the new-new. This one was called “With You” and it was so uplifting and light-hearted! During this song, they each had a basket full of balls that they were tossing out into the crowd and I wanted one SO HARD. Here’s Chooch’s instavid of this song and it’s hilarious how fast he put his phone away once he realized it was the FREE SHIT portion of the night:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5C-6Dplivn/

WHEN TAEMIN DOES THAT CUTE HIP SWIVEL OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.

Breathe, Erin. You can do this. You made it this far! One more song!

The finale of the show was obviously a performance of their big single, “Jopping,” which I will admit I wasn’t SUPER BLOWN AWAY WITH when I first heard it but goddamn if that song didn’t grow on me faster than the 11th toe I picked up from that one time I accidentally dipped my foot into the Trump supporter gene pool.

This isn’t the greatest, but here’s someone’s recording of the big screen during “Jopping.” I just can’t enough of this choreo….and Taemin in those plaid pants. There was this girl who came over before the show started to talk to the girl next to my new friend and she had recreated his outfit from this song sooooo perfectly. I complimented her on it and in hindsight I wish I had asked to take a picture of her because it was pretty impressive.

That’s some dedication!

And that was it – an hour and a half of pure Korean bliss. My whole body was buzzing and Chooch and I were smiling so big by the time we met up with Henry at the car that we probably looked like our faces were splitting. I can only imagine how deranged we looked!

I wish that I had been able to also go to the NYC show,  or that any of the shows on their second leg of the tour were close enough for me to attend. I would just get cheap seats! I don’t care! I just want to be there again! I heard that they slipped during the NYC show and said something about seeing us again in the spring….so maybe there’s hope after all?!

Oh my motherfucking sweetly-spanked Mussolini, I can’t believe that I saw Lee Taemin. I saw him in real life, his precious angel baby face, and I heard his smoky vocals and saw him dance like the devil himself had stepped into his body. Holy fucking shit, I will never stop being grateful of this moment in my life.

“I was trying to get Taemin to wave to me just so I could say ‘haha Taemin waved to me and not you,'” Chooch said at one point on the way home and I was like fuck off, nerd alert.

****

We were supposed to spend the night in Fairfax and hang out in DC the next day, but dumb Chooch told us a few days earlier that he had PSATs on Monday and that nerd was actually crestfallen when I reminded him  that we weren’t going to be home, so that is why we ended up canceling the hotel, making a quick stop at the local Fairfax H-Mart for makgeolli and other Korean goods, and then driving straight home through the night.

Henry ended up going to work that next day, but I kept my day off and spent it lying around wistfully with an arm slung across my forehead, watching videos from the concert and sobbing to the point where I had to take my contacts out. It was a bad scene.

Then Chooch came home from school and screamed, “OMG THE PSATs WAS THREE HOURS LONG! IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!”

Get the fuck out of here.

No really, you can go now. Until next time!

I never care about the dumb Macy’s parade but I’m watching it today for NCT127 and when it was just announced that the balloons will fly, I TEARED UP?!?! My emotions are like gremlins running amok. I have no idea what they’re going to do anymore.

Well, I guess I’m live-blogging this because Chooch is watching it with me now and #FUTUREMEMORIES or whatever.

9:08am: Chooch has groaned in the Key of Teenager at my hyperbolic parade-outbursts at least 15 times so far and it only just started 8 minutes ago, and 3 of those minutes was just the announcement of what’s to come. #ThanksgivingBytheNumbers

9:25am: “‘I GOT MY OWN INFECTION!!!’ Ugh that song sucked but I can’t stop singing it!” – Chooch, Celine Dion’s parade performance.

“Are you saying INFECTION?” I asked.

“Yes,” Chooch said.

“It’s IMPERFECTION, you idiot!” I laughed.

“Oh. Well ‘infection’ sounds better.”

Agreed.

And then he said “wait—” and resang it as “infectSHAWN” and said “There, that sounds more like her now.”

What you missed before this was me ranting for a solid 3 minutes about how Barbra Streisand is better than Celine and she can take that fucking Titanic song and shove it up her ass and then we speculated why Celine was holding her stomach and my theory was that she was trying to keep her colostomy bag from slipping out of her dress but Chooch said maybe it was her breast implants leaking?!?

Wow.

9:35am: remember when Al Roker fat? God I can’t stand him.

This Hades thing is boring so we’re both looking at our phones now.

9:39am: OH OK LET’S ALL LAUGH AT ERIN FOR DROWNING ON HER TEARS DURING THAT ET COMMERCIAL THING THAT ACTUALLY HAD HENRY THOMAS IN IT UGH SHUT UP CHOOCH.

9:41am: When does Al Roker fall off the Roker Cycle? Please tell me that’s scheduled into this dumb parade.

9:44am: OMG Chooch doesn’t know who Tina Turner is. What a Dumb. But he just went on record saying that this lady who emulating Tina Turner sings better than actual Celine Dion, and I agree. Fuck off, Celine. Go home and practice your weird speech impediments on a chunk of stinky French cheese.

9:49am: Ellen commercial incited a riot in my brain and I shouted, “Oh and fuck you too Ellen. Fake ass bitch.” Pause. Chooch giggles. Pause. I giggle too. Then we just flat out start laughing like drunk bastard hyenas. Oh, Thanksgiving!

9:53am: Wow. There’s um…such diversity among the Rockettes. Whatever. I used this time to jog in place.

9:57am: WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT HOW ELMO RUINED SESAME STREET. BREAK THE SILENCE.

10:08am: Wait, country singers look like hipsters now? I’ve been so out of the loop with American things.

10:13am: Choochs favorite float so far is the NY Life / Kelly Rowland one. “All the black singers are so much better,” he said, thank you for the most obvious statement of the year. But then we started making fun of the robots surrounding the float so don’t worry—we haven’t lightened up.

10:20am: If I wore the padded outfit Ciara was wearing, I wouldn’t be able to get out of my front door.

10:27am: all these marching bands are boring. Unless someone is going to mess up, I don’t care. Oh shit that was a band from Pittsburgh. “Yeah that’s the school where the kid stabbed someone,” Henry said, interjecting himself into our parade narrative 90 minutes after it started. HE IS NOT EVEN IN THE SAME ROOM AS US.

10:34am: Wow the Ronald McDonald balloon GOT A TEAR mid-route. You just can’t predict what will happen next at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Truly.

10:39am: ONE MINUTE OF NCT127 PERFORMING HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN WAS STILL BETTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN THIS BORING ASS PARADE. It even brought Henry into the room!

Haechan looked so sweet, I thought I was going to die.

10:43am: Why hasn’t Henry been invited to join the 610 Stompers?! Holy shit.

10:44am: Gushing about how Debbie Gibson’s Electric Youth was THE SHIT when I was in 5th grade. “There was even Electric Youth perfume,” I said apparently too passionately because Henry started snickering from the peanut gallery, aka the dining room table where he’s making serial killer Christmas cards, happy holidays.

10:48am: I wish Billy Porter was my dad. Also, his float is the best, as it should be.

10:53am: there is still an hour left. I already saw NCT. Can I stick it out? Ugh, this is painful.

I love them! Jungwoo wasn’t there because he’s resting and that’s Henry’s bias so he was pretty bummed lol.

10:56am: the kids dancing in this Universal Kids performance thing all look like they just got done shooting a United Colours of Benetton ad and I just realized that i never hear about that brand anymore and I used to HATE it when I was in middle school! We had one of their stores at the mall and my aunt was always trying to get me to wear their clothes but I was fat and it never looked cool on me.

I also had braces and a really bad perm which definitely didn’t help perpetuate the aesthetic Benetton was aiming for.

11:03am: TLC! Chooch said, “I thought you hated them?” And I did a dramatic gasp with a hand on my chest. “Oh, is it just the song No Scrubs you hate?” he asked and was really perplexed when I said no. “I swear you hated something about scrubs…” and then we came to the conclusion that it was the TV show Scrubs that I hated.

I was telling Chooch about how Lisa Left Eye López died and he countered with a history lesson about Richie Valens and Buddy Holly. I…had no idea he knew about them. Now he’s singing “La Bamba.” “I like that song,” he said as he left the house and now I just realized I’m the only one still sitting here watching this dying horse of a parade.

11:09am: I dislike country singers and Christmas songs so you would think I would hate this current performance but it turns out that “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” is one of the few Xmas songs I genuinely like and this dude’s voice isn’t too twangy and he’s sans cowboy hat so this is tolerable.

11:19am: OK ASHANTI WITH YOUR UN-AGING SELF. RUB IT IN.

11:20am: Apparently Henry snuck (yeah I know “sneaked” but snuck sounds so much better!) off to Blake’s house next door I guess because there was too much parading for him.

11:26am: SORRY JIMMY FALLON BUT EVERYONE KNOWS THAT PEE WEE HERMAN HAS THE MOST LEGENDARY PERFORMANCE OF WHATEVER THAT BIRD SONG IS.

Anyway, NCT’s 90 second performance is already on YouTube:

I’ll just watch this over and over while Lea Michele’s performance is happening. She is so fucking annoying.

11:39am: another fucking marching band.

11:48am: I have suffered through so much. Marching bands. Broadway performances. Al Roker. Hoda. Commercials. Celine Dion and her infection. A ripped Ronald McDonald. I don’t think I can continue to the end. I can’t imagine that the finale will actually be that grand.

11:55am: this “man with the bag” performance is making me uncomfortable bc I’m not thinking about Santa, but a serial killer with a burlap sack wide enough to fit the girth of my dead body.

11:57am: Santa is overrated. This finale was flat. I’m out. Happy ThanksLIVING everyone (that’s what all of us cool veg-people are saying this year according to social media).