Search Results : hockey

NCT127 Pre-Concert Things

 music
Oct 202022
 

It’s been almost a week since the NCT127 concert and I still haven’t really lost that glorious buzz.

The concert started at 8 so I decided we should leave our hotel by 6:30 because sometimes it can take FOREVER to get inside a Kpop concert. There were a bunch of other NCTzens staying at our hotel also and several of them were waiting for their rides at the same time. Ours came first and I giddily called out, “HAVE FUN TONIGHT GUYS!” and they all happily waved and yelled YOU TOO and this is the difference between Kpop and the other scene I came from because I would have been probably met with a scowl or eyeroll if I had done that to a bunch of scene kids lol ugh. With Kpop, there is no age limit. Young Kpop fans don’t look at broads like me and call us Grandma or assume that we’re just there with out kids. I have never had a bad experience with any Kpop fan (except for BTS fans lol they are the most toxic people, trust).

Our Uber driver dropped us off around 6:45 or so and I was surprised at how short the line was to get in! We opted for the opposite side of the arena this time because it took us SO LONG to get inside for Stray Kids. There were about 8 separate lines to get into 4 doors so it was still not the fastest moving line, but it was ok!

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It was drizzling a little bit, but I didn’t care – I’m not delusional enough to think that anyone in NCT was going to NOTICE ME SEMPAI and I certainly wasn’t tryna impress Kpop Dad over there. Haha.

IN THE RAIN, HAIR FRIZZING.

I purposely didn’t bring a bag and Henry only had his wallet so we cleared security in record time.

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I hate how shitty the world is. When we were recently there for Stray Kids, the various jewelry and accessories people were being told to remove was mind-blowing. I would have loved to have brought in my Cherry Bomb purse but it has chain straps and I also would have accessorized with my NCT enamel pins but I feel like if you can’t wear a spiked choker, why would they let you in with MINI DAGGERS OMG.

Once we got inside, we (lol, “we”) ran straight to the merch stand upstairs. The line was BLESSEDLY short and I was able to snag the shirt I wanted in about 5 minutes. Much better than standing in that long-ass “early merch” line we saw earlier that afternoon. The line snaked all through the courtyard of the Prudential Center!

You didn’t ask BUT HERE IS THE SHIRT I BOUGHT:

Luckily, I already have an NCT light stick because the guy that was 3 people ahead of me bought the very last one – they took it right off the display and put it in its box for the dude. Henry actually bought me the light stick last year for Christmas because I kept screaming about how I just KNEW NCT127 was going to come here in 2022. Good thinking, Henry, you smart, grizzly ol’ NCTzen, you.

I know it’s hard to see, but this was the crowd of people trying to get in on the other side of the arena! I’m so glad we got lucky with the doors we chose.

So, this is the part where my heart was acting like it was on a bunch of new designer street drugs at a 1996 rave. I was A BALL OF NERVES. You guys, NCT! I was about to see them! LET’S GOOOO! But also, HOLD ON, I’M NOT READDDDDDY!

We had a good while to kill before getting our (very separate) seats, so since I was in a bigly competition with some stranger named Marisol in the FitBit Workweek Hustle, I made Henry do laps around the Prudential Center with me. When I say I know this place better than the hockey arena in my own city, there’s really no hyperbole to be found. Not even a crumb of it behind my molars.

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So weird how many times kpop has brought me to this place.

Anyway, we kept seeing the same people over and over, including some of the people who were waiting for a ride outside of our hotel! It’s so strange how once you home in on certain faces, your eyes find mystery ways to find them again and again. I also saw the guy who brought the last light stick about 4 times and every time I pointed him out, Henry acted like he had no idea who I was talking about. At one point, I kept trying to move over to let the person behind me pass because it sounded like they were in a big time hurry and the scuff-squeak of their boots kept getting closer and closer to the point where I was afraid they were going to walk up my back. Finally, I side-stepped in time for a tiny Asian girl in a school uniform and big white boots to pass me in the aforementioned big time hurry. I laughed and said, “I’ll probably see her 87 more times tonight now.”

I didn’t have my wallet so I made Henry buy an Angry Orchard for us to share and he bragged because on one of our cycles around the Prudential Center, she smiled at him and that apparently means they’re FRIENDS now. Mmm. Then we did this adorable photo shoot, lol.

Henry looks like he’s mad to be there (I sent this to my mom and she called me pathetic, I guess because everyone assumes I dragged him there against his will, as if he’s not a NCTzen whose bias is Yuta – HE CHANGED IT FROM JUNGWOO! This is brand new intel!) but he was actually just mad because Ticketmaster is a shady web of scammers so he had to get a really shitty seat one row from the last row possible because it was the only ticket we could afford after I spent …. I don’t want to say it again … on my ticket.

We took one last victory lap around the Prudential Center. I loved seeing all the crazy outfits people put together for the show. One of NCT’s main colors is lime/neon green and this was the dominant color of the night for sure.

Around 7:45 I decided it was time to part ways and take our respective seats. I could tell immediately that my view was going to be obstructed because my section was too close to the side of the stage BUT I was the first row of that upper section so at least I wouldn’t have the token Tallest Person in the Room in front of me.

My ass wasn’t even all the way in my seat yet when the girl to my right IMMEDIATELY said hello. I was like, “OK good a friendly person who is also here alone” so I engaged. I know weird right? But sometimes tiny fragments of my lost personality come back to the surface and inspire the small talk. She is from Boston, her bias is Jungwoo, and SHE IS 17, of fucking course.

“My dad is here, but he’s sitting over there,” she said, motioning to the other side of the arena.

“Mine too!” I cried happily. Then she said her dad’s bias is Yuta and I started to get paranoid that her dad and Henry are the same person.

She asked me who my bias is (“Across the board? Haechan and Ten. Specifically NCT127? Jaehyun.” to which she nodded approvingly) and how long I’ve been a NCTzen (“3 years, but have been following them since 2017.” – for those wondering at home.) and it was fucking wonderful, having someone who speaks my language! I admitted that I’m an old hag and that my main fave is BIGBANG to which she asked, “OT5 or OT4?” and I was honest and said OT5 because give me Seungri or give me death. We talked our faces off until NCT127 came on and you know who didn’t come up once because we’re real Kpop fans? BTS lol. It was a safe place for real.

About 3/4 of the way through the concert, the girl on her other side made contact with her and that girl was only in her 20s probably so my new friend who could be my daughter dropped me like a hot potato and that was fine because SHE KEPT MAKING COMMENTS AND ASIDES about every single thing happening and you know what? I just wanted to stand there and oscillate between weeping quietly and shrieking, “OMFG!!!!!!” every time and to be honest I couldn’t hear what she was saying that well anyway!! Honestly though, everyone around me in SECTION 127 (!!!) was wonderful and I have no complaints (Henry can’t say the same but we’ll let him tell his version another day – he even has pictures haha).

The girl sitting to my left was a SUPER great seat mate – she was so quiet, watching the whole concert through her binoculars and only ever screamed when Taeyong was talking. Oh yeah, and she was also The Big Hurry Girl in the school uniform and stompy white boots who almost mowed me down.

TO BE CONTINUED!

Michigan’s Adventure: General Thoughts and Opinions

 Amusement Parks, Fairs, & Carnivals
Jul 122022
 

We’re not allowed to use the word “general” at my job so now I feel like a real bad ass, rule-breaker.

Michigan’s Adventure is part of the Cedar Fair group (Cedar Point, King’s Island, Knott’s, etc) and it is pretty much considered the worst park across the board by enthusiasts and general public. But when you’re an enthusiast, you will go to where you need to go in order to add the new coaster credits under the proverbial belt. (I’ve mentioned coaster creds to several different people recently and they all asked the same thing: “what do you get if you collect the most? like a prize?” Nope. Just bragging rights? A beefy spreadsheet? Debt?) And the thing about Michigan’s Adventure that was appealing to us, well, two things:

  1. Shivering Timbers, this motherwhompin’ CCI woodie that is like THE TALK of Coaster Town – we will get to that in a separate post;
  2. It’s in the same state as Bill & Jessi so we got to visit them!

Michigan’s Adventure is located in Muskeon, MI which is where the minor league hockey team was that then-Pittsburgh Penguins Phil Borque got sent down to during one of the seasons in the 1980s. That was the first time I ever heard of “Muskegon” and pretty much the last time too until Michigan’s Adventure. So I always associate Muskegon with Phil Borque and thought about that a lot the day we were there, and also how back in the 80s he dated my aunt Susie’s friend Lori!!!

Anyway, my first impression was that the parking lot is a nightmare – the park had already been open for an hour and there was a huge line of cars trying to get in. I panicked and thought it was going to be crowded that day, but no – parking was just slow AF. Then the car that parked next to us, OMG I’m getting angry all over again remembering this, the passenger got out and proceeded to stand next to our car, blocking my door, while the driver of his car got out and stood there so that he could slowly and languidly apply sunscreen to her stupid person skin. I was like REALLY? REALLY? REALLY?!!? and then said FUCK IT and started opening my door until it was in danger of hitting the guy. He got the hint and they both moved down so that I could out, but now they were blocking Chooch’s door LOLOLOL OMFG MORONS. Chooch was like, “I’m not playing this game” and just scooted across the backseat and got out from the other side.

Idiots.

Getting into the park from there was smooth-sailing.  My immediate reaction was, “This place is not so bad!” Visually, I mean! We had yet to experience ride ops and customer service. WE SHALL SEE.

(Well, we already saw, but pretend with me that we’re going to find out together.)

…do Henry and Chooch count as friends? I hope so because they’re the only people I ever hang out with!

The Ferris wheel wasn’t running but I liked how it looked here behind the trees.

Let’s talk ambiance: this is a small park, but it’s cute and clean. I love parks that have lakes either next to them or in the middle – this one had really cute swan boats that you can see over yonder!

And I liked that the colors of the benches gave off a 1970s summer camp vibe.

It’s hard to fuck up soft serve (never mind, I’ve seen it done before) and  this one was simple and satisfying! (Although my one small complaint is that nowhere on the signs did it mention sprinkles so we had to ask. I expected them  to say no since it wasn’t listed anywhere, BUT THEY HAD IT! I’m sorry, but soft serve without sprinkles is like grilled cheese without ketchup.)

Stalking us while we were in line for Corkscrew. Then, in true Michael Myers fashion, I turned back around a second later and HE WAS GONE. How does he dip so fast like that? He must have learned it in the SERVICE.

Could this have been the least-worst Arrow corkscrew I’ve ever ridden?? It was smooooth and my head banged not even once. Also, the line was only about 20 minutes long which is appropriate. The longest line we probably stood in was for Thunderhawk, the Vekoma SLC, which was maybe around 30 minutes. Ops were decent here?!

Here’s Chooch ignoring me in line for said Vekoma SLC. I want to note, as evidence to support my earlier claims about ride ops: this one had ONE KID manning the general entrance to  the station, the Fast Lane entrance to the station, and checking the restraints on the left side of the train. ONE KID, barely any older than Chooch. He was getting the job DONE.

Also, I believe this was the only instance of LINE JUMPING we endured all day,  thank god. It was still frustrating though – a whole ass family of 4 or 5 “excuse me, pardon me”ing their way all the way up to the front. Annoying!!!! I wish I owned a park. I would enforce the rules and motherfuckers would be crying.

And probably suing too but we’ll tackle that when the day comes.

I should note that this was the third ride of the day, right after getting in A HUGE FIGHT with Henry on the second ride of the day: the carousel. Who fights on the carousel?? you might ponder. The couple who is 1/2 comprised of a camera-moron whose only task is to take a carouselfie of his family but does it shittily every time and then gets mad in retaliation when the other 1/2 gets mad first, and their offspring just sits there on his pony and endures it because, this is life. This is us.

Anyway, we got off the carousel and I was like LET’S JUST LEAVE but then proceeded to storm off in the opposite direction of the exit. Chooch kept pace with me but Henry was like, way behind. I dipped into the Thunderhawk line hoping that Henry wouldn’t know where we went but apparently he has us chipped because when we got off the ride, he was waiting for us like a dumb creep. Ugh. Then we were Happy Family again and didn’t fight anymore, look at us. That’s growth.

Zack’s Zoomer is a little wooden coaster that had what looked to be a short line but it was one train ops and suuuuuper slow moving.

We got to the station and I realized it was basically just like the Woodstock Express and I was like, “There is no fucking way we’re both fitting in one seat,” but Henry was like, “YES WE CAN” and he stuffed himself in next to me so hard that I felt my hipbone bend, I swear to god. I honetsly can’t believe that the ride ops let us sit together, it was sooo clown car-esque.

Chooch had to wait for the next train and he seemed fine with having a big of PARENT FREE time.

Bye, Chooch. Say “wheeee.”

OMG this fucking janky pile of lumber, lol. When we were standing in line, some really annoying, corny country ballad came on, something about “this is my song,” and I loudly said, “Who even likes this shit??” and Henry started cracking up because the three teenage girls in front of us where balls-to-the-wall lip synching along but I didn’t know because I had my back toward them when I was screaming about it.

I just think that amusement parks should exclusively play 1980s music.

I thought the station was so nice, how they had flower pots hanging over there.

Anyway, this ride was sooooo painful. The first part was great though – you leave the station and wind around into a tunnel and Y’ALL KNOW HOW I LOVE ME SOME TUNNELS. Then you go up the lift hill and get stuck at the top for a minute – at least, that’s what happened to us. Then the first drop is SO GOOD because it was recently RETRACKED so it was smoother than Rob Thomas singing “Smooth.”

But then as you’re going down the hill, you happen to look over to the right and notice that the rest of the coaster is OLD ASS WOOD TRACK and while you’re realizing this, the JACKHAMMERING BEGINS. Holy fuck, this was definitely up there with some of the roughest woodies I’ve ever willingly put myself through. Henry and I were bellowing our chorus of OWs like a couple of fallen angels taking their first waltz along the fiery coals of Hell.

Hey, GCI – bring some more of that smooth-ass track to Michigan, stat.

We didn’t ride this, but I thought the sign was cyoooooot.

Did I say Thunderhawk was the longest line we stood in that day? Scratch that bring it back, because it was actually Mad Mouse. We were prepared for this after watching numerous videos about how bizarre the ops are on this one, plus these damn wild mouse rides are GP faves so they always amass long lines no matter what.

Chooch was being such a baby about having to wait in line! Like we had anything else to do! I think he was really ready to leave because, GOD FORBID, his phone was dying/had died. Here’s a picture of Henry and Chooch talking about block zones and trying to understand why they were only allowing two cars on the course at once.

It really wasn’t that bad, waiting in this line. I think it was probably about 45 minutes (I mean, OK that’s pretty pathetic to wait that long for a wild mouse, but coaster creds make you do some dumb things). And it was actually a pretty decent ride!

After this, we stopped in the gift shop and bought some shirts (um, for one of the smallest, least-loved Cedar Fair parks, they have some great merch!), then made our way out of the park having ridden all of the coasters. Shivering Timbers was the highlight and you can let me fangirl about that in a separate post, if that’s OK with you. Cool, thanks!

Buh-bye, Michigan’s Adventure! You were not nearly as terrible as I had imagined. Hopefully Cedar Fair throws you a bone in the form of a new coaster and we will definitely come back!

Vegan Lunch Pilgrimage

 Liveblogging, travel, Uncategorized
Feb 262022
 

Oh ho ho, 좋은 아침 여러분. Henry and I are currently en route to Columbus, Ohio to have lunch at Seitan’s Realm. Here is how that happened:

Every time we pass through Columbus, we want to eat there but it always happens to be on Sunday and they are closed! Finally, I couldn’t take anymore taunting via their Instagram feed so I yelled at Chooch to request off on some upcoming Saturday so that we can feast. Then a few weeks later he was like “I’m off on the 26th” and I rejoiced! But then I found out that he called off for a Pokemon “event” so this is why it is just Henry and me in the car and Chooch is still at home sleeping :(

Anyway it’s 7:19 and we just plied ourselves with coffee, NCT Dream is blaring, and I’m already about to start complaining about contacts. Woo road trip!!

8:55am: what a boring drive, as expected. We stopped at Sheetz for breakfast as per road trip protocol. Nothing interesting happened there at all. Then I listened to a few chapters of an audiobook but it was making me fall asleep (I mean the book is good but combined with being in the car, I was so drowsy).

9:12am time for a Renjun appreciation shout out, best NCT vocalist.

10:26am: Just arrived at Otherworld but our reservation isn’t until 11 so we’re just sitting in the car, you know, same as we’ve been doing for the last three hours.

OMG Henry’s memory of the day is from 2006 when I was pregnant and we were also in Columbus that weekend! The picture is my puke on the bathroom floor of the science center. IMAX & Slurpee was not a great combo for my mucho-prego self lol.

11:28 I live here now.

11:56am: Spent an hour at Otherworld and it was really fun but toward the end, it started to get really crowded so we were glad we left as early as we did and got there before our 11am reservation because this is not the type of place you can enjoy yourself with a crowd.

Henry: Really? Renjun’s Voice?

Yeah, so??

Now we’re on our way to Seitan’s Realm, finally!

12:30pm: finally at Seitan’s Realm!!

THIS IS ABOVE OUR BOOTH!!!

1:06pm: you guys wow. We just left and I will definitely need to write a separate review post thingy but it was so satisfying and I am wrecked that we live 3 hours away.

1:33pm: stopped at Topiary Park. We weee here years ago with Christina but it was rainy that day so I wanted to come back. It was smaller than I remembered and also super cold so we left after five minutes lol.

3:07pm: just peed in the nicest park bathroom ngl.

Some place called Blacklick Park I guess. I needed to go for a walk to digest and henry took forever finding a place and we had many fights.

Artec! Nooooo!

3:26pm this just in: I knew something moss-adjacent that Henry did not: that British Soldier lichen stuff!

That is not my picture but I have vivid memories of this shit being all over the fences along the side of my childhood street – Gillcrest – and I have never seen it since then. :(

3:36: Just stopped at 5 Bean Coffee and got a maple butterscotch latte which is quite delectable but I’m having ordering regertz because they had red velvet on the special menu that I didn’t see at first so I pointed it out to henry but he blew me off and just got something basic like his personality. Ugh.

3:44: we just drove past the gas station where we had to pull over one time on the way home from who knows where when Chooch was laughing so hard he peed his pants and henry was soooooo angry lol.

Meanwhile henry just called the car in front of us a COCKBITE.

4:47: just spent a cool $100 on Kpop pins in one of the pin maker’s shop updates. I also bought a keychain meant to be used as a frame for Kpop photo cards – so if you’re new here, that means that anytime you buy a Kpop album, one of the fun parts of it is finding out whose photocard you got because it’s totally random. Some of the super manic Stans will buy dozens of the albums in an effort to collect all of the photocards. It’s nuts!

But it got me thinking about how everyone was so shocked when I got into Kpop and admittedly I was too but it actually makes so much sense because I am a very obsessive and fanatical personality type. For instance, when I was in middle school, I had it SO BAD for Pgh Penguin Paul Coffey and used to carry his hockey card around with me everywhere like it was actually him. I can remember even taking him to the movies with my friends and giving him his own seat next to mine.

“So really I haven’t outgrown that part of myself at all,” I said to Henry just now, to which he mumbled, “You haven’t outgrown much of anything.”

Wwwwwwwwwow.

5:52pm: Made the mistake of telling Henry I don’t really understand sanctions and he stepped into his MANSPLAININ’ trousers and gave me a Lesson.

Also fuck Putin. What a miserable pathetic gremlin shadow of a man. Go drown in quicksand with Trump please, while grasping onto your tiny peepees.

6:33pm: Now we’re about 15 minutes from home but Son of the Year texted me and demanded an iced coffee so now we’re at Dunkin’ in Bridgeville and I just want to go hoooooommmmmeeee.

Posting this now I guess. What a lame live blog. Ciao ciao for now now.

The Last Domino? Show with Corey, Part 2: The Concert

 music, nostalgia, Obsessions
Dec 222021
 

You guys know I’m like super tightly-wound, right? OK then this next part of the GENESIS night will sound super on brand: So, when I bought the tickets back in May, I opted for the mobile option because I paid $$$ for this shit and am constantly at war with the USPS to begin with. The last thing they need is to lose my GENESIS TICKETS, you know? Anyway, I added the tickets to my Apple wallet a few months ago and noticed that there was no barcode on them like in the past. But then a squirrel probably came to the window and distracted me, so I didn’t think about it again until a few days prior to the show.

“DOES THIS LOOK RIGHT?” I screamed to Henry, who just shrugged and said he was sure it was fine. It didn’t “look fine” to me so I frantically googled “TICKETMASTER MOBILE TICKETS WEIRD HELP” and only found information on how they USED TO LOOK.

You know, with a BARCODE.

To be safe, I made sure I was logged into the Ticketmaster app because the barcode appeared on my tickets there. Then I kept getting all these  intense emails from the venue about the entry process, and learned this was actually a paperless ticket event so I guess I didn’t even have the option to get regular tickets? And then there was the BAG POLICY which had me stressed out too so I tried to make Henry measure my wallet, but he was like, “Um, this is fine. They’re not going to confiscate your tiny wallet” and I was like, “BUT THEY POSTED DIMENSIONS! DOES MY WALLET FALL WITHIN THOSE DIMENSIONS!” and because Henry is a Man who voluntarily took Industrial Arts in high school, he was able to just look at it and say yes.

I hate him.

Even at dinner that night, I was low-key on edge about the ticket thing. When Corey was in the bathroom, I checked my TicketMaster app AND IT WOULDN’T OPEN BECAUSE IT SAID I HAD NO INTERNET CONNECTION. So I was frantically Kakao’ing with Henry who suggested that I restart my phone so I did AND THEN IT LOGGED ME OUT OF THE APP TOTALLY. I literally could not get in to access the tickets so now it was Apple wallet or GTFO.

My only consolation was remembering that it was going to me and about 8465 elderly people in the same boat, and Henry reassured me that there would probably be plenty of people there to help. Who even am I?? One pandemic and suddenly I’m a concert n00b.

I finally admitted my concerns to Corey when we started our walk from Bae Bae’s to PPG Paints Arena but if was also worried about this, he did a great job hiding it. The walk itself was nice and brisk – I knew I was going to cold in that denim jacket but getting a picture of MATCHING SIBLING JEAN JACKETS would be worth it so I only complained a little.

Eventually, we began encountering other GENESIS fans along the way. You could just tell. I mean, one middle aged guy was playing Invisible Touch on his phone and gave us a head nod. Another middle aged guy yelled to us, “I NEED A JOINT HAHAHAHA” as we were waiting to the cross the street and it was so obvious he was only saying it to us in hopes one of us would be like, “OMG HERE YOU GO FELLOW GENESIS FAN” lol.

Anyway!! We finally got to the arena and forget what I said about being so cold because now I was SWEATING in anticipation of someone banging the gong when I attempted to scan my DEFECTIVE tickets. I was on my tiptoes, craning my neck to see if anyone ahead of us had the same-looking tickets and while most people had the barcoded ones from the Ticketmaster app, I did see someone with one that looked like ours. Then we got closer, I saw that the scanner had two options: a spot to hold your phone under to scan the barcode, and a spot up above where you just tapped your phone if you had one of the SCARY NON-TICKET LOOKING TICKETS like we had.

It took all of .0002 seconds to get in and Corey was like, “Honestly, I wasn’t worried at all.” OK COOL THANKS, BRO, GLAD I COULD TAKE ON THE WHOLE BURDEN FOR THE BOTH OF US, LOL.  I was still buzzing after that but then we got in line for merch and my anxiety finally transformed into actual excitement. It’s not easy being me sometimes, you guys. It really isn’t.

Corey and I both snagged a t-shirt (duh) and I also bought an art poster which is my favorite thing to buy at shows and I get so excited when they’re available! I didn’t even care how much it cost. This is pretty likely the last chance we will get to see Genesis (Phil said as much himself) so I was sparing no expense!

This was taken right in front of our seats so you can see that we had plenty of people-free room! If it was a hockey game, we would have been right behind the glass and over a bit to the right of the goal. It was really comfortable! Corey, being a Tall Person, was grateful that he had adequate leg room.

I was so pleased with this picture because the lady who took it for us was really determined to get the right shot. “I got some of the stage in the background,” she said knowingly, and we were both so happy with it!

“Remember when we went to see The Cure and that person took that really awkward picture of us turning around in our seats?” I asked Corey when we sat back down. Of course he remembered, how could he forget? IT WAS SUCH A TERRIBLE PICTURE AND SO AWKWARD TO POSE FOR:

I sent this to Corey after I got home later that night and his response was: Glow Up of the Decade, lol.

We had about 30 minutes to people watch* before the show started and Corey continued to gush over his ample leg room. I looked around and said, “Yep, this is exactly how I pictured it when I bought the tickets, right down to the garbage can positioned right in front of us.”

“Really??” Corey exclaimed.

“No!” I laughed. But that fucking garbage can would prove to be a NUISANCE as the night went on.

*(In case you were wondering, the median demographic for Genesis was definitely 55-70. I knew even I’d be one of the younger people there but I was actually kind of surprised at how few “younger” people I even saw!)

The lights went out a little after 8:00PM and Corey and I were practically foaming at the mouths. I was flabbergasted at how many people were still casually milling about, THROWING AWAY THEIR BEERS IN THE TRASH DIRECTLY IN MY LINE OF VISION, and just taking their good ol’ time getting back to their seats. And you know this was annoying to me because I used the word FLABBERGASTED. I don’t just drop that word down lightly, mmkay Brenda.

Anyway, I truly do not have the words to write a proper review of this show because my emotions are still overwhelming me. First of all, Phil Collins is ill and the fact that he even found the strength and drive within himself to carry out these shows is beyond imagination to me. I mean, what a boss. However, it was extremely sad to see him looking frail, and remaining seated through the duration of the concert. He seemed to be struggling at times with his vocals as well, but just being under the same roof as him was an incredible honor.

I definitely let the tears roll on occasion, but it didn’t fully hit me until the next morning, when I just broke down and sobbed while making breakfast to my usual soundtrack of Tonight Tonight Tonight (seriously, I’m always “Alexa, play Tonight Tonight Tonight” and it’s miraculously one of the few times she will deliver without incident).

 

I didn’t really hate anyone at this show except for the people who kept walking off and onto the floor during the whole entire show. Like, you can’t wait until later to get another fucking beer? Because the last time I checked, fucking G E N E S I S is up there performing for YOU and you’re just gonna walk out to get another IC Light. Wow. Just, wow. My favorite part was when these dumb fucks would come back and proceed to stand in the open space between our section and the last row of seats on the floor and the ushers were too fucking old and ambivalent to tell them to go back to their seats, so then we’d be staring at the backs of drunk Yinzers for a minute before they regained their bearings and staggered to their seat.

But then there was a middle-aged man and his father in the last row of the floor section and they were so fucking adorable with their father-son air-drumming that it canceled out how angry all the in-and-out beer and bathroom break people had made me. (Honestly though, I know how much those floor seats cost and you better believe I’d be holding my pee until Genesis said “No for real this is it, look, we’re taking a bow” and the lights came on.

For me, the highlights were definitely Tonight Tonight Tonight (I have VIVID childhood memories soundtracked by that song) and Mama.

LOL my attempt at getting a picture of Phil’s son on drums. What a prodigy!

This one time, I was standing in line for a haunted house and decided to assign very specific laughs to my friends for us to perform as we ran through the haunt. My laugh was Tom Hulce’s shrill chortle from “Amadeus” (I WAS SO GOOD AT IT), I taught Janna how to emulate the toe-curling throat scrape of the Sleazy Furnace Guy who had recently made like three appearances at my house around that time and it was just A Whole Thing really, and because Christina is so creepy in general I appointed to them the coveted Phil Collins mirthless laugh/groan from “Mama.” So basically, the best one.

This song just hits every time.

SETLIST

  1. Behind the Lines / Duke’s End
  2. Turn It On Again
  3. Mama (!!!)
  4. Land of Confusion (Phil’s intro to this song referenced the current state of the world making this song relevant and there was a video of toilet paper falling from the sky and people marching with face masks on; also I was obsessed with / terrified of this music video when I was a kid, lol)
  5. Home By the Sea (I was imagining Phil was shouting SIT DOWN to all of the PEOPLE LEAVING THE FLOOR OMFG SIT DOWN)
  6. Second Home By the Sea
  7. Fading Lights
  8. The Cinema Show
  9. Afterglow
  10. That’s All
  11. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
  12. Follow You Follow Me
  13. Duchess
  14. No Son of Mine
  15. Firth of Fifth
  16. I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
  17. Domino
  18. Throwing It All Away (Watching people throw their endless cans of beer away all night gave new meaning to this one)
  19. Tonight Tonight Tonight (!!!)
  20. Invisible Touch (PEOPLE WERE LEAVING DURING THIS SONG!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!??!!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?)

ENCORE

  1. I Can’t Dance
  2. Dancing With the Moonlit Knight
  3. The Carpet Crawlers

It was a wonderful show, you guys, and felt very symbolic that Corey and I got to see them together because it felt kind of therapeutic, five years after the 116 Gillcrest Trauma. Music really does heal, and Phil Collins / Genesis really helped scab over many of our emotional wounds, that is for fucking sure.

****

Henry and Chooch were sleeping by the time Corey dropped me off but I woke them and made them watch several video clips from the night (I took very few pictures and videos) and the very next day, Henry framed and hung my Genesis print because sometimes, he just knows the things that are important.

Action shot of The Hanging. (I actually took this to send to Chooch who was incessantly blowing up Henry’s phone about something stupid and I was like STOP BOTHERING HIM, HE IS DOING HIS CHORES. Kids, amirite.)

OMG *tearing up*

I love this wall! Every framed picture is a print from various concerts. I love collecting these! I have a ton of other ones too but I kept all of these ones together because they are the same size. So now every day, I get to walk past this and smile at the memory of seeing Genesis.

I saw Genesis! <3

Monday Memories: That Time Barb Ducked

 nostalgia
Apr 192021
 

I stumbled across this old blog post a few minutes ago and immediately needed to give it a second life because I miss Barb and the shit she says SO MUCH. I also miss being a hockey fanatic.

Alternately titled: Shit Barb Said At the Pens Game, 11/17/15.

Barb texted me Tuesday morning to see if I wanted to go to the game with her that night. I was already en route to work but I was like UM YES?! The only thing that would make me say no to a Pens game is if I was already going to a show that night or extreme illness. I waited until I was no longer in the car with Henry before I texted him: “BTW going to the Pens game with Barb tonight, LOL.” I wanted him to be jealous but instead he was just relieved that he wouldn’t have to come downtown to pick me up from work like he does every single evening because I deserve only the best.

I’m always happy to have the opportunity to hang out with Barb since I don’t get to see her every day at work anymore, and going to a Pens game with her is like the Ultimate Hang Out Scenario. The whole night was amaze: it was Fleury bobblehead night; the seats were fantastic; the PENS WON!; and I got to make fun of nearly everything Barb said all night, which brought back memories of the notebook I used to keep of all the dumb things she used to say when I sat next to her at work. MEM’RIES.

Here are some Barb moments for all you BR aficionados to chew on:

  • We were talking about how much Henry resembles Mandy Patinkin (specifically his character on Homeland) and that sent Barb down a Mandyhole. “How old is Mandy Patinkin, I wonder? Let’s Google it. Oh look, he has his own website! He was born in 1952. When was Henry born? OK so that makes him how many years older than Henry….” I was like “I didn’t come to a hockey game to do math, BARB” so we closed that chapter, each content leaving it as “Henry is years younger than Mandy.”
  • Then Barb made the mistake of telling me that she got out of bed the other night and made a list of all the TV shows she watches. “Then the next day I saw the list and said, ‘Why did I write this? I know what TV shows I watch’ so I threw the list out.
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    ” This is the part of the story where Barb, forgetting who she was talking to,  recounted her list to me.

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  • And here’s the part of the night where Barb tells a dumb joke: “Did you know that Fedor Tyutin has a brother named Rutin? Say both names out loud. ROOTIN TOOTIN.”
  • Then I thought she asked me if I was on the rag, but she was actually asking if I had the bag that our bobble heads were in. And then that made me wonder if anyone ever even says that anymore? I does seem like something Barb would ask someone, though.
  • “You know what I think when I see [Pens coach] Mike Johnston? MILQUETOAST,” Barb muttered with contempt. (It’s true though! He is like, as blank and non-descript as Henry’s t-shirts.)

  • Barb was really into this one guy’s pepper pants, so I tried my best to get a clandestine photo as he left the game. Don’t be surprised if you see her wearing her own pair sometime soon.
  • “He’s so weird looking,” Barb sneered, pointing to Scuderi’s headshot in the program. “I think he looks like Glenn!” I argued. “Pfft, maybe Glenn’s UGLY BROTHER.” I had no idea she was so  adverse to Rob Scuderi’s face.
  • A face she is decidedly NOT adverse to is that of Pascal Dupuis. We talked a bit about how she has feelings for him. She gets really flustered about it, too, so you know it’s real. A few days later, I told her that I told Chooch about this and he was like “What do you mean, Barb has FEELINGS for him?!” and then Barb was all humiliated and also nervous because god only knows what Chooch may do with this new knowledge.

‘

  • This has nothing to do with Barb, but there was a moment when I got to be A HERO. As I sat down after we scored the first goal, I noticed something on the ground next to me. I picked it up and asked the lady next to me if it belonged to her. “Oh that’s my INHALER!” she exclaimed. “I could DIE without that!” and then her daughter was all, “THANK YOU FOR PREEMPTIVELY SAVING MY MOM’S LIFE!” and I was like, “No problem, that’s just what I do.” Barb missed this entire exchange because I think this was when she was Googling “where to buy pepper pants.”
  • Barb spun many yarns of the days when the glass was lower and pucks where chucked out into the crowd with greater frequency. “One time I saw a lady get hit in the side of the head. Man, was there a lot of blood.” She looked kind of AROUSED by this memory, though.

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  • Barb took this terrible picture of me and posted it on Facebook but luckily, everyone was too busy fixating on the man behind us to notice my protruding Leno chin. Anyway, that man wound up having the best, most boisterous Ref heckles and he reminded me of the guy who got Kristy and I kicked out of the Pittsburgh Passion game two summers ago. Barb and I bonded with him and his wife later in the game as they openly and loudly complained of the girls behind them who hadn’t stopped talking about everything but the game from the moment they arrived. “I feel like I’m in Charlie Brown Town. ‘Mwahmwahmwah mwah mwah'” We were laughing so hard, and then later Barb was like, “What was he talking about, anyway?” GOD BARB, try to follow along!
  • Speaking of errant pucks! One flew into the netting near our seats and Barb instinctively ducked. “I SAW THAT! I SAW YOU DUCK!” some old man ridiculed her as he walked past our seats. “God, tell the whole arena, why don’t you,” Barb muttered. “God Barb, it’s like it’s your first hockey game,” I said, getting in one last jab while she was down.
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  • When Barb was taking me home, she meant to pull into the church parking lot across the street from my house but undershot the entrance and instead drove into the grass. “Oh my god, I”m so sorry!” she cried. “Are you literally apologizing to God since this is His house?” I asked. But she was just apologizing to me, it turns out, probably because she didn’t want this to go on my blog. YOU’RE WELCOME, BARB!

God, what a great night. I got to see Malkin score two goals (I LOVE HIM, HE REMINDS ME OF MY CAT DON; RIP DON), and laugh at all the ridiculous things Barb said.  Thank you, Barb! You’re the best!

Books I Read In January 2021

 2021 Book Challenge
Feb 132021
 

Hey word-nerds. I figured I would keep up this book list on here because it’s fun and I don’t have much else going on. I decided at the end of my 2020 challenge that I definitely do not want to read over 200 books again. I mean – that was nuts and I would like to have more time like, watch a k-drama or something.

I think I set a goal of 50, which seems reasonable and not hyper-obsessive. Right? Except that I still have all this momentum and ended up reading 12 books in January regardless, but I am going to make a conscious effort to slow the eff down from here on out, I swear to myself.

Anyway, here are the first 6 books I read in January, which was an “OK” reading month.

  1. Pizza Girl – Jean Kyoung Frazier

Pizza Girl

What a weird little effing book this one was! Every so often, I take advantage of my library’s recommendation service and the librarian this time around gave me some right recs. We follow an 18-year-old pregnant Korean American, out of high school and lost, working at a pizza shop, when one day she takes a call from a frenzied mom begging for pickles to be added to her son’s pizza. Intrigued by this, the girl then goes out of her way to procure  the pickles and after delivering the pizza, she starts to become obsessed with the lady.

This book was so uncomfortable at times, funny, sad — there’s an underlying exploration of grief that I could relate to more than I wanted to, as it becomes clear that the girl never fully mourned the semi-recent death of her alcoholic father.

I don’t know, I really vibed with this and it was a great book to kick off the new year! Also, the cover is amaze.

2.  The Party – Robyn Harding

The Party

LOL this book was so bad. In regard to the blurb on the front cover: This was more like if a 12-year-old binged Big Little Lies and then tried to write her own version of it. Every single character was written SO POORLY.  The pizza in the book above had more personality than anyone in this book, which is a shame because it was multi-POV and I usually really enjoy books written that way.

Dumb dumb dumb. I hate being a shithead toward published authors because obviously what have I published, but not only was the plot just….huh??….but the writing was bland and unexceptional. Basically, this is something that a mom would grab at an airport bookstand last minute and forget about by the time the plane lands. Skip this!!

3. Us Against You (Beartown #2) – Fredrik Backman

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My friend Eve commented a few months ago and told me that she liked Beartown but she LOVED Us Against You. I thought these were strong words because I LOVED BEARTOWN and couldn’t even imagine how a sequel could best the original.

And then I read it and with saline-swollen eyes and a stuffy nose, I wailed, “SHE WAS RIGHHHHHHHT.” This book is everything. I have since also gotten Janna and Henry to read both and we are like a small little Pittsburgh chapter of the Beartown Bros.

We’re still following Hockey Lyfe in Beartown, most of the characters from the first book are back but we get some new ones too and I can’t stress enough how masterful Backman is at writing characters. Every character has a purpose. Every sentence matters. I sobbed my face off numerous times during my reading journey because the people in this book feel so fucking real to me, my heart aches anytime something bad happens to them.

Drew was actually staring at me with huge concerned eyeballs when I finished the last page because I was legit ugly-sobbing. Like, CRYING OUT LOUD.

You do not have to be a hockey person to enjoy these books. Please read them. A third one is coming out at some point and I am considering medication before I start reading it. Oof.

4. Little Fires Everywhere – Celeste Ng

Little Fires Everywhere

This one kept getting bumped off my TBR last year but I made a point of getting it read in 2021. By now, you probably have at least heard of this thanks to the Reese Witherspoon Hulu adaptation, which I have not seen.

I thought this book was OK! I enjoyed the references to Bethel Park, which isn’t shocking since the author grew up in Pittsburgh, but overall I didn’t really connect to it like I had hoped to. I read “Everything I Never Told You” last year and thought that one was INCREDIBLE. The emotions felt so tangible to me while reading it and I guess I had expected the same from Little Fires. I think if I had read this one first, I would have liked it more but I did think the plot was super interesting and really gave you a lot to think about (if you read this, I’m sure you will know which side I was on).

I needed more Izzy though. She was fucking amazing. Give Izzy her own story!!

5. All the Birds, Singing – Evie Wyld

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HOLY.FUCKING.SHIT. Is Evie Wyld a master at timeline fuckery? Yes, I believe she is. After I read “The Bass Rock” last year, I was really eager to devour more of her words and All the Birds did not disappoint. It’s weird how I can handle the most gory horror, abuse, rape etc in books, but as soon as you start adding “animal stuff” I am like, THIS BOOK IS HARD TO READ. And that’s how it was this. Lots of sheep killing, there are some pretty graphic scenes, but everything matters. It didn’t feel gratuitous.

Like The Bass Rock, this one took me a bit to decode the timeline, but once I did, I kind of sat up straight and said out loud, “Wait…is this…did she really…wow.” It’s just….WYLD. Lol.

I actually need to re-read this one at some point, now that I have a better understanding of the timeline. I love it when you’re reading a book and it just suddenly clicks. This book is a treasure!

6. Harrow Lake – Kat Ellis 

Harrow Lake

I actually kind of liked this more than I thought I would considering it’s a YA thriller/mystery. The daughter of a famous horror movie director goes back to the town where his most famous film was set, and accidentally falls into a mission to find out what really happened to her mom. Is this something that I will remember years from now? Nope. Did it provide some entertainment via audiobook while I was slogging through a miserable workday? Yeah boi. And that’s really all I can ask for.

December 2020 Reads!!

 2020 Book Challenge
Jan 022021
 

We made it to December!! I have to hurry up and get this recap done because I want to do a 2020 FAVORITES list and two of my favorites actually came from my December reads!! Gonna try to bust this out into one post!! Let’s go, Lucy!

  1. Watch Over Me – Nina LaCour

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Talk about starting the month off on a bad note. This book was pretty awful. Boring. Cold. Flat characters. The reviews I read were gushing over how no one writes sad girls like Nina LaCour, queen or emo and loneliness, etc etc. I got none of that. I got “try hard,” “disjointed,” “boring,” “what a gorgeous cover wasted on an empty book. I felt nothing and at times I even forgot what was happening. Hard pass.

2.  The Black Flamingo – Dean Atta

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Fuck yes – I love me some good coming of age / coming out books, add in some drag and I am there for it, Mary. I feel the most emotions when reading about marginalized people finding comfort in their skin and a community where they can spread their wings and really fucking fly. This was an exceptional journey through Michael’s life, starting from his joy of Barbies as a child to flourishing in drag as a young adult. Also, it’s written in verse so if you like Elizabeth Acevedo, why haven’t you picked this one up yet?

I feel like this should be required reading in school. Honestly, if I were a teacher, I’d want my students to read books like this.

3. The Graveyard Apartment – Mariko Koike 

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Japanese horror movies are my favorites, so I figured I would enjoy this book. Typical with Japanese (and Korean) horror/thrillers, this one was slow and quiet. Basically, a young family moves to a new, luxury apartment complex across from a cemetery, but there are only a handful of other units occupied. It seems it’s because people just don’t want to live across from a cemetery, but then some spooky shit starts happening and our fam is eventually like “OK, UNCLE. WE’RE CALLING IT. UNCLE” and they decide it’s time to find new digs BUT WILL THE COMPLEX LET THEM LEAVE?!!?

There were some chilling moments but nothing that TRULY scared me. However, I really felt attached to the main family (the dog too!!) and rooted for them so hard to win at the end. And speaking of the end – I genuinely liked it but I wonder if that’s an unpopular opinion…

4. Real Life – Brandon Taylor

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I had high hopes for this book because it seemed like something I would like based on the fact that I’m obsessed with books in the vein of The Great Believers, but ultimately it was just kind of a drag. We follow the main character, a gay Black grad student, who has some pretty dysfunctional and toxic relationships with a group of friends, and I just didn’t care about him nor did I care about any of his friends, and he becomes involved with one of the guys in his group who is kind of like his frenemy? And also straight?

Was this just too academic for me? Should I ask Alexa?

5. We Ride Upon Sticks – Quan Barry

We Ride Upon Sticks

It’s been several weeks since I finished this and I still can’t stop thinking about it. Is Quan Barry my new favorite author? Am I considering getting a tattoo to celebrate (and consummate???) my love of the words on these pages? Will I ever get over these characters? Am I currently listening to She Bop on repeat?

YES YES NO YES.

I wasn’t expecting to find what is I THINK the best book I read in 2020 so late into the reading year, but holy-fucking-shit this blew me away. It was also 100% NOT what I was expecting. The synopsis, no matter how many different ways I try to frame it, always comes off sounding like some cheesy young adult romp through an I Love the 80s VH1 special but it’s so much deeper and complex than that. First of all, it’s not YA. Second of all, the pop culture references don’t feel cheap but instead act as a warm fucking hug, like Jane Fonda leg warmers for the soul.

We follow a high school girls’ field hockey team at a New England high school in the 80s. There is some connection to the Salem Witch Trials to the town of Danvers, and so we get some witchy/magical realism action which flows seamlessly through the story so that it’s not hokey at all and only makes us question, “Wait, is this real life?”

We follow, individually and as a whole, each player of the field hockey team, and each one of these kids has a story and identity. There is also some BRILLIANT personification (ex.: one of the girls has stereotypical Aqua Net 1980s bangs with a mind of its own, and also a name of its own: The Claw) and the dialogue is SO SMART that I actually started crying several times not because the story was sad (it’s FUCKING HILARIOUS) but because Quan Barry DID THAT. This is the kind of book that I read and think, “I am never writing again. There is no point. There is only Quan Barry.”

I do not know how else to get you to read this book. But if you’re looking for PURE FUN that somehow manages to weave in social and racial commentary without hurting the flow, you have got to give this a chance. I would love to see this as a TV miniseries, only if it stayed true to Barry’s vision.

6. The Queen’s Gambit – Walter Tevis 

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After bingeing the Netflix series in November, I really wanted to read the book because I’m always curious to see how true to the pages adaptations stay. And it was PRETTY SIMILAR. A few differences but nothing too glaring.

So, I know very little about chess and I really had no desire to watch the show until my favorite YouTube couple, Sarah and Kyuho, raved about it. I decided to give it a chance and found it super compelling! I think the fact that it was set in the 60s really kept me hooked too though because I LOVE shows that are set in the 60s/70s/80s. I liked the book just fine, but I don’t think this would have ever been something I would have picked up otherwise. And yes, there were pages upon pages detailing chess moves which was like “zzzzz.” But goddamn, Beth is such an interesting character and I loved reading about her intellectually emasculating dude after dude after dude.

7. One By One – Ruth Ware

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I’ve only read one other Ruth Ware book, but there seems to be a common opinion in the book community where her books are very hit or miss. Everyone seems to really love some of her books and absolutely hate others. Having really enjoyed the one book I read of hers earlier in the year, I was curious to see if this phenomenon would be true for me, too.

YEP. This book was so bad. Boring. Predictable. Characters that felt like they were fleshed out by a middle schooler writing a “thriller” in her notebook during study hall which may or may not be something I’m familiar with. Waaaaay too much talk about the stocks of this dumb company that most of the characters work for. A truly lackluster climax. I literally couldn’t believe the same broad who wrote The Turn of the Key wrote this pile of drivel.

Skip this and go read an Agatha Christie novel instead.

8. With the Fire on High – Elizabeth Acevedo

With the Fire on High

Isn’t this cover beautiful?!!? I had a long time to admire it because I snagged this book from a local Little Free Library over the summer and then proceeded to drown in library books and was in a perpetually race against due dates so this lovely lady kept getting bumped back. But I finally had time in December to tackle it and it was wonderful, as are all of Acevedo’s books. Elizabeth writes characters who are so real, brimming with family values while also craving the independence and freedom to be their own person and follow their dreams, and you will CHEER THESE GIRLS ON.

In this one, Emoni is a teen mom who dreams of being a chef, but she’s trying to juggle the very real priorities that come with being a mom while also working a part time job in order to help her abuela with living expenses, and the stress is palpable.

I always get the audio books for Acevedo’s books because she narrates them herself and it’s just a real treat. I can’t wait for her next book!

9. The Bass Rock – Evie Wyld

The Bass Rock

I was kind of intimidated by this book, not gon’ lie. There are several British Booktubers that I love and have gotten some great recs from their videos but their book tastes can be admittedly way too…intelllectual? Advanced? Literary? for my pea brain to handle. But they raved about this book all year long and I finally took the plunge.

It was not what I expected! Admittedly, it was a bit difficult to get into at first because there are three different timelines but eventually it clicked in my college drop-out head. We follow three women: Viv, in present day, who is tasked with taking inventory of her step-grandmother’s empty house; Ruth, back in post-WW2 times, who has just remarried and has moved into a large possibly haunted (dot dot dot) house by the sea; and Sarah, who has been accused of being a witch and is running from townspeople in the 1700s.

Violence against women is the heavy theme of this book, but there are still some light moments and humor which really made this story shine. I don’t want to say too much more about it because I walked into this only knowing that it was a gothic novel with some witchiness and ghosts and I think I expected it to be super dry for some reason. I love being wrong in these types of cases! I tried to explain the plot to Henry and he was just like, “ew feminism, boys are best” j/k he didn’t say that but he also had the “Don’t care” glaze over his face so now someone (maybe YOU??) has to read this so we can talk about it and by talk I mean possibly have a comment exchange that goes like “that book was amazing” and “IKR?!?!?!”

This is why I don’t do book groups.

I will probably think about Viv and Ruth forever.

10. Don’t Look For Me – Wendy Walker

Don't Look for Me

This is a thriller. I have lukewarm feelings. Didn’t care much about anyone, all the men were sleazy, WTF was going on with the husband and was it ever explained or did I miss it, there is a small child that I absolutely hated and I don’t even feel bad about it. I’d recommend passing on this one, but it served as an OK filler while I looked for something better.

11. The Hollow Places – T. Kingfisher

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WHOA another book that was not at all what I was expecting based on the cover! If you’re looking for true horror, probably skip this one because it’s actually more funny than scary. I heard someone say that the two main characters reminded them of Lorelai Gilmore and Michel and I would agree WHOLE-HEARTEDLY on the Lorelai front but if we’re going full Gilmore Girls comparisons with this, I would say that her sidekick reminded me WAY MORE of Kurt.

Basically, we follow a recently-divorced woman who moves back to her small hometown and moves into her uncle’s roadside attraction-esque museum in exchange for helping him inventory all of his wares. (Think: fiji mermaids, etc.) One day, she discovers a large-ish hole in one of the walls, presumably damaged by a tourist, and she enlists the barista at the downstairs coffee house to help her patch the hole. During this process, they discover that the hole actually leads to basically another dimension, and this part sort of reminded me of The House of Leaves, and I will admit that this part of the book started to lose me a little because it was just a bit sci-fi for me – I hate other dimensions/worlds/portals type of plots because my brain just don’t work that way.

But then as the book progresses, never losing the quirky and quick-witted banter, we come back to the museum and shit gets a bit Wonderfalls-y – do you guys remember that show?! IT WAS SO GOOD AND OF COURSE CANCELED AFTER LIKE ONE SEASON.

I would love to read more books with these characters, as long as it didn’t involve the exploration of parallel universes, lol.

12. Watching You – Lisa Jewell

Watching You

I typically enjoy Lisa Jewell thrillers but this one didn’t do it for me. Basically, we follow a bunch of shitty neighbors spying on each other and one of them is some 50-ish year old male teacher who didn’t seem all that heart-throbby based on the description but somehow young girls obsess over him and I just didn’t get it at all.

Super far-fetched and just didn’t really work for me.

14. Long Bright River – Liz Moore

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Exceptional!! Major trigger warning for drug addition. We follow a cop, Micky, who is searching for her estranged, addict sister while a string of murders are hitting her childhood neighborhood in Philly. We get glimpses into the past too to help us understand how Micky and her sister ended up on different paths and it’s actually heart-breaking to see how close they were, to being nothing to each other because of drugs. Present-day Micky is doing all she can to juggle her job as a cop with being a single mom to a young boy, and when she goes rogue to find her sister, major feathers are ruffled on the police force. Fucking popo.

This isn’t just a thriller or mystery though – this is a literary masterpiece that explores how drug abuse tears families apart. Liz Moore’s writing is really unique, the way she writes dialogue really appealed to me, but above all that, if Obama tells you this was one of his favorite books of 2020, you fucking listen to him and open the damn book.

15. Grown – Tiffany D. Jackson

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Be prepared to be ANGRY while reading this. Tiffany D. Jackson is the queen of writing about those hard topics and this one will make you see red. The author claims that this is not low-key about R.Kelly but the similarities are there: a successful Black singer (in his late 20s) takes a young girl under his wing, promising her a music career, and the grooming starts IMMEDIATELY. There’s abuse, rape, gas-lighting, kidnapping – you name it, it happens in this book and it’s sickening because you know this shit is real, this shit happens to girls every day. The most heartbreaking part for me though was how hard her father fought to get her back. (I’m getting choked up as I think about this!!)

The worst part #2 for me was that I could easily picture myself, at 16, falling prey to this same type of shit. If some singer I loved started texting me, are you kidding?? I’d be all over that without even thinking that it was wrong. These men have SO MUCH POWER because they KNOW that young girls aren’t going to think twice, that these girls THINK that they’re grown enough to consent to this thinly-veiled abuse, and I am actually so thankful, as I write this, that I don’t have a daughter but it just means that I have to put in the work as a parent to ensure that my SON doesn’t become a MAN who thinks this shit is OK. Especially when we see it time and time again on TV shows. Teachers and students, mostly. (It happens in the pilot episode of Dawson’s Creek, for god’s sake!) And yeah, we mostly see it happening between men and girls, but it does go both ways! I remember watching Pretty Little Liars with Henry and he was enraged time and time again by this.

“Grown” is an extreme case of this but we know that it happens, nevertheless. Tiffany D. Jackson is an amazing writer.

16. Alice – Christina Henry 

Alice (The Chronicles of Alice, #1)

A very (very!!) dark retelling of Alice in Wonderland. That’s really all you need to know. We have a world of murder, violence, and sex with some VERY DIFFERENT portrayals of familiar characters. For instance, the Walrus rapes his victims while eating them.

Definitely not a book to read your kids at night, but DEFINITELY a book for YOU to read if you love the Wonderland world and are looking for a much darker take on it.

I thought it was excellent and also a very quick read. Also, can we talk about that cover?!

***

So that’s it! All of the books I read in December! I ended the year having read a total of 204 books and while I’m always up for a challenge and that was a cool milestone, I am very content to going back to casually reading with no goal in mind!

November Reads: Part 2

 2020 Book Challenge
Dec 202020
 

Shall we continue onto the second half of November? YES, ME THINKS WE SHALL. (Books 1-7 can be found here.)

8. Sourdough – Robin Sloan

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I watch a lot of different Booktubers on YouTube, which puts Henry and Chooch to sleep, but listen Linda: I have gotten so many good recs from watching these videos and also discovered that I actually things like, I dunno, historical fiction (some of it anyway). I have found also that I share similar likes and dislikes with some of these people. And this is how I learned about Sourdough, by watching Noelle Gallagher do a book haul in which one of her viewers sent her a copy of this book and said it was her favorite. Now, Noelle hadn’t yet read it, but the book itself seemed intriguing to me and I found it immediately on one of my library/book apps.

WHAT A FUCKING DELIGHT! Literally, the entire book is about a woman named Lois who works at some tech company that programs robots, and how she falls in love with the food from this clandestine sandwich shop which is take-out only. Turns out that it’s run by two Mazg brothers from their apartment but then they have Visa issues and have to return home, but they leave Lois with their sourdough starter and it unleashes some latent bread-baking passion in her, which leads her to eventually quit her job and join some avant garde farmers market where they strive for innovation.

You guys, I read a review that said this book felt like a friend and honestly I can’t argue with that.

It was such a comforting read! It was light-hearted and humorous, made me utterly craze fresh bread (Chooch, can you try your hand at that again?!?).

This book is adorable and also will make you want to drop your adult priorities and finally start molding those Danny Bonaduce beeswax candles you always wanted to get into what that wasn’t me that was you.

9. Tender is the Flesh – Agustina Bazterrica

Tender Is the Flesh

In this book, some type of disease has made the consumption of animals lethal so essentially all animals are eradicated and now humans are bred for meat-making purposes and honestly, I couldn’t handle this book at all.

It’s VERY cold. There really aren’t any characters to cozy up to, the descriptions of the various processes of the slaughtering industry are excruciatingly detailed, and I just hated the dry, dystopian atmosphere. Maybe I read this at the wrong time, or maybe it just isn’t the book for me. I also didn’t feel bad AT ALL that this shit was happening to humans, because hello card-carrying vegetarian here.

10. The Subtweet – Vivek Shraya

The Subtweet

THIS!!! Oh holy shit, I related to this on so many levels that it was actually painful at times. We follow two characters: one is an artist in the Toronto indie music scene, who is beloved and respected by her peers, but never really “made it.”

The other is a woman, Rukmini, who sings cover songs on her YouTube channel. When she covers a song by indie singer Neela, it takes off and obviously Neela feels a certain type of way about this. They end up meeting and developing a deep friendship, but that’s tested when Rukmini gets invited to go on a world tour with a super big white pop star.

So we have the exploration of selling out and catering to the white crowd (who attend the concerts and attempt to do various Indian dances along to the music) and leaving behind a friend in the process.

Meanwhile, Neela is like, ‘Fuck this I’m going to put out the best album of my life” and when she sends it to Rukmini, she doesn’t hear back from her. Of course Neela is like, “Wow, Rukmini is too good for me now” but really Rukmini is panicking because she listens to it and is crushed because it confirms the fact that she’s not the one with the talent, Neela is, and Rukmini only got where she did by riding on Neela’s coattails (ie. covering one of her songs).

It was very frustrating because I was so Team Neela and to watch her constantly get overlooked for something that was more marketable to the white people made me want to flip a table.

It’s interesting to me because I have felt a lot of these things over the years, especially back when I used to actually “write.” I would sit here and pour my everything into blog posts, essays, short stories, just to watch the MOST VANILLA and bland blogs take off and get tens of thousands of subscribers. I never wanted to change who I am, to become a basic bitch mommy blogger, or to start some dumb DIY or food blog, because what’s the point?

Also, I’m such a sucker for subtweeting. It’s so fucking immature and passive aggressive but I cannot break myself of it.

Yeah, this book is wonderful. Vivek Shraya is a superb writer!

11. Young Jane Young – Gabrielle Zevin 

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I have never heard of Gabrielle Zevin or this book, but I was in-between physical copies of books from the library and was looking for an audio book to help coast me through a work day and this seemed like it was going to be good and fluffy.

GUYS. Do you like Gilmore Girls? Then this book might be for you. It was so much fun but also deep and I connected to every character and it’s also infuriating and made me scream, “WE HATE MANS IN THIS HOUSE, DON’T WE?!?!” to the cats and they were like *blink* (it’s not ‘men,’ it’s ‘mans’ but nice try).

We follow several women (each one gets their own section) who are all connected and it’s quirky and endearing and explores different mother/daughter relationships and there’s a teenager named Ruby whose entire chapter is told from her side of emails to her international pen pal….and, it’s everything. Read this book. I loved it. I’m definitely going to add more of Zevin’s books to my TBR!

12. Out – Natsuo Kirino 

Out

Oof, this book was SO HARD TO READ. Don’t get me wrong – it was excellent. But the font was weird and my eyes had a really hard time with it, am I getting old?

I’m getting old, aren’t I?

Oh my god.

Anyway, it’s no secret that I love translated Japanese thrillers, and this one was no exception. We follow a group of women co-workers who become bound together via a murder and while it’s definitely dark and there are some very graphic and explicit scenes that were even a bit hard for this horror fanatic to handle, the interactions and quirky dialogue between the women sometimes added a much needed reprieve from the violence.

It was good but just a bit slow-moving (the character building was STRONG though).

13. Beartown – Fredrik Backman 

Beartown

I stayed up until like 2am one night because I was so close to finishing and couldn’t bear to put it down for the night. I honestly can’t remember the last time this happened.

This book made me feel so many things. I loved everyone (well, the ones worth loving). Benji and Bobo forever! HOCKEY!!! (Even if you don’t like hockey or know anything about it, it won’t hinder your reading journey if you pick this up, trust me.)

Oh, what’s it about? The small Swedish town of Beartown lives and breathes hockey, and their high school team is LIFE for them. There is so much drama and politics surrounding the team, which is one big plot point. But when the school’s star player (literally is being scouted by the NHL) rapes the daughter of the league’s GM, the town is divided (to say the least). It was infuriating and heartbreaking to watch this play out, to see how the daughter was actually holding it together better than her mom, who is an attorney and struggling with the reality that she couldn’t protect her own child. And then the dad who has to choose between his family and the team.

This was so well-written, the characters were SO ALIVE, the town felt so real. My heart is aching just writing about it but it’s actually not some huge depressive missive: yes, it’s dark and dramatic, but there’s love and friendship too, and some big hero moments which made me gurgle on my own tears while I laid in bed reading it and then I couldn’t fall asleep after it ended and I think about it every day. Five stars. You’re my favorite.

Apparently, Nordic Netflix adapted it into a series, which was released last fall and some light (OK, obsessive) google searches have learned me that the US is picking it up sometime in 2021 and I hope that means we’re getting the original with subtitles, please god.

This is my first Fredrik Backman book, although I have definitely seen his other books around the block, and this will definitely not be my last!

***

So, November was pretty good for me! December is also going well (I’m currently reading my 200th book of the year!) and I have ANOTHER five star book that has completely taken over my mind and I can’t wait to tell you about it in my December wrap-up!

La Août Fin*

 Food
Sep 092020
 

*the accent in which I head-said this was offensive to all of France, straight down to the stale baguettes in alley trash cans, and definitely sounded more Swedish Chef than Ratatouille.

I’ve never even seen Ratatouille but imagine there’s some French-accent action up in that piece?

And also, who cares about offending France.

Also, why did I even title this in fake French?

Why can’t I ever just start a blog post in a normal fashion.

Anyway, nothin’ like a weekend recap a week later! I can’t even remember what happened!

But apparently at some point, Drew jumped on the fridge and I took this picture, because KIT-N-CABOODLE.

Honestly, I’m not even sure what we did on Saturday. I think “we” worked on the coffee table, and I have a vague recollection of spray-painting picture frames. The neighbors probably really wonder if this is a residence or an artist compound.

Sunday was cool though. I watched Halloween commercials from the 70s and 80s and the nostalgia pangs had me screaming.

Later, Henry and I went to some antique place (the same place I got my Mouse Attack sign and my oldest wheelchair, so it’s definitely a place where I’ve had great success) but you’d never know we were in the middle of a pandemic because all of the professional antiquers were out and about and it started to feel very crowded and I’m not trying to get corona for the sake of scoring a couple 1980s coffee cups, OK.

So I hissed at Henry through my mask, “WE GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE. NOW.” We hadn’t even made our way to the second floor yet but it’s OK – I’ll go back another time when it’s not as crowded.

Of course I was pouting about this when we left, but Henry saved the day by suggesting that we order lunch from Onion Maiden’s weekend pop-up, Chick Habit* which focuses on faux chicken sandwiches and  that’s pretty much my favorite when it comes to vegan/vegetarian fare. (Real life pause while Henry and I have a deep discussion on how the Toronto vegan scene is exponentially better than Pittsburgh’s. Damn, I miss Toronto.)

*You know, the place that Chooch made me unfollow on Instagram so that he could be the 666th follower.

We had some time to kill after Henry placed the order so we parked and walked to nearby Black Forge, which is hands down one of my favorite cafes in this damn city. If you* ever visit me, I’ll take you there. Their punch cards feature head shots of the Trump administration – ’nuff said.

*(Yeah, you!)

My inner Karen was gesticulating wildly inside of me because the mom-and-kid duo in front of us were so annoying. I think I was probably still experience residual anger from having to leave the antique place, and they probably weren’t that annoying. But still! I was mad because we would have been ahead of them if stupid ass dumb head worst child ever Chooch hadn’t texted me to change his fucking idiotic Chick Habit order, which resulted in Henry having to call them back before entering the cafe and sure, I could have just gone in ahead of him but I’m very clingy in this pandemic landscape. (I mean, just to him, not strangers! Trust me, having to socially distance myself from other people has been the best thing ever. Love that for us misanthropes.)

I love when establishments take mask-wearing seriously. I knew I could count on Black Forge!

Anyway, every one ahead of us had very relaxed and natural banter with the barista, and then when it was our turn, I had already completely shut down and fucking Henry looks like a serial killer when he wears his mask so she didn’t even bother striking one up with us.

My favorite parts:

  • when they were out of the cold brew that Henry wanted because I love when a place doesn’t have what he wants since I’m the one that usually happens to;
  • when she said she could make the specialty drink he wanted as a latte instead of cold brew and he said OK but asked for almond milk instead of whole milk, and then she came back halfway into making it and said, “Oh yeah, since this is a latte, it will have milk in it IS THAT OK” and he was like, “Um yeah I know but can I have almond milk” except that he was mumbling it and even I could barely hear him, so then it looked like they were having a staring contest until she broke first and said, “So is whole milk OK then” and he just completely gave up and shook his head yes.

I mean he pouted about this on the walk back to Onion Maiden but hello – he is not vegan nor is he lactose intolerant so shut up Henry.

“I just like the taste of almond milk in coffee!” he will cry when asked about this.

I stood outside while Henry went inside to grab the food. This was after I went into some goth apothecary store and tried to buy an old wooden clown head I saw in the window but IT WAS NOT FOR SALE.

“Why, do you love it?” the shop proprietor asked after I loudly groaned “UGHHH” behind my mask and stopped just short of stamping my feet. You never know what you’re gonna get with me: either a one-dimensional cardboard cutout with the personality of a robot or my full-blown manic, ebullient self. This guy got THAT.

(OMG NEXT TIME I HAVE TO INTRODUCE MYSELF WITH AN ADJECTIVE, I’LL USE THAT!!)

So then we chatted about that for a bit and I could see the relief in Henry’s eyes when I walked out without a large wooden clown head tucked under my arm.

Onion Maiden has some killer signage on their storefront.

Got our food and on the way home, we saw some bitch in a FLYERS SHIRT brazenly strutting down our street like she wasn’t doing a damn thing wrong and I wanted Henry to hit her with the car but he calmly said, “Let’s not go that far” WOW.

The Penguins are the only Pittsburgh sports team that I was defend until the day I die even though I don’t watch hockey anymore because we got rid of cable a few years ago and I had to forcibly divorce myself the obsession. :(

(Also, I got REALLY FUCKING ANGRY when Fleury was traded, so that helped with the divorce proceedings inside my heart.)

Get to the point, Erin! We came home and ate our amazing fake chicken sandwiches and they were delightful and the cashew cheese was better than some others I’ve had in the past, so that was a plus. Henry liked his too (“I JUST WISH IT WAS BIGGER,” he said which made Chooch scream THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID and Henry flipped out because he hates when Chooch TWSS’s him but I always laugh because Chooch has really good TWSS timing and gets a few good ones in a day (THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID) so now we’ve decided that Henry is either a closet feminist or just very uncomfortable when his teenage son turns nearly every conversation sexual. Sometimes he’s not even in the same room as us and he’ll yell it to us without missing a beat.

Chooch is my idol sometimes.

Sometimes.

Pretty sure I spent the rest of the day being sad that I had to “go back” to work after my week-long staycation that I painstakingly recapped for you blog readers so you better read that!!

Wimbledon 92 & 911 Calls: A Numerical Weekend in July

 Uncategorized
Aug 032020
 

Hello. I meant to write about last weekend, well, last week, but I get so one-track-minded sometimes that I wasn’t able to pull myself away from whatever other nonsensical bullshit I was doing, so here we are. And honestly, it’s not like I did much aside from – wait for it – kitchen bullshit. 

But here are the 2 standout points.

Wimbledon ’92

On Saturday, the ghost of Erin 1992 whispered in my ear, “Remember Wimbledon 1992…..” and suddenly I couldn’t get to my Roku fast enough. I NEEDED TO WATCH ANDRE AGASSI WINNING WIMBLEDON IN 1992. Because I’ve reached the next level of coronavirus which is: relive Andre Agassi’s first Wimbledon win on YouTube and cry like it’s 1992 and you still have a collection of Agassi-related newspaper clippings & drawings in a neon yellow see-through binder. What?

“Oh man, you have NO IDEA how much I loved Andre Agassi,” I moaned as Henry walked past me to go and do actual labor on the kitchen. (These fucking cabinets, man, lol oh god kill us.) 

“Um, yeah, actually, I do,” Henry scoffed, because apparently being with me for 20 years makes him an expert on my obsessive personality. 

I have a vague recollection of making congratulatory signs after Andre won and hanging them at the end of my street. Also, I posed this on Instagram and my friend Liz commented that she remembered my AA obsession fondly. We were really close in middle school and she got dragged down in a lot of my bullshit, like when I would listen to nothing but the cassingles for Boyz II Men’s “End of the Road” and Sophie B Hawkin’s “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” (that b-side, good lord) in my walkman on our trip to Lake Chataugua or when we go to the movies and I would have to have an empty seat next to me in which to place my Paul Coffey hockey card because I had the hots for me, which is exactly how my dad would phrase it if you were to ask him, “How did Erin feel about Pittsburgh Penguins Paul Coffey in 1992?”

So yeah, I had the entire Wimbledon finals match on that day and felt all the emotions when Andre won (and also every time he lifted his shirt to wipe his face OH MY FUCKING GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD) and then all these other old tennis matches played on YouTube for pretty much the entire day because no one could be bothered to change it.

Erin Calls 911
 
Henry and I had just returned home from a Target run on Sunday afternoon. When we were crossing the street to our house, I was semi-aware of a man who had seemingly emerged from one of our neighbor’s driveways and had crossed the street. I didn’t really pay much attention to him, but Henry, who was outside still trying to get the paint off the cabinets, came inside and told me to look out the window. 
 
The man was still outside, right across from our house, and he was very clearly under the influence of…something. Pills? Heroin? It seemed much worse than alcohol. He kept taking things out of his pockets and dropping said things all over the sidewalk, one of the things was a pill bottle, which was empty as evidenced by the way nothing dropped out when he turned it upside down and shook it.
 
So then he started licking the inside of the bottle.
 
I see a lot of weird shit on the street and usually I’ll just let it go, but this guy looked like he was a danger to himself. At one point, he was walking in the middle of the street and cars were having to swerve around him — I don’t live on some sleepy suburban street, you guys. It’s a pretty busy thoroughfare and I definitely wouldn’t recommend taking a leisurely, impaired stroll down the center of it. 
 
So I called 911. Which is scary because I always hesitate to get the police involved in any situation because who the fuck knows if it will escalate, but hey – the subject of my call was a white man, so at least he had that going for him.
 
Sigh.
 
I kept my eye on him while waiting for the cops to arrive, and that man was a dumpster fire. His pants were falling down, he was swaying, picking stuff up off the ground, re-dropping the same stuff, examining the empty pill bottle….it was so fucking depressing to watch.
 
Anyway, the cops came and talked to him for awhile, then eventually cuffed and searched him. Finally, the paramedics rolled up and took him away. I mean, I’m sure that didn’t end up being in the magic wake-up call that he needed, but I can only hope that it prevented him from hurting himself or someone else, at least on that particular Sunday. 
 
I don’t like making assumptions, but I’m pretty positive this was a drug thing and I just can’t emphasize enough how much I fucking hate drugs. I hate seeing what they do to people and it scares me how all it takes is one wrong choice, or having a surgery and becoming dependent on pain meds, or maybe you made a new “friend” who likes to “party” and just one time won’t be enough to hurt you…Well, whatever the case it might be for the man on Pioneer, I hope that he’s able to find the support and strength to get sober. Because that was so depressing and disturbing to watch and I kind of want to throw up just remembering it. 
 
Well, on that somber note: ciao for now!

Hello From G-Dragon’s Pension!

 Korea/Japan 2019, travel
Aug 042019
 

We made it to Ildong today around 11:00am and took a taxi to Pocheon Art Valley for some super sweltering hot fun times before it was time to check in to Dolce Bita (G-Dragon’s pension), all of which I will post about later because right now I’m sitting in the VIP room of G-Dragon’s pension, eating a strawberry sandwich & drinking banana milk with Running Man on TV – exactly where I belong! Korea is my favorite forever.

Family portrait in the mirror of the VIP room’s foyer!

There’s this guy staying in one of the rooms below ours who was laying out earlier and he was SO NICE LOOKING so I was calling him my boyfriend. Later, Chooch was like OH YOUR BF IS ON THE MOVE! I SAW HIM AND ALL OF HIS MUSCLES WALKING AROUND and he told me to look, so I did and he called me a creep?! HE WAS THE ONE WHO WAS LOOKING!!!

We’re supposed to be “relaxing” today since we’ve been so go-go-go for this entire trip and that seemed like a great idea until I got here, in the Middle Of Nowhere, Korea, and remembered that I do not have the ability to relax, ever.

Oh and for anyone who thinks G-Dragon isn’t popular anymore because of BTS, this joint is all booked up.

I brought a book with me so I guess I could try and be a lazy oaf like Henry and read that for a while but it’s not that great – It’s called Baby Teeth and I didn’t know it at the time I checked it out of the library, but it’s written by some broad who lives in Pittsburgh so its super Pittsburghy right down to some stupid comment about how the main character had travel ALL THE WAY TO THE SOUTH HILLS for a doctors appointment, like go fuck yourself, really. All of the characters are insufferable. It’s about a 7-year-old girl who won’t speak and hates her mom and starts doing terrible things to her when the dad isn’t around, and the dad doesn’t believe the mom, who has Crohn’s and every fucking chapter talks in gory detail about various Crohns-related surgeries she’s had and fistulas and packing wounds and I can’t even feel bad for her because I hate her and I hate the daughter and just wish she would die and the dad is such a fucking Swedish creepball, I hate the whole damn family and want a meteor to hit their stupid Hygge house in Shadyside.

I think that’s Danish.

So, yuppie IKEA house in Shadyside.

Meanwhile, Chooch has read two books since we’ve been here (in Korea) and loved both.

Speaking of Chooch, he was straight stalking a Corgi at Pocheon Art Valley today. First, the dog ran up to him barking but his owners called him back and Chooch was like HE WASNT GOING TO ATTACK ME, CORGIS LOVE ME. So then suddenly the Art Valley was super interesting to him and he was determined to pet the dog, to the point where he google translated “can I pet your dog” in Korean.

Here he is at the bottom of a hill, hot on the corgi’s trail. When I caught up to him, he was searching Instagram for the Corgi because according to him, it looked like the owners were doing a photo shoot with him and, like, “all corgis have an Instagram.”

I pointed out that Spencer, the local Corgi, doesn’t have one so now Chooch is going to suggest to his owner Bob that he start one and let Chooch be Spencer’s social media manager.

Anyway, tomorrow is our last day here and I’m panicking about it. We did so much more this time but it still feels like NOT ENOUGH.

Oh well. I will have a full report on the pension, and the Ildong and Pocheon area once I get home and get my thoughts together, but this place is definitely idyllic, especially if you’re the type of person who enjoys vegging out with beautiful nature and pictures of G-Dragon around you!

Ok, Henry just brought out the soju so maybe relaxation won’t be so hard to achieve after all.

UPDATE: GD’s dad is here!!

He was sitting outside when we went out for a walk and very cordially said hello to us but I did NOT have the nerve to ask for a photo, I’m a failure.

Also, some black dog left his owners who were hanging outside of a neighboring pension and decided to tag along with us and it was super awkward bc we were like “go home doggie” but he opted to go down and chill alone by the lake.

Meanwhile, a group of drunk disorderlies stumbled past us and I was like “oh god please don’t be American, you’re going to make everyone here hate us” but one of them screamed, “WE’RE RUSSIAN” to the dog owner who was walking with us in an attempt to get his dog back and I was like THANK GOD and also once they were close to us it was obviously they were Russian because they all looked like hockey players. I stereotype.

Anyway we walked to this cute cafe for an evening iced latte (me), a strawberry smoothie (Chooch) and a Hoegaarten (Henry the Hoe) and it was one of those times where being able to read Korean cane in handy because the whole menu was in Hanguel. A really sweet young girl waited on us and she seemed happy to help us bumbling foreigners. It’s tough the farther you get outside of Seoul because English is rare but it really says something to be on the other side every now and again. Americans take so much for granted!

Now we’re sitting on our patio, Chooch is in the pool, and we’re listening to the people below us talk while barbecuing and maybe slowing down for a night isn’t so bad after all.

Work Wordiness: One May Week

 Reporting from Work
May 272019
 

A few months ago, there was a bit of a reorg at work and the group I’m a part of expanded. This was great news for us because ever since we lost Gayle and Amber1, it just never felt right. So now we have Nate and Cheryl, and two women who work out of our Chicago office – Vicki and Joyce. So, they have been with the Firm for years and years, but to most of us, they were just names in an email, you know? I never really had any interaction with Joyce, but Vicki was my predecessor when I moved over to the position I’ve been in for the last 5 years, so she used to email me a lot back then with questions.

But now that they’re officially a part of Amber’s group, we’ve been looping them into our daily emails and it’s been fun sharing things like pictures of pets and Game of Thrones memes. So when Amber told us that Vicki and Joyce were going to be in our Pittsburgh office last week, I was SUPER STOKED. Like, stupidly so. I was eager for some new faces and the chance to be social. It is SO QUIET AND BORING in the office most days! Like, no one talks. Most people have their earbuds in all day and if I do dare to speak out loud, no one ever hears. I’m like a fucking tree falling in a forest, you guys.

Anyway, I woke up bright and early Monday morning, bad moods be damned. I got ready, ate my breakfast, considered leaving a few minutes early to grab the earlier trolley just so I would have more time to piss around during the meet n greet Amber set up in our conference room, but instead I left at my regular time. The fare machine was down so my fare attendant boyfriend told me to just go on and not worry about and then he winked which would maybe be creepy if he didn’t have Jamie Lannister eyes.

What a great start to the week, I thought! Free fare, fresh blood and bagels at work…I was actually smiling in public!

But then after I got on the trolley, it only made it three minutes down the track before stopping.

And straight stayed stopped for FORTY-FIVE MOTHERFUCKING MINUTES, ya’ll. I’ll get to that in another post because I have a bunch of trolley tales to regale no one with.

So, yeah. I was like 30 minutes late to work and totally missed the meet n greet because the conference room was already too crowded by the time I got there and my social anxiety was in full effect.

Later that morning Amber brought Vicki over to sit with me and when I went to shake her hand after Amber introduced us, Vicki asked, “Is it ok if I hug you?” and went on to say that I’ve helped her out so much over the years and look I’m not a huggy person but I made an exception because that was so sweet! So then she sat with me for an hour so I could show her some things I do on the daily but mostly we just chatted, don’t tell Amber lolol.

I was worried though because they put Vicki in my old desk right in front of Glenn so I had to go over there and make sure he wasn’t being a jerk to her at which point he was sure to tell Vicki that I’m considered the office bully but I folded my hands under my chin and made angelic expressions so Vicki said she refused to believe I was a bully.

Then I showed her and Joyce my collection of RIP Glenns and they were like OH ERIN HAHAHA and it was then that I knew I had them brainwashed by my charm.

Charmwashed, perhaps?

On Wednesday, we had a meeting with our full group present (actually, this is WRONG because CATHY took the day off!), and usually I’m like, “Ugh, meetings” but this one was exciting because we were all together in one room! Before the meeting started, Joyce and Vicki were asking us if it’s always so quiet on our floor and we were like, “Oh yes” and they were saying how bizarre it is for them because the Chicago office is lively and everyone keeps their office doors open.

Not here!

I don’t know how that happened. But yeah, it’s why I won’t eat anything crunchy at my desk because literally the sound you’d hear in that tomb would be my mastication.

So, in true “stalling-the-meeting” fashion, I started to tell everyone a story about how when I was 19, I quit this one office job that I had because, you know, I was 19 and didn’t want to work, but my mom was paying my rent so I didn’t want her to know that I quit my job because then she’d be like “OH HELL NO, FREELOADER” actually she would have never said that because I also had her charmwashed. Anyway, I used to collect CDs of sound effects and TV show theme songs because I was REALLY INTO having creative answering machine messages. One of the CDs had office sounds on it, like phones ringing and hard typing, so anytime I needed to call my mom during the day, I would play that in the background so it sounded like I was at work.

“OMG ERIN!” Amber and Vicki cried in unison.

“How this story never come up before?” Todd asked, while Glenn just rolled his eyes.

I guess I didn’t realize how idiotic this story was but it was really just an effort to preface my suggestion of playing that CD in the office so it would sound like, you know, an office.

From the 90s.

My other suggestion would be to play soft rock throughout the department. Something nice and soothing that probably no one would object to, like Phil Collins or Richard Marx.

After the meeting, it was time for Nate, Todd and me to take Joyce and Vicki to lunch! Amber was supposed to also go but she had already gone out to lunch with them on Monday and Tuesday and said she was all lunched out, so she gave Nate the company card and put him in charge! WE WERE GOING TO LUNCH UNSUPERVISED. It felt exciting yet scary all at once.

Nate put me in charge of WALKING US TO THE RESTAURANT. When I got to the part where we needed to jaywalk (my co-workers have taught me so many bad habits), I started to freak out because jaywalking is scary, so Joyce was like, “Well….why don’t we just walk to the corner then? I don’t understand…” Yeah, because people in Chicago are normal!

I remember Barb told me this story once about a time she was in Columbus for a hockey game and when she just ever-so-casually and naturally jaywalked, someone said to her, “You must be from Pittsburgh.”

It’s awful, you guys. We are truly terrible people.

Anyway, we went to the Yard and I was stoked because they have Impossible Burgers there! Also, I made Vicki ask the host if we could sit in a corner table and I scrambled past everyone to claim the best seat at the head of the table.

“Ugh, I feel like I was MEANT to sit here,” I sighed and Todd was like “no.”

Meanwhile, Joyce was like, “Who is that one kpop band…BLT or something?” LOL, no, but go on! Anyway, she said that while BTS was in Chicago for their concert, a BTS pop-up shop went up near the Chicago office so Joyce was going to stop in and get me something before they left for Pittsburgh.

“But the line was three blocks long!” she cried. Actually, that seems short for anything BTS-related! I really appreciated the thought though. These ladies are so cool and I can’t believe that in the 9 years I’ve been working here, I haven’t made an effort to get to know them.

This was one of the best work lunches I have ever had! Man, I felt myself growing very attached to Joyce and Vicki. Even Todd, who  never knows who anyone is, knew who we were having lunch with and agreed that it was a good time!

I made Vicki and Joyce admit that of the three lunches they had with coworkers that week, ours was the best and they said yes without hesitating but I did notice that Joyce that looked at a passing waitress with hostage eyes. She learned it by watching Todd.

Thursday was J&V’s last day in our office so our whole entire group, finally together at last, went on a field trip to Millie’s (still mad at them) for ice cream! Todd was like, “Please no more pictures” right as I hollered, “WE NEED SOMEONE TO TAKE OUR PICTURE!” I passed up two normal looking people in line and went straight for the way-too-tanned Miley Cyrus-looking girl who just walked in with her boyfriend and right around the same time I was beginning to get a contact high from their weed perfume, I asked, “Can you please take our picture” but she continued to look straight ahead but I learned to NEVERTHELESS, (she) PERSIST(ed) so I asked again and she snapped her head to look at me in such a way that I thought she was going to go all CASH ME OUTSIDE on me but instead she said, “I WAS JUST GOING TO ASK YOU TO TAKE OUR PICTURE TOO. WE’RE ON VACATION.”

It was really strange because she hadn’t even looked at me up until then, but ok.

I asked her where they were from and she said, “Wheeling WV!”

OK, that’s like an hour away, but whatever. Live it up in the “big city” while you can, I guess.

So that’s how we got this fantastic group picture!

When there was a small moment of silence while we mindlessly gorged on our ice cream, I shot my hand up in the air and said, “I have a great suggestion. What if we keep Joyce and Vicki and send Glenn back in their place.”

Silence….then stifled giggling…then Todd and Cheryl just flat out cracked up, giving the OK for everyone else to laugh too.

“That’s….Erin,” Amber said to Vicki and Joyce in a tone that I couldn’t tell was more proud or disappointed, perfectly summing up my office identity.

Meanwhile, Glenn was too in his ice cream zone to even notice I had spoken, so Amber had to tell him and he for once had NO RETORT.

I miss them already. It was cool to have a bit of a shake up around the office for a few days!

Friday Fives For All My Housewives

 Friday Five, Uncategorized
Feb 222019
 

My life lately has been consuming every piece of footage I can find on YouTube during Taemin’s “Want” comeback cycle, scream-singing jingles to the cats about my every movement, and having stress dreams about work. So basically, nothing to see here, haha.

Ha.

Ugh.

But I do have some pictures on my phone that I need to dump into this blog-commode, and of course those pictures come with words, apologies in advance. I’ll try to limit it to five things because that would be staying true to the title of this blog and keep me an honest woman.

(EVEN THOUGH HENRY NEVER MADE ME AN HONEST WOMAN IN THE FIRST PLACE.)

1. Bad Ice Cream

I know what you’re thinking, “Poppycock!” because you live inside a Dickens novel probably, but it’s true: we had a bad ice cream experience last Saturday and I’m still very sad about it. You know I love Millie’s. Everyone knows I love Millie’s. I have been singing their praises for years, ever since they opened a storefront, even though they replaced my then-favorite ice cream joint, Oh Yeah. I have been taking out-of-town friends to Millie’s, arranging “off-site work meetings-slash-team building” field trips to the Millie’s downtown, and basically I just pimp the fuck out of Millie’s like she’s a real life corner-stander in fishnets.

Chooch and I were RULL stoked to go to Millie’s on this particular day because they recently started a limited flavor series called Love Letters where they partner up with other local food businesses, like chocolatiers, honey makers, cheese….rs? You get what I’m saying. We both really had our hearts set on this one that was made with some dude’s fresh ricotta or whatever, mixed with almonds, and topped with an optional drizzle of Mike’s Hot Honey which hello, that’s the same honey I had on my pizza in NYC and it was THE BIZZ.  But once we got there, Chooch changed his mind and was going to get some chocolate hazelnut thing instead, which was also a Love Letter.

Right off the bat, I got BAD VIBES from the young girl working. She was surly. No personality. Seemed super rushed. First, I watched her be incredibly rude to the couple in front of us (young Asians, so you know I was on their side), sighing heavily as they asked for samples.

Then when it was our turn, Chooch tried to order that hazelnut thing and she cut him off with a curt, “We’re out of that.” WELL, PUT SOMETHING ON THE SIGN THEN, HON. So he instead got some orange floral flavor which I didn’t think he would like but he did, so at least one of us had a happy ending.

When it was my turn, I ordered the Owner of a Tony Heart or whatever it was called, and she very exasperatedly said, “Cup or cone” like bitch, lemme finish and you’d know. When she handed the cup to me, I said, “Can I also have the honey driz—-”

“We’re out of that,” she snapped, yet somehow retaining her no-personality blankness.

You guys.

I was super off-put by this. I have always had wonderful service at Millie’s so this came as somewhat of a shock to me, not like I’ve never had shitty service before, but you know.

But worst of all, when I started to eat my ice cream, IT DID NOT TASTE OF SWEET CHEESE AT ALL. It tasted plain! Like vanilla! So I of course pouted over this and Henry was like, “Please just take my ice cream” but at that point, I didn’t EVEN WANT ICE CREAM ANYMORE. Look, I don’t pig-out on ice cream very often anymore and I considered this to be a special treat since Chooch and I have been working out with Jillian so hard. I DIDN’T WANT TO WASTE THE CALORIES ON SOMETHING I DIDN’T TRULY WANT!

I realize that this is about as first world probz as it comes. I am a very self-aware peoples.

So first I complained about it on Twitter and my fellow ice-cream aficionado Chris of Chronica Fame immediately replied and we commiserated about my woes publicly for all to see. THEN I TOOK IT NEXT LEVEL and commented on the picture of the ricotta ice cream that Millie’s had recently posted and said, “Mine did not look like that and you were out of the honey *Sad face*”

Almost immediately, they DMd me! Through a congenial back-and-forth, we deduced that I likely did not get the right scoop and at this point I made sure to let the spokesperson know that the broad slinging that ‘cream was ambivalent at best and they were like OH NO PLZ DESCRIBE HER so that was awkward but I did it and they came back and said that she had actually been called in on her day off but they were not excusing her attitude and will have a talk with her ASAP so then I just felt guilty because we all have our bad days, and I hope that she is actually always like this because those types of people NEED TO BE TOLD ON.

And that’s what I’m here for. Tattletale till I die.

Oh yeah, so this was resolved by Millie’s offering me a free pint of any flavor I want and now I have to go back ASAP and try a REAL scoop of that ricotta stuff and thank god they have other locations now because I’ll probably never go back to the one in Shadyside ever again now that I NARC’d.

2. EATING WITH WORK FRIENDS

I have been pretty sheltered lately, not really on purpose but because I’m so distracted with my hobbies and whatever that I have been slacking at making plans. However! I had food plans two Saturdays in a row with friends and it was a nice shot of social stability.

Two Saturdays ago, I had breakfast at Pamela’s with Jeannie, Wendy, and Summer. We didn’t talk about work at all! It was really nice and tranquil until Jeannie started showing Summer (Wendy’s three-year-old daughter) pictures of her dog because we’re always vying for Summer’s attention. She was already unimpressed with my Everland popcorn purse so then I started showing her pictures of my cats to counteract Jeannie’s dog (ugh he’s cute though but I wanted my cats to win!). Then I pulled out the big guns and started showing her gifs of Taemin and Jinu. She gave me this bored look and was probably wondering how old I am.

(Side note: Then I went home and got a weird stomach bug which only lasted half the day so I’m not sure if it was my food or what. But yeah, that happened, and that’s also how I “accidentally” started watching You on Netflix which Glenn had mentioned that he and his wife were watching but when I saw that PENN BADGLEY is in it, I was interested. I was excited to tell Glenn on Monday that I was watching it and that DAN HUMPHREY from GOSSIP GIRL is in it.

“I didn’t watch that,” he mumbled.

So then I gave him a major spoiler and he mumbled, “Again, I really don’t care.” WOW.)

This last Saturday, BARB and I had lunch at Blue Flame! BARB sent her bacon back because it tasted like fish and this is still endlessly funny to me, so much that when Henry asked me later how Barb is doing, I said, “She sent back her bacon because it tasted like fish” and then I started cracking up.

I always learn the best little nuggets about Barb every time we hang out. This time, she was proud to tell me that she is not as obsessed with Tom Jones anymore (that actually made me sad!) and that when she was younger and traveling with her dad for hockey games, she and her friends would go to the front desk of the hotels and have “Mike Hunt” paged. LOLOLOLOL BARB IS THE BEST. I couldn’t wait to tell Chooch! He didn’t get it at first and just kept saying “Mike Hunt?” over and over which made it even funnier.

Penelope occasionally  wakes me up in the middle of the night because she is straight SCREAMING at this old, dirty yellow pompom that she either loves or hates, I can’t tell, and it is so annoying. I got more sleep when Chooch was an infant, I swear.

3. Stress-ships

I mentioned earlier in this post that I have been having stress dreams and I actually started to write a blog post about it the other night but then I was like THIS AIN’T NO DREAM JOURNAL, YO. However!! Janna had a stress dream about me and I wanted to share it because it’s basically the perfect analogy for our friendship, or, stress-ship.

So apparently in this dream, I had given Janna a thing of blueberries to hold for me but then she ate them and started to panic because I was going to come back for them so she started running around trying to find more blueberries but people kept snatching them from her hands and this made me LOL so much when she told me because that’s exactly the kind of friend I am – the kind that would get pissed and maybe even slap a person if they ate my blueberries.

And I don’t even like blueberries that much! But I would still be mad!

4. A LOT OF MICHAEL MCDONALD 

I naturally do this thing where I sing what I’m saying, which is something that Henry and Chooch love and cherish about me. Lately, after almost every infuriating convo with my aforementioned almost-teen, I walk away singing Michael McDonald’s “I Keep Forgetting” in my head except the lyrics are “I keep forgetting you fucking know everything. I keep forgetting my brain’ll never be as big as yours.”‬

IT MUST BE SO BURDENSOME KNOWING EVERYTHING.

Speaking of Michael McDonald!

Guys, you remember a few weeks ago when we were driving home from Toronto and I heard that old 80s jam “Yah Mo Be There” by James Ingram? Well, that song also features Michael McDonald and when I was talking to Todd about it at work the next day, Glenn kept interrupting to say it was the Doobie Brothers and I was like, “No, it was Michael McDonald” and he again mumbled that it was the Doobie Brothers and I snapped, “NO IT WAS JUST ONE DOOBIE, GLENN! JUST THE ONE! MICHAEL MCDONALD!” Ugh, goddammit.

Anyway, THE VERY NEXT DAY JAMES INGRAM DIED. We were all stunned. It was like the time I unfriended someone on Facebook and then he died. Glenn even said he had goosebumps.

OK, that part wasn’t about Michael McDonald, but it was kind of related.

This also just brought back a memory of when I started dating my ex-boyfriend Jeff. He told me that everyone thought his step-dad looked like Michael McDonald.

“Eh, never mind. You probably don’t know who that is,” he said, not yet knowing that he was dating THE YACHT ROCK QUEEN.

When I eventually met his stepdad, I was like, “Holy shit, he does look like Michael McDonald!” It was uncanny, really. You had to be there.

5. FESTERING FEELINGS ABOUT CERAMICS

Hey guys, I’m about to throw it back here for you. When I was in 4th or 5th grade, my mom and I decided to taken ceramics classes together and if we’re being honest here I’m pretty sure it was my idea. We started going to this place called KIRSTING CERAMICS which was run by a husband and wife in their basement which I know sounds like the premise of a student horror film (THE KILN) and everything was great at first, we painted and kiln’d lots of pumpkins and turkeys for the fall, but then my mom started MAKING FRIENDS there and IGNORING ME and Kathy’s husband was a fucking dickstick who was always acting like I shouldn’t be there when their dumb adopted daughter ran amok like a bull in a…ceramics shop BUT NO ONE EVER SAID SHIT ABOUT THAT.

Eventually, my mom started going without me and I know it was just like her escape from my stepdad or whatever, but I was super butt-hurt about it and reasoned that it was probably just because she was jealous that I was so much better at ceramics than her. Lol.

I don’t remember how long ago this was but those ceramic assholes eventually sold their house and now it’s State Farm Insurance.

“That’s actually where my mom was the night my dad THREW A FORK AT MY HAND ON ST PATRICK’S DAY!” I cried to Henry last week after we drove past the old Kirsting house and I subconsciously memory-purged this whole chapter of my life.

“WOW I GUESS I AM STILL MAD ABOUT THIS,” I yelled, and Henry was just like, “Wow, ya think.”

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

The only way to officially end this post is with a Taemin outro, sorry. “Artistic Groove”‘ is the “b-side” he’s been also performing on all the music shows and at first it didn’t stop my heart or anything but it’s had a slow burn on me over the week and now I think I might like it more than “Want” – especially toward the end when he starts doing these things with his voice that remind me of my favorite Sophie B. Hawkins song (“Don’t Stop Swaying,” OBVI) and it is like warm nostalgia-syrup is being poured on my dumb pancake face.

I don’t know what that means exactly but it all starts around the 2:54 mark, and specifically at 3:07 he sounds like a goddamn angel and I want to punch Henry in the face for not being able to pull off wearing a white ruffled blouse.

Three Thursday Treats!*

 Reporting from Work, where i try to act social
May 032018
 

*(I totally typed “Threats” at first which could easily be the case on any day.)

Three very important things happened today and I just couldn’t wait until the next bulletpoint post / word smorgasbord to tell you.

I mean, it’s not THAT great, but anytime anything even remotely exciting happens in my life, I’m pretty happy.

It all started last night when my favorite Pittsburgh ice cream joint posted on Instagram that, in honor of getting 10,000 followers, they were declaring today FREE CONE THURSDAY.

Just in their Market Square location!

Which happens to be right by my work!

I texted Amber and she was like YES so today we rallied our little group together and made a date for 2PM Free Ice Cream Cones. I emailed everyone the list of May flavors which Millie’s just released today and Glenn was like, “WHAT NO KIMCHI?!” I know, right?!

Anyway, I walked over to my old side of the floor at 1:58 to get everyone together and of course I was the only one ready! And then we had to wait for Amber to finish doing work stuff! Ugh! But eventually we all headed out together and everyone was so excited to be with me since I moved and now they don’t get to see my dumb face for 8 hours a day anymore.

And I was happy to be outside of work with real life people and hoped that some of the weirdos who are always slithering around out there would see and realize that I’m not just That Girl Who Walks In Circles Alone Downtown, but someone who actually has friends!

When we got to Millie’s, the line was out the door and down the sidewalk, which wasn’t surprising, but Amber was like, “Well, let’s just get in line and see how it goes” so we did and it actually moved pretty quickly! I mean, luckily for them, I was there to entertain them with my wildly riveting stories that they don’t get to hear everyday anymore.

I was so worried that people were going to cut in front of us and Amber and Lauren were like “You’re being silly” BUT THEN PEOPLE CUT IN FRONT OF US AND WHO IS THE SILLY ONE NOW?! I was so mad and I kept loudly saying, “Did those people cut?!” and Todd was like, “They sure did” and then Lauren was like, “Let’s distract Erin before she makes a shiv out of her plastic kpop keychains and stabs those poeple” so she started asking me questions about Mr.

Small’s because she’s going to a concert there but I literally couldn’t stop staring at the people who cut and I was so afraid that they were going to get the last scoop of whatever flavor I wanted, and I didn’t even know what flavor I wanted yet.

“I FEEL LIKE I’M AT KENNYWOOD AND SOMEONE JUST LINE-JUMPED,” I seethed to Glenn and Todd who were both like, “It’s over now. Move on.”

But then we got inside Millie’s and Charlie Puth’s “We Don’t Talk Anymore” was on and I was like, “REMEMBER WHEN I SAW CHARLIE PUTH” and Lauren took this as her opportunity to make me forget about seeking revenge on the line-jumpers and said, “YES I DO! AND YOU WERE LIKE IN A SMALL ROOM WITH HIM TOO RIGHT” and then all was well. Thank god too, because I was almost as mad as I was the day before when I was on my lunch break walk and Henry mentioned something about golf on the phone and I flew off the handle about how golfers aren’t athletes.

“EXCEPT FOR ONE, AND YOU KNOW WHO I’M THINKING OF!” I cried.

“Phil Mickelson,” Henry sighed, because my Phil Mickelson obsession is something that he has been trying to figure out since like, 2004.

OMG, the rest of my day was pretty much ruined because of this. Thanks, Henry. Thanks, GOLF.

Um, back to Millie’s. Surprisingly, they still had all but one flavor left! I thought for sure we’d get there and they’d only have Golden Milk left, whatever that was. I kept wanting to call it Yellow Snow. But anyway, I got Yuzu Meringue, which was made with Asian citrus so it was the next best thing to Kimchi!

And it was sooooo good. There was a huge chunk of pie crust in it and you have no idea how much I love it when there is pie crust in ice cream.

Lol, I made them pose for this Team Building Ice Cream Cone picture and they were like, “For God’s sake, Erin.” BUT THEY DID IT.

Thank you, Millie’s, for having such amazing fan service! Or customer service. I keep forgetting that not everything is about Kpop.

Then later that afternoon, I was on my walk and saw Ovechkin, LOLOLOL:

In case you don’t know anything about hockey, he’s on the Capitals, and they are currently playing the Penguins in the Stanley Cup playoffs. He’s a huge rival of Sidney Crosby and Pittsburghers hate him.

AND THEN I CAME HOME AND KCON ANNOUNCED PENTAGON AS THE FINAL GROUP FOR KCON NEW YORK AND I STARTED CRYING!!!! They’re in my Top 3 favorite groups and I kept hoping they would be announced!!

However, if I’m able to get BTS tickets, there might be nothing left for KCON tickets. I mean, I guess I could always sell my plasma?

Do people still do that? Being obsessed with things like I am makes life super stressful sometimes, haha.

This concludes my Three Thursday Treats blog post. I HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT.

Walking Figure Eights in Gangnam: 3/28/18

 South Korea, travel
Apr 242018
 

With the exception of the small portion of the afternoon we spent in Yeouido earlier in the week, we had been spending all of our time in “old Seoul,” which is north of the Han River, while “new Seoul” is south. I can tell you without any uncertainty that old Seoul was where I would gladly spend most of my time if/when I ever get to return, but I had to cross the Han in order to visit some kpop places of interest, the most important being SMTown.

But first, Henry had to look at a map…

I had just been saying that so far, this day was the best we’d had, what with starting our morning off with a hike up to Namsan Tower, and then eating lunch Myeongdong, and pretty much not having any direction snafus! But then…Gangnam.

But wait, let me back up. So, Gangnam is the ritzy neighborhood of Seoul. You might remember back in 2012 when there was a huge kpop hit that crossed over to American radio: Psy’s “Gangnam Style”? I knew a girl at the time who was so offended that this was being played on the radio because she thought he was saying “condom star.” OK…

So, that kind of put Gangnam on the map for the rest of the world. It literally means “South of the river” and is ridiculously upscale. I mean, as soon as we got off the train in Gangnam Station, the underground shopping went from sock vendors to motherfucking designer brands. It was like being in a completely different country. And then once we emerged from the subway station, even the people were different. The fashion was way more sleek, the men all dressed like they were straight out of k-dramas with their perfectly-fitted pants and pastel shirts and it was pretty hard not to stare in awe because everyone was so beautiful and physically curated.

Of course, Henry took us the wrong way right off the bat and we ended up standing in the middle of a sidewalk next to what appeared to be the main and extremely busy multi-laned street in Gangnam, looking like fucking losers for the millionth time of the trip, when an older man on a scooter rolled up to us on the sidewalk, and in broken English asked us where we were trying to go.

Henry looked at me like, “This is all you, YOU tell him!” so I sheepishly said we were looking for SMTown.

“Oh, idols? Idols!” he said, recognizing immediately what I was looking for because everyone in Korea knows kpop idols. This man was so freaking sweet and tried his very best to help us even with the very strong language barrier. He told us we could walk there, and pointed the way, but made a motion with his hand and sound that I think was implying “walk waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down that street.”

So we set off BACK THE WAY WE CAME because traditionally this is what Henry does to us, and before we made it off that block, the man in the scooter came back to us. He must have thought about it after we left and waved off his original directions. He pulled out a notebook and wrote down the names of subway stations in his best romanized attempt (honestly, romanization of the Korean language sucks. I wish I had the foresight to tell him to write it in hangeul) but we we were able to understand his new directions, and god bless that man because we got off at the subway stop he suggested and literally SMTown was RIGHT THERE when we emerged from the exit.

SMTown is this really cool multi-level building owned by SM Entertainment and full of interactive exhibits, a gift shop, a cafe, and displays of costumes worn and awards won by artists on the SM label. It’s also the collective name that the artists on SM go by.

My second favorite kpop group is on SM—-SHINee. There was no way we were going to leave Seoul without a visit to SMTown. I needed to see all of the SHINee displays!

Close-up of the mirrored facade.

I almost fell off the escalator while drooling over these large SHINee portraits on the wall. I’m notoriously terrible with escalators and generally need to devote every ounce of my attention to gripping the rail and keeping a solid stance on the step. I had one really scary escalator incident when I was around 4-years-old in Atlantic City and my SHOELACE GOT CAUGHT.

Don’t worry — my Pappap was there to rescue me.

I watch all of these different Korean music countdown programs whenever my favorite artists are performing so it was really fun to see some of these awards in real life, and for Red Velvet no less! (Chooch and Henry both really love Red Velvet, FYI.)

Super fun fact about Red Velvet: one of the members (Wendy) is actually from Minnesota. During these past Winter Olympics, one of Amanda Kessel’s (Team USA hockey and also sister to Pittsburgh Penguin’s Phil Kessel) college friends posted a picture of their college golf team group picture for Throwback Thursday and someone noticed that Wendy was also on the team! So random.

BUT TAEMIN, THO.

Chooch and I saw NCT127 at KCON last year and when they performed Cherry Bomb, we thought the bass was going to blow the roof right off the Prudential Center. It was fucking intense.

Also, there are various NCT groups (NCT127, NCT Dream, NCT U, and now NCT 2018) and I just can’t keep them all straight. I remember watching an episode of Weekly Idol were NCT127 was trying to explain all of  the different units, and Dony and Cony (the hosts) were just like, “No, just stop talking. It’s too much.”

Anyway, one of their members, Johnny, is from Chicago I think. I would say their most popular member is Taeyong but he’s my least favorite because he makes me feel uncomfortable. Don’t ask.

Henry was like, “Just take this fucking picture, fast.”

Taeyeon is my favorite member of Girl’s Generation.

More Taemin!

Chooch was annoyed because there were some girls there giggling at him, lol.

Seriously, Henry – why don’t we have full-blown murals of kpop stars in our house?!

He was so over it, hahaha. (OR WAS HE. He loves kpop, don’t let his terrorized gaze fool you. He sends me kpop news articles all the time!)

You guys, Taemin’s hands are slightly smaller than mine and I have pretty small hands! Chooch’s hands looked like ham hocks next to all of the idol hand molds.

Chooch got this picture from one of the photobooths after two girls hogged it forever:

Yes, it’s already framed and hung on the Wall of Chooch.

We almost missed the 4th floor because there was a weird stairwell but thank god we saw it because that’s not only where all of the gorgeous fan art lives (the collection blew my mind), but also the Jonghyun memorial was there as well. I posted about that separately, because it was important and special to me and, well, I just felt that it deserved its own post. So if you feel like it, you can read about that here.

After absorbing all of the SM-goodness, we went to the cafe where Chooch and I each got a plastic collectors bottle of our favorite groups (SHINee for me, and Red Velvet for him). Henry bitched about it because they’re pretty small and once we added our respective beverage selection, they were $9 a piece. God, Henry, just pay the guy!

Random view of Gangnam.

After we left SMTown, Henry took us on a cross-country trudge to the JYP building. Oh my good god, our feet felt crushed and I sincerely thought that I had fractured something just from literally pounding the pavement with shoes that were OK comfort-wise, but not the best for walking 25 miles a day. We just kept walking and walking and getting more and more slap-happy, to the point where Henry quit talking to us altogether, especially since everytime he said something we would repeat it back to him in an Eeyore voice.

We’re such angels!

Every time we would ask him where we were going, he would fly on the defensive about how “ALL THE DIRECTIONS I FIND TO THESE PLACES ARE SHITTY, OK!? I’M DOING THE BEST THAT I CAN!!”

Lol forever.

We did eventually make it to JYP, after feeling like Henry was leading us off the face of the earth. And we knew that we had made it because we rounded a corner and saw a bunch of girls sitting on a curb across the street from it.

Honestly, I just wanted to do a quick walk-by and snap some pics of the building, but Chooch got super comfortable on the curb with the other fangirls, hoping for a chance to see someone from Got7 leap from the front door and disappear into a tinted-windowed car.

Henry was not OK with this, but I bet the Dunkin Donuts across the street is super on board with it, considering their shop was packed full of sasaeng (crazy) fans staking out at their tables with coffee and donuts.

It was Jackson’s birthday so there was a birthday sign up for him. Sadly, he was in Hawaii at the time (I believe) so there was no chance of getting a glimpse of him.

I would have been happy seeing TWICE!! That’s who I was holding out for.

Chooch kept saying, “Just three more minutes.”

“Just six more minutes.”

“We’ll leave at 5:45.”

“Make that 5:50.”

We eventually left at 6:00, after staking out for a half hour. I’m too old for that! (OK, maybe if there was a chance of seeing G-Dragon or Taemin, that would be making a bed under a bush somewhere, but G-Dragon is in the military now and Taemin was actually in LA the week we were in Seoul, because fuck my luck.)

This next part is almost too painful to relive by blogging, but we promised Chooch that we would go to Kakao Friends in Gangnam and Henry took us some convoluted way back to a random subway station and then we got off at what he assured us was the “correct” stop but we still somehow ended up walking over an hour through the now-dark streets of Gangnam, which was getting more and more crowded because people love to freaking shop, and Chooch and I were getting more and more angry and our feet hurt and Henry was trying to win back our hearts by making jokes and we were like, “NOT ON THIS DAY, HANK.”

Long and incredibly miserable story short, we did eventually make it to Kakao Friends and Chooch was so happy, so I guess it was worth it.

We split a strawberry cake at the Ryan Cafe (Ryan is the main Kakao character) and wouldn’t let Henry have any, hahaha. But at least we were all laughing at this point. We kept the cardboard coffee sleeve for our scrapbook about Henry getting us lost. We haven’t started it yet though, because I’m not a scrapbooker by any stretch and when I went to the craft store to get a scrapbook, I felt so overwhelmed and stressed out and then I just got mad because none of those kits are my style. Everything was all jesus-y and corny. Doesn’t anyone make scrapbook shit for Godless people!?

And since we hadn’t eaten a legit dinner, we gorged on street food in a side-street near Kakao Friends, because twigum (fried food) is life.

Here’s a quick compilation of street action from that day in Myeongdong & Gangnam:

I kept telling myself, even though Henry’s screwy directions had us walking figure eights all around Korea, at least we were IN KOREA. We were happy by the time we got back to the hotel, and that’s all that matters.

Next post: TRAIN TO BUSAN!

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