Well, like at least half of the country, we weren’t exactly donning our red white & blue attire and firing up the grill in honor of America. I know that you can hate the president and love the country at the same time, and that is WHY we hate Trump (among a full-ass tome of other reasons), but being celebratory when inhumane ICE raids and “Alligator Alcatraz” and the big ugly bill are also happening just feels gross.

So instead, I spent the morning having a good, long convo with Corey over iced berry cobbler lattes from Reginald’s, where the super cool and college-aged barista told me that she loved my outfit. “The butterflies over the Gemini shirt – it’s such a vibe!” and I was like, “WHY IS CHOOCH NOT HERE TO WITNESS THIS.” He would have been even more annoyed because my card got slightly stuck in the reader and the barista said, “Oh no, I’m sorry – that’s never happened before!” After I yanked my Visa out, I said, “Oh it’s not your fault, it’s because I have this overlay on the card,” flashing my custom Seventeen credit card at her. Chooch would have been mortified, lol.

Later that afternoon, I wanted to go for a walk and surprise, surprise – look who came with us!

We stopped at Pink Box first, as per tradition, and this was the first time that the owner was there! She chatted with us at length and wow – what a sweet woman! It made me appreciate Pink Box so much more. We have been popping in there for years, and it’s even become our treat of choice to take to the cemetery with us for our traditional Christmas “picnic.”  They have some new buns at Pink Box and she was explaining to us how they are made. Every time she would say goodbye, she would remember something else though and the conversation would start up again – it was hilarious. Then as we were walking out, she yelled out that she thought my purse was cute! INYERFACE Chooch!

LOL, I didn’t know Chooch took this but I’m keeping it because I look like I’m scanning the horizon for danger. My face is so serious! But really it’s just because I was squinting into the sun and being mad at two cars that were practically drag racing through the cemetery.

But yeah, here’s my “vibe-y” OOTD, lol. That Gemini shirt is honestly one of my favorite shirts ever. I wish whoever designed it would do one for Phantom’s Revenge because those shirts consistently suck.

This was a whole ordeal to take these since we didn’t have a tripod and had to rely on a flat tombstone. But surprisingly, no one fought! Chooch acted like it was the worst day of his life, though.

G-Dragon member’s only mini-lightstick, check. Haechan T-Money card, check. Limited edition Korean Vans, check. Stray Kids bracelet received at last week’s concert, check.

And then we spent a good 20 minutes walking the perimeter of the pond, talking to the bullfrogs, turtles, and geese. There is always so much action in this pond in the summer!

Other than that, 7/4 was a laid back day. And that was just fine! Hopefully some day soon it will feel like a holiday again.

I was so excited when I woke up on Sunday! OK, I was probably still being a Sunday Morning Brat, because that’s my m.o., but internally I was freaking out about seeing Stray Kids that night! We planned on getting to the venue around 4ish, because everything we had read had made it sound like this was going to be a logistical nightmare as far as transportation / parking goes because they built this brand new, state of the art venue WITH NO PARKING. More on that later!

To start the day, we stopped at Coffee Culture Cafe near our hotel (I can’t remember if I mentioned but we stayed at some Hilton in Mississauga) and ofc Henry had to be soooo embarrassing. I ordered first and asked if they had almond milk.

“No, just oat milk right now, sorry,” the barista said, and actually looked like she was sorry too, good ol’ Canada.

Then Henry ordered an iced coffee.

“Do you have almond milk?” he asked, and the barista and I made darting eye contact before she slowly repeated, “No, just oat milk right now, sorry.”

I SERIOUSLY WAS SO DISGUSTED. I glared at him and said, “She literally just told us that,” while he mumbled some lame excuse of not knowing why he asked that. Mmmmm!!!!!

Then he asked some other stoop question and this girl, I gotta give her credit. She was so patient with his frustrating ass!!

When we sat down, I hissed, “You make everything so embarrassing and awkward!! People probably think we’re aliens from another planet, ordering THAT HOT BROWN FLUID, MEEP MEEP, PUT IT IN VESSEL WITH FROZEN WATER SQUARES, BLOOP BLOOP for the first time.”

I went with the fresh fruit bowl and it was a good choice. Filling, nutritious, took a long time to eat which I have found is the kind of meals I need to lean into because I eat too fast and then I feel unsatisfied and starved.

Overall, a decent place to get a small breakfast without feeling like shit after.

From here, we drove to the nearest GO Train station and took the train to Bloor St. because there is a vegan Japanese bakery that I have been wanting to try the last several times we were in town BUT it was still so early so Henry suggested the dreaded, “We can just walk around” which always ends up with us trudging through a concrete jungle until I’m on the precipice of hanger. I don’t mind “just walking around” if there are cool shops, or parks, or actual things to see. But this street was kind of boring, at least the part we were on. But then Henry was like, “WAIT, WE CAN JUST WALK TO KOREATOWN!” and I was like, “OK that’s great but if you recall from all the other times we have been here, there is not much open this early in Koreatown!?!?”

Eventually, we decided that we would take the subway to Kensington Market because I was determined to get me another nanaimo bar this time since we didn’t get one when we were last there! And I wanted to bring one home for Chooch.

In case you don’t know, Bunner’s is a vegan bakery and we had our first (and only!) nanaimo bar there during the winter of 2023 and it was just divine, unlike anything I have ever eaten before and I had become lowkey obsessed with it.

“The Nanaimo bar is a no-bake dessert named after Nanaimo, a Canadian city in British Columbia. It consists of three layers: a coconut crumb base, a custard filling, and a chocolate ganache topping.”

Hilariously, we ended up walking all the way to Koreatown anyway to get to the next subway station. It’s crazy how “familiar” this area is to me now yest I still have no idea where it is on a map of Toronto, lol.

I will say that the walk here was rife with Henry-shaped insults. He was getting on my nerves so bad! Then we had an argument because I accused him of not thinking I’m funny and he was like, “I DO THINK YOU ARE FUNNY” and I said, “YOU NEVER LAUGH AT MY JOKES” and then he got defensive and also mad at me for being mad at him and that is my biggest pet peeve when it comes to him! DO NOT APPROPRIATE MY ANGER!!!

Anyway, this wasn’t actually a fight, just me being snippy and Henry brushing it off because nothing ever upsets him and it’s so annoying.

We had to take two subways! Henry didn’t make me aware of this. Luckily, it was an easy transfer. I get nervous about these things.

It wasn’t a far walk at all to Kensington Market once we got off the subway. Nanaimo bars and some other treats acquired! I thought I took a picture of the display case too but I guess not so instead just feast your eyes on all that exciting coffee machinery and bakery boxes!

I love this area so much! I wish we had spent more time here but Henry had me totally panicked about getting to Rogers Stadium later and I couldn’t shake his annoying clock-watching presence. I did duck into a vintage clothing shop but he was making me feel rushed and uncomfy which is not atypical, honestly.

Next time, we will spend more time here. I wanted to shop for art!

It was still kind of early to be thinking about lunch so Henry gave me the option to either take public transportation to Little Italy, which is where the Japanese bakery is, or walk. I said we could just walk because I was in a better mood now that we walked through the contagiously uplifting Kensington Market.

We stopped in a shop called Red Pegasus because I saw these cute cement confetti earrings in the window display and I like to get one of my friends earrings from various cities we travel to for her birthday, which is in a month, so now I feel relieved that I have one less thing looming over me! There was a really cute dog helping us peruse the shop, lol. And the ladies working there were very helpful when I asked if the earrings were locally-made and went out of their way to look it up for me (Manitoba, not Toronto, but that works!).

In Little Italy, we stumbled upon a sidewalk of Italian stars, all of which were clean as a whistle EXCEPT FOR MY BELOVED GINO VANELLI’S!! Gino, they really did you dirty – literally!

We made it to Tsuchi Cafe :)

By this point, I was definitely ready to eat again. Henry was really annoying here too, btw.

Everything looked so delectable! I got the katsu sando and Henry got the karepan, and I immediately wished I had also gotten that because he gave me a bite (ok, several, lol) and it was incredible. SO BEEFY AND GRAVY-Y!

I also got an iced hojicha latte and it was perfect.

Ew, what is he side-eyeing??

I had to pee so bad and 1. pretty sure I didn’t lock the door correctly so I peed in fear; 2. couldn’t figure out how to turn on the lights until after I was done washing my hands.

I sent Henry back up for a hojicha cookie to split afterward and it tasted like a Nature’s Valley granola bar but softer and decadent. This place was such a cute little gem!

Then it was time to walk back to the train station. I was somehow still grumpy but we made it back without me having a full-throttle meltdown at least. I love walking, you guys know I love walking, but for some reason I was SO OVER WALKING on this day!!

Look how fucking dumb-looking I am. Oh well.

But great news! We had the whole train car thing to ourselves!!

I saw this ad for Annie and laughed because I WAS JUST TALKING ABOUT ANNIE THE NIGHT BEFORE. If you read Saturday’s live blog, mayhaps you remember.

Oh! It was embarrassing because we didn’t realize we had chosen the handicapped car so when we were exiting, the train guy had to put down a portable plank for us to walk across. We apologized profusely since we were THE ONLY PEOPLE LEAVING THAT CAR, but he was like, “Eh, I’m Canadian, I’m not bothered.”

I mean, he didn’t say that out loud, but it was implied.

Got back to the hotel around 3PM and started to get ready for the Stray Kids concert! I’m so excited to start recapping that. It was A GOOD TIME.

P.S. OMG I remembered why I was in a bad mood!!! Because there is this tourist site called Casa Loma (a legit castle) that I have been wanting to visit ever since the first time we came to Toronto in 2017 but we never have time. So, after all of Henry’s hullaballoo about GOTTA LEAVE FOR THE STADIUM BEFORE THERE IS NO PARKING LEFT, he had the motherfucking audacity to say to me after we got off the GO train at the Bloor St station, “We can get on the subway right here – it goes straight to that castle place, look” and tried to shove his phone under my nose but I f l i p p e d.

“Why would you even tell me that after saying we couldn’t go? Now suddenly we can go?” I cried, and he backpedaled and said THAT WAS NOT WHY HE WAS SHOWING ME? Oh, I’m sorry, this was just a conversation starter then? A “look how easily we could get to the Canadian place of your dreams if only I cared enough about you” slap to the face???

So, great job, Henry. Way to set me off AS SOON AS WE STEPPED OFF THE TRAIN.

I promised the spirit of Drew that I would not collapse into a crippling depression today. I’m trying! I really am trying! I woke up to a nice, supportive message from Henry reminding me to think of the good memories today; I had a good, long cry in the shower; and I had therapy, so I got to have the best kind of support there is on a day like this, right? I really, truly love my therapist. She is so easy to talk to and as soon as I said, “Well, today is….” she was like OMG!!!

The weirdest part for me was that as I getting ready for therapy, I looked outside and saw that HNC was blocking the driveway. I texted him like, HI PLZ CAN U MOVE THX. When he didn’t respond right away, I started to go over there and all I could think of was that this is exactly what happened one year ago – Drew dying in front of me and me having to bang on HNC’s door for a ride to the vet. I did not want to knock on that door again today, exactly one year later.

Luckily, he came opened the door right as I was walking up his porch steps and was like, “I’M SORRY! DON’T KILL ME!”  That was actually a much-needed comedic break.

I have been dreaming of her so often lately and it breaks my heart all over again when I wake up. I don’t know if my mind has been subconsciously anticipating this dreaded anniversary or what.

Last summer, I had a Drew Beringer tribute shirt made and haven’t been able to wear it  yet. Maybe I will challenge myself to wear it one day this month in her honor. (Crying just thinking about it, but it’s OK!)

So, this is where we are. Still mourning and missing her every single day but trying to still live life which is slowly getting more manageable.  (The whole “time heals” mantra isn’t really working with this one.)

P.S. Sometimes I still barge into the house, calling out, “GUYS! I’M HOME!” only to instantly remember that it’s no longer plural. :( I freaking micro-manage Penelope’s every movement, even worse than I have always done with my cats, and she is like, “OMG I LEGIT JUST SNEEZED, I AM FINE, PLEASE STOP MONITORING ME.”

*If I had excelled at Latin, maybe I would have been able to write that title in Latin. OH WELLZORZ. At least I am good at Internet speak.

Ever since our lunch with Todd & Brittany last weekend, I have been reminiscing about my old Latin class in high school. I knew I had a picture somewhere and I found it!! This must have been from sophomore year. That’s me bottom row, second.

Some interesting facts:

• The last girl on the bottom row is my friend Liz of LAKE CHAUTAQUA FAME!!! The girl above her is Kim, who was also there that weekend! We were super close in middle school. I’m still in touch with Liz but lost touch with Kim after I left Facebook.
• If this had been a group picture from freshman year, you’d have seen sophomore-at-the-time BECKY LEE, who I played tennis with as well BUT also was the first runner-up in Survivor history! She was a really great person from what I remember and it looks like she went on to do good, meaningful work in DC. I love that for her!
• I’m still social media friends with 6 people in this picture.
• The first guy in the back row convinced me to stick the foil part of a gum wrapper in an electrical socket that same year and it made the lights blow out in our homerun. HE GOT IN TROUBLE, NOT ME. He also signed my yearbook by saying something about teaching me about the flow of electricity. If you say so, Vince. He was also one of like a million valedictorians because our graduating class was so fucking smart.
• I also was smart (not that level, but I was in advanced math and sciences, against my will) but Latin was my achilles heel. I was so good at the vocab portion, loved those quizzes, loved the history aspect of it, but I was SO BAD AT THE DECLENSIONS. Literally, I sucked so bad, like I had a learning disability. It was actually bringing my GPA down because I struggled every time we had a test. At the end of every year, there was this big exam that we were required to take in order to…get something. At first I thought it was a membership to the Junior Classical League but I found two membership cards in my name for that, so it must have been something else because I failed to achieve this in 9th and 10th grade. Finally, at the end of 11th grade, knowing I wasn’t going to be taking Latin for a fourth year (barely anyone did!), the guy in the last row, 4th over was like, “JESUS CHRIST, HERE” and let me copy off of him :) I distinctly remember this because we took the test not in our regular classroom but a room that was used for study halls and whose real purpose is not remembered by this author, but it had long rows of tables on shallow steps that went up to the back of the room. I was sitting next to him in the back row and it was easy for cheatin’.

• Our teacher, Ms. Fiore, was actually teaching us at a college level. She was REALLY INTO LATIN, YOU GUYS. She was also very serious and we had a love/hate relationship. I think I was just too much for her. I remember this one time she had told us something, I can’t even remember what it was now but apparently it was told to us in confidence, and for some reason I had let it slip to the substitute teacher we had in English that year while the regular teacher was on sabbatical. Her name was Miss Ali, she was young, also worked as staff/security at concerts at Starlake Pavilion, and hated me because she fell off a horse that year and I parodied the incident in a group video.* Surprisingly, she did not find that cute! Anyway, whatever this was that Ms. Fiore had said, I repeated to Miss Ali and it apparently set her off and she confronted Ms. Fiore about it, which prompted Ms. Fiore to give me a stern “WHAT I SAY IN THIS ROOM STAYS IN THIS ROOM” talking to, like Latin Fight Club. I feel like it had something to do with an opinion related to women’s rights.
  • *Oh you better believe I still have that video –  it was about Longfellow and themed off of The Real World. I even went around and had random people in the wild read a line from the opening of the Real World, modified to fit our English video lol #dorkalert. The part where I was mocking Miss Ali’s accident was one of the Real World “confessionals.” I had bloody gauze wrapped around my head and was crying about how I was just trying to read some Longfellow poems when my horse threw me off. Then I’m clobbering down a hallway on crutches, crying, “SOMEONE GET ME MY LONGFELLOW, I NEED TO READ LONGFELLOW.” We also had a Longfellow birthing scene with me walking in the background with a sign advertising my favorite syndicated TV show on FX, Vega$. It was very irreverant. Everyone involved got an A but I got a vindictive C even though I brainstormed the entire concept and wrote the whole fucking script AND FILMED IT AND EDITED IT, BUT COOK ON, MISS ALI, WITH YOUR SMUG VENGEANCE GRADING SCALE.
• At the end of junior year, our Latin class had a cook-out at LARGE FIELD* or whatever it’s called and I have pictures somewhere but can’t find them. I just remember I looked totally shitty and had my hair in a ponytail which was a rarity because I LOOK SHITTY IN PONYTAILS but for some reason, I really thought…
  • *OK it wasn’t called that, but it was in the “Large” area of town off of Rt 885. I typed in JEFFERSON HOSPITAL and clicked on the little map that came up because I know it’s somewhere out there but nothing was showing up so Henry came over and peered over my shoulder to inspect my detective work once he realized it involved MAPS and DIRECTIONS. “What map are you even on? Stupid Maps dot com?? Go to Google Maps.” Wow, apologies Sgt. GPS. Jesus. Google maps is much more informative but it tells me that it’s called AE REILLY MEMORIAL PARK and honey booboo that is NOT what we were calling it back then??? That doesn’t even ring the rustiest, most distant bell in my head. Oh well, I don’t care anymore. 
• Lastly, and this is the best part, I decided that for senior year, I would take Spanish because all of my friends who took Spanish LOVED it and the teacher. GUESS WHAT. MS FIORE DECIDED TO ALSO TEACH SPANISH THAT YEAR SO I FUCKING HAD HER AGAIN AND DID NOT ENJOY SPANISH ONE BIT. It was fun being a senior in a class of freshmen though and I will say that after three years of Latin, Spanish was a cool walk in a park, stopping to sniff the flowers, eating berries out of the apron that I am inexplicably wearing in this daydream scenario.

Not much happened over the weekend other than acquiring the elusive beer can, us just trying to survive this gross heat wave with no A/C, and cowering in fear at the thought of WWIII thanks to that motherfucker who is unilaterally in control of America, and, in his pea-brain, the world.

However! We did meet Todd and Brittany for lunch at Novo Asian Food Hall and that was a definite highlight of the weekend! Obviously, I have known Todd for 10+ years now but this was only the second time I have hung out with Brittany and both times felt like the complete opposite of a first time meeting! We have so much to talk about! Even Henry sort of piped up here and there, lol.

I was sad though because the place I had my heart set on – Lolo – looks like it’s closed forever. So I settled on a veggie chicken sandwich from Kungfu Chicken and made Henry also order a side of FRIED MILK which I then forced upon Todd and Brittany, lol. I thought it was delicious! The general consensus from the rest of the table was that it was fine, but I was lowkey obsessed with it. I loved how jiggly the inside was! It definitely had the texture of tofu which I refrained from saying until I finally managed to get Todd and Brittany  to try it because I know that tofu has a reputation of being off-putting for some people but really, it’s just so misunderstood.

But still…..

Don’t Ask Me About Tofu

Our beloved Sumi’s Cakery also has a stall here now, and ended up closing their flagship bakery in Squirrel Hill because of it. This is actually dreadful because the bakery was so much better – more authentic, more real Korean flavors, just all-around MORE. They had some food-food on the menu too so Henry ordered rose tteokbokki and proceeded to sit at our table for over 30 minutes (he had food from Kungfu Chicken as well, so don’t cry for him like Sally Struthers) before the pager finally buzzed and he was given a refund because no one knew that they were out of tteok.

On the way out though, we did grab some bbang to go, and a slice of ube cake, and everything was delectable as usual but it just didn’t hit the way it did when it came from the actual bakery in Squirrel Hill :(

But regardless!! It was a terrific afternoon and we sat around for a LONG time after we had finished eating because there was so much to chat about. For instance, Brittany mentioned that she took Latin in college and I was like YO I TOOK LATIN IN HIGH SCHOOL and then we talked about languages and how it’s good to be forced out of your comfort zone when traveling in foreign countries where you don’t know the language. It made me think about a time recently where someone said in convo that they really think English is going to be the universal language soon and they were excited about this concept but I was NOT. Brittany agreed with me that it would be awful and part of what makes the world so great is that there ARE so many languages. I am super passionate about this topic to the point where I often regret not going to college for real and majoring in linguistics or something. (Oh, I know – it’s not too late except that I am tired and am already back in debt putting Chooch through college, let’s not add more tuition to that lol.)

Anyway, I feel like this happens every several years but I went down memory lane HARD re: Latin class. It was my worst class yet the one that has stuck with me the most into adulthood I swear to god. I was so bad at Latin but I loved being in that class at the same time.

I feel like a Latin Memories post is long past due.

Penelope, splooting on a Saturday night.

Other than that, the rest of the weekend was quiet. Henry spent most of Sunday running a new electrical line or something, I wasn’t paying attention, from the basement to Chooch’s room so that a window A/C unit can be turned on without blowing a fuse. Oh, the joys of renting an old piece of shit house! And in between that task, he took breaks to work on the crucifix drawer pulls for our dresser. I spent all day doom-scrolling and panicking and then I tried to distract myself by looking for quirky diners to stop at on our July roadtrip but all that did was make me panic even harder because who knows what will be going on in the world then and I’m over here watching a YouTube video about an Iowa diner that inspired “Roseanne”???

Ugh.

SHOULD I SAY IT AGAIN, LOUDER FOR THE MAGA IN THE BACK??

UGHFUCKYOURPRESIDENT.

Dear Blog,

It’s me, the Obsessive One. The Finnicky Fixator. The Alice Down the Rabbit Hole. Circling back on my ELUSIVE BEER CAN mission from several weeks ago.

You might remember that Henry and I had purchased a limited edition Penn Brewery six-pack in collaboration with Kennywood and I was so stoked on it. Not only did I LOVE the can art, but the beers were actually pretty good too. I liked ALL SIX varieties which was a big deal for this Picky Peggy (sorry, once I start, I can’t stop). I had a vision of cutting and flattening the cans to make a picture frame and was super excited about this. If you know me, you know I am a hugely sentimental person, I love souvenirs, mementos, memorabilia, etc. ESPECIALLY when it involves amusement parks!

But then a week later, we met my sister and her husband at Penn Brewery and this is where a wrench was thrown in my plans. First of all, we had a shitty experience as far as the server and most of the beers went. Maybe it was the Kennywood cans that were hyping up on the other Penn Brewery flavors in my mouth, but the ones we actually got on draft on there were mid at best. The lemon shandy especially was extremely bland, like Lysol without the lemon scent.

On the table was one of those little plastic stands with their “specials” slipped inside. On the other side was an ad for the Kennywood six-pack, with a picture of it in the middle and then all of the individual cans bordering it – 4 on both sides.

You might be thinking, “But 4+4 = 8, Erin. How is that a six-pack?” THAT WAS MY QUESTION TOO, YOU GUYS. I might hate math but I didn’t suck at it in school. I held the sign close to my nose so that I could really scrutinize it and saw that there were TWO BEERS not included in the six-pack: one called a Potato Smash and the other one I couldn’t see very well but could tell that it was themed on the now-defunct dark ride, Le Cachot. And unfortunately it was the dreaded lemon shandy, LOL. I didn’t care though – I NEEDED BOTH OF THESE NOW THAT I KNEW THEY EXISTED.

Henry was going to ask out server but I stopped him because she was seriously the worst and acted like she hated us, so god forbid we ask her to do more of her job. So, he went to the bar and had an equally abysmal interaction with the bartender, who did sell him a six-pack of the Potato Smash one, but basically gaslit him into believing that the other one didn’t exist in the Kennywood can. She kept trying to push their regular brewery cans of lemon shandy on him like we were actually buying this for the beer itself.

As.

If.

I was in a spiral and kept arguing with him the entire weekend that this couldn’t be true.

“WHY WOULD THEY HAVE THAT AD ON THE TABLE WITH 8 CANS IF THERE ARE ONLY 7???” I kept crying, and Henry was like, “Jesus Lord in Heaven, beam me up. I’ve put in my time and I wish to now clock out.”

Hey, Sus – you stay out of this.

We kept checking some local distributors thinking that maybe they would have it because another bartender said something about shipping them out, etc. But we came up empty.

Not one to be deterred that easily, I decided to send the brewery a message on IG, in hopes that someone who actually knows what goes on there would be the one to respond. I explained my dilemma, “lay awake at night thinking of this mystery can” etc. – I gave it my all. I laid all of my neuroses on the table. I’m just a girl, on the other side of your Instagram DM, freaking the FUCK out because now I have an UNEVEN NUMBER OF BEER CANS FOR MY ART PROJECT!!!

No, I have never been diagnosed as OCD but sometimes I wonder. I also think I am on the spectrum a ‘lil bit. (Aren’t we all??)

They replied a day later and said that YES! THE KENNYWOOD LEMON SHANDY CANS ARE AT THE BREWERY! I mean, I made sure to emphasize that I needed the KENNYWOOD CANS, THE ONES WITH THE LE CACHOT ART, and their response acknowledged this. .

I sent Henry out to get it.

And they were closed.

This was a fail on his part, though!! He should have checked their hours! I will give Penn Brewery a pass on this one.

But then he went the next day and the same lady bartender from the day we were there with Amy tried AGAIN to give him the basic cans and he was like, “No the Kennywood ones” and she told him they didn’t exist! AND HE WAS LIKE OK BYE AND LEFT!? No push back!?!!?!?!?

I was livid. I sent Penn Brewery a reply and told them what happened and they read my message and never responded!!!!!!!

SO THEN I MADE JANNA MESSAGE THEM ABOUT IT AND THEY NEVER RESPONDED TO HER AT ALL.

OK, I was really hating on this place at this point and I felt actual sickness in my stomach when I would think about how now my project was going to be lopsided and forever incomplete in my heart since I KNEW that there could be an 8th design out there!!!

HOW DID THEY HAVE A PICTURE OF SOMETHING THAT DIDN’T EXIST?!!?!?

THE MATH WAS NOT MATHING!!!!!

Eventually though I told myself that I had to let it go. I have never been more frustrated over something this small and non-life altering! This stupid beer can was living rent free in my head but I’m about to be charging this squatter back rent!!

2 weeks have since gone by since Janna messaged them with no response. I had actually given up. But this morning, I opened Instagram and one of my fave local cafes posted a picture of a guy painting a mural in one of their locations. I was like, “That looks nice” and then I clicked on the artist’s Instagram and didn’t have to scroll very far before I saw THAT HE IS THE ONE WHO DESIGNED THE KENNYWOOD CANS!!!!! (In hindsight, the cans DO say his name but it is VERY TINY and I only just noticed it now!)

He has a video where he is in the brewery watching them can the Jack Rabbit Wheeeeat and it says, “Get this and 7 others at Penn Brewery!”

SEVEN.

OTHERS.

I mean, he should know, right????

So I commented on his post and told him my sob story and he said that yes, the mythical 8th can is available AT THE BREWERY.

It just so happened that we were having lunch today with Todd and Brittany in the Strip so since we were already out that way-ish, I made Henry swing by the brewery on the way home.

“I WILL GO IN MYSELF AND HANDLE THIS,” I hissed, and Henry of course was like, “Thank god.”

“Yes, we have that,” the bartender replied, no hesitation, when I explained in CLEAR ENGLISH that I was looking for the KENNYWOOD CANS of the lemon shandy.

“OMG! Can I please have a six-pack?” I giddily asked, in disbelief of how easy this was panning out to be.

He came back WITH THE PENN BREWERY CANS.

“No….” I began to say, and he cut me off to explain that this was the same lemon shandy found at Kennywood, just in the Penn Brewery cans.

So, once again, I used my CIVIL, POLITE WORDS to explain that I was looking for the CANS WITH THE KENNYWOOD ART.

“Oh, you have to buy the variety pack,” he said. “You’ll only get one can of the shandy, but it will be the Kennywood art.”

“No, that’s not one of the ones in the variety pack,” I DEMURELY and CUTESY-ly argued.

He retrieves a six-pack to prove his point and immediately says, “….oh.”

“Yeah,” I said, relishing the moment he realized that the lemon shandy WAS NOT in the variety pack.

I then argued that I was told by THE ARTIST that this can exists and that it’s available AT THE BREWERY. I was NOT leaving until he went back and checked again. Like, bro – can I just come back there? Can you just let me look? Are you just like, glancing around? Opening the junk drawer halfway? What is going on here?!?

He did go into the back again and if I’m not mistaken, he retreated with a bit of ‘tude in his stride that I did not appreciate.

But guess what you guys? HE CAME BACK AND PLACED MY HOLY GRAIL ONTO THE BAR IN FRONT OF ME.

This was like my own version of the motherfucking DaVinci Code. The trials and tribs I went through! All that was missing was a pair of sphinxes asking me a riddle.

“This was the last one,” he said, explaining that the rest of the batch was sent off to the distributors. Are you kidding me? If I start seeing these everywhere, I’m going to lose my mind. Regular people be walking into Giant Eagle and snagging a six-pack of Le-mon Cachot Shandy not knowing what those before them went through to acquire this bounty.

The worst part is that THIS BEER SUCKS!! But yo—-that can design. Can you even believe it?  It is so good! I loved Le Cachot when it was still around! Paul Haggerty, you are a brilliant artist.

This was the other one that wasn’t available in the variety pack. If you have never been to Kennywood, they are famous for their Potato Patch fries.

I love that this one, named after the Thunderbolt, has a Golden Nugget ice cream on it!

RIP Log Jammer.

THIS shandy was actually really delectable.

And that’s my story about how I obtained all 8 cans and will never go back to Penn Brewery again. (Unless they do a Kpop series one day.)

Ahhhh, let me just preface this by saying that it was one of best (non-Kpop related) nights I’ve had in a good long while. OK so last Friday night was the Loving and Losing tour at Thunderbird Cafe – Honey Revenge was headlining and while they are great and I have followed them on Instagram for a few years now, it was the opening band – nightlife – that I was there for first and foremost. If you read this post from last week, you know that I was having extreme FOMO because this show was sold out and I so desperately wanted to be there. nightlife hooked me up by putting me (and a +1, sorry Henry, you almost had an out but I have no other friends to take with me lol) on their guest list and I am forever grateful about this.

Doors hadn’t opened yet when we arrived, so I did have some mild panic standing in line, hoping that my name actually WAS on the list! Thank god they confirmed with me prior to this that my name is Erin KELLY not APPLEDALE which is how I’m known on Instagram haha. I feel like this happened to me once before where I was on a list for something as Erin Appledale and it was Big Confusion. Then there was the time where Debby’s niece’s boyfriend’s band was playing at the Four Chord Festival several years ago (god, more than a several years ago at this point) and put me on the list but THEY HADN’T PUT ME ON EARLY ENOUGH so I was arguing with the guy at the door and he was making smug, “MMM, SURE you are” faces at me so I had to frantically message Debby on Facebook (OK then yeah, this was like 10 years ago then lol) and she had to call her niece and then finally I was on the list but whew, I was sweating.

I was very worried that this was going to happen again and was glad that the people behind us in line were older and seemed cool in case this ended up perpetuating A SCENE.

But I was on the list and we got our wristbands with no issue!

We got cozy in the downstairs bar while waiting for the show to start. I was loving the vibes already. Laid back, cool, chill, varied crowd of all ages. Henry might not have been the oldest person there, even. I felt very comfortable and giddy. Just like, myself again. I can’t explain it but this night was starting out so perfectly.

Around 6:50, I left Henry to go out to the main floor for nightlife. I didn’t want to be sitting in a bar cave, drinking beer while watching them. Especially not after they did me a solid – I wanted to be out there and up in it. So I staked out a good spot near the right side of the stage.

Um. You guys. I can’t articulate well enough how energized and full of life this band made me that night. I was so stoked from start to finish!

AND THE SAXOPHONE!!

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Oh Jesus Christ. This band. I am so thankful for that fateful afternoon when they came on my Spotify. I am obsessed. This was such a feel good set, my face hurt from smiling!

I did get to talk to Hansel at the end of the night and he was so great. I thanked him profusely for helping me get there, it’s been a very long time since I felt that drawn to a non-Kpop band where I felt like I could die if I didn’t find a way to their show. Please, if you’re reading this, go listen to them on Spotify or whatever you use, help boost their streams. They deserve it!

I rejoined Henry after their set. I had told him that I was going to just stay with him at the bar for the rest of the night. LOL. I’m so funny. I was back out in my spot right as Vana was getting ready to come out. I knew a bit about them so I wasn’t shocked when their adorable cat-eared singer started roaring.

I really liked them a lot, more than I expected to! It sort of reminded me of some of the female-fronted bands in the early 2000s nu-metal scene. Not overly heavy, and it had a slight goth/industrial edge to it. VERY different from nightlife, but still had a solid crossover appeal.

Their sound made me miss Warped Tour so much. (Like, real Warped Tour, not whatever this anniversary bullshit thing is that they’re doing – bring it back as a full summer cross-country tour or don’t do it at all!!!!)

I can’t remember when it was that this happened, btw, but when I was walking from the bar area back out to my “spot,” one of the Thunderbird employees followed me all the way over there just to say she liked my purse, then she turned around and walked back, lol. You KNOW I texted Chooch this immediately.

“Ugh” was his succinct and predictable response.

Back at the bar with Henry, lol. He went and got himself some pizza and garlic knots at some point and saved one knot for me, what a gentleman, my fucking hero.

OK, the next band was Daisy Grenade and FOR SURE I was going to stay with Henry for this. FOR SURE. We had just seen them two weeks ago at the Pierce the Veil concert anyway, so I was fine with enjoying them from afar. And from our spot at the bar, the view of the stage was actually not bad at all. Henry said he had no problem watching any of the bands that night, right from where he stood. Good for him I guess.

But then! One of the girls said something about doing a cover, and they had asked their fans before the show what they wanted to hear. I missed what they said after that but one of the singers said something about hoping they could pull off Kevin’s voice, so I was flipping through my mental rolodex of bands, thinking for one with a singer named Kevin, when suddenly the opening (and iconic) notes of King For a Day blasted out of the speakers and I looked at Henry with wide eyes and said, “Oh, KELLIN!!!!!” They were covering Pierce the Veil’s song with Kellin Quinn from Sleeping with Sirens! I was like, “OK I lied, I gotta get out there” and then I recorded the whole song to send to Chooch because I was up against a wall so my phone was not in anyone’s way and also I was kind of buzzed and REALLY feeling excited about this?!

I was sold after this.

The band walked past me while I was waiting for Honey Revenge (I was standing near the STAFF ONLY door which was good because I got to see a lot of the bands walking by but also annoying because that door was opening and closing constantly) so I was able to say my signature & dorky, “You guys were awesome!” to the singer on the right up there and she said, “Thanks! Have a good night.”

I was excited to relay this to Henry afterward.

“Wow,” he said, trying to navigate his way out of the venue. God, get you a concert buddy that cares, amirite.

By this point of the night, I was ultra-hyped, all-in, totally stoked for Honey Revenge. So when I said that I was just going to run to the bathroom real quick and brb and then saw the line was super long, I shrugged and decided to just go straight back  to my spot near the stage, lol. Sorry, Henry!

While the rest of the band was setting up, the singer (Devin) ran past me and into the STAFF ONLY door to get to the stage. Her beautiful pastel hair fluffed the side of my face and I had a mild MARSHA BRADY post-Davy Jones kiss reaction to this.

OK, the hype is real, yo. I only knew some of their songs from scrolling through my IG feed but the day before the show I put them on Spotify to get a better feel for them and almost instantly fell into their….honey trap. Ugh I hate myself, lol. I hate comparing female fronted pop punk bands to Paramore because that’s such low-hanging fruit and so stereotypical BUT, feelings-wise, they gave me the same happy and excited vibe that the first Paramore album gave me back in the day before they went mainstream. They don’t SOUND like Paramore, but they FELT like early, pure Paramore. I was SWEATING through their set, it was the best aerobics.

There was something about her that reminded me of Georgia from the Netflix show Ginny & Georgia??? Chooch hates that show so when I told him that, he replied with a rude, “Mmm.”

I don’t have it in me to write concert reviews that hold any value these days, but this was honestly one of the best (non-Kpop!!) concerts I have gone to. I was so into it for all 4 bands and that’s just not always the case. I walked away loving nightlife even harder and being a legit fan of Honey Revenge. So far, my declaration of “go to concerts regularly like you used to” has been doing wonders for my mental state.

Apparently, Henry had an exciting time in the bar when some girl fell off her stool and was laying on the ground, passed out and drunk. Apparently, her friends left her and I was like, “OMG did you help her??” but he said other people were already assisting – that must have been really tough for Henry to keep his cape in his back pocket and play the role of bystander instead. I sure hope he was OK after that. Phew.

And also, he admitted that he enjoyed all of the bands and was glad that we went. WOW.

We used to go to Kennywood every Father’s Day because for some reason it is traditionally uncrowded there that day. I guess most dads want to stay home and grill meats, who knows. I’m not a dad, I don’t know what goes on in Dad Minds.

It ended up being not crowded, per the norm! And Chooch had already said he was bored before we even entered the park so that was a great start, status quo, welcome home, etc.

Steel Curtain finally reopened this season after having been closed all of last season and….most of 2023 I think? I quit caring, to be honest. Kennywood does this thing where they buddy up with a coaster manufacturer and agree to have a prototype / first of its kind added to the park and then it ends up being a maintenance nightmare, but whatever – you do you, K-wood.

Oh! I can’t believe I never mentioned this on here but Kennywood and its sister parks were recently bought by Herschend, the owner of DOLLYWOOD AND SILVER DOLLAR CITY. I am so stoked on this. Do I wish that Kennywood could go back to being family-owned? Of-fucking-course. But this last corporation that owned them (Palace) made some real stupid choices. I’m hoping that Herschend will put some theming in, get some better food up in that piece (I’m thinking of YOU, Dollywood’s famous cinnamon bread,  but then again – it might lose its novelty if we’re able to have it whenever we want here in Pittsburgh!), and AHEM – RMC MAYBE??? We know Herschend has a good relationship with RMC! (OK, Lightning Rod might have tarnished that relationship BUT they were still invited to re-track Fire in the Hole at Silver Dollar City, so maybe??)

Sorry. Tangent.

LOL Henry had to ride with some other dad. They immediately started talking, too, and Chooch and I were dying. Then Chooch realized he had allowed himself to share a moment with me and went back to being sullen and bored.

Anyway, Steel Curtain is still good! I didn’t notice the new trims that much, but Henry said that his ride was super bumpy but maybe that’s just because his brain is bumpy.

KANGAROO.

Honestly, nothing that exciting happened all day so this is mostly just going to be pictures.

We didn’t even really ride that much because we were all tired for various reasons (Henry and I had a late Friday night and then the No Kings protest most of Saturday, and Chooch is just perpetually tired because he’s of a certain age + spent all of Saturday on a train home). But we did get some Phantom rides in and I can confirm that it is STILL one of my all time favorite coasters.

Then Chooch guilted me into riding Black Widow with him and I cannot stress enough how much I dislike this ride.

They assign you a number when you walk on and are very serious about everyone sitting in their assigned seat. They were going in order starting from 1 and I ended up being 15 but then they skipped to 20 for Chooch. I know it was weight / balance thing because the park wasn’t crowded enough for them to fill every seat on each cycle, but it was still annoying because I didn’t want to ride at all and now I had to sit alone. Then they moved him and some of the people next to him clear on the other side!

I’m not going to lie, I thought I was going to throw up as the ride was coming to a stop. I was hungry and also definitely needed water so that just exacerbated things and I am totally certain that all of the casual bystanders could tell that I was having a bad time, lol. The ride operator even said, “How was that ride?? Some of you looked like you were having fun, others….did not.”

HEY, THE LITTLE NEXT TO ME ALSO HATED IT AND WAS YELLING AT HER BROTHER THE WHOLE TIME FOR MAKING HER RIDE IT, SO THERE.

DARK SKIES.

OMG he’s so happy to be home with mommy and daddy.

We didn’t get a Golden Nugget! But we have season passes so I’m sure I will get my Gol’Nug fix at some point this summer.

That stupid Bites & Pints thing was happening again so Henry bought a dumb tasting card and there was next to nothing for non-meat eaters, I’ll tell you that much. Chooch and I would have been extra-screwed if we were full vegan. As it were, we could only really eat the dessert options at nearly every country’s booth. I was PISSED at Italy because it looked like ALL THREE OPTIONS were meatless so I was stoked and asked for the flatbread that had peaches and cheese on it, I forget the exact kind. But then when I saw in under the heat lamp thing, it looked like it had MEAT CRUMBLES on it so I asked the guy who punched my taster card if it did and he emphatically said no. But some woman next to him overheard and said, “Yes, it does – pancetta.”

UGH!!! The description did NOT mention that AT ALL. Do better, Kennywood. It is literally 2025.

Oh and the “pints” option for Korea wasn’t even a Korean beer, but ok.

My favorites were the churros from Spain and whatever the raspberry pancake things were from Poland.

It started raining pretty hard around 3PM and Chooch was like, “Oh darn, I guess we will have to leave now.” He was in a big hurry to be done with family time!

Before we left, Chooch and I rode the Racer in the rain which was kind of fun actually, but there was a Jonny Craig-looking dad in front of us (in a wife-beater, no less) whose young son was sitting in front of him and he proceeded to SLAP THE KIND ON THE BACK OF THE NECK for the entirety of the ride?! Granted, he was doing it as a loving rough-housing type of thing but it was making Chooch and me so uncomfortable, like bro – ok, you could have stopped after the third whack, you know?

Just so fucking weird.

What else do I want to remember? Oh, Johnny Rockets is now the Carousel Cafe and they have a veggie burger! We were HOT several seasons ago when Johnny Rockets removed the black bean burger from their menu like fucking haters. Anyway, only Chooch wanted to eat there so I went inside with him while Henry went to pee (the Kangaroo really jostled it out of him), but then I realized I didn’t have my credit card so we standing there by the register like losers waiting for Henry to come back and then a big family came in and I was like UGH NOW THEY WILL GET IN FRONT OF US AND THIS WILL TAKE LONGER but luckily, they hung back to look at the menu and then I saw Henry finally walking over so I pushed Chooch over to the register to order. I was frantically waving Henry over but a mom and her daughter thought I was calling them over so they cut in front of the large family and joined us?!!? It was so awkward!!!

And then the young emotionless girl who rudely took Chooch’s order was so confused because there were three of us but only he was ordering and it turned into a whole thing much like everything does when the 3 of us are united, like we’re aliens from a planet of socially awkward dysfunctional families. She acted MAD that only Chooch was ordering food though and I was like, “MIND YO’ BUSINESS, MISSY.”

Anyway, not the most exciting trip to Kennywood but it was still fun, we rode Phantom, I sipped some beers, and it got us out of the house AS A REUNITED FAMILY and that’s all that really matters! Don’t worry, I’m sure there will be many more amusement park recaps this summer and hopefully at least one of them will be more exciting than this one.

A few Fridays ago, I was sitting here at work listening to Spotify. This was around the time I started to get back into Kurt Travis and was heavily listening to his side project, Gold Necklace, so the algorithm was going with that. Most of the stuff I knew because I might have been out of the scene for a minute but the scene hasn’t changed THAT much.

Then suddenly, this one song came on that stopped me dead. Vocally, it sounded a bit like Bradley from Emarosa but also Tyler Carter from Issues a little and I was half-expecting it to be the latter even though it wasn’t very heavy.

It ended up being a new-ish (2021, I think) band from Baltimore called nightlife. They’re considered “soul punk” and I was like, “OK, I HEAR YOU, NIGHTLIFE.” I immediately looked them up on YouTube and saw that there is a video for the song that snagged the obsession lobe of my brain, so I immediately sent it to Henry who was napping. Then I ran upstairs and stood above him in bed like Fatal Attraction and when he didn’t immediately sense my looming presence, I started yelling DID YOU WATCH THE VIDEO I SENT YOU.

Literally 18 seconds after I sent it.

I made him watch it right then and there, drowsy from his startling nap-arousing, while I stood there watching to make sure he watched the whole thing before falling back asleep.

“WELL???” I screamed, awaiting a veritable college thesis on his thoughts of a 5-minute song.

“It was good,” he mumbled.

Then I sent it to my bud Wonka who practically DID write a book report on it as a response. He was really feeling it too!

Imagine how double-rainbow excited I was when Spotify told that nightlife was coming to Pittsburgh in a few weeks!!! I quickly went to the venue’s website and saw that they were actually an opening band for the Honey Revenge tour, and I had been following Honey Revenge on IG for several years. Plus, another supporting band is Daisy Grenade who we JUST saw at the Pierce the Veil concert. So, I had a lot of familiarity here and was stoked to buy tickets post haste.

Except…..

SOLD OUT.

I can’t explain the intense FOMO that encompassed me like a Killer Klown cotton candy cocoon in that moment. Just hang me from a rafter. It had been a long time since I had my heart THAT set on attending a non-Kpop concert and to see that I had no chance made my stomach hurt.

Spiraling out, I went to Instagram to see if I could find anyone with extra tickets. People were commenting on Honey Revenge’s post, and the band kept suggesting to check their Discord because fans were often selling extra tickets there.

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO USE DISCORD, I’M AN ELDER. I tried for about 5 minutes to figure it out and then gave up and texted Chooch who said he was “busy.” I kept nagging him and he said he didn’t know how and I was like OK LIES because he used to be on Discord all the time! I think they were using it for school during the pandemic, even?! Then he said, “I have to join a server and I don’t want to” WHATEVER THAT MEANS.

I gave up on my useless son who I am spending big money to send to college BUT THAT’S FINE, my body is still wrecked from CARRYING HIS LARGE HEAD INSIDE OF ME, also fine. Don’t throw Mommy a bone or anything. I’ll get over it.

Later that weekend, I was scrolling through nightlife’s IG feed, in full pout, watching videos from the previous shows and feeling so sorry for myself. One of their posts was the list of dates, urging everyone to come out, and I commented that I was crushed that the Pgh date was sold out before I could buy a ticket, but that I hoped they would come back soon.

They responded, “DM US, HOMIE.”

AND THEN THEY PUT ME +1 ON THEIR GUEST LIST FOR THE PGH SHOW!!

I truly was not looking for a handout, I would have gladly paid for a ticket, but this was so incredibly sweet of them. You better believe I will be hitting up their merch table tomorrow night! I am so stoked for tomorrow! Plus, Honey Revenge is so energetic, and I am in need of some girl power in my life.

I told Chooch and he actually responded with “That’s great!” but I can’t be sure if he meant it or not, haha.

(When I told Henry the good news, he said, “Oh. Good.” LOL.)

About a month or so ago, my therapist gave me this “empty nester” worksheet to help me put in writing a lot of the things I’m feeling so that we can find coping solutions, ways to grow, new avenues to explore that veer away from the bridge/cliff/5th story window, etc. It was really easy for me to answer everything on the page because I am so IN MY FEELINGS 24:7, surprise, surprise. But the one that tripped me up, and I’m sorry I don’t have it in front of me so I have to paraphrase, was something about listing some things that I have always wanted to do but never could while I was busy parenting. Or something.

So, I was like, “OK cool, this is the fun part.” But then I just stared at the page. I couldn’t think of anything! Because look, when I became pregnant, a close friend at the time said to me, “Well, it was nice knowing you.”

I was completely caught off guard by that and asked wtf that meant.

She explained that people change when they become parents, implying that my only identity then would be “mom.” That all of my current hobbies, interests, passions would fade away and be replaced by, what? A minivan, mom jeans, and PTA meetings? I’m almost glad that she was audacious enough to say that to my face because it really stuck with me, obviously it’s 20 years later and I still think about it, ha! I can’t say for sure if I would have naturally gone the same route regardless, but it did trigger me, gave me a bit of a complex, and I was determined to find balance as a mom and as…me.

I never stopped geeking out about music. I never stopped going to concerts. I got back into art for the first time since way before I was a mom, I still kept writing.

Haunted houses? More than ever.

Road trips? Tons.

Big travel? Eventually, yes, we got there as a family!

Becoming Chooch’s mom was THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER DONE. But one time at work, one of my coworkers said to me, ” God, I always forget that you’re a mom.” And that was one of the compliments ever! Because YOU CAN BE BOTH A PARENT AND YOUR OWN PERSON. BOTH CAN EXIST AT THE SAME TIME!

So, I told my therapist later that I couldn’t think of anything to put on that line because I have been able to do all the things I wanted to do while still being a mom. And she said, “That is really amazing.”

But I went on to tell her that after going to a few non-Kpop concerts this year, and then accidentally obsessing over Johnnie Guilbert which got me back into scene music, I realized that while Kpop is still my #1, it sucks to only be able to go to those kinds of concerts several times a year. (Dude, we have to travel for every single one of them + HAVE YOU SEEN KPOP TICKET PRICES.) So I decided that instead of choosing something new (not to exclude new things! I’m sure new interests will arise from time to time, they always do with me!), what if I…allowed some of the “old” back in. The “past” parts of me. And find a balance between the two.

Because not only will it keep me feeling young and excited for things coming up, but it will scratch that live music itch in between Kpop concerts.

I was worried my therapist would consider this akin to living in the past, not allowing personal growth, etc. But she fully supports it!

And thanks to Johnnie Guilbert (lol), I went to see Pierce the Veil and my Spotify has cracked the door open for my old Swancore* mainstays to slip back in as well.

*(Speaking of swancore, I can’t believe I’m so old that I was there for the genesis of swancore and now it seems like fans of the sub-genre don’t even realize who it was named after?!?)

So now I am giddily adding little concerts here and there into our schedule and Henry is in full OH BOY mode, lol.

I just can’t keep sitting here every night after work doing nothing. It’s a pit of despair. Log off, eat dinner, exercise, watch YouTube, go to bed. I would rather have events/concerts to go to rather than something like a lesson or a class that is consistently on my schedule because commitment is hard for me and makes me lose interest, fast!

(I am still not ruling out something that Henry and I can jointly enroll in because I really think he needs to find things to enjoy in life too, like BALLROOM DANCING, I don’t know why I’m so fixated on that because I truly have no interest in it other than I think it would be hilarious.)

(Because, it’s me and Henry.)

(Doing ANY kind of dancing together.)

(Kara, maybe MACRAME, FINALLY??)

When we were with Chooch in Philly on Sunday, he randomly started telling me about the bands he has been listening to a lot lately, like DEFTONES and Pierce the Veil! Deftones was especially exciting for me because I was his exact age when I constantly played their Adrenaline album (ON CASSETTE) in my Eagle Talon when I was first living on my own. And then we just sat there and dished about music and it was so important and special to me because I have included him in so much of my music obsessions all through his childhood and to be able to sit there with him as basically an adult, and talk about this and see that he really appreciates it now – it was so huge for me! Yo, Pierce the Veil was his first concert when he was….6??? And it was a roadtrip concert, no less!

I don’t know, I guess I just needed to type all of this out to hold myself accountable and actually start living my life again. Crying every day is not the way!

Yesterday was a milestone birthday for Henry – the big 6-0! I posted these pictures yesterday on Instagram in his honor (he was so thrilled and touched by some of them, as you can imagine) so I figured I’d share them here too because honestly, we didn’t do anything to celebrate. I kept asking him what if anything he wanted to do and he gave me nothing to work with. Some people are just like that, which is crazy to me because I will pout and sulk if nothing happens on my birthday which is why I start planning ahead of time because I have learned over the years that if you want to have a happy and fun birthday, ain’t no one going to do that for you but you.

I did chat with Chooch about this a few mths ago but we couldn’t think of anything he’d actually enjoy, lol. I definitely wasn’t going to have a party for him because that would be just me doing something for me, in the end.

And besides, the last year+ has left me stripped of energy, motivation, and creativity. Plus, it sucks without Chooch here. He’ll be home next weekend, which is Father’s Day, so we can celebrate then.

Shout out to Henry for having more patience than anyone I know, keeping Chooch & me from perishing more times than I can recount here, being a one-man crafting powerhouse (he takes all of my ideas and makes them tangible!), driving me hours upon hours for Kpop concerts and never complaining, loving G-Dragon almost as much as me, rolling with all of my stupid “OK HEAR ME OUT, WHAT IF—-” ideas, and honestly just being my best friend. I don’t know how I would have gone through this last year+ without him.

Remember when I used to take coleslaw action shots?? Should I start this series again?? Lol.

Chingumas poca Henry.

Looking like the cook. 

Celebrating Hyunjin in Seoul.

This was taken by me in Gamla Stan, Stockholm just to show him an example of how I wanted him to take a picture of ME and he still failed miserably even with a visual aid. Anyway, it turned out to be one of my favorite pictures of him and his man-purse.

Chilling with a troll in Norway.

If Henry was an office worker.

He found the Ted Nugent hotdog bun at Tony Packo’s in Toledo!

That time he got stuck on the floor at my birthday lunch in Seoul. 

This was taken at one of our favorite places to walk – Keystone State Park.

Mt. Olympus angel. He was annoyed because I posted it on Instagram and Mt. Olympus liked it haha.

This was when we were visiting Alyson in New Hampshire <3

LOL donut photoshoot in some random town in New York.

Posing at Six Flags Great Adventure.

LOL. Even when Henry is having fun, you can’t tell.

Being a proud Air Force person at Indiana Beach even though he went AWOL.  

We love Phantom’s Revenge!

At a SHINee anniversary event in Cleveland!

Working on some project for me.

Seeing NCT127 for his first time in Newark!

Enjoying his Golden Nugget at Kennywood.

Henry and his twin brother at Six Flags. 

Had to include this classic Henry photo lol.

Anyway, Henry seemed to have an OK day. He came home from work, got a haircut, went to TWO GROCERY STORES at TWO SEPARATE TIMES which is his favorite past time, and then had some beer while watching Korean content on YouTube. (Specifically: Taemin on Daesung’s talk show, and Joshua on Yoon and Brian’s show BYOB.) I don’t know what today will hold but tomorrow we’re driving to Philly to bring home the bulk of Chooch’s shit so at least he will get to see him for some belated birthday aggravation!

No intro.

1. Love, Pamela by Pamela Anderson

I actually read this on 4/30 but left it off of my April round-up by accident. This was fine – I listened to the audio and I do genuinely like Pamela. I was hoping for some more Hollywood dishing I guess but overall it did leave me with even more respect and admiration for her. Her childhood was…yikes.

2. What Does It Feel Like? by Sophie Kinsella

I grabbed this from the library because I wanted something quick to read and had no idea that it was loosely based on the author’s own experience with a brain tumor and having to essentially re-learn everything each day. Somehow this was still pretty light, considering.

3. Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

I will say that it was a risky move for a man to write a book about teenage pregnancy in the 70s but I think he kind of pulled it off. The problem is that it was just kind of boring. And it felt VERY long.

4. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

I am so sorry to say that I am falling out of love with Emily Henry. After a while, the novelty wears out and you’re able to really see that the author just keeps recycling characters, tropes, finger-snapping banter. It really worked for me for the first few books but this was actually kind of dreadful and I HATED the story-within-the-story. HATED IT. It was so boring and tedious, and also, the main characters fall in love almost immediately and it wasn’t believable at all to me. Yeah, there’s a twist but by then IDGAF.

My Goodreads review: This was…bad :/ I have loved so many Emily Henry books but after a while it’s just the same characters over and over. Quirky NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS protagonist; surly, serious YOU WONT KNOCK DOWN MY WALLS man. Not working for me anymore. At least not for this one.

5. Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter by Nicci French

I usually love this married writing duos’ books but this was another one that was entirely boring for most of the first part and then by the time it picked up and we find out if anyone has seen the bitch, I didn’t care.

6. One of Us Is Dead by Jeneva Rose

Light, upbeat book about nasty rich wives and the woman who takes care of them in her salon. Then it turns VERY dark. I liked it – not too deep but just plain entertaining and sassy.

7. The Resting Place by Camilla Sten

Eh. Not as good as the Lost Village, which she also wrote.

8. What Happened to Nina? by Dervla McTiernan

If you followed the Gabby Petito investigation, then you can probably skip this because it’s very clearly loosely based off that. Nothing was very shocking here BUT it was still an entertaining listen while I was on my walks and that’s my only criteria for audio books.

9. Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson

I loved Nothing to See Here and now this is the second book of his that I read after that has disappointed me. It did not engage me, not a single character, and in fact the only good thing that came of it was that there was a reference to one of the characters wanting to film their siblings in profile and then I started picturing me, Henry and Chooch in profile and somehow that morphed into me coming home from a walk and screaming, “I FINALLY HAVE AN IDEA FOR A CHRISTMAS CARD AFTER ALL THESE YEARS!” and Henry was like, “It’s….May.”

10.The Winner by Teddy Wayne

There’s a review on Goodreads that says simply, “Only a man could have written this” and I have nothing else to say except: laden with misogyny.

11. My Friends by Fredrik Backman

But nothing else I read all month matters because THIS. THIS!!!!!!!

Another 5-star from Backman. Not Beartown-tier, but still a five. HOW does he write such broken, imperfect and lovable characters. I felt for every single person in this book. I cried so much. I had to actually stop reading it Saturday morning because we were meeting my sister for lunch later and I was crying all of my makeup off. I don’t know how to articulate it, but his books are so comforting to me and also fill my heart with so much sadness simultaneously.

Bye.

Pierce the Veil – where do I even begin?? First of all, being back at Star Lake was so weird and disorienting since it was an actual concert and not Warped Tour (with Warped Tour, we’d spend most of our time in a huge section of the parking lot that was fenced off for the two main stages and very little time under the actual pavilion). I immediately went to the bathroom and of course chose a stall with a door that wouldn’t lock so I had to lean forward and hold it with an outstretched arm while I was peeing and it felt like I was going to pop my arm out of socket so that was a very Erin start to the evening. But then, after Henry paid $22!!!!!!!!! for a beer, we found our seats and settled in. Henry was happy because I specifically bought an aisle seat but then I sat in it instead of giving it to him, haha.

I’ve been getting Reddit notifications about people complaining about how shitty the crowds have been at whatever PTV date they attended, and I am relieved to say that I only saw this stuff AFTER our date so that it didn’t cause me any unnecessary stress prior to the show, and that the crowd in our section at least was very tame and maintained good concert etiquette.  Did I think the super tiny couple in front of me was annoying? You fucking bet your aunt Betty’s britches I did BUT that was just me being me, lol. They weren’t actually doing anything that I couldn’t just ignore if I needed to. I was just fixated on the fact that the boyfriend, in his MCR letterman jacket and the bizarre way of dancing, looked like he was cast as an sock hop attendee in a Happy Days episode. He and his babe were going to pop a squat at the mom and pop soda shop afterward for a motherfucking egg cream, gee whiz.

The upside was that they were both super short so I could easily just…not look at them if I didn’t want to. But Chachi kept turning around to record himself with the stage in the background.

Anyway, Daisy Grenade opened and they were fine. Upbeat girl power pop rock from NY.

Then Sleeping with Sirens came on and I even though I used to love them, I will be honest and say that I haven’t seen the best performances of theirs over the years. They still have the same singer (Kellin Quinn) but the rest of the band has changed so much that I didn’t even know NICK MARTIN was in it now! So that was a fun throw back for me. There was a time when I feel like I was seeing Nick everywhere.

It only took about 20 seconds for me  to get totally swept up in feelings though. Henry sat through the whole thing and scrolled though his phone. At one point, he was looking at the ground through his camera viewfinder??

What a total Herb.

In case one day this video is gone, here’s the caption:

A HENRY&ERIN MEMORY: Back when Henry still had me in the Proposal Waiting Room (9 years in and my number still wouldn’t be called for another 13 years unbeknownst to me) and I was at the height of my delusional Imaginary Never-Wedding planning, this song came out and I became OBSESSED with having a full choreographed contemporary “first dance” to it (I was also super into SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE back then too). I used to listen to it on repeat while walking a nearby high school track AND OPENLY WEEP because I wanted to get married so badly lol.

Last night, I looked over lovingly at Henry when Sleeping With Sirens was performing this song, and he was….sitting down & scrolling through Instagram.

View this post on Instagram

Anyway, turns out that SWS still has the ability to make me emotional; get it, Kellin.

And then finally – PIERCE THE VEIL! Before I get into that, I just want to say that Chooch was texting me before they came out, saying things like, “let me know if they play Fast Times at Clairemont High or Even When I’m Not With You” and “Wasn’t ‘If I’m James Dean…’ your alarm?” and I was swooning at the fact that he remembers this from…15 years ago??

F I F T E E N

Y E A R S

A G O

F M L

But wow, what an unexpected departure from the “wow” and “mm cool” responses that I usually get from him! It’s like he actually cared that I was at the PTV concert!

And then something else unexpected happened when the lights went out for PTV:

H E N R Y

S T O O D

U P

Can you even believe it?? Henry NEVER stands at concerts if there is an empty seat directly behind him! Does Henry….like PTV now? According to him, he never said he didn’t like them but I believe this to be a bald-faced lie.

BRB going to wake Henry from his nap to see if he wants to go see them again tomorrow night in Cleveland LOL.

We were pretty far back – actually it was the farthest back I have ever been for PTV; I have been “stage-hugging” close in the past but for this one, I wanted to be comfortable and I wasn’t disappointed in the seats at all – so I don’t have much to share on here media-wise. JUST THAT I FELT SO MUCH JOY. Not that I was ever “young” during my time as a PTV fan, but that night really did make me feel like I was in high school. I was already in my mid-20s when I first heard of them but it really does feel like I grew up with them. Just like, nothing else mattered but the music being played in front of us that night. It was incredible and I am so glad that I bit the bullet and got us tickets for this show, especially now that Henry has turned a new leaf and appreciates them like I always have! I called him two days later when he was on his way home from work and he legit answered by saying, “You interrupted ‘Pass the Nirvana,’ what do you want??”

You know I texted Chooch immediately and said, “Apparently your dad listens to PTV on his own time now.”

SETLIST (& no, they didn’t play the songs Chooch asked about, sadly)

El Rey / Jose Alfredo Jimenez used as their intro music

1. Death of an Executioner
2. Bulls in the Bronx
3. Pass the Nirvana
4. I’m Low on Gas and You Need a Jacket
5. I’d Rather Die Than Be Famous
6. Where Is My Mind? (Pixies cover) (Snippet which segued seamlessly into….)
7. Floral & Fading
8. Circles
9. Yeah Boy and Doll Face (FML SRSLY)
10. She Makes Dirty Words Sound Pretty (Partial) (WTAF??? I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD HEAR THIS LIVE AGAIN)
11. Today I Saw the Whole World (acoustic)
12. Wonderless
13. May These Noises Startle You in Your Sleep Tonight
14. Hell Above
15. Caraphernelia
16. Emergency Contact
17. Bulletproof Love
18. Disasterology
19. Hold On Till May
20. King for a Day (with Kellin Quinn)

I guess I’ll share this one since evidently, it’s Henry’s favorite! (I love this song but hate the video, FYI.)

[Sadly, a few days before this concert, Dave Shapiro and several others from the music industry were killed in a plane crash. Vic especially seemed maudlin when the show first started, but they all seemed to feed off the energy of the crowd and pushed through. I can’t imagine how difficult and painful it has been for them to continue this tour when they are mourning the loss of such a close friend. Ugh.]

Sunday was such a glorious day! In therapy this week, I was saying that I know it might not always be healthy to do this but I can never help but compare the present to the past and this was one of the few times recently that it worked to my benefit – last Memorial Day Weekend (2024) was so bad. Chooch was in DC visiting his Mexico study abroad roommate so I was sad about that because we would typically do a family coaster roadtrip and then I remember (vividly!) having massive body image freakouts that weekend. We had planned to get some flowers for the yard and went to a nearby cemetery first where I had a major mental breakdown over how I felt inside my skin. I flipped out and said, “We need to go home NOW.” And that really set the tone for the whole weekend. I spent the whole weekend frantically searching for miracle diets, and then there was a huge storm that Sunday and our power was out all night and I was so miserable. The only good memory I have is that Bambi was still alive then. But yeah, it was such a bad “inside my head” weekend that I actually tried to block it out for a while there.

But this past weekend was the total opposite and gave me hope that maybe “life goes on” isn’t such a corny saying after all.

Most of Sunday was chill, just hanging out, reading, going for walks. But then around 4:30 we left for the Pierce the Veil concert and I was so giddy. You guys, I haven’t seen them since 2017 – a combination of many things: PTV having a sizeable gap between albums so they weren’t touring, Covid, me diving headfirst into Kpop. I actually think I only missed one of their Pgh shows during that interim though, maybe two. I almost missed this one too! I knew they were coming, I still follow them on Insta. But I saw the venue and wasn’t too inspired. (Star Lake, an outdoor pavilion that’s about 45 minutes outside of Pgh.) It’s always a disaster trying to leave there because there is only one exit so Henry was ultra-grumbly about having to go here again after such a long reprieve. I’m a passenger princess so what do I care?

We stopped at Sheetz and got an IPA to share in the parking lot since we had some time to kill and I was IN FULL ERIN FORM by then. As soon as I saw all of my fellow PTV fans, I was so stoked and felt like it was mid-2000s again. Do you have any favorite bands where you can remember exactly the first time you heard them? My Pierce the Veil origin moment is a perma part of my memories. It was 2007 and I was driving home from visiting Christina in Cincinatti. Back then, I used to make mix CDs of all of the recommended bands in Alt Press magazine. On this particular mix, I had both PTV and Dance Gavin Dance, among others. When I say I almost record-scratched the car (I think this was the Nissan Sentra era, hated that fucking lemon so much) off the highway when “Currents Convulsive” came on….and I had NO IDEA what it was either because I was driving and couldn’t look at my track list until the next time I stopped!

I just remember thinking that the singer’s voice sounded so familiar to me and it turned out that I had listened to Vic Fuente’s original band, Before Today, on PureVolume. I was so into PureVolume back in the day and it’s even how I knew of Panic! At the Disco before they even released anything other demos. Not a humble brag, just a fact! I was constantly on the prowl for new music back then (OK, that never changed lol).

The demographic of PTV fans seemed to still be sort of young. Maybe more young adult now as opposed to teenagers back when I was still regularly going to their shows. Henry even commented, “Why does it seem like I have gotten older but the fan base has stayed the same age?” LOL I mean, Henry was always old in comparison though. Even I was!

I will say, I supremely miss the scene kid era. I only saw ONE person who could have passed for a scene kid. Bring back scene kids! I feel like the music genre back then was referred to as “scene music” and now everyone just calls it emo but to me, emo is like, I dunno, midwestern sad boy rock like Appleseed Cast and Braid and Sunny Day Real Estate. Things have changed a lot when I wasn’t paying attention to American shit, I guess.

There was a merch truck in the parking lot, so I decided to grab my shirt there before we went into the venue. There were two girls behind me, probably mid-20s, and one was a kpop stan. I was going to turn around and try to make friends but she was talking waaaay too much about J-Hope and sorry but I don’t really want to deal with Army so I kept to myself. I swear though, the whole Warped Tour scene is such a natural gateway into Kpop land, I can’t explain it but it makes so much sense. It was like a natural progression for me to go from this to kpop, and I’m trying to make more room for both in my life because after this night, and my Johnnie Guilbert deep-dive, I realize now that I still have a blackened section of my heart and I have been depriving it of attention for 10 years now!

Standing in this line, in the dusty parking lot, brought back so many memories of Warped Tour. I’m tearing up all over again – those were the best days of my life. Henry and I even chatted about it a bit on the drive to Star Lake, how it was the ONE DAY a year where we did NOT argue at all. I was so blissed out for the entire day, start to finish, that it was nearly impossible to burst by bubble. I honestly can’t think of a single bad Warped-related memory, except for the time I went to Warped in Cincinatti with Christina and her sister Cynthia and MISSED CHIODOS because Cynthia was the one driving and we were at her mercy, so when she decided to stop at Walgreens for NO GOOD REASON, there was nothing we could do to stop this and I felt so out of control and anxious. Then she decided she wanted TO LEAVE EARLY so I missed PARAMORE. To this day, I still have never seen Paramore, and that would have been the era I wanted to see them the most. I don’t care too much for their mainstream radio bullshit.

But literally every Warped Tour after that was heaven for me. I loved the exhaustion, the sun burn, the music hangover, the joy of following Warped’s progression around the country all summer via social media, watching all of the YouTube content, getting obsessed with new bands. It was my Christmas in July. And Pierce the Veil was always the angel on top of the Christmas tree, every time they were a part of the lineup.

Getting inside was smooth sailing because some nice Star Lake staff member zoomed over in his golf cart to tell us that once we got our merch to NOT get in the line closest to us because it was packed in comparison to one of the other entrances behind us. He wasn’t wrong! We walked right in.

Henry bought a $22 (ughughughugh) beer to share and we found our seats where we proceeded to people watch and reminisce about old scene stuff. This season of life is so weird. I’m still trying to acclimate!

Anyway, I will end this here and save all the band talk for the next post, OMG CAN YOU STAND THE WAIT. Another OHE concert recap, how blessed are you.

I have been sitting with this one for a few days now. I listened to it when it first came out over the weekend but have REALLY listened to it more the last day or so and it has broken me. I knew that Jonghyun was somehow going to be featured on it but didn’t know the full details and hoped that it wasn’t going to be some weird, cold, tacky AI recreation of his voice.

But then I learned that this was something Jonghyun had been writing and composing for SHINee before his death. His family allowed SHINee to use it and Jonghyun’s guide vocals were incorporated into the chorus and also the bridge, which he hadn’t had a chance to write the lyrics for, so they kept his “scatting” in that part and, paired with the rest of SHINee dancing together in a circle, it just really sent me. I was crying (and still am lol) so hard that I was choking.

I think what I love the most about this song is that since it was written pre-2018, it has that nostalgic feel to it that makes me remember why I began to love Kpop so much to begin with. It’s light, airy, summery, totally SHINee-coded. I have been trying to spread the word about this because as usual, SM is doing a pisspoor job promoting it so it’s not getting the traction and attention that it deserves, especially not with the new gen Kpop fans who just haven’t learned about SHINee.

My love for SHINee is so stupid strong. I really hope that they come to the US some day!

Anyway, I have lots more fun Memorial Day weekend to recap once I stop crying over this haha.