So since Shadows was a disappointment you shouldn’t expect much from me. So to start off, I had to go to the bathroom and there were no porta-potties to go in so I had to go to some weird bathroom with toilets that didn’t have water and it just dropped underground. Then I turned the “water” on and there was nothing and there wasno SOAP, so I didn’t wash my hands at all but oh well. The trail was uneventful because there was a HUGE group in front of us, and by huge I mean 6 people, maybe 5, but they were taking their good ol’ time and talked to EVERY. SINGLE. ACTOR. So by the time we would catch up to them, we would have to stop and wait till we can’t hear them anymore. Which is a long time, because THEY NEVER SHUT UP! Then we would get up to the spooky parts and the people wouldn’t be ready and yet mum was still fidgety. Furthermore, since we were going “too fast”, which is normal speed, and we were catching up to them, one of the actors was walking with us because we were catching up to them so he was strolling down the trail with us. That was the most that happened, OH, then a chainsaw guy chased us through a field at the end. Which happens every year, and since I knew it happened in a field, I saw a field and pushed mum back and fled the scene.
Cheeseman’s Fright Farm was, in my opinion, better this year than last year. You will find out why in the end. So we went with Blake, Haley, Janna, mum, and ME (the best) and we so spooked. During the hayride which was pretty uneventful besides the part where a chainsaw dude was putting the saw part under mum and Haley’s butt, and he touched MY FOOT! He was strange I don’t know. Then there was a strobe part and it was the part with the (creepy) chainsaw guy, and it also had some weird mannequin with a Hillary Clinton face on it, for some reason, and I think it had to do with the area we were in. Then besides that nothing else really happened on the hay ride.
During the walk-through attraction, we went through a super dark, foggy tunnel with weird guys who popped out and screamed and I did my high-pitched scream (on purpose) and kept walking. Then I was the leader because I can be and there was a knock-off Jason guy and he was wearing a low-budget hockey mask. I attempted to go around him but I brushed against hay bales and tripped and he then clapped very slowly, and mum laughed at me. Then we got in to a carnival and this guy who led us through it, tricked us into going around in a circle, but the third time we went around we noticed a flap in the wall and we walked through it.
Then, came my favorite part. The Snake Room!!!! So it was this room with a bunch of snakes obviously, and in the corner I noticed it wrote, “The Cuddle Corner,” and I said, “The Cuddle Corner???”
The girl said, “Yes the cuddle corner. Would you like to hold a snake?”
No hesitation at all I said,”YESSSSS!!!”
And that’s how I died of poisoning. Lol! Just kidding! How would I write this? This is it, the end of the post. Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe to see more of me!
It’s Chooch back with “The Adventures of Amethyst”. Sorry to make you wait like Game of Thrones because it’s been 2 years.
Drew looked down, and started to tear up.
“What’s wrong?” Penelope asked Drew concerned.
Then all of a sudden, Drew started to laugh. She was laughing hysterically, so loud that her skin started peeling off revealing a hint of steel.
Penelope saw this and started to shout, “Guys, go! I got this.”
“How do we know?” Garnet asked worried.
“JUST GO!”
Garnet started to turn and dash but realized that they were still on a log flowing rapidly down a river. She remembered about the log and waited for it to pass by. She grabbed Amethyst by the forearm and jumped to the log. Her feet skimmed the water and she lost her grip on Amethyst.
Amethyst screamed, “Help! Quick, find something to pull me out!”
Garnet started breathing heavily, and she looked around. Her hands started to glow, and that’s when she remembered the day her parents had died. The day was October 13, the day of misfortune, and her parents had gone to the Never-ending forest to search for the endangered species of Bloorbs. Bloorbs are a furry, fluffy kind of “Lizard” and they only come out on Friday the 13th. So Garnet had to stay back with her nana, Vrov. She was the meanest, most loudest Nan in the town of Hurghston. Before her parents had gone on the trip, they handed Garnet an amulet. That amulet had a chain around it, so she put it around her neck. Her parents had made it to the forest and gotten out of their jeep, and they got all of their equipment in hand. They had walked about a mile in the forest until they heard a crack in the leaves. They assumed it was a Bloorb because they are the only reptile/mammal around at night on the 13th because all the other animals get frightened and burrow or hide.
They said together, “Litinol!” That is the spell for light.
They tip-toed over to the spot where they had heard the noise and they saw a bit of fluff. Garnet’s mom got the net and trapped it, but it didn’t move.
The dad inferred, “Wait maybe…” He picked up the lizard and it was plastic.
They said, “Oh man, whoever did this is going to die!”
They chanted the spell that explodes the radius around them, but in the middle of it, they felt a shift in their spines. They turned around to see a warrior with a hockey mask and what had been jabbed into their backs had been a machete.
Garnet started to whimper and her eyes started to glow. That flashback had made her exasperated. She grabbed the amulet that was around her neck and closed her eyes. All of a sudden she felt an alteration in her bones. Her hand started to glow even brighter and metal started poking out of her hand. It was getting longer and it started to look like a chain. She decided to throw her hand in the direction of Amethyst and the chain shot in the air towards her. It splashed in the water and Amethyst got soaked, she didn’t care because as long as she wasn’t going to die she was fine. She grabbed on to the chain and Garnet pulled the chain back into her hand. Amethyst had landed on to the land.
Despite that, Penelope and Drew were still on the log speeding down the river. Drew had completely broken in to full animatronic now. She had two metal legs that had bolts missing in certain spots, and her chest area was missing a section completely so she was smoking. Drew had swung her arm at Penelope but she had ducked and heated up her arm in the sleeve of her hoodie. Drew had ducked and kicked Penelope’s shins. Penelope reacted very sharply and almost pushed herself off of the log. Drew laughed and went for a shove but Penelope countered it and pushed Drew back. Drew had saved herself from falling but her finger dipped in the finger slightly and it made a spark. That’s when it hit Penelope. Drew is a robot, so her weakness is water and it will screw up her programming. Penelope cupped her hands and dipped it in water.
Then she said, “Hasta Lavista, Baby,” and she splashed Drew in the spot where she was smoking. The water had steamed up that spot even more and it started flaming. With the flames and all of the sparks, it was like Fourth of July, which Penelope is scared of. She lunged at Drew and landed in the water. She came out with 3rd degree burns on her lips and her neck. Penelope was close enough to the riverbank and she pulled herself up and started coughing up water and ash. She looked back and saw Drew no where. Did she escape? Did she keep going?
Look. I used some ironic Pittsburghese up there in that title and typically that is a pet peeve of mine but I figured since this is kind of a Pittsburgh tourism post thing, might as well add the full flavor, right YINZ GUYS?
Ugh.
Scott and Maya had left the itinerary of the day up to me, but they did express interest on going to the aviary at some point to watch the bats getting fed. I had no objections to this, but I will admit that the aviary is not something that I would have put on my own Pittsburgh travel itinerary. Not because I’m like, anti-birds or whatever, but because I honestly usually forget that this place even exists.
In fact, the last time (and maybe possibly even the only time?) I was ever there was when Chooch was 3 months old and I was adamant on taking him there for some reason even though Henry kept reminding me things like, “He’s only 3 months old” and “His eyes can’t even focus yet” and “He will never remember this.”
I think I got a discount for being a Pitt student maybe, and that was back when I was trying to milk it for all it was worth. So we went and two things happened:
Chooch didn’t care
Chooch doesn’t remember it (and I barely do, either)
I went to the aviary’s website the night before to see what the admission fee situation was like, and was surprised that it was only $15 (that seems reasonable) and that it’s apparently the largest in the country!
So after our Millie’s ice cream lunch, we walked over to the Gateway T station where some elderly couple, clad in Hawaiian button-downs and fanny pants, accosted us and started firing off questions; first they asked us if we were from Pittsburgh and I hesitated, unsure of my answer, because I was afraid of the questions that would follow. Turns out they were trying to get to the Carnegie Museum of Art and Janna and I tried to explain that they couldn’t get there by using the T and then the lady was pointing at a map like, “But it’s right there, can’t we just walk” and we just like, “Hey babe, that’s just where you catch the bus to get you there” but she was arguing with us about it and then the guy was like WHERE ARE ALL THE CABS which is the Pittsburgh equivalent of Pee Wee asking to see the Alamo’s basement, for real.
We suggested an Uber or Lyft but the lady was like, “I DON’T HAVE THAT APP” and honestly, their attitudes were pitiful and didn’t make me feel inspired at all to help them any further. Fucking swim there, it’s a beautiful day and the river’s right there, you know?
Ugh, talking to strangers is so exhausting.
Anyway, we got on the T and Maya was just like, “Aw, this is cute” because she and Scott lived in NYC, so…..the trolley here really is cute compared to a true urban transportation system. But I managed to get us off at the right stop (fine, Janna did – I’m not very familiar with the T past Gateway) and then we made it to the aviary on foot without getting lost so this day was shaping up to be quite the success. And all of my work friends were so worried about what I was going to do to these poor people!
Inside the aviary, I was reminded about how much I love birds and how so many of them remind me of my cats. There was one majestic owl in particular that made me mentally weep for Marcy. :( She always reminded me of an owl.
The penguins were especially delightful and showing off for us. Maya said their daughter is really into penguins so that’s just another check for the “pro Pittsburgh” column because HELLO OUR HOCKEY TEAM IS THE PENGUINS. Plus, they’re a better team than Nashville. *insert fingernail painting emoji*
I really liked this room because not only was there a Buffalo Bill’n flamingo, but Janna almost whacked in the head twice by free-flying birds and it was amazing.
You guys, I didn’t realize the bats were going to be so big! I was expecting those little tiny fruit bat things that my dad used to taunt in our backyard by throwing a wiffle ball high up into the air and making them dive down for it. Sigh, fun times on Gillcrest Drive. These bats were like ACTUAL VAMPIRES. I was so stoked! These particular bats are Flying Foxes.
Janna mused, “Aw, they’re like foxes with wings.”
“That’s why they’re called FLYING FOXES, JANNA,” I yelled. God!
Anyway, the feeding was way more exciting than I ever could have imagined. One of the aviary workers came into their habitat with a pail of watermelon, grapes, and…papaya? I can’t remember what the third fruit was now. You know me and my details! Let’s just gloss over everything as usual.
While the lady was hand-feeding them (they’re particular little suckers! GET IT—SUCKERS?!), she relayed some facts about them, like how big their wingspan is (like 4 feet or something) and then started talking about the dangers of unsustainable palm oil so now I’m obsessed with it and even downloaded the app that she recommended so that when I buy Halloween candy, I can make sure it’s from a company that’s not an enemy of the rain forest. (Look up “sustainable palm oil” in your app store and join me!)
Major props to Scott and Maya for suggesting the aviary. I had a lot of fun there and felt that just watching the bat feeding alone was worth the price of admission.
While we were there, I sent Chooch a picture of some giant condor that reminded me of his idiot cat Drew and he was so angry that we wnet to the aviary without him. I mean, even before he knew we were going to the aviary, he was mad that he got left behind, but have you met Chooch? He is the worst when it comes to things like this and would have totally impeded upon the day and started to complain that his hip hurt from walking too much. He’s pretty dramatic.
We capped off the day of sightseeing with some coffee at Colony Cafe, where we got to relax and get to know Scott and Maya some more. They are so freaking easy to talk to, it’s kind of maddening. How do I unlock this life skill?!
After that, we all walked back to the Wood Street trolley station, where Janna had a total tourist moment by not being able to put money on her Connect Card, so Scott gave her a dollar so that she could just be a TRUE N00B by paying cash on the T. Oh, Janna. While we waited for the T, some crazy Steelers fan tried to engage me in FOOTBALL TALK but I shot him down, only for Scott to be like, “I know football things” so then they started talking about sports things and I thought to myself, “If they move here, they will be just fine.” Honestly, all it takes is even one small nugget of knowledge of one sport, any sport, and you can get by. Plus, Maya accidentally was wearing a Batman shirt in the official color palette of Pittsburgh so I think people were mistaking her for a fan of the Pirates/Penguins/Steelers, pick one, any one.
(I think it was on the trolley where we heard people talking about Nashville for the second time that day, and we all exchanged looks because what were the odds, you know?)
Anyway, we parted ways with Maya and Scott when the trolley rolled up to Station Square. They were going to check out Mt. Washington via the incline and I really wanted to do that too but Janna had a pie to make and I had to go home and get all of the pie party decorations out of the basement and then decompress because I always get so stressed out the night before the pie party, you have no idea.
As soon as they got off the trolley and the door closed, I looked at Janna and gushed, “OMG I LOVE THEM!” and Janna agreed that she also thought they were great and we both started to hardcore hope that they will move here. There were absolutely zero bad or weird vibes. Yes, I was still a little nervous and a lot shy because that’s just me, but I could tell that these are people I can be myself around and I was really excited for Henry to get to meet them the next day.
Meanwhile, not only did Janna have to pay an extra fare for using cash, she also lost a quarter because the fare thingie doesn’t give change. She was pretty nonchalant about this though which was annoying because I wanted her to be more upset. On the walk back to my house, though, some (possibly drunk?) guy walked past us and when he pulled his hand out of his pocket, some change flew out and clattered to the sidewalk. He glanced behind him when this happened, but then kept walking, undaunted that he lost money.
“Janna, you should pick that up. It will make up for the quarter you lost,” I urged. There was at least a dime and a nickel chilling on the sidewalk, plus whatever he dropped further up the sidewalk, but she chose to just pick up the nickel. As soon as it was in her hand, I yelled, “JANNA YOU JUST STOLE FROM THAT MAN!” and he whipped around to look at us while she tried to pass the nickel off on me! I was like, “I DON’T WANT YOUR STOLEN MONEY!” so she ended up leaving it on some sign that was in front of the pool hall we were walking past.
It was great. You should have been there.
*****
Later that night, I got an alert that the Pens game wa starting. They were playing Nashville. I guess all the “random” Nashville talk we kept overhearing that day wasn’t so random after all! Oh ho ho hockey.
I’m not over here blowing on my fingertips or anything, but I am basically the (un)official Pittsburgh haunted house tip line, OK? Of all the things to be an expert of….Anyway, I decided to repost this thing I wrote a few years ago since it’s the beginning of the haunted house season and people* are already asking me questions about which places to take their kids to, etc. Even though some of the things in this are dated (some of the referenced haunts aren’t around anymore), it’s still PRETTY HELPFUL — so read it, don’t read it, print it out and send me your heavily red-lined copy of it — it’s a free country. Also, if you live in Pittsburgh and want to go to a haunted house with me and Chooch, WHY YES WE WOULD LOVE TO.
*(Real ones, too! Not imaginary ones like usually.)
****
Every Halloween season, I get pretty nostalgic about the “old days.” Way back in the age of flowing flannels and Contempo Casuals (where I would buy all of my slutty “I’m a slut who has money” slut uniforms), it was possible to go to two, sometimes even THREE haunted houses in one night for under $20. True story! It seemed like every last VFW, YMCA and Boy Scout Troop had hoarded enough black garbage bags over the course of a year and used their dues to stock up on slipshod Halloween masks from K-Mart to pull off a “haunted house.” And it may have been hokey and rudimentary, full of blacklit Jason Voorhees masks and “accidental” boob-brushes, but fuck if it wasn’t fun.
In high school, I would scour the newspaper for haunted house ads and then my friend Lisa and I would stuff her parents minivan with our ragamuffin group of friends and proceeded to exercise our god-given vocal prowess. We were Those Kids that everyone else hated standing in line with. And I was That Girl who flirted obnoxiously with Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, hoping to make my crush Evan jealous. (HE NEVER EVEN NOTICED.) There was the Bethel Park Haunted Yard, Clairton’s Haunted Pool, the Glassport Haunted Fire Station, and then all of the Haunted Schools: Castle Shannon, Victory, the Tri-City Jaycees one that I lost my keys in and then it burnt down (no correlation to my keys). Before there was Hundred Acres Manor, there was Phantoms in the Park and Terrors By the Lake. Before Kennywood had their Fright Nights, Station Square transformed into Station Scare and offered carnival rides just in case all of the fog machines, hyper-jealous boyfriends and diet pills* didn’t get you nauseated enough.
*(What? My weight issues go waaaay back.)
But then the behemoth, corporate haunted houses started popping up and taking over. The ones that pay to have haunted house listings and the Travel Channel call them the #1 Haunted Attraction. The ones that make you wait in line for upwards of 3 hours because OMG WE ARE THE BEST IN THE BIZ SO STAND AND WAIT, JAGOFFS. They pour loads of money into their advertising, production and animatronics, but they lack the true Halloween spirit and moxie that the smaller haunted joints have. Money can’t buy moxie, you guys. I’d rather walk through a haunted trail lit by flaming jugs of moonshine in some hick’s backyard than give those corporate bastards my money, if we’re being totally frank here.
People are usually shocked when I start waxing contrary about the city’s most popular haunted attractions, so I have compiled a list to offer some insight into what makes a “good” haunted house.
Here is the official Oh Honestly Erin Haunted House Criteria:
1. WillThere Be Chainsaws?
It doesn’t matter how many times Henry exasperatedly assures me that there are no chains on the chainsaws, the moment I hear that whirring, no matter how far away it is, I am suddenly in booty shorts at Camp Crystal Lake and Jason Voorhees is mad as fuck because I just had sex on a hammock, and where the hell did this adrenaline come from? I don’t know, but look! I can scale the backs of the people in front of me!
Even when I’m standing in line chanting, “I hope there are no chainsaws. I hope there are no chainsaws” the truth is that there better be at least one fucking chainsaw guy who takes his position really fucking seriously because I just gave you $15 to scare the shit out of me, so please, do just that. Henry does my laundry, so what do I care.
*THIS SEASON’S UNOFFICIAL WINNER*: Chainsaw Guy at Cheeseman Fright Farm. It was really cold that night on that bale of hay, and your persistent wielding provided warmth to my shivering extremities. Also, you didn’t give up even when I used my 7-year-old son as a shield. Good for you, Ambitious Non-Hockey Mask-Wearing Chainsaw Guy. You were way better than the apathetic Voorhees-wannabe at Freddy’s Haunts who whir-whir-whirred for approximately 10 seconds before walking away.
2. Will There Be the Possibility of Simulated Horror Porn by Michael Myers?
So, maybe it’s just me, but when I’m singled out in a crowd by some dude who looks like his face got violently bear-hugged by bologna slices and green olives, maybe even corners me and snorts and snarls in my ear, I am REALLY FUCKING EXCITED to be there at that haunted attraction. Especially if it’s a particularly sexy-savage Michael Myers. And for those 30 seconds you’re towering over me with your fake machete and vacant eyes, I promise to pretend that you’re not actually some pizza-faced 17-year-old band nerd. NO, YOU ARE A FUCKING HOT PSYCHOPATH WHOSE EVERY PRIMAL INSTINCT IS TELLING YOU TO KILL ME, BUT WAIT! WHAT’S THAT!? YOU ARE FALLING IN LOVE WITH THIS CHUBBY MOM-BROAD WHO IS SCREAMING HER FACE OFF!
And then I’ll go home and write about it in my haunted house journal and it goes something like this: Holy fuck, I am so hot for Michael Myers! I bet he doesn’t pay that much attention to anyone else in that wing of the haunted maze! When we made eye contact, I think he winked at me but it was hard to see over the strobe lights. AND SPEAKING OF HARD! I’m not sure if that was Michael’s tumescent cock-machete or the Pizza-Faced-Kid-Dressed-As-Him’s satchel of dork dice, but I’m totally probably maybe pregnant now, you guys, right?
Just to really illustrate my alarming Michael Myers crush, my kid wouldn’t exist today if I hadn’t thought his dumb dad looked like Michael Myers when he would wear his stupid blue Weiss Meats coveralls back when we were co-workers in 2001. THAT IS WHAT MADE ME WANT TO SLEEP WITH HIM, OK?
Anyway…
*THIS SEASON’S UNOFFICIAL WINNER*: Rich’s Fright Farm Michael Myers. You smashed your fist into the wall in front of me every time I tried to escape and at one point BROUGHT ME TO MY KNEES while Janna stood off to the side, staring at her imaginary watch. I could feel your hot murderous breath on my neck and it was, well, fucking hot. Now your demon seed is sprouting inside my womb. Womb, womb, womb.
3. Will Someone Please Entertain the Fuck Out of Me?
Hi. I just dropped the cost of a concert ticket* down on your haunted establishment, so please prove to me that I didn’t make a mistake. *(What? I like underground bands, you guys.) If you’re charging me approx. $18 for 30 minutes, then I better come out the other end feeling like I just came. I mean, feeling entertained. Ridicule my blondness with your biting wit! Tickle my eyeballs with your macabre decor! Make me follow directions! Engage me! (No really—do you want to get engaged? Because Henry apparently doesn’t.) Pay attention to me, to me, to me!
*THIS SEASON’S UNOFFICIAL WINNER*: Castle Blood, duh. You still never fail to call me out for being a dum-dum. (Remembering three talisman is trying. IT’S HARD FOR ME TO PAY ATTENTION, OK!?) You still make me believe I’m going to be poisoned in Professor Scrye’s lab and turned into mortal mana pua by some convincingly realistic witch. (I don’t know why I picked a Hawaiian food that I have never eaten.)
But let me tell you something about this sanguine estate—if you came looking for chainsaws and robotic corpses hemorrhaging on toilets, queue the Sad Tuba soundbite. This is half past Saw, more toward Nosferatu. Castle Blood’s tagline is “Halloween the way it oughta be” and they mean it. It’s elegant and unique, it’s intelligent and interactive, it’s humble and passionate about the season. I’ve been going to Castle Blood since the late 90s and it’s still just as refreshing and inspiring as it was when I was a teenager. We’ve been taking Chooch since he was a baby (first to the no-scare matinees; he’s since graduated to the nighttime tours) and he loves it because it’s magical while still maintaining a high creep-factor—-plus, sometimes Henry gets presented with a death certificate.
4. Will You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman Teenager Again?
As previously mentioned, I long for the old-school haunts of yore. The ones in vacant buildings that charge $12 and under and probably meet the safety standards of a treehouse in 1954. The ones that aren’t mentioned in the obligatory WHAT TO DO THIS OCTOBER newspaper write-up or any of the haunted house listings online. The small haunted house put together by members of a local community and advertise by tacking up flyers in Spirit Halloween stores or sticking bright orange signs in the ground next to the highway. I like giving these people my monies! They know how to crack me up while also making me pee my pants. (I had a longstanding reputation at the now-defunct Victory Haunted School, and every year, from the moment I set foot inside, the “monsters” would start chanting, “Erin’s here! Erin peed her pants!” So fucking obnoxious but I loved every second of it.
If I’m in such pitch-blackness that I need to walk with outstretched arms while simultaneously screaming to no one and everyone that I AM SO FUCKING SCARED OMG WAS THAT A BREAST I JUST TOUCHED, then this haunted house rules. If I’m told, “GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES AND CRAWL THROUGH THE TUNNEL OF LOVE…OR DEATH!” and I literally find myself scrambling on my hands and knees over top of what I really really really hope are pieces of a CLEAN mattress and I start screaming about how I CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVE TO DO THIS! I AM SO SCARED! OW I JUST HURT MYSELF! then this haunted house rules. If the volunteers are so over-the-top with their theatrical lines and fake gunfire that I am literally doing pee-squats from laughing so hard, then this haunted house rules. If I tell the guide that my name is Erin and he decides that “Smellvin” is a better name even though that would only make sense if my name was Melvin, but everyone else thinks it’s hilarious, then this haunted house rules. If some kid pops out of nowhere and freaking feeds me a mouthful of Silly String and even HENRY laughs, then this haunted house rules.
*THIS SEASON’S UNOFFICIAL WINNER*: Ohmygod it’s a tie! Teen Quest’s Scaremare in Mon City and the haunted basement of the Sewickley United Methodist Church. Can we please admire the irony here, that two of this heathen’s favorite haunted houses are Christian-based? IDGAF, these two haunts made me laugh until I almost peed. (ALMOST, I swear!) It was like being in high school again, faced with the threat of falling down a staircase and inhaling asbestos. And the volunteers at these two places had way more enthusiasm than any of the ones anywhere else, especially Terror Town, who apparently pays their actors and that is just ridiculous because for the last two years, their “employees” were relatively ineffective and I’m officially done giving them Henry’s hard-earned Faygo money. Especially after seeing one of those “actors” on Facebook turn her nose up at people who, god forbid, volunteer their time to play zombies. The people at Scaremare and the church in Sewickley had HEART. The church even had a babydoll displayed in a very horrific, decidedly un-Christian way! I applaud them for that, for being able to recognize that it’s OK to be outrageous and controversial in the name of Halloween, and for being so balls-to-the-wall. I actually wish I had the time to revisit both of these places this month. Even if it’s just essentially dropping money into a collection plate. I’m OK with that.
5. Do You Have a Worthy Haunted House Companion?
Chances are, during this season you are going to sometimes be driving great distances and are probably going to get lost at least twice (are you going to a hayride on some jackass’s farm? Yeah, good luck trusting your GPS with that), so you better make sure you don’t bring some douchebag along with you who is going to drive you so insane that you need to buy your first pack of Camel Wides in 7 years at some sketchy gas station in the middle of downtown Sharon, PA. (True story.) And then once you’ve arrived at the haunt, you might be standing in line for an hour at least. DON’T BRING A DUD OR YOU ARE FU-HAHAHAHA-UCKED. I was lucky this year and have gone to haunted houses with quality peeps (and Henry), but I have been pretty unfortunate in the past. Your company can make or break the haunted house experience, especially if you are so fucking over-the-top annoyed at who’s ripping your shirt in faux-fear that you forget about the actual haunted house itself. Did you like it? WHO EVEN FUCKING KNOWS?!
*THIS SEASON’S UNOFFICIAL WINNER*: And the award goes to my good friend Janna. No one handles being pushed and shoved into chainsaw guys with quite the panache as she, nor can anyone tolerate my extreme giddiness with such a steely veil of patience. Except Henry, but he hates going to haunted houses. I like to believe that every time I scream, and I mean SCREAM, “JANNNNNNAAAA LOOOOOOK OUTTTTT!” that I’m actually saving her life for real. And she just kind of chuckles a little at first, but by the end of the night, I sometimes detect some eye-rolling and sighing.
________________________
Those are my unofficial winners because I still have at least four more haunts to attend before Christmas starts shitting all over my fun. And remember, all of this is subjective. The things that I look for in a haunted house might not be the same things that make you scream like Laurie Strode or make popular local radio DJs jack off into each others’ cupped hands. If your haunt isn’t going to be gonzo enough to scare the FUCK out of me, at least entertain me. Make me laugh, make me push Janna into a chainsaw guy, have a hot Michael Myers, make me have some F-U-N if I’m giving you twenty goddamn dollars out of Poor Henry’s wallet.
(And let me just tell you, now that Chooch is brave enough to go to every haunted house with me, October is officially waaaaay more costly than December.)
Some extra tips:
Look for coupons! Sometimes haunted houses will offer them on their website. Hundred Acres Manor usually offers $3 off coupons at Eat n Park or Burger King. (They’re only good on Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, I believe.) And you know, check Groupon and Living Social or have a boss that forwards every single haunted house deal to you like I do. Maybe stop in your local corner pub and gather up enough barflies to qualify for a group rate. Just trying to save you some bucks, OK?
Go on off-nights! If a haunted house is open on a Sunday or Wednesday night—GO THEN! You will beat the crowds and probably have a better victim:monster ratio. Have you ever gone through a haunted house with just the one person you arrived with? SCARY AS FUCK. Real talk.
Try to remember that no haunt is perfect and “bad nights” can be expected. Maybe I went to Cheeseman’s Fright Farm last weekend and had a blast, but you went earlier in the month on a night where they happened to have a lot of volunteer no-shows. Shit happens, ya’ll, and most of it is behind the scenes. This is why I try not to do too much bashing. (And believe me, I’ve been to a few duds this year.)
If you go to a haunted trail after it’s been raining all day, you’re PROBABLY GOING TO GET MUDDY. Don’t be that dickhead who complains about it. Maybe you should have stayed home and watched a Duck Dynasty marathon instead.
Bitching about standing in line isn’t going to make the line move any faster and pro tip: NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR YOUR STUPID YINZER MONOLOGUE ABOUT IT, EITHER.
Pretend that you are actually running for your life. BECAUSE YOU JUST NEVER KNOW.
Hey! Why don’t you leave me a comment and tell me about your best (or…worst) haunted house experience?
I decided that I would liveblog my workday because I haven’t done that in a while and quite honestly, I have nothing else to write about because everything in the world sucks, you know?
And this morning sucks because it’s raining REALLY hard and I had to walk to the trolley thing and now I look like a drowned rat and my umbrella blew back and slammed me in the forehead and it HURTS and I made the mistake of telling Glenn.
“Oh wow, Glenn has a smile on his face so early in the morning!” Catherine said when she walked back to her office with her coffee.
“Yeah, because I injured myself!” I spat, and everyone laughed but NOT ME, I DIDN’T LAUGH.
And then Todd said I should blog about the NBA finals because that would take my blog to the next level. NO.
So, here’s my liveblog prologue. We’ll see how the day goes. Check back or don’t, I don’t care! Ugh!
9:14am: Lauren just got here and I let her talk a whole lot before I told her that I’m liveblogging today and now she’s mad that I didn’t give her a disclaimer before she started talking. EVERYONE BETTER WATCH WHAT THEY SAY TODAY. Just kidding. I don’t want to get fired.
9:36am: I can’t get an email to send and Todd just asked me if I pressed “send” and now I’m ready to flip a table!
10:32am: Just had an argument with Lou (typical) and then we got an email about something to discuss at this afternoon’s meeting which I guess we’re still having because “But it’s raining” isn’t a good enough reason to not have one or something which seems dumb.
Current candy situation ^^^
Everyone seems on board with the current stash of candy I’ve provided, although there has been some heavy discussion on the Pollito Alvbros (???) which some people claim has a slight chicken taste to it.
What nationality’s candy should we try next?! Glenn said we should do what Conflict Kitchen does and provide candy from the places that the US has conflict with, but given the temperament and idiocy of our current “leader,” that could pretty much be anywhere soon.
11:50am: I just briefed Todd on the latest in the T.O.P. marijuana scandal (Glenn has his earphones in, acting like he doesn’t care), and Todd said, “Thank god it isn’t G-Dragon though. I don’t know what I would do with myself” and I said, “I KNOW RIGHT” before realizing he was being sarcastic, ugh.
12:10pm: I’m currently eating one of these milk candies. They’re my favorites out of this recent candy batch because they’re Korean and I can read the package because my name is Erin and I’m amazing:
12:31pm: Remember when I said I was amazing? I was just in the kitchen and I couldn’t open my packet of oatmeal and one of my co-workers had to help me and it was mildly embarrassing because I was really trying to handle that shit on my own. I think my grunts and whines of, “Ugh, I can’t do this!” gave me away. It’s not even good oatmeal that’s worth the struggle either. (That would be the dinosaur egg oatmeal that I left at home.) UGH RAINY MONDAY.
Also, Lou has spoken to me 4 times without permission today.
1:48pm: Just came back in from my lunchtime walk and guess what — it’s not raining anymore! Today still sucks though. Some homeless guy snagged me (they always do because I have that deer-in-headlights naivete about my dumb turtle face, I guess) and when I said I didn’t have any change, he decided he wanted to talk about the good ol’ days, so I felt compelled to be his audience as he wove yarns about being a carefree kid and how then you grow up and they only things you think about are life and death, and then he had a massive coughing fit, and now I’m fucking depressed, man.
Also, I finally saw the Umbrella Sky Project at the Arts Festival that everyone has been posting about on Instagram and SORRY PITTSBURGH but my boo Seoul has one that’s much more fabulous, because: Korea.
2:44pm: We just had our weekly meeting and talked extensively about patchouli. Now Glenn is leaving for the day after giving me zero fodder for this liveblog.
2:55pm: UGH I was just filling in Amber on the whole T.O.P. pot scandal (Chooch gleefully pointed out that TOP is pot backward) and Todd started laughing. I called him out on it and he said that in his head, he was thinking, “Run, Amber, run.” SO RUDE!
3:41pm: It’s raining again so this blog post title is still relevant. Also it started raining after Todd left for his lunch break so that’s what he gets for laughing at my somber Kpop talk.
4:44pm: I picked a dumb day to liveblog. There is nothing happening here! So here is a special peek into Glenn’s locker thing:
Amber1 and I put those dead flowers in there over a year ago I think inspite of Todd’s protests (I think he called us Mean Girls) and I’m not sure Glenn even knows it’s there.
Um, all the other stuff is his, though.
4:51pm: WENDY just came over to get candy from the magical candy pumpkin. “What are these?” she asked, holding up one of those aforementioned chicken lollipops so I got really mad and yelled, “IF YOU WOULD HAVE READ MY LIVEBLOG, YOU’D KNOW.” I mean, hello. Anyway, she is like totally grossed out because it’s the shape of a chicken on a spit, and Todd happily pointed out that I, the sanctimonious vegetarian, ate one of those. “There’s something you could liveblog about – your hypocrisy,” Todd suggested smugly and I was so mad. And then Lauren started cracking up because she was thinking of our conversation last week when I said the word “gleeking” and how we became concerned after the fact that it might not mean what I thought it meant. “My friend Chad Green taught me about it in fifth grade!” I cried defensively. “It’s when you spit from under your tongue, typically when eating something sour!” And then Lauren was all, “Oh great, I just trusted you based on something you learned from a fifth grade classmate!” I want to google it now but then it might take a turn like it did a few weeks ago when I was googling Iraqi candy shop.
5:39pm: Hey you guyyyyyys. I’m here in the car with King Uber, aka Henry. He was like “I HAD TO CALL PAYPAL. I GOT HACKED! FOR $2.99! IT WAS FRAUD!” And I was like “You mean this app that Chooch bought?” and showed him the email that I got on my phone. So now Henry is mad that he has a fraudulent son.
Henry made me forward the email to him and he snapped, “WHY IS THERE HANGUL ON THIS?!” Because my email signature is in Korean? Le duh, oppa.
Plus, proof that it was raining today.
I just filled in Henry on my day. “I liveblogged today but it was boring. I think when people found out I was liveblogging, they quit talking to me.”
:(
6:06pm: Still in the car because traffic is terrible and now Henry is threatening to make me take the trolley HOME from work everyday now too as if one way isn’t terrible enough. But anyway, I was just reminded of the best part of today, when I was in the elevator this morning and some broad said she liked my bag and in a cheerful voice that came from one of my happier personalities, I said, “Thanks it’s from the 80s!” And she was like “OK cool.”
6:59pm: Henry’s supposed to be making my dinner but then Chooch interrupted with some kind of fabricated bike crisis and I’m just sitting here getting high off the wonderful tteokbokki fumes, but whatever who cares that all I’ve eaten today was crappy oatmeal and Korean milk candy.
7:29pm: my favorite part of the day! Dinner and Running Man!
8:23pm: “No.” – Henry’s response when I asked him if he wants to say something for my blog. Now we’re watching the hockey game and I feel sick. Remember when I loved James Neal and called him my Prom Date? Well that doucher can fuck right off now. He just looks like a soap opera villain to me, like he was shot and pushed off a cliff by the ISA but then came back to life as a Nashville Predator with an uglier face.
8:41pm: A hearty head shake. That’s wat I got when I asked Chooch if he wanted to say a thing for my blog. STICK A FORK IN THIS THING, IT’S DONE.
8:47pm: Here’s a song for the liveblog. This came on my playlist on the car on the way home from work, causing me to dance zealously with my fists (i.e. rhythmically punching), resulting in Henry roaring, “OK!!!!!”
Jeez.
9:00pm: Nashville fans are trash. TRASHVILLE. Go choke on a catfish. I find it so hard to enjoy hockey anymore.
9:53pm: Well, Henry ditched me about an hour ago for the sweet temptation of bed, leaving me alone with this dreadful hockey game and the ever-biased commentating of NBC. I painted my nails and have a headache but I think I will go and do some more kpopx while imagining that I’m stomping on the entire city of Nashville and their classless, twangy fans. I’M MAD.
10:20pm: crying over hockey and T.O.P. all at once because I’m a gold medal sobber. Boo fucking hoo. No cheesy kimbap for me.
https://instagram.com/p/BU-I1QCA_lQ/
I’d like to point out that I have been blogging since 2001 and this, my friends, this right here is the best I can do anymore.
11:14pm: Penguins lost and I just stress-ate a buttered bun while watching Drew hang off the window screen like she’s auditioning for the cat circus. This is real life, NO GLAMOUR, people!
DREW JUST BROKE SOMETHING. Eh, Henry will clean it up in the morning. On his birthday. HAHA.
In other “blogging just to blog” news, I bought a new phone case and it’s supposed to be delivered tomorrow so no more Unicorn Tears after that. Don’t worry – my new one is certainly not anymore mature.
But it’s very accurate.
11:41pm: OK WOW THX FOR YR PERMISSION??
11:55pm: Well on that note, it’s almost tomorrow so I guess that’s my cue to wrap this shit up. Hopefully tomorrow is sunnier and less boring. I mean, it is Henry’s birthday after all.
My decision to attend the recent A Lot Like Birds show at Smiling Moose was pretty last minute. Kurt Travis was the clean vocalist of this band, and half the reason why I loved them so much, but he was basically kicked out last year due to “creative differences.”
That’s always the reason!
I was so broken up over this! How could they go on without him?! No one could replace him! First Dance Gavin Dance, and now…et tu, ALLB?
Turns out, they didn’t totally replace him. Cory, the screamer, took over clean vocals, along with bassist Matt Coate. I only had the courage to listen to one song and I ended up really liking it a lot, inspite of its Kurt Travis-less vibes. :(
So I sucked it up and bought a ticket, and ended up having a fantastic time.
I’ll try to make this short and sweet because oh god no, not another concert recap.
So here are some things I want to remember:
Atlas Decay was the local opener. This was my fifth or sixth time seeing them and they are fine.
No natter how “at home” I feel at Smiling Moose, the fact that the room is as narrow as a Trump-supporter’s mind and cluttered with the gear of EVERY BAND PLAYING will forever have me constantly being in everyone’s way no matter where I stand. Sigh.
I saw the local band photographer that I briefly met outside Diesel at last year’s Hotel Books show and we pretended like we didn’t know each other, just like the last three times we saw each other at shows. #mutualsocialawkwardness
When the second band – OWEL- started setting up, I knew in my heart I would like them because they had a girl member and she HAD A VIOLIN. I later learned that she also plays the viola and keyboard and she sings as well. Once they started playing, the deal was sealed. I loved them. If you need me, I’ll just be following them around on tour. (I mean, vicariously on Instagram. Sigh.)
Next up was Hearts Like Lions. I saw them last year, also at that same Hotel Books show with the awkward photographer, so I was geeked to see them again, except that they weren’t as good as I remembered. Not that they sucker! Maybe the sound was a bit off or something but I wasn’t as drawn in as I was the first time.
Their set ended around 8 so I went back to the bar to get a drink (a Hoegaarten, ugh) and decided to forego the fourth band and watch at least the first period of the Pens game since I never get to anymore because we’re a No Cable Household (which was coincidentally the name of of the band I was skipping – just Household, not No Cable Household, to be clear) – and I’m still mostly OK with this decision! But….hockey. Anyway, they were down 0-4 before the period was even over so I chugged my gross beer and peaced out.
Finding a sort-of decent spot out of the way of the bands in the middle of moving their gear around, I occupied myself by staring intently into my phone (much like I’m doing now at the Balance & Composure show, waiting alone for it start), when suddenly I head someone say, “Did you see Emarosa when they were here last week?” I looked up and a guy in a Dance Gavin Dance shirt was looking at my expectantly. OH NO A CONVERSATION. WHAT TO DO? HOW TO TALK? I said I had, and realized not only was I wearing an Emarosa shirt, but it was one that just had the face of a fox on it and nothing about Emarosa. So he was a true Emarosa fan then! Fuck I forget his name already. Ryan? Mike? I don’t know, but his wife’s name was Ashley and they were both just wonderful. We talked about all the best bands and I showed them the video of Chooch crowdsurfing and of course they were disappointed to learn he wasn’t there that night. EVERYBODY LOVES CHOOCH. (OH MY LORD the laugh on this bitch standing in the bar at this Balance & Composure show is manufactured straight from the flames of hell. PLEASE LET THE FIRST BAND START SOON.) Anyway, that was awesome. Once I start talking to a stranger about music, it’s like ok me again.
ALLB came on and played their new album Divisi in its entirety and you know what? They killed it. It was still ALLB, just without Kurt. I pretended that Kurt was taking a sick day. Yeah, that’s it. Cory did a bang-up job with those clean vocals, and Matt looked positively joyful singing along with him. And in between songs, when we were all clapping and showing our approval, Matt said thank you and just beamed as he looked out at all of our dumb faces. It was humbling. It’s easy to turn your back on a band when your favorite member is ousted, but these guys are just way too talented to give up on. Even though my heart turned into a pulpy, aortic mosaic when Matt sang the “you’re already undressed” line from Properties of Friction. OH KURT :(
And that concludes my succinct summary of the A Lot Like Birds show at Smiling Moose. I’m glad I got to see them many times already with Kurt and I’m gonna stick with them on this new journey.
This post is brought to you by the letters ㅈ, ㅎ, and me standing alone miserably in between bands at the Balance & Composure show.
Here’s your weekly garbage dump of sloppy sentences.
The cats when Chooch makes a noise.
The biggest news I think I have right now is that WE FINALLY QUIT CABLE. Well, we tried to, anyway. We’ve been talking about cutting the cord for years now, and we ALMOST did it last summer but then I had hockey remorse so we didn’t cancel. But finally, I realized, “Holy shit, we literally never watch real TV.” It’s always Netflix and YouTube! Plus we have Roku. And the few times I do put on real TV, I’m like, “Holy shit, there is literally nothing I want to watch” so then I put on CNN and feel depressed, then switch to Food Network and watch a show about cupcakes that I’ve already seen but maybe not, but aren’t they all the same?! So Henry called Comcast on Saturday and stayed firm throughout the whole conversation, all the way up until the part where he said, “We just want to keep the Internet” and then found out that we would actually be charged so much more for our Internet usage that we would basically still be paying the same amount we pay for all these channels we don’t watch!!! So in the end, he got it knocked down to the very basic package, no HD, no DVR, but we still have Internet and the bill is over $100 less than it was so ONE STEP CLOSER TO KOREA, basically.
I guess I will still be able to watch the Penguins games too, just not on an HD channel. That’s OK, I still like hockey even when it’s all stretched out.
Last week, I emailed my Friday Kpop Video recipients a Bigbang video (this one, if you’re interested), and Todd was like, “This actually isn’t bad” but Glenn turned it off after about a minute and said, “That’s enough of that.” I posted about it on Facebook and FOUR of my work friends said they wanted to subscribe to Friday Kpop Video and I was so excited about this! I told Henry that I started a new craze at work and he said, “What, the ‘Get Away From Erin Quickly’ phase?” Ugh.
The angst has been transferred.
Hopefully, by the time Warped Tour rolls around, I’ll have a desire to go to an American music festival.
One thing I’ll tell you about being a fan of Warped Tour-ish bands and living in America: the amount of chances you have to see your favorite bands is off the charts. There are shows I skip because I just saw that band a few months ago and it’s no big deal to just shrug it off, you know? But now that I’ve brainwashed myself with kpop, I feel FUCKING TRAGIC. Not only do they rarely come to the States, they also seem to disband at alarming rates. And the boys all have to enlist in the Korean army, no matter what! Which isn’t that big of deal to me because, unlike with our music, I find myself gravitating more toward the girls groups. However, my ultimate idol group, Bigbang, are all enlisting within the next two years, starting next month for the first one, and I am wrecked over this because who knows if they will even still want to continue Bigbang when they’re all out?! I MIGHT NEVER GET TO SEE THEM. And believe me I am prepared to travel across the world for them because my sasaeng fandom is real.
Let me tell you a real life story that happened this morning: When I woke up, all of this military stuff hit me like REALLY HARD and I started frantically texting Henry, you know, like this is our own son enlisting and not five Korean men I have never met in my whole life. Henry was like, “It will be OK.” Or some other fatherly thing, because he knows that in times like these, it’s best to tiptoe around the Crazy. So then I was on the trolley, reading more stuff about it on my phone and trying not to cry because my Trolley Hero was sitting next to me (seriously, she will tell people to move over if they’re hoarding an empty seat next to them and I think she’s so badass for that), and so by the time I got to work, I was like GLENN GUESS WHAT and before I knew it, TEARS WERE FALLING OUT OF MY EYES as I was telling him about Bigbang and he had this “OMG” look on his face, like he was wondering if he should call 911 because I was finally having that public breakdown that all of the psychics have been calling for years. So then in a fit of confusion, I started laughing WHILE crying because I was so embarrassed that I was crying in front of Glenn so then I think he thought I was just being dumb, but little did he know, 15 minutes late I was secretly crying at my desk again. I AM WRECKED OVER THIS, LEAVE ME ALONE.
At work today, we were talking about the flu and Glenn mumbled something about how he went to the doctor and doesn’t have the plague after all. “Oh, were you sick?” I asked, honestly surprised because hello, Little Miss Solipsistic over here. “Uh yeah, didn’t you hear me coughing all last week?” he asked all incredulously, I guess because he sits right behind me. “Oh, I thought you were just choking,” I shrugged.
And then I came home and told Henry this story, at which point I started coughing so hard I choked.
Hey speaking of karma: Yesterday, I made fun of the gif that was on our department Wiki page because it said Happy Valetine’s Day. Valentine was spelled wrong, and I always get super self-righteous about that. So I was all, “kekekeke mispellings lol.” And then today Amber2 said something about how I always get so mad about typos and grammatical errors and I was all, “FUCK YEAH EDUCATION” and SERIOUSLY THREE MINUTES LATER I went on Facebook to reply to a comment and saw this:
We has a baby shower, guys! Of course that post already had like 150 views but what do I care, everyone already knows I write like English is my second language. Then a few hours later, I texted Henry and it said, “I just want to ran away.” I JUST WANT TO RAN AWAY!?!? OMG am I having mini-strokes in my sleep? You would never know I excelled in every English class I ever had. I guess when I move to Korea, teaching English won’t be an option. There’s always KpopX instructor, though!
Last week at work was January Birthday Celebration day, so Shannon sent out an email saying that there was cake and cookies over on some table in another area of the department. I was having a Bad Day, so I decided, “You know what, it might not be bingsoo or chapssaltteok, but I’m going to get myself a goddamn cookie.” So I went over to the table and there WERE NO COOKIES. There were CUPCAKES. I have been burnt too many times by bad cupcakes (I’m picky) so I actually stamped my feet a little bit and cried, “There aren’t any cookies!” but there was no around to hear my anguish, so I made sure that I did a replay when I went back to my area. Todd and Glenn were like, “oh well” but Shannon overheard my outburst and sent out a new email to the department explaining that she meant “cupcakes” and not “cookies” and that she was sorry if she got anyone’s hopes up (…..Erin). OH SNAP! That moment when you’re called out in a department-wide email for being a crybaby! I laughed so hard and it made my day better, cookies or not. Sandy told me that she and Missy were also duped by the cookie false alarm, so that made me feel better. And Todd admitted that he also was stoked for cookies, but that when he saw there weren’t any, he thought, “Oh, but there are cupcakes!” and just had a cupcake instead. MUST BE NICE HAVING LOW STANDARDS.
Lol, Henry eats his tteokbokki with a fork like a dummy. In all seriousness though, my kpop diet is going amazingly well. When I did Weight Watchers, I lost weight to a point and then I plateau’d forever. I also was so hungry and tired all of the time, because it’s just not a great diet for a vegetarian to be on, so exercising was a drag and something I had to force myself to do. But my weight was just like, “Nah, I’m good right here at this number.” Since I started my completely made-up K-Diet which started as a joke, I’ve lost 7 pounds in 3 weeks (that’s a lot for me because I lose weight slowly) but I can see a big difference in how my clothes fit, plus I’m never hungry now that I’m eating mostly Korean food and I have so much energy to do KpopX and all my other kpop aerobics. It really is a new lifestyle. Before Henry’s mom came over on Sunday, I asked him if she knows I’m Korean now and he said, “No. Because you’re not.” Whatever Henry. You don’t know. “Well, yeah, actually I do,” he said.
While Henry was on the aforementioned phone call with Comcast last Saturday, Chooch and I were stalking Boots from all of the windows. Some broad came over with shit for him I guess and he was standing in MY FRONTYARD, screaming, “Just pull down the fucking driveway!!!” because he is unable to talk without swearing. So the broad pulled down the driveway and he extracted a large suitcase. I’ve been putting two and two together and now I think that whoever this new broad is has moved in with him?! She was banging on our window earlier this window and almost gave Judy a heart attack. Then she screamed, “SORRY WRONG HOUSE” and started banging on Boots’ door while screaming, “YOU LOCKED ME OUT!!!” Then about an hour later, I was trying to eat my ramyeon dinner and heard them over there fighting, so hooray. There’s a new Phyllis in town. :(
I had to cancel an ice cream date on Saturday with Chris & Monica because we had too much to do for the baby shower (that we was hazzing the next day, you guys, that we was hazzing) but luckily I had a B*B*Big as a replacement.
Henry just told Chooch to “stop being like mommy and crying.” WOW.
Henry: “How many times are you going to watch this fucking thing?” A MILLION TIMES A DAY, HENRY. I can’t believe I wasted so many years on Jonny Craig when G-Dragon was out there in Korea being a billion times more perfect. Henry is in hallyu hell.
OMG I just started sobbing again, someone please send help. This latest bipolar crash is going to be a long way down. :(
<3<3<3<3<3<3
And now you know what happens when I try to escape reality: I motherfucking imprint with an entire country. Signing off with this video that I watch EVERY DAY because That.Falsetto. Ughhhhhh. I’m in deep. This is on par with the height of my Cure mania and I’m really scared.
I know you’ve been chomping at the bit for an update on my lunatic neighbors, so here is a handy run-down of December happenings. I am literally That Nosy Housewife who stands with a glass to the wall in order to hear the conversations better.
They have a tv now. A box tv with a bunch of VHS tapes stacked on top. I can see it clearly when I’m across the street getting out of the car and YES I’M PURPOSELY LOOKING.
Henry said Larry stopped him on the sidewalk and very earnestly said, “Please don’t associate me with [Boots]. I’m trying to get rid of him, too.” Chooch’s Nemesis Larry….our ally?! I never would have thought….
12/14: Boots & Phyllis have a HUGE FIGHT at 1am which causes me to lose my shit and I start screaming too, and Henry mumbles from beneath his pillow for me to stop and not stoop to their level and I’m all “I’LL SHOW YOU STOOPING!!” as I proceed to stampede up and down the steps and then slam the front door so hard that one of my framed Warped Tour pictures falls off the wall. HEY, IT GETS THEIR ATTENTION and there’s not one more peep for the rest of the night. And I know this because I’m so fucking wired at this point that I just lay in bed and shake.
12/16: Friday night – another GET AWAY FROM ME fight. Phyllis is all, “I’m not leaving in the middle of the night!” And I’m all, “I wish you would, you dumb bitch!” God, SOMETIMES I THINK I’M ON BOOTS’ SIDE.
12/17: Saturday early evening. I’m sitting here trying to watch a vlog of my favorite American Kpop dancer (jellybeannose, le duh) in Korea for a 2013 Kpop convention, when suddenly: EXPLOSION NEXT DOOR. I grab my glass and run up to my room to get a better listen-hear. “You make $300 a month, how are you even paying rent GEORGE? You’re GOOD FOR NOTHIN’. I’d be embarrassed if I was fucking you! Idiot! You’re a fucking IDIOT! You don’t HAVE any friends! They all talk behind your back!” I have literally never herd someone say “good for nothin'” in real life. Then Boots left. Then he came back. Then SHE left, limping down the street with a blanket, like it was her bindle or something. Boots left a few minutes later and limped a different direction. He came back later but Phyllis never did thank god.
12/19: I was off work this day and suddenly, over top of my TV, I heard, “WOOO! WOOO!” Turns out, Boots was on the phone with someone, and he signed off with a slurred, “Ok I love you talk to you later” – who was he talking to?! Phyllis? His mom? His dealer? More importantly, how the fuck can I hear him ON THE PHONE OVER MY TV when he’s on an entirely different floor in his house?!
Later, I heard HOT NAYBOR CHRIS THE JUDAS OFFERING BOOTS ANOTHER TV?! They were outside in the driveway and I kept gasping, “Chris, no!” And Boots was all slurring around the cigarette holes in his throat, “YEAH YEAH I WANT THAT” and then Chris suggested that they go ask LARRY for his dolly and I’m thinking, “We’re trying to get this guy to leave and Chris is trying to make his house more of a home, ugh!”
Then after that, the Crazy lady who lives in the big white house up the street stopped on the sidewalk and was talking to Boots about the inside of the house, and then they had a weird argument over the driveway because she didn’t believe that it’s shared between the two house. I was walking home later from the bakery and saw her later pausing in front of our house, scoping out our driveway. SO MANY WEIRDOS IN BROOKLINE.
MICHAEL: I began noticing a second derelict accompanying Boots on the porch and turns out his name is Michael and I know this because Boots got locked out for the 8973407290720850834265 time since moving in and started screaming MICHAEL MICHAEL MICHAEL I’M LOCKED OUT and then I heard Michael’s dopey clodhopper footsteps bumbling down the steps and over to the door, at which point Boots had to holler instructions on how to unlock the door so god only knows what sort of jerry-rigged security set-up he’s got going on over there.
Without Phyllis, it’s pretty quiet for the rest of the week. Michael doesn’t do much. We did make eye contact once and it was scary though.
12/23: JUDY MADE CONTACT. She was here babysitting Chooch and said that Boots came a’calling during the day, asking if she found a phone in the mailbox because his friend was supposed to have had dropped off a phone to him but thought he might have put it in ours instead. WHAT THE HELL, IS IT A BURNER PHONE?! Judy started white-knighting him and I didn’t like that, not one bit. She said he was “very polite” and Chooch said, “He’s lucky YOU weren’t the one who opened the door” which made Henry laugh without mirth because everyone knows I don’t answer the door when strangers knock. Then Judy got all dreamy-eyed and said, “He looks familiar. Maybe I used to drink with him. Yeah, down at the Soithern Star.” Henry groaned, “Oh god please don’t know him.”
Later that night, PHYLLIS RETURNS but Boots isn’t home! I spend a good deal of time in my bedroom, plastered against the wall with my hearing-glass. Some other man is with her and I assume it was her ride there. It sounds like she is getting some of her shit together, and she’s spitting all kinds of hate-speech about Boots (or as she calls him, “George”). The guy with her says something about Boots leaving earlier with his brother, so I think Michael is his brother?!
Also, Phyllis keeps saying, “Come here, pretty girl!” and I’m wondering if this is some hostage Boots keeps chained up under the bed, but then I deduce it’s a pet of some sort. A few days later, I see a white and gray cat sitting on the bedroom windowsill. That poor cat. :(
12/25: Christmas morning, a pick-up that looks like it drove off the set of Beverly Hillbillies drops off some real fucking vagabonds. One is a young …. woman and she’s very Hills Have Eyes. A few days later, I saw her outside in an awkward embrace with Michael. Anyway, later that night there are a ton of violent outbursts and then I realize that they’re having what I assume is some type of inbred Steelers party, I don’t know. At some point the next day, the pick-up truck limps its way back to Pioneer Ave and scoops up Hills Have Eyes.
12/31: THE CONFRONTATION. For as much as I sincerely hate Boots, I have to say he’s fairly harmless and quiet (well, he still gets carried away with the door-slamming here and there). But then, Phyllis comes back. So it’s New Years Eve, and again — we’re just hanging out, watching hockey (not Korean hockey, just NHL) when the volatile shouting happens. “YOU’RE A FUCKING CUNT!” Boots shouted, so then I screamed into the wall, “NO YOU’RE A FUCKING CUNT!!!” and Chooch ripped off his headphones and got an excited “Oooh Mommy’s about to put on a show!” look on his face. Meanwhile, Henry was groaning, “Erin, STOP!” and I just lost it, screaming my face off about how trashy these assholes are and how I was ready to fight them. I heard the door slam, so I ran to my front door and stood there with my arms crossed. Boots was walking up the sidewalk, and as he got in front of my house, he looked up at my porch and I held onto the eye contact as angrily as I could. He stopped and I swear he first called me a broad, and then mouthed off about me having a problem. So I stepped out onto the porch and said, “Yeah, I have a problem with you!” He incredulously repeated, “With me?!” And, here is where I wish I could rewind time and say something better, I yelled, “YEAH, YOU AND YOUR YAPPING!” So then he started WALKING DOWN MY SIDEWALK TOWARD ME and I’m thinking, “Oh fucking finally, we’re going to fight! I’m so glad I had that glass of wine first!” But you guys, instead of being the fucking macho man he is when he’s verbally terrorizing Phyllis, he instead got SUPER POLITE and began kissing my ass. “Look, I got a big problem with this woman over there. She’s homeless and I took her in and now I just want her to leave, but she won’t. She’s causing me all kinds of problems!” I’m still being stern at this point, still have my arms crossed angrily, and it occurs to me that I’ve been subconsciously channeling my inner Aunt Sharon, who was NOTORIOUS for confronting people. But at the same time, I now feel myself getting pulled into his dramarama and I’m like, “Well, she’s certainly making you look bad*, so you should just make her leave if she doesn’t live there.” *(Like he needs help in that area.) Then he goes on to tell me about the people coming in and out, taking advantage of him and honestly I have no idea what it is he has to offer unless this really is a drug situation happening (there are two people who roll up frequently, go in his house for a minute, and then leave…like, come on). Also, I can’t believe how excruciatingly difficult it is to understand him. He literally talks like a grouping of dicks is going to cascade from him mouth at any second—what the hell does he have stuffed in there?! His voice, oh my god, you guys. Meanwhile, he was standing bow-legged and all slinky, flapping his arms and swaying back and forth, and I’m not even sure if he was actually drunk or high, or if this is just his standard stance. He is so beyond white trash. Then he went on to explain how he “remodeled” all of the properties on our block (false — he just worked for the contracting company! He made it sound like he did it all himself) and that he “pays his rent” and I’m like, “Well that’s great but you’re disruptive, and I’ve lived here a long ass time without having problems with any of my neighbors” (also false but he is legit the worst). We ended with him swearing to do better and then I just turned around and went inside while he was wishing me a happy new year. I DON’T WANT HIS GROSS WELL-WISHES!!
When I turned to come back inside, Chooch nearly fell out of the doorway. He was laughing so hard and Henry was just like “ARE YOU HAPPY NOW!?” and you know what, yeah motherfucker, I was happy. Man, it felt great to finally face-off with that dickhead, you know? And on my turf, too. I don’t ever want to knock on that door because god only knows what will open it. So I was happy that this happened outside with cars driving by.
“How could you even understand him!? He did so much gesturing!” Chooch cried, still doubled-over with laughter.
“I’m pretty sure he asked you where your dad is,” Henry said, frowning. OMG DOES HE THINK HENRY IS MY DAD?! It just gets better and better.
There hasn’t been anything major to report since then. I haven’t heard Phyllis’s nerve-racking voice so I’m trying to just pretend that she found greener pastures and isn’t chopped up and stuffed in a suitcase somewhere.
As I type this, there’s some moderate commotion next door, but my hearing-glass has helped me determine that it’s not of the violent variety. It’s the weekend and I guess some of the friends that Boots doesn’t have according to Phyllis are visiting him from the halfway house, where they will later return and talk about him behind his back.
ALTHOUGH IF HE SLAMS THAT FUCKING DOOR ONE MORE TIME….
I wonder what Boots’ spy-log for me would look like?
The broad is doing Korean aerobics again
The broad is listening to Korean music again
They’re all yelling at the cats
The broad is yelling at the hockey game
The broad is dragging another wheelchair into the house — WHO IN THERE IS PARALYZED?!
The broad and the kid are beating up their dad again
But you know, the spelling would be worse than my usual abomination of the written word.
For the newcomers or FAIRWEATHERED BLOG READERS (lol, j/k – fairweathered is better than no-weathered), RIP Glenns is the brainchild of Amber2. It’s a mash-up of the Halloween-costumed Glenns I made for my Halloween desk theme in 2012, where I printed out pictures of Glenn’s employee ID and essentially defaced them and put them in prize capsules. Then people would come to my desk every day to get their daily Glenn and candy and it was so much fun! Prior to that, we had a wall in the department where we would hang pictures of dead celebrities, but then we had to take them down for whatever reason. So Amber2 had the brilliant idea to merge the two! The more you know.
***
Ugh you guys. So many celebrities died in 2016 that I could barely keep up with the RIP Glenns. In fact, I didn’t even do all of the ones I had on my list (sorry, Janet Reno!) because contrary to popular belief, I actually have real work to do at work, too. If there’s a celebrity that died sometime in the first half of 2016 that you feel is sorely remiss from the Glenn collection, please let me know and I will make one JUST FOR YOU. Because that’s the new me, you guys. Accommodating.
I think only three people appreciated this one, but man — Garry Shandling brings back fond memories of my childhood and watching age-inappropriate television.
Meh. I don’t really have anything eulogy-ish to say about Chyna. SORRY CHYNA.
If you’re any kind of hockey fan, you probably shed a tear when you heard that Mr. Hockey himself had passed away. </3
Chiller Theatre was a little bit before my time, but my dad LOVED IT and would often reference it, so I had no choice but to know about it. For those non-Pittsburghers, Bill Cardille is a local treasure. As the persona Chill Billy, he hosted the show Chiller Theater, which aired sci-fi and horror movies. He also had a tourism company, which my grandma and Aunt Sharon used a few times for their trips to Europe, and it was like a huge deal that they were essentially “vacationing” with Chilly Billy. They always raved about how nice of a guy he was, and now I wish I had met him!
When I was helping my mom clean out my grandparents’ house last year, I came across a bunch of pictures they had taken from those trips, and he was in a lot of them. Everyone looked so happy AND NOW EVERYONE IS DEAD.
#SoDepressed
UGH talk about total childhood memories! When I was a kid, Nick At Nite used to play legitimate classic sitcoms, like The Donna Reed Show, Leave It To Beaver, and the Patty Duke Show. I used to fucking watch the shit out of those shows after dinner, while writing letters to my pen pals that I found in the Alby’s Big Boy kids menu. (THEY EVEN PRINTED MY ADDRESS ONE TIME!!!!!) So when I think of Patty Duke, I think of innocent TV times. Also, HELEN KELLER? And she gave birth to MIKEY FROM THE GOONIES?! This lady ruled.
Who would have thought the murder (I don’t care what you say, it was murder) of a gorilla would spawn such an intense Internet meme? You can’t even read the comments on ANYTHING without seeing at least one Harambe-centric comment (unless you peep the comments on this here blog, because there are usually none, lol all the way home from the market). Harambe is the new Illuminati, I guess.
Dicks out for Harambe. :(
I’m not a boxing fan by any means, but this was just a big loss for sports in general. We were in Louisville last September and I wanted to go and see his grave but Henry was all “[BIG DUMB EXCUSES]” so I didn’t get to see it. :(
****
OK, I think that pretty much covers the RIP Glenns from spring and summer. I’ll be back later with fall and winter 2016. Boo hiss. Death sucks.
So Castle Blood had a different theme this year, it was called The Witching Hour. There were two witches who were sisters in this town and they knew a lot about the environment and the villagers didn’t like that so they either banished them from the town or burned them I don’t remember. They weren’t witches then but now they are sooo… They needed us to find them a cat, a vat, and a hat. So ya.
The first funny part was when Shard (castle blood guy who’s mean to me every year.) kept telling me to go to the back of the group (oh yeah and Blake and Haley were there) also Shard kept making fun of Blake because he was being dumb. Then the next cool/funny part was in the funeral room because there are always puzzles in it and this time it was a tower puzzle and Blake, Haley, and I did it. There were holes at the bottom of it and sticks at the top of it so we had to figure out which piece goes on which. It was made to hold in the soul of the dead person.
Then there was an outside part where there was a guy locked up in a chair and he was asking for my cat eye (that I got a little bit ago) and although this wasn’t important I just wanted to prevent this from being super short. So then basically those were all of the important parts and yeah we got our fangs here da picture!
So on a scale of 1 to 10 I rate it 9 because there should be more things you need to get and more puzzles.
Sewickely Haunted Church
So right when we get there, there is the Psycho soundtrack blasting from a speaker. Then we went in and I bought a candy bar. With the wrapper me and mommy played hockey and she kept flicking it towards the screen that was playing a movie. Then when we finally got to go in the small tent that was there was a girl clown who was over enthusiastic because she was screaming and kept saying to me “Do you see that?!?!?!?!?!?!” There was this part where there were little girls screaming at the top of their lungs so I just ran out of there as fast as I could. There was also this part where a gorilla blowup thing hooked to the ceiling came sliding across the ceiling right at mommy’s face.
So I rate this one from 1 to 10 an 8 because it was really short.
According to some of my friends, this was the BEST PIE PARTY YET, so LOL if you missed it.
Just kidding. That was rude. And my new thing is trying not to be rude.
But it really was a mighty fine display of people and pies and I couldn’t be happier. Let’s peruse some pictures of these particular people and pies, perchance.
PIE PEOPLE:
Judy
My mom (!!!) and her friend Debbie
John, Jen, Gavin and Abby
Blake & Haley
Alisa and Cara
Kara, Harland & Theo
Lisa, Matt, Matt’s dad Mike, & Gigi
Erin, Brian & Padraig
Lauren & Tony (and their dog, Charlie!!)
Chris & Monica
BARB
Rocky, Angela & Ryder
Brad (and his dog Tucker!)
Sandy, Ben, Elena & Zoe
Maggie, Ivan, Lila & Annabelle
Glenn, Amanda, & Eve
Chris & Rebecca
Felicia, her mom Donna (my old Girl Scout leader!!), and Lila
Amanda, Adam, Alia, and Annika
Brian, Cathy & Clara
Debbie S.
Gayle & Jeffrey
Rob, Nancy & Nancy’s mom
Valerie and Brian
Amber2 & Teddy
I think I got everyone. If I missed you and you’re reading this, obviously it’s because you don’t rate. JUST KIDDING. This is one of the downsides of waiting two weeks to recap the damn thing. But the upside is that I get to write in my blog while watching HOCKEY because HOCKEY SEASON IS IN FULL EFFECT.
OK, back to the pie, though. There were so many delicious pies! It’s a good thing we don’t actually do any judging because there’s no way I could pick a winner.
We made that weird sweet potato thing which Henry fucked up and it came out sooooo dense and not very sweet at all which is a shame because it was beautiful-looking. The second pie he made was Nesselrode, which no one would consider because the name was so horrible but my god, it was fantastic. It was made with like, pecan puree? I can’t remember. But it was sweet and creamy and this is the stuff broads should be wrestling in, not jello.
Sandy brought a tomato & corn pie that was so good, I want to use some cheesy adjective that Dick van Dyke would jovially exclaim if Disney presented a theatrical release of the pie party.
(Sandy, why don’t you slide that recipe into my DMs? Or you can just give it to me at work on Monday like a normal person.)
(And then I’ll give it to Henry because LOL recipes.)
Rob also brought a savory pie! Spinach and cheese. Savory pies are often the unsung heroes of the pie party because you can only eat so much sugar before your body starts to crave a vegetable.
Or salt.
Or cheese.
Speaking of vegetables, though….
John & Jen brought two pies made with vegetables from their kids’ garden: a chocolate ghost pepper pie and a carrot pie, which was sweet not savory. Holy shit, both pies were great but the ghost pepper experience was lit AF. It was just the right amount of heat, right at the end, just when you think you’re home safe…
And Lauren brought a key lime pie with a jalapeno twist, which was also delightfully fiery!
I was so into this year’s accidental spicy theme!
Kara made a pineapple cream pie which she was afraid wasn’t going to be exotic enough—Kara, you’re crazy. That pie should be the official dessert of Hawaii. And she worked so hard mixing up the whipped topping!
(FYI THE PENS JUST SCORED.)
Everyone LOLd when Glenn showed up. I’m friends with his wife Amanda on Instagram so I made sure she had the details because apparently he never tells her about the pie party!? They brought a pumpkin cheesecake thing that all these people kept raving about and I’m sad because I was too busy trying to socialize like an authentic human and by the time I went back to get some, it was all gone. UNLIKE THE NESSELRODE.
Fun fact: Glenn used to work with my high school buddy Chris, who also came out for his first ever pie party! AND Chris is a beekeeper so he brought an amazing apple pie with brie and fresh honey from his bees! I’m posting his own Instagram picture here because I wasn’t able to snap my own photo before it was mauled:
LOOK HOW ADORABLE!! And it tasted fantastic.
So Chris is a beekeeper and so is Lisa’s father-in-law who was also there, and Glenn is a WASHED-UP beekeeper! So many bee experts under one pavilion!
I don’t have a picture of this one, but Maggie brought a mango pie which definitely was a star of the exotic pie theme. I’ve never had a mango pie before and now I want one all the time! I just had a quick side-bar with Henry about this one and he said, “Yeah it was good” but he used a tone that had actual life and emotion to it (the opposite of hope he did earlier today when I asked him if he thought the new Joyce Manor album is great) so that’s how you know it was a good pie and he wasn’t just trying to tell me what I wanted to hear so that he could go back to half-watching the Pens game and pretending he’s an NHL coach.
I think Lisa was revealing some foolproof weight-loss secret. I mean, that’s the only thing that would have me so enrapt. Plus, look at Henry smirking.
Lisa’s amazing lemon blueberry thing (one of my favorite flavor combos!) and her father-in-law’s pecan pie chilling in the background. I was super nervous to meet her FIL Mike, who was visiting from Colorado, because Lisa told me that he’s been reading my blog and I always feel embarrassed when that happens. And I know, “Then Erin, why have you been writing on the Internet since 2001?” I guess the short answer is that I pretend it’s because the only people who read this are the ones I made up in my mind.
You know, “you guys.”
Duh.
It was really cool to meet him, though, even though he made a joke that went right over my dumb blond head, and when I mentioned it to Lisa a week later, she said, “Oh, so THAT’S why he mentioned that he thought you were going to be so smart in real life, but was disappointed to find out you’re kind of dumb.”
UGH, LISA.
And then when I won at Beer Math last week, she was like, “Aw, I’m going to have to tell my father-in-law that you actually are smart sometimes.” THANKS, LISA!
Speaking of Lisa, my favorite part of the pie party migt have been when she told Monica and me that we have really pretty eyes and Monica was like, “AW THANKS’ and I was like, “Really? It took you 20 years to tell me that?”
Alisa might troll Chooch harder than anyone and I love her so much for it. Here she is antagonizing him over a heated game of Pokemon. (Also, Cara brought these really cute apple tarts and I didn’t get one because as usual, I’m snoozin’ and losin’. You can see them on the bottom of the pie tier below!)
Felicia and her mom Donna took this challenge very seriously and brought a fancy tray of mini mouthgasms, a/k/a Canadian Buttertarts.
“Excuse me, did you say Canadian buttertarts?” Monica asked, popping up from under the table, fist to her mouth in an effort to plug her hysteric enthusiasm.
Monica is really into these things, I learned!
And she and Felicia both, in tandem, attempted to show me the proper way to eat it.
“You need to hold it over the wrapper,” Felicia said.
“No really you need to eat that shit over top of something,” Monica tried in vain to warn me.
But I stubbornly chucked the wrapper in the trash and took a big bite.
“You’re gonna get it all over—-oh, OK. There it is,” Monica sighed, as the liquid-y butter innards gushed all the way down my chin, onto my arm, probably into my hair.
“We tried to tell you,” Felicia said as I fled in search of napkins or wet wipes or a babbling brook in which to dunk my whole person.
“You’re an idiot,” Henry said as he cleaned me up.
Henry would probably make a really great preschool teacher.
Or at least, the preschool teacher’s creepy helper.
Monica’s practicing her hitchhiking skills for the next time she feels trapped in public with Chooch and Chris isn’t ready to leave yet. Also, Monica has the best shirts and Chris has the best hair. And so does Lauren, who sits in front of me at work and taunts me with her ability to french braid her own hair!!! Ugh!
By the way, Monica was on pie duty this year and made Butterscotch M&Ms and Cookie Dough pie, which tasted super fattening and delicious and I probably got the name wrong because I had to ask her at least 7 times during the course of the day to remind me again what it was.
So I’m just going to rename it: Lots of Chocolatey Things In a Pie.
Ugh it was fantastical. Like Neil Patrick Harris in a pie.
I’m drinking some kind of pumpkin beer while I write this.
LOL Gayle! She brought these adorbs S’mores tarts and I was so happy to be able to use the pie tier twice at one party! I’m glad I decided to bring it.
Gayle’s tarts were serious business. She even brought a lighter to torch the marshmallows. When Brian reached for one, I was like, “WAIT DON’T EAT IT YET WE HAVE TO GET GAYLE” and there was this big To Do with the lighter and the wind kept blowing it out and finally Brian was like, “OK look, I’m fine with cold marshmallows. NO REALLY GO AWAY.”
I love putting my party guests in uncomfortable situations with people they don’t know!
Chooch is not so low-key obsessed with my friend Rocky because one time I made an offhand remark that some YouTuber Chooch likes reminded me of Rocky. Anyway, Chooch had all these pink balloons that he insisted on blowing up before people arrived (he kept one aside and named him Bobby which was funny and sad at the same time), so naturally at some point, two balloons found their way up Chooch’s shirt and Rocky apparently said “Nice rack” to him, which sent Chooch running over to tell me, “MOMMY ROCKY RECALDINI TOLD ME I HAVE A NICE RACK!”
Like, calm down son. You’re acting like you just received an autographed headshot of some Sky TV personality you were obsessed with in 1991 which totally wasn’t something that I personally sent away for, but just a random example that means nothing.
I invited Barb because I like to hear her run down the list of Erin Rachelle Kelly superlatives that she has scrawled on a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte (holla!)* receipt in her pocket from 2011. I like to believe she adds to it constantly, and that there are like 18 of them stapled together into a little flipbook called Erin is the Best.
*(INSIDE BARB JOKE. Except that it’s not really an inside joke because I’ve shared it here before and really it’s just that she came into the office one day with a PSL fresh from Starbucks and straight up sang, “Pumpkin spice latte, holla!” which was funny because you know, Barb said it. And then she promptly sat down to tweet about it on her phone in the “blinged-out” case.)
Man, I miss Barb.
And I miss Debbie, too! She and Barb took care of me and soothed the hysteria I often felt from being out and about in the real world. Now who do I have? WENDY?! UGH. She makes me do things for myself!
LOL j/k – Gayle is still available to make sure I don’t stick forks in the toaster and accidentally strangle myself with the phone cord.
LOLOLOL Glenn and Henry! Glenn said something to Henry that was disparaging about me, something about being sorry Henry has to deal with me, and Henry was all, “LOL, at least you get paid to deal with her.” Or something terrible like that. WOW why don’t you guys just start a stupid Boys Only club in a treehouse and make dumb patches that look stupid and I don’t want one anyway!
Amanda thanked me for giving Glenn a hard time at work, and I can’t even take all the credit because many other people are mean to Glenn too, but I will say things got a lot easier for him after Natalie and Barb left.
Meanwhile, Brian was saying something about having to chase his little girl all around to make sure she didn’t fall into peril, and Kara said, “Oh just wait. By next year, you can just set her loose on the playground with the other kids and not have to deal with it.”
Brian said he turned around to look at the playground just as Chooch was riding a log.
That’s my kid.
I feel like Blake probably had something to do with the appearance of the log though.
I AIN’T.
I somehow didn’t get any pictures of Kara at the last pie party so I was on the prowl this time. Also, I should consider running a million races like Kara does so that I can eat a ton of pie without feeling like I was cast for the gluttony scene in Se7en.
I wish I had written down all the pies. I know that Erin brought a really unique and wonderful Girl Scout cookie pie (I wonder if my old Girl Scout leader Donna had a piece!?!?). My mom brought a frozen Cold Brew pie, adorned with chocolate espresso beans. I don’t think anyone has ever brought a frozen pie before! NO WAIT I think Amber1 brought a frozen pink lemonade pie one year?! God, so many pies, you guys. Who can keep track!?
Valerie brought a chocolate peanut butter from the Pie Place which I barely even cared about because I was just so excited to see her face! I’ve known her from all the way back in the LiveJournal days and when I met Kara, I learned that they were “real life” friends so we all went to lunch once in 2008, and it was actually my first time going to Zenith, so now I equate Valerie with cool bathrooms and good vegetarian food.
Anyway, I haven’t seen her since then so this was a big deal for me and I nearly pushed people out of the way so I could greet her.
Also, I made her try the Nesselrode pie and she agreed that it was really good. “You should have named it something else, though,” she said. Ugh, I know, but it’s named after some man named Nesselrode for some reason that my eyes skipped over because I get bored easily but I read enough to know that it sounded weird and that probably no one else was going to bring a Nesselrode.
No one else brought a Nesselrode.
Even if it had a better name, it still looked like a unappetizing gray blob so probably no one would eat it unless I was aggressively slipping it into their plate. It’s a good thing I’m not this pie’s PR person.
Rocky and Angela brought a banana cream pie which I always forget how much I love a good banana cream until I’m elbow-deep in one and it’s all over my face and I’m sobbing because why do I have no self-control.
Look at this carnage!!
Also, Sandy: remember when Maggie lost her mind and screamed at Elena for no reason and Elena was completely unfazed but you and I jumped? #scaryMaggie
Brian made fun of Dance Gavin Dance but THAT’S OK. I will probably still invite him to the next pie party. Cathy and Clara are more than welcome, at the very least!
(Also, Cathy makes horror movie cookies, you guys. She is someone I need in my life.)
Judy tried brie for the first time and her taste buds apparently revolted harder than most rational, intelligent, self-respecting women when shown a picture of Donald Trump. Brian and Monica witnessed this with me.
Sorry Judy, I’ll tell Chris V. to bring Kraft Singles next time!
Guys. We love Blake’s girlfriend Haley. Like, a lot. And I think Chooch has met his match with her! She dishes it right back to him and it’s amazing.
Amber2 came right as the party was winding down because she was waiting for Teddy to wake up from his nap, so she was probably thinking, “Wow this is the worst pie party yet!” I’m really glad she made it though and I was so happy to see her that I actually CUT HER A SLICE OF BRAD’S APPLE CRUMBLE PIE ALL ON MY OWN! I mean, it was a struggle and she probably could have done it herself more efficiently while holding her kid and standing on a unicycle, but at least I made an effort OK.
I wish I had had the forethought to force everyone to have their picture taken under the pie portal.
There was the most vivid rainbow that appeared as we (lol “we”) were cleaning up. This picture does no justice whatsoever, but I can honestly say that it’s the brightest rainbow I’ve ever seen, and then Kara pointed out that it was actually so big and bright that it was starting to repeat the last several colors! AND THEN WE NOTICED THAT IT WAS A DOUBLE RAINBOW ON TOP OF THAT. What a great ending to a satisfying day of pies and good people.
HOPE TO SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!
I spent the whole hockey game writing this. You’re welcome. Well, maybe not YOU, but someone is welcome.
You know how much I love hockey (specifically the Penguins!), my friend Kaitlin (and her baked goods!), and fine OK also Barb and Wendy? Well, all of those things came together last Thursday when Kaitlin invited us to party with her and her husband Danny….AND THE STANLEY CUP! Danny is the assistant equipment manager for the Pens and it was his day with the Cup (because, ahem, the Penguins won it this year in case you missed it), so they planned a party at Cool Springs Sports Complex and it was so elite that we had to bring our invitations in order to be admitted. I was really excited about the part where the invitation only extended to those it was addressed to, so SEE YA LATER, HENRY.
Henry acted like he didn’t care. “I have to work anyway, so oh well.”
Yeah, so did I but I took the day off because I’m a true fan. Suck it, Henry.
Wendy brought Summer, who stole the show, as usual. It was hard to compete with her for Barb’s attention!
I mean….that’s cute. Even I have to admit that.
For a baby, she’s pretty laid back and I can respect that. I bond with her from a safe distance by rolling my eyes, and then smiling when no one is looking.
When we were standing in line, she dropped Wendy’s phone and I picked it up for her. Teamwork.
Also, Wendy made her pull my hair.
STOP. They tasted just as glorious as they looked, how do you do it, Kaitlin??
Ugh, look at all the baby ephemera strewn about our table. Way to go, Wendy! Meanwhile, Barb was rambling about how she’s so obsessed with money lately and I can’t remember the context but it made me crack up, as Barb-related things generally do. (I have a Snap of her in the background saying, “I’m so obsessed with money anymore, it’s pathetic.” It’s my new favorite Barb Quote.)
A Zia Dessert table, which I’m sure was a big reason A LOT of people RSVP’d “yes” to this function. I really miss working with Kaitlin, but I have to tell you this: I’m like, 20 pounds lighter now that she doesn’t work at The Law Firm anymore. NOT SAYING THERE’S A CORRELATION THERE.
These Penguin gummies were super adorbs, but we swapped them out for another table’s Twix centerpiece.
Kaitlin mentioned that she felt really bad for not telling us we could have brought spouses/Henrys with us, but then she looked at me and said, “But I’m sure you loved rubbing Henry’s face in it!”
YES, YES I DID.
Kaitlin was in San Jose when they won the Stanley Cup and she got to go on the ice and in the locker room, and if I didn’t adore her so much, I would have been eaten alive by jealousy!
In a moment of bravery, Barb decided to lift the Cup. I was really afraid she was going to drop it and I cried out,”Barb no!” but then she opted to just gently tilt it instead.
“Wow, that thing is HEAVY,” she said after our photo op. I wonder how much time she spent thinking about how much it’s worth, since she’s so obsessed with money now.
So, that was my Thursday with Stanley! I will be forever grateful for Kaitlin including me in Danny’s special day!
For a brief period of time, way back in the day, I was talking to some guy I used to work with. You know. “Talking.” He was supposed to come over one night, and I had recently scored a new Cure bootleg video (literally on VHS, this was a while ago), so I suggested that we could watch this damn thing together. He made a slew of disparaging comments about the Cure, about how he would rather watch dogs eat their own shit, about how much that band sucked, about how “faggy” they were, and I could actually hear my heart breaking in my ears.
Followed quickly by the sound of the door slamming on this asshole’s opportunity. I just couldn’t imagine being with someone who didn’t like The Cure, or who could at least respect my staunch devotion to them. (Not to mention someone who calls things “faggy”? Ew no.)
And thank god I didn’t give that guy a second chance, because then I met Henry (at the same job! I was such an office ho!) and do you know what the first thing is that Henry ever did for me, way before we even started dating? He made me a screensaver of all of the Cure’s album covers.
That is a fucking good man.
Back then I probably said he was wife material, too, but clearly that material is full of holes.
What is: Cheese cloth.
What is: A handkerchief in some person’s pocket in a coffin underground.
All of this is to say that when The Cure announced their hugely anticipated North American tour last fall, Henry didn’t even question it when I said, “Well, there’s no Pittsburgh date as usual, but we could go to the Columbia, Maryland one…?”
“Buy the tickets when they go on sale,” he said with NO HESITATION.
BECAUSE IT’S THE CURE. And Henry loves me, you guys. Duh.
I sat at the computer and waited for the clock to tick down and then I bought two tickets on the ASAP. Of course with all the presales and ticket reselling schemes out there, every last spot under the pavilion was taken, so I had to be satisfied with lawn seats. And honestly, this being my 6th Cure show, I was content that we were even going at all. Traveling for shows is expensive and we are not rich people. SHOCKER. Plus, we were pretty close to the front two years ago when they headlined Riot Fest so it was fine.
We left Chooch at home with Judy and set off for Maryland around 9:30am. I was acutely aware that my left contact was jacked up, but you have to understand the tolerance I have built over the years to eye woes. I figured the discomfort would eventually just fade into the background, and then I proceeded to just up my blinking quota during the car ride.
The drive down there was pretty uneventful and quick, by the way. I didn’t even live blog because I was too busy listening to the same Pierce the Veil song over and over, psychoanalyzing it, and feeling depressed. That’s just what I do. Also, I bought a ticket to see PVRIS the moment they went on sale, which was a lot less stressful since it’s just general admission at the Altar Bar. And then we ate at some shitty country cookin’ diner thing on the side of the road, because I was off my game and let Henry choose the lunch spot.
I went in the bathroom there and jiggled my contact around a bit, because sometimes that helps. In this case though, it still felt like someone was applying slight pressure to my eyeball with the tip of the long-nailed finger. So, normal.
We arrived at our Extended Stay hotel thing around 4 and I got angry because GPS said something about taking the third right at the traffic circle. “IT’S A ROUNDABOUT!” I cried petulantly. “EVERYONE IN AUSTRALIA KNOWS THAT!”
Henry muttered something about this being America and in America, “we” call them traffic circles and I’m like, how about not lumping me in there with all you “we”s, thanks. And then I loudly counted down the rights so that Henry would know which one to turn off on, thereby fulfilling my co-pilot duties.
If I had liveblogged that day, it would be a lot of “AND THEN”s because I was pretty fucking happy.
After sufficiently complaining about our hotel room (because that’s my other duty – reminding Henry that nothing he does is good enough for me), Henry fed me a candy bar (Hershey with almonds if you need this for the case study), and then it was finally time to leave for the Merriweather Ampitheater.
One good thing about Henry is that he booked our room months and months in advance. It was the closest hotel to the venue and completely sold out. The lady at the desk even asked if we were there for the Cure concert, because duh. This happened right before Henry denied ogling some yuppie bitch who was walking two Pomeranian dogs.
It didn’t take us long to get to the venue at all, maybe 15 minutes tops. I was too busy hyperventilating and saying, “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod” incessantly to properly keep an eye on the time. Sorry for the inaccurate journalism!
Henry and I had a brief feud before getting out of the car because he didn’t bring a blanket from home and had to buy a blanket from a Target near our hotel and it was sooooo ugly (brown plaid and fuzzy, ew) so first I was like, “I WILL NOT BE SEEN WITH THAT ATROCITY, LEAVE IT IN THE CAR!” I mean, plus it stunk of plastic because he had just unzipped it from the stupid vinyl package it was all cubed-up in.
Not surprising, Henry didn’t bother to fight with me. He knows not to fuck with me when I’m in an emotional fragile Cure-related state. So we left the blanket in the backseat and wove our way through the gravel parking lot to the end of the line. We got there about 45 minutes before the gates open, I would say, and in no time, the line behind us had grown so long that we could no longer see the end.
I spotted someone in line nearby carrying a blanket in the same bracket of ugliness as the one that Henry had purchased. So I succumbed to the Ugly Blanket Squad and told him he could go back to the car and get the motherfucking poop-colored blanket. Whatever. This isn’t the blanket prom, is what my dad would have said if he had been there.
Ugh.
I could only see the first 30 or so people in front of us, because then the line snaked down and around into a forested area. It was making me nervous not knowing how far back we were.
People-watching was splendid and helped pass the time. There were OG Goths, neo-goths, yuppies, hippies, hipsters, Henrys — people of all walks of life had converged upon Merriweather all for the same reason: to bow down before the Cure. Two guys behind me did nothing but quote from Pitchfork the whole time, while the two dads and their respective young-teen sons talked dryly about sports.
Hockey came up.
I inched in closer.
“Yeah, his mom is a huge hockey fan,” the one dad said to the other. “Her favorite team is the Flyers, and then the Penguins.”
I was bouncing on my toes by this point while Henry was giving me the “KEEP IT ZIPPED” look.
“Oh, well she must be happy. The Penguins won the whole thing,” the other dad said and I was SQUEALING now, about to raise my hand and do the whole, “OOOH! OOOOH!” thing that I do when I’m desperate to add to a conversation that does not belong to me.
Henry, that motherfucker, actually grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me back!
I hate small talk EXCEPT when it’s about music or hockey, or if I overhear incorrect information and feel like I could die if I don’t set the universe straight with my infinite wisdom.
But apparently this is “annoying” and Henry doesn’t like to be a witness…or an associate.
The opening of the gates was pretty prompt and we were inside in no time at all. There are several entrances and parking lots and there were less people in front of us than I guessed. We were able to snag a prime piece of real estate very close to where the pavilion seats ended and the lawn started, and I let go of all my high expectations of having the perfect, unobstructed view and instead just enjoyed being there. Sometimes you really gotta just let go.
Henry bought me some kind of beer that he figured I would be able to drink without wasting — Shocktop maybe? I’m still trying to become a beer person but I’m just unapologetically picky. Don’t fuck with my palate. I managed to drink two whole beers! Each one cost less than my $10 pizza, which was actually pretty good but NOT ENOUGH.
“For $10, it’s gonna have to be,” Henry frowned before going off to buy some gross sausage in a bun atrocity for himself.
The fact that you can barely see my left eye in this photo is FORESHADOWING.
The lawn was really starting to fill up and so far, I didn’t find a single person I hated. I wasn’t too startled by this revelation though because Cure crowds have historically been some of the kindest and most fun I’ve ever been in the middle of.
EXCEPT: Coachella 2004. Worst crowd ever. A bunch of rich frat boys screaming “FAT BOB!” and booing when anything other than a radio single was performed. Welcome to America, Robert. Welcome to America, indeed.
Just then, two middle-aged men tossed down two seat cushions in the small section of lawn available between the two couples in front of me.
“And DOWN!” the one announced loudly and jovially as he plopped himself onto the cushion, beer sloshing all around. He looked at us and laughed, but I gave Henry the “I hate this guy” look. When the two women whose blanket they sat down next to came back from getting beer, I thought for sure they were going to be all, “OH HELL NO” but instead, the one lady was like, “LET’S BE FRIENDS” and then everything was happening so fast before my eyes.
Henry went to get more beer, leaving me alone to stew in my depressing solitude while everyone around me was carrying on with each other and making friends with new people, and ugh just ugh. Never was there a more apropos moment for Robert to come on stage and sing, “Why Can’t I Be You.”
(He didn’t.)
(But he should have.)
So now the people in front of me were introducing themselves. The one who had yelled, “DOWN!” told the two ladies that they were from Pittsburgh.
PITTSBURGH? I’M FROM PITTSBURGH!
I tapped him on the back and was all, “Hey guy, I couldn’t help but overhear you say you’re from Pittsburgh. We’re from Pittsburgh too,” I said in that weird 1920s radio DJ syncopated voice I get when I’m no longer Erin but some weird caricature of a person with a sturdy societal footing.
And that’s when Henry returned to his ugly blanket and found that his girlfriend had made new friends with the boisterous men in front of them. (I never talked to the broads though. Once I heard the one lady say that she was heartbroken that the Penguins won the Stanley Cup, I knew I had nothing left to say to her, except for SUCK IT.)
(J/K, she and her sister seemed like fine ladies.)
Randy was my favorite of the two guys. I can’t remember his friend’s name. He was nice too, but not as hilarious as Randy. I can’t explain it, you guys would have had to have been there.
You know how it is.
The Twilight Sad came out sometime around 7:00. I was already familiar with them and interested to hear them live for the first time. And I mean, they were wonderful, but it’s hard to give a shit about an opening band when you know, and they know, and everyone knows that The Cure is back there somewhere, pretending to jump rope, touching up that blood red lipstick, sipping a spot of tea.
So I can’t say anything other than, “The Twilight Sad seemed good.”
I ran to the bathroom afterward, while there was still a bit of sunshine left. I was immediately cold-cocked by the essence of patchouli and clove.
And it just felt right.
As I washed my hands, I inspected my eye in the mirror. There didn’t appear to be a dagger or any such spiny specimen jutting from it, contrary to how it felt. So I gave it one good, aggressive rub (What Not To Do To Your Eye 101) and stumbled my way back to our blanket, which was now one of many in a sea of throws.
Sold out show, y’all.
As soon as the opening notes of Tape wafted into the air, my face was wet with tears. It doesn’t matter how many times I have seen this band, they make my heart feel so full and I even if I tried, I couldn’t hold back my emotions. I get all snively and trembly and the tears just flow freely – this who I am.
Aside from the three Instavids above and few Snaps that my brother requested, I didn’t fuck around with recording or taking pictures, because it’s the Cure and I needed to let every last second get into my pores, you know what I mean? Henry even gave me some “there-there” pats a few times.
He gets it.
He didn’t need to see my face to know it was slick with tears, mascara, and whatever poison was seeping out of my left eyeball.
You’d think that all the crying would have washed out whatever was in there, scraping my cornea, but instead it just started burning even more. The joy and amazement of standing before The Cure made it easier to shrug off, though. It was going to take a lot more than an eyeball malady to get me to leave this show early.
SET LIST:
Tape / Open, High, Pictures of You, Closedown, Kyoto Song, A Night Like This, The Walk, The End of the World, Lovesong, If Only Tonight We Could Sleep, All I Want, Push, In Between Days, Just Like Heaven, Bananafishbones, Never Enough, From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, End
1st encore: Sinking, It Can Never Be The Same
2nd encore: Shake Dog Shake, Burn, A Forest
3rd encore: Dressing Up, Lullaby, Fascination Street, Wrong Number
4th encore: Hot Hot Hot, Let’s Go To Bed, Close To Me, Why Can’t I Be You?, Boys Don’t Cry
I have never heard “Burn” live before so I was freaking the fuck out for sure. FREAKING THE FUCK OUT.
It’s unreal to me how solid this band sounds after all of these years. How they can get out there night after night, play for three hours with just as much if not more energy as bands 30 years younger. These guys are living legends, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame can keep snubbing them all they want because there are millions of screaming fans who know just how brilliant and incomparable they are.
When you can get even someone unmoved and unaffected as Henry J. Robbins to stand for the entirety of your show and also APPLAUD after every song? That’s how you know you’re frizzled hair, shoegazing perfection.
Little Cure fan. <3
Robert seemed to be in very good spirits too, chattier than I have ever seen him, and still breaking out his adorable little goth moves during “Lullaby.” However, he did get choked up during a new song, “It Can Never Be the Same,” which rumor has it is about his mother who passed away last year. When the song ended, he said something along the lines of, “The last song is a new one…. haven’t quite… haven’t learned how to hold back….so…”
</3
He is a motherfucking god. No one will ever replace him in my heart.
NO ONE.
***
As soon as we got back to the hotel, I raced to the bathroom and plucked the contact off my eye, which exacerbated the pain. Now it was like my eyeball was in labor with a hatchet-coated fireball. A thicket of natty homeless person pubes. A briar patch of all the human bones found in Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment.
My eye was so red that it looked like it was bleeding, like it had been CHEESE GRATED. Tears were squirting out left and right, like some completely crude, X-rated, optic money shot.
“I CAN’T KEEP MY EYE OPEN!” I wailed, flapping my hands and hopping from one foot to the other.
I was panic-stricken, screaming about having to go to the hospital; but instead, Henry calmly went out and got me eye drops. I had cried myself to sleep while he was gone, but don’t worry! I woke up in the middle of the night and as soon as I realized that it wasn’t just a nightmare and that there were still flames licking the inside of my eyelid, I started screaming. Henry woke up and secretly pretended he was killing me when he held my head down against the pillow and put the drops in my eye.
In the morning, it still hurt and I felt like a vampire, screaming about the sunlight. As the day wore on, I was mostly OK again, though my eyelid was slightly puffy and I wasn’t even about to try to put my contact back in for the next two days. So I went about life squinting and walking with my arms outstretched. One-contact-wearin’ Erin.
But none of that was enough to tarnish the beautiful memories of the night before. Le sigh.
Gotta tell you, pretty happy to slam the door on 4th grade. I don’t know what it was about this year, but it was tumultuous and drama-laden. I actually quit answering the phone every time the school called me because I just couldn’t deal—I’d listen to the voicemail and then have Henry call back. MOM OF THE YEAR, ALWAYS.
Grade-wise, everything was great! But Chooch hated one of his teachers (she’s old and out of touch, you guys) and the new gym teacher is apparently a real bitch. We thought Chooch was exaggerating but then Henry met her and confirmed.
So yeah! Last day of this shitty school year was Monday, and Chooch had a pretty severe hockey and Pierce the Veil hangover. We didn’t get back to Pittsburgh until after 1:00am, and well….Chooch didn’t have the “late shift” option like I did.
Somehow, he was in good spirits anyway.
Henry’s mom Judy has officially started her summer babysitting job and so far, they’re getting along; well, except for today when Chooch CALLED ME AT WORK because he got his stupid Loom* kit in the mail and Judy wouldn’t let him open it and he wanted my permission, so I said yeah sure, what’s the big deal, but then after work I found out she actually said she didn’t want him to take it outside because he’d lose the pieces. And I agree!
AND SO THE SUMMER OF CHOOCH & JUDY BEGINS.
*(Basically a craft thing where you make bracelets and crap out of what looks like the rubber spacers I had all up in my grill when I had braces, ugh.)
We were talking about the 2009 Penguins parade at work last week and I was going to repost my account of it, but then I worried it would jinx the Penguins. But now that they’ve successfully brought Lord Stanley back to Pittsburgh and the celebratory parade is officially set for Wednesday, I guess now is a good time!
Amber2 and I already declared weeks ago that if the Pens won, we were going to take a half-day and go to the damn parade. Hopefully she doesn’t lose me like Henry did.
*******
It wouldn’t have seemed right not to go, so Henry came home a little early on Monday and by 10:30am we were en route to the Penguins Victory Parade downtown. Now, I live a 5-minute’s drive from downtown, so I suggested that we just take the trolley, which is within a few blocks from our house. But Henry, good ol’ Henry, he’s all, “Oh no no no, we’ll drive and park at Station Square (which is right across from the river from town and has several parking lots) that way you can just drop me off at work after the parade.”
Immediately I was leery of this great plan.
We reached Station Square and, naturally, were met with gridlocked traffic because of course every fucking person outside of the city limits swarms en masse like fucking Syrian locusts looking for a parking spot to plague. (Just remember who suggested taking the trolley.)
We crawled ahead a few feet in five minutes, and it occured to me to ask, “You have money to park, right?”
“No.”
Let me reiterate that for the few people who might think Henry is actually smart: He said no.
OF COURSE HE DIDN’T BRING MONEY. Why should I have been surprised at all.
What happened next may seem like an accident but I’m convinced it was carefully plotted stratagem.
“Jump out and go to that ATM,” Henry ordered, pointing across the street. “No one’s going anywhere, so don’t worry about me leaving,” he laughed, sweeping his hand out the window at all the cars idling ahead of us.
Funny how in the ONE MINUTE it took me to take out money, he was GONE. I’m not kidding—our car was GONEZO. And where I had gotten out was right about where the road split, and then there were three different lot entrances he could have gone through.
I convinced myself not to panic and for the first minute I did really well. But after that, I sat on a retaining wall and cried behind my Mary-Kate sunglasses while throngs of excited Pens fans trampled past me, on their way to the parade that I just wasn’t destined to attend. I kept thinking I’d see Henry and Chooch amid one of these packs of fans, but they never emerged from any of the lots. I was four years old again, lost in the grocery store and all the faces looking down on me had the morphed and oblong faces of the kidnappers in my nightmares and I just knew the rest of my childhood was going to be spent in a moldy cellar eating stale crackers and Cheez-Whiz in front of a constant loop of American Gladiator reruns, if I was even that lucky.
Oh but I could just call Henry, IF ONLY I HAD MY PHONE. Which was in my purse. Which was in the car.
I WAS OMG LOST I’M GOING TO DIE. Lost and scared and dead. And pathetic. My future was looking grim, like I would never reunite with my family and, left to my own devices, how would I ever survive long enough to make it home? I had a twenty in my pocket but if I came upon a panhandler, you just know I’d be guilted into buying that bastard a Big Mac, Hustler, and a jug of Old Crow.
So I sat there, on that wall, hugging my knees to my chest and feeling desperate and completely sorry for myself, and I even heard myself whimper once or sixteen times. And then I thought, “Jesus Christ, did I just whimper in real life?”
It took me twenty-minutes to find someone willing to let me use their phone. His name was Tyrone and he was a janitor who literally LEANED BACK and slid his glasses down so he could ogle my tits while I was trying to locate Henry.
“Your man LEFT YOU?” he asked when I handed the phone back, clucking his tongue to illustrate just how appalling this was to him.
Look Tyrone, NOT ON THIS DAY, my friend. I thanked him, shook his hand (he held his grasp a little too long and I was honestly bouncing on the balls of my feet because hello, I was about to miss this fucking parade. I had to walk in the opposite direction to meet Henry and Chooch. They were relegated to a lot a good half mile away from where I was with Tyrone, and Henry needed the cash I took out so he could get his license back from the lot attendant who was leaving soon.
I ran as fast my boobs, sans sports bra, would allow me, and when I finally met up with those two assholes, I yelled, “Do you know how scary it is being lost???” to which Henry replied, “Um, you’re an ADULT.”
Yeah, adults go missing too, asshole. I was practically a sitting duck back there, any serial rapist could have dumped a burlap sack over me and THEN WHAT. My body becomes a penis cozy, that’s what.
To summarize what happened next – Chooch was being an asshole, Henry was being slow, and I lost my fucking temper on a walkway next to the RIVER, and I hate the RIVER. I hate a clusterfuck. I mean, who doesn’t. And it was about a second away from defeating me. I was ready to go home. I was sick of ambling around that fucking parking lot with no direction and I took this plastic snack bowl of Chooch’s and whaled it against the pavement, screamed “FUCK” in several different contexts, and demanded Henry take me home. Seriously, Henry had parked so far away that there wasn’t a soul around to hear my moment of crazy lady anguish. But Henry got that hissed tone of his and goes, “I am NOT going home after making it this far, we’re going to this fucking parade.”
We eventually caught up with the rest of the last-minute stragglers, walked across the Smithfield Street Bridge, which of course made me convulse and re-eat my breakfast, and somehow, someway, found a really nice spot right on the parade route that wasn’t clogged with gyrating and sweaty fans fifteen-heads deep.
And all the frustrating pratfalls of that morning became worth it as soon as the parade started and I found myself crying again, but in a good way this time.
Seriously. Mario Lemieux.
Typically, I’d have found 1,000 people to hate in one minute flat on any other day, but on Monday I loved everyone. (Not Henry, though.)
Hossa: Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.
You guys! Billy Guerin, you guys! You guys OMG!
Three of my faves, one truck: ORPIK!!, Cooke, and Sykora. I cried.
Malkin was the only one I couldn’t get a good shot of, because every girl started boinging up and down with thrusted boobs, waving their ring fingers frantically. I may or may not have been apart of that.
I want so badly for Jessi to have this shirt, and to always stand in that exact pose while she’s wearing it.
These were set off as we were making the long trek back to the car. Henry told Chooch they were day fireworks, but Chooch heard it as “gay” fireworks, so that’s all he’s been talking about. “Mommy, remember when we saw the gay fireworks?” And then I have so many things I want to say* to that but there’s only so much a three-year-old’s mind can handle.
*(Like, “You mean when Daddy and Hot Naybor Chris were tandem lawn-mowing?
