Wow, hello. I’m back with more rollercoaster road trip recapping. You are so stoked, I can smell the stink of your stoke-ocity all the way from here.

The only other time I was ever at Sea World Orlando was in the early 80s. I remember approximately nothing about it, my brain being the ripe old age of 4, except for the fact that Richard Simmons made an appearance and I got on stage AND KISSED HIM. The only reason I remember this is because I was mocked mercilessly about it every now and then throughout the years by my family.

Sadly, there was no Richard Simmons to kiss this time around (though I could have my shot at Cookie Monster because the line was short but Henry and Chooch were being dumb about it).

Guys, did you know that parking at Sea World is like $30 or some other crazy outerspace denomination? Henry was all, “HAHA I WILL SHOW THEM” and ordered a Lyft to take us since it would only be $9 both ways. But then he forgot about the tip, so it ended up being wash in the end BUT it was nice being dropped off right at the entrance!

Side-note: you’re supposed tow ear your masks in Lyft vehicles. The first driver had his on which was awesome, but the second driver didn’t! Also, we were so giddy Monday morning waiting outside of the hotel for the Lyft. And by that, I mean, Chooch and I were acting like absolute crazy people while Henry kept hissing, “STOP IT.”

I know it was only our first full day in Florida, but I was feeding off the sunshine and theme park energy in a big way. I can’t believe I was originally opposed to this spring break back-up plan!

I already wrote about the two main negatives that we experienced at Sea World and there was only one other bummer of a thing that happened, pretty much as soon as we walked through the gate. Henry had realized that he left his dumb eyeglass strap thingie in the car, which was at the hotel, so he immediately set off to the nearest gift shop in order to procure one. Chooch and I wait for no one, not even The One Who Feeds Us (unless it’s Feeding Time), so we continued walking through the main courtyard area.

“Look! Sea World buddy!” Chooch called out, pointing to a squirrel frolicking in the landscaping along the path. We walked over to get a closer look, and it just so happened to be near a side path that was labeled “park employees only.” We weren’t even CLOSE to entering the path, still clearly on the main park-goer path, but an employee walking past at that moment still felt obliged to call out, “THAT’S FOR PARK EMPLOYEES ONLY.”

Um, OK thanks, we can read?

I started to explain that we weren’t going to step on the path (we still weren’t even close to it!??!) and that we were just trying to get a better look at the squirrel which you would think she would be understanding of considering she’s working at a park whose theming revolves around animals!?

She literally cut me off to call over her shoulder, once again, “THAT PATH IS FOR PARK EMPLOYEES ONLY.”

OK now I was pissed and offended, which is a deadly combo for me and makes me want to breathe fire. Normally Chooch would be like, “OK you’re overreacting”  but he was like, “Wow, cool” and I launched into my indignant tirade of injustice. I HATE BEING SCOLDED and it was exactly what she had done. She was carrying a clipboard with her and appeared to be in some type of supervising or management position and if you ask me, someone needs to knock her down a peg, looking at you, killer whales.

So now I had a bad taste in my mouth (probably from the fire-breathing) and I was concerned that it was an omen for the rest of the day. But luckily, with the exception of the Australian Piss Party referenced in link above, the day only got better from here.

Right after the squirrel incident, we came upon the entrance to Manta, a B&M flying coaster. The entrance itself was like the opening to a cave, and only continued to get more and more cave-like as we moved deeper inside. It was so dark and then suddenly:

Is this best queue of any roller coaster, ever? Maybe! It was so cool! There were several other aquarium windows as we walked through and since hardly anyone was every in line with us, we were able to walk right up to the windows and have it all to ourselves! Literally EVERY SINGLE TIME we rode Manta (at least 4 or 5 times!). This was such a fun surprise!

The other fun surprise? Manta was AWESOME. I generally do not like flying coasters that much. They can be extremely uncomfortable and unenjoyable but this one really took me by surprise! It actually ended up being Chooch’s favorite coaster in the park! (Not mine, though. I’ll give it the #2 slot.)

The only bad experience I had on this was maybe the third time we rode it – it was a complete walk-on in the back row, and most of the train was empty. The ride op at that time – TY, an older white man with a huge chip on his shoulder – walked around and SLAMMED down the restraints of each empty seat. Then he kicked (KICKED!!) in the leg restraints too flying coasters have additional restraints down there to make sure your legs and feet stay pinned back when the coaster is in flying position (i.e. when you’re face down and screaming your face off). I looked at Chooch like, “Wow he better not do that to us—OW! OMG!!” as Ty came over and practically smashed my clavicle with the restraint and then Annie Wilkes’d my feet.

So aggressive, I couldn’t believe it. I should have reported his ass! Along with the bitchy EMPLOYEES ONLY cunt.

This was also the coaster where I discovered that Sea World goers are super conscientious of filling all the seats, so people in line would turn around to see if there were any single riders available. I loved this. Nothing is more frustrating that when a pair of people board a 4 SEAT ROW and proceed to not move all the way to the end so that other people in line can’t easily get in to fill the seats.

Anyway, I really appreciated the couth and NOONCHI (Korean for personal awareness) of these riders which was almost negated by all the line-jumping going on (really only experienced this in line for that stupid Infinity Falls, but water rides always bring out the idiot GP). The only time the “fill the row” proaction was scowled upon was when we were waiting in line for the front row for Kraken.

There was a middle school-aged boy behind me and Chooch, and 2 pairs of people in front of us. The train that was boarding had one empty seat in the front. The boy noticed this and did the whole “Excuse me, pardon me” side-step song-and-dance until he was able to JUST BARELY slip through the gate before it closed and occupy the lone empty seat in the front row.

Did this affect any of us? No. Was this considered cutting NOPE. A park with super on-point ride ops will usually even have a ride attendant calling out for single riders, and some rides even have single-rider lines. THIS IS NOT A NEW THING. This is called FILLING THE FUCKING TRAIN AND MINIMIZING THE WAIT TIME FOR EVERYONE ELSE.

That being said, the wives in front of us got RULL bent out of shape about this. Acting appalled, suffering a personal affront, the whole deal. They were scoffing about the audacity, and grunting their displeasure, and then the one woman even went so far as to MOCK the kid’s appearance.  I was pissed.

“He was in a big hurry to get to the front!” the one WIFE said so since she mocked that kid, Chooch and I proceeded to spend the rest of the day mocking HER. Dumb lady.

“HE WAS IN A BIG HURR—stfu!!!”

Kraken was super fun though, although a bit rough (I’m old).

Don’t get me started on this fucking ride. Apparently, it’s similar to Busch Garden Williamburg’s Escape from Pompeii but this one is Atlantis-themed and I wanted to do it but when we were in line for it, it broke down. We stayed in line for quite some time waiting because the recording urged us to but finally an employee got on the speaker and was like, “Yeah, this bitch is fucked, guys.” You know, in so many words.

We kept trying to come back to it but the line was SO LONG every single time. Meanwhile, we were practically walking on all of the coasters. The park wasn’t even crowded but it was a hot, sunny day and bitches always tryna ride the water rides on days like that, you know?

You have just looked at two pictures of Henry walking like he’s on a mission.

OK, now that we got Manta and Kraken under our belts, it was time to find our way to Mako, a B&M hyper, because Chooch had already decided that this would be his 200th coaster.

#200!

OK. Bro. We all loved Mako but I LOVED MAKO ENOUGH TO MARRY IT, OK? Is Mako my new favorite hyper? I think so. Yes. Mako is my new favorite hyper. Chooch and I rode this at least 6 times that day and it was a walk-on every time except for when we waited for the front row and that was only about a 5 minute because ops were A+++ on this one.

My favorite was toward the end of the day. I wanted to go and ride it one last time before we left. We sat in the back with a young couple and it was just good vibes all around (probably because we left Henry behind lololol). When we got back to the station, it was practically empty. As we were about to leave, the couple we sat with asked one of the ride ops if they could stay on if they moved to an empty row (there were people waiting for the back row). She nodded and I was like, “OMG CAN WE DO IT TOO??” and she nodded again! So Chooch and I jumped in an empty row and got in another ride. When we came back, all four of us turned and looked the Best Ride Op Ever and she NODDED AGAIN without us even asking! So we ended the night with three back to back to back rides on Mako.

IT WAS DREAMY.

And a better experience than one of our earlier rides when we sat with two older thoosies  (that’s industry slang for coaster enthusiast, you guys, get on our level, god. I tell you guys too much sometimes!) and the one was pretty nauseating, like one of those guys who likes to expel random facts and comparisons loudly so everyone will be like, “OMG THAT GUY MUST RIDE A LOT OF COASTERS.” Like when he pulled his restraint down, he exclaimed, “Oh yeah, B&M clamshell!” (named for its shape, obvi) and I just rolled my eyes at Chooch.

We are not that annoying, you guys. (Lol, Janna is probably reading this and vehemently disagreeing while paging through a Cat Name book.)

The last coaster credit we needed was the brand spanking new Ice Breaker. The section of the park it’s in opens later than the rest of the park I guess, but the Sea World employee hanging around the entrance of Mako told us that this was the fastest way there so we hung around and enjoyed the scenery until the rope was dropped about 10 minutes later.

Aaaaand of course Ice Breaker wasn’t running yet, lol. We stood in line for a few minutes anyway but then made the unanimous decision to go do other things and come back because unlike Busch Gardens Williamsburg, it was our first time there so we wanted to see all the things!

LIKE THE MANATEES!

We did eventually go back later to ride Ice Breaker. It was the longest line we waited in for a coaster – a whole whopping 25 minutes. Henry had to pee first but we got in line without him, lol. Unlike other people, we did not invite him to cut the line in order to join us and he still ended up on the same train as us.

Chooch and I got the front row! The ride op was this super nice girl but she made me scrape my calf on the restraint (they were really awkward) and then I proceeded to have a bruise there for the rest of the week. Just add it to the rest! My right foot had the most purplest bruise of my life running alongside of it.

I feel like not many people would be ok with our versions of “vacations” lol.

Anyway! Ice Breaker was cool! A really interesting launch coaster but having just ridden Pantheon two days before this, Ice Breaker was a little underwhelming. Still good! But we rode so many incredible coasters on this trip that it did not end up in my Top 5.

Also, the ride op loved my Marcy tattoo so I forgave her instantly for maiming my calf.

This was before I ruined my shoes on Infinity Falls. :(

(I’m obsessed with these particular Vans though so I bought a new pair and am going to try and bleach the ruined ones and dye them neon orange, I dunno. And by that I mean that Henry is going to try. He’s the She’s Crafty one, not me.)

This is how far ahead of me Chooch typically walks, lol.

The penguin house was so much fun! We got to watch a bunch of them being weighed and it was so sweet and hilarious. This was also the first time I saw the WIVES WHO ARE AGAINST SINGLE RIDERS JUMPING AHEAD TO FILL EMPTY SPOTS.

A really nice British lady took this picture for us! When she handed me the phone back, she said, “I took three. I got all of your different positions!” I thought she was being sarcastic since I didn’t change at all while standing there, but then I looked at the pictures and sure enough, Henry the Stoop was doing something different with his arms in each one.

Additional things:

• The soft pretzels were SO GOOD.
• We each got a free meal with our ticket. Chooch and I were stuck with pizza but it was fine!
• There was some 20-something-ish girl there with her boyfriend wearing obscenely short shorts and Henry was PISSED about this?! He kept saying, “I’M SORRY BUT YOU SHOULDN’T WEAR SOMETHING LIKE THAT WITH CHILDREN AROUND” and this was extremely hilarious to me because he was actually seething. Meanwhile, I was like, “Ugh I wish my ass looked that hot.”
• It was near the end of the day when Chooch and I rode Infinity Falls and we were 100% soaked. Henry was so nervous that we weren’t going to be dry enough by the time the Lyft came but we were, calm down Henry. God, first the short shorts, now this. Homeboy was STRESSIN’.
• My overall impression of Sea World was that it was super beautiful and (MOST!!!!) of the staff was awesome. Of course, I’m uncomfortable with the whole animal portion of it, but can only hope that the animals are treated well and ae given the best lives possible. I would go back over and over again just to ride Mako and I am devastated that I live so far away from it. But now I’m feenin’ for Diamondback, my other fave hyper which is within driving distance.
• We only fought once and it was toward the end of the day when I think I was suffering from sun stroke and had to go sit down and then Henry was being SO DRAMATIC because he went to get water and I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. God, track my phone, why don’t you.
• Chooch bought a Mako shirt (Manta was his fave but he didn’t like the Manta shirts) and now I wish I had bought one too, or a coffee cup. REGERTZ.
• I know I have a picture of Richard Simmons on stage at Sea World somewhere but it’s sadly not in the photo album I thought it was in and I just want to get this damn thing posted because I still have so much more to write about the trip and I’m getting panicked because this is how I live my life: creating imaginary deadlines that affect nothing and no one but myself for absolutely no reason oher than I must be fueled by stress, that must be it.
• We were supposed to go to Sea World San Antonio on one of the earlier iterations of our spring break trip but I have a feeling this one was superior.
• Chooch was able to snag all 5 coaster creds here!
• We did not spectate the killer whale show (or as Henry kept calling it: SHAMU). I dunno, that doesn’t sit well with me.
• I wish I had taken more pictures. Oh well, I’ll just have to go back when the new surf coaster is open!

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As the title suggests, Rita, this is Part 2 of our Friday in St. Augustine.

After doing all that other stuff, we found ourselves in the courtyard of the CATHEDRAL BASILICA OF ST. AUGUSTINE. Henry was like, “Ugh more god-stuff” but then went inside anyway because yo, that sun was cookin’ us.

You guys. This was America’s First Parish, founded September 8, 1565. Thank god I took a picture of the brochure that I donated one entire US dollar for (2 weeks later, Henry was all, “What is this Venmo payment for $1?????” like I went on a shopping spree at Tiffany’s or some such shit. Calm down, Hank. It’s called a CHURCH DONATION.).

(And also, I told him at the time of the Venmo’ing that this was what I was doing, so way to prove once again that you don’t listen to me, DEARHEART.)

Touring churches and shit was my favorite part of Europe vacations as a child. Not for religious reasons but purely art appreciation.

I just really like cathedrals/churches/cemeteries – all the good Cs, I guess. Yeah, and you too, Vitamin C.

Sadly, we only spent about 5 minutes in here because RIGHT AS I TOOK THIS PICTURE, Henry (the lump of which can be seen in the far left church pew) sneezed SO ROBUSTLY in the BONE QUIET CATHEDRAL that the echo kept pinging off the marble trying to find something to absorb it and EVERYONE (OK there were only about 6 other people in there not including us but still) whipped their heads around all Regan-like to see whose schnozz orchestrated such a jarringly percussive explosion of sonic weaponry while I quickly slipped out the nearest door.

Henry and Chooch joined me outside a few seconds later and Chooch and I both launched into YOU ARE SO EMBARRASING lambasting.

Honestly though!

Meanwhile, Chooch had seen a sign for some ghost hunting supply shop inside some building and suddenly had his heart set on purchasing a spirit box and an EMF reader. He actually walked away from us while I was still eviscerating Henry for The Sneeze and then we were like WHERE IS OUR SON so we frantically texted him and he popped out of a hallway of shops and actually made a very Henry-like exasperated motion with his arms.

“I told you I was going to buy ghost hunting stuff!” and that was when I had to admit that wow, I often block him out.

Anyway, the stupid store was closed so we went to a shop full of St. Augustine accoutrement. Henry is suddenly uber into buying souvenir hats?? And forcing Chooch to pick out shirts and hoodies?? Suddenly Henry is like, “LET’S SPEND MONEY” so I’m going to have to investigate this 180 degree U-turn from Tight Wad Town.

Then the dumb ghost store was open after all but Chooch came out empty-handed in less than 30 seconds. “That shit’s expensive,” he mumbled. I don’t know what price-points he had imagined….

Henry had to run and put more money in the frustrating meter before we could venture off to the FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH which I actually almost forgot I had wanted to do until I accidentally opened a tourist map and saw it on there. Phew.

When I looked up the Fountain of Youth to see how far we were from it, it told me that it was a 40 minute walk. Oh hon, no. Nope. Uh uh. Not after all the theme park marathon treks we had completed during the week. But then HENRY looked it up because I apparently cannot do anything right when it comes to direction things, and determined that it was only 17 minutes.

Therefore, we walked.

We passed the most beautiful, and also OG, Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum! It used to be some rich dude’s house. I don’t know the details. That is what Google is for.

Realty Cafe was on the way and I declared that it was COLD BEV time.

Hello, this place was so cute and the owners (seen in that $3.99 magnet on the left, AND YES I BOUGHT ONE FOR MY FRIDGE) were fabulous. Henry paused for a split second before ordering and the dude was like, ‘You want an iced mocha.”

And Henry said, “Yes.”

I got an iced chai latte.

Chooch got whatever this neon yellow liquid causing him to scrunch his face.

I lasted one minute into this chess match. I cannot concentrate on chess or most games, actually.

I’m not sure if this house was actually abandoned but it was pretty cool.

Almost to the Fountain of Youth!!

Wow. Look at that stride.

This wall was made of shells, I guess. THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH PROPERTY WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE.

I know you’re going to be SO BUMMED but I am going to end this here, and here is why: MY PERIOD STARTED TODAY AND I AM CRAMPY and also we just sat through an hour+ info session for Chooch’s study abroad program and I need to get up and move. Sorry, blog. I just don’t have anything else to give today.

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Well, guys, it happened. The day has come where MY LITTLE BABY, MY LITTLE PRECIOUS LAMBY, MOMMY’S LITTLE SWEET BOY CHEEKS—ok ugh sorry I was even making myself sick—has turned 16. I’m kind of numb, not gonna lie. I haven’t cried yet at least. But I did drive him to school  this morning (usually he takes the bus) and he was actually a delight. We made fun of the dreadful radio DJs together, mocked the bitch who got picked to play Escalation, and he even said THANK YOU when he got out of the car. I did almost cry a little then.

Henry and I got lucky with this one. I mean, we’re not perfect parents, but we don’t suck either. We’ve always put him first and done everything possible to make sure he has everything he needs and I am not being jokey or sarcastic at all for once when I say that it has been so cool, fun, and rewarding being his parent for the last 16 years and I can’t wait to see what he’s going to be like as an adult!

OK I lied! I can definitely wait. Let’s put the brakes on time for a bit, please. Sheesh.

I know I’m always like, “OMG CHOOCH’S ATTITUDE. CHOOCH KNOWS EVERYTHING. CHOOCH IS ANNOYING. UGH CHOOH NEEDS TO CLEAN HIS ROOM” but in all honesty, all that shit is normal teenager baggage and I don’t really give him as much credit as he deserves. Because the kid is just amazing, really. Consistently maintains a 4.0 with no nagging needed. Got a job at McDonald’s in October and not only does he never call off (he schedules time off though, but doesn’t dick them over), but he asks for more hours. He’s always getting involved in stuff too, like various hikes and excursions at the teen center, a ceramics class he signed up for on Thursdays, etc.

And now he’ll be learning how to drive. Ugh.

Anyway! We had a small cake-eating celebration for him Saturday night. He didn’t want a party, so it was just us, Janna, Corey, my mom, and two of Chooch’s friends. Even that was too much for him! Believe me, if he had left it up to me, and if big celebrations were safe, I’d have had a big blowout in the park like old days or rented out the roller rink for old time’s sake. IT’S HOW I SHOW MY LOVE, OK.

(Those old parties in the park were so legit though! I think the cat one was my fave.)

Well, at least I was allowed to do the whole cake thing which is the part of party-planning that I love the most! HOW CAN I MAKE HIM IRRITATED? That’s usually my first thought in the brainstorming process and then I go from there. Since we were still hot on the heels of our roller coaster road trip, I wanted to use that as the theme for this year’s bitchin’ Bethel Bakery cake.

I love you, Bethel Bakery.

Also, this picture is the first one that came to mind – it’s from Fun Spot Kissimmee (maybe one day I will finish recapping the trip), and Chooch rode this coaster – literally called KIDDIE COASTER – with a bored look on his face the whole time. Way to steal the front row from a little kid who would have appreciated it more!

And then Bethel Bakery had Spanish happy birthday candles! Had to scoop those up as an homage to his upcoming Yucatan study abroad sesh.

Henry: U WILL NOT GET THEM CANDLES TO FIT ON THAT THAR CAKE.

Me: Oh yes I will.

Henry: NO. THERE IS NOT ENUF ROOM. U WILL HAVE TO NOT  USE ALL THEM. JUST SOME.

Me: WTF do you want it to say, Feliz Cum??

Henry: *grumbles*

Me: Bitch move and let me do my thang.

C’mon now, Henry. I will make that shit work.

And then we all sang bizarrely as usual.

Not as bad as the time we sounded like a fucking funeral dirge / Gregorian choir at his laser tag birthday party! I really wish I had video of that, ugh. MOM FAIL.

We let Chooch do the first cut now that he’s 16 (that’s not really a thing, is it? I think Henry just made it up!??!) and it was chaos. I didn’t get a good picture the first time so I wanted him to cut it again but then Henry was all, “HO HO HO HO!” trying to snatch the knife from him because he didn’t like the way Chooch was about to make the second slice so he made Chooch RE-CUT the same area and it was so sus. Like, how much stake does Henry have in cake-cutting, I don’t get it. He was a few seconds away from hollering, “IT’S MY WAY OR NO WAY!”

Close up!

After Chooch’s friends left on Saturday, he actually hung out with me and Janna! However, all we did was shout about roller coaster manufacturers over Janna’s head and I think she was probably like, “Oh my god, if it’s not kpop, it’s coasters. This is so boring.”

As usual, now that he’s not in the one-digits, I had no idea what to get him. (Yeah, NOT a car, lol.) So we’re taking him and his friend Zakk to Cedar Point in a few weeks for the whole weekend which should be not only a fun gift but also a reprieve for Chooch who always has to ride coasters with his MOM.

I also got him some cool Steel City brand Kennywood shirts, an Iron Gwazi blueprint art, and a Coaster Crew membership so now he can be a real coaster dork and attend actual events and scream ONE TRAIN OPS and have the B&M vs Intamin giga debate.

I freaking love this kid even though we act like we’re frenemies most of the time. I can’t imagine how dull my life would be if I never had him.

Speaking of, when I was telling him yesterday that I wanted him to pose for these pictures, he got all bent out of shape about it and retreated upstairs, so I called after him, “You owe me!”

“For what?!” he called back.

“FOR THE SCAR YOU GAVE ME AND FOR RUINING MY STOMACH!” I screeched.

“OK, here we go,” he mumbled.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHOOCHIE CABRERA!! (Shout out to the old-timers who remember when I made a LiveJournal for him when he was a baby and that was the name, lol, OMG I was so lame.)

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The second park we went to on our vacation was Sea World Orlando (full recap when I’m not drowsy from hiking in the heat today). Their kiddie land second is themed after Sesame Street and honestly, despite my angry feelings toward Elmo (he ROONED Sesame Street, ok? ROONED it), I thought this was a lovely area.

We have to hit up the kiddie land in every park because they usually have a kiddie coaster and if we’re lucky (is that really it tho?), we don’t need to have a small child accompanying us.

Do you know how embarrassing it is to get turned away in front of small children and their parents for being too grown?

Luckily, the ride op was more than happy to have us board Super Grover’s Box Car Derby and even jovially insisted that we “PICK OUR FAVORITE CAR.”

I don’t even know who Abby Cadabby is (in fact, in my head I kept calling her Abby Cadaver, so…), but we chose her car because it was the last row. I guess if I was pressed for a re-ride, I’d have picked Oscar, or Count if he had a car.

I did, thanks!

When I came out of the bathroom (always feels weird using the restroom in kiddie land when I’m not there with a small kid but I digress), I walked in on Henry asking Chooch to take his picture next to Cookie Monster, so of course I needed to get in on this action too. But every time I asked Henry why he requested this photo, he got SUPER SHIFTY and kept saying DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT.

I had forgotten all about this until just now so naturally, I am back to worrying about it. DOES HE HAVE A MISTRESS? IS HER NAME COOKIE? IS HENRY A MONSTER FOR HER COOKIES?!

I’m spiraling.

I was distracted by CAROUSEL TIME though. There was hardly anyone on it and we walked right on! Later that day, we walked by and the line was like human caterpillar of screaming kids, so good call riding this early. Because you know we can’t pass up that carouselfie opp.

Lol, “we.”

Oh man, this carousel was so adorbs. Strangely though, there was some cutesy Sesame-ish announcement when the carousel started but then the ride itself was silent. No music at all! I wonder if they normally have music playing but something was wrong, because it seemed incredibly strange to me. I mean, even carousels that don’t have legit calliopes just play a recording of carousel music?!

I love forcing Henry to straddle carousel animals. I wonder if he was thinking of Cookie. :(

I would hate Pittsburgh bike lanes much less if they were identified as cutely as Sesame Street bike lanes.

OK, I’m effing exhausted and would very much like to go to bed early (I say that every night but still rarely go to sleep before midnight, hate that for me) so more Sea World content will come later. We had a wonderful day here (except for these two moments) and I would like to memorialize it all with a chaotic cluster of grammatically-fucked words. AND YOU KNOW I WILL.

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It all started with Korea. Almost everything in my life does, so who’s surprised here.

We were talking about the upcoming Psy album because it’s full of super-hyped duets and collabs. Henry actually scooped me on this one: Psy and Hwasa have allegedly covered an old Pia Zadora song.

“PIA ZADORA?!” I screeched.

Look. Someone at my Pappap’s house liked her in the 80s and I can remember that one of her cassettes was permanently housed in a kitchen drawer near the fridge. As a kid in elementary school, all I knew was that she was “the singer with the crazy hair and weird name.” Of course I didn’t know until years later that she was also the butt of Late Night jokes and a bit scandalous.

I’m pretty sure it was my Aunt Sharon who liked her, and Sharon must be sending me signs from the beyond because I have been reminded of her nearly every day this week.

Anyway! This started the Google descent because first I needed to know what song this was that Psy and Hwasa would be covering and I can safely say that I have never heard it but this is evidently the second time it’s been covered by Korean singers – is Pia big in Korea?!

Then I needed to, of course, see if she’s dead. She is not!

So now I’m on getting deeper in and this is how I saw that she was listed in the cast of Troop Beverly Hills…

wait, what? And then it was starting to come back to me because I saw that movie (one of the best, honestly) in the theater with my Girl Scout Troop OBVIOULSY and have a vague recollection of cheering when she was on the screen for a blip and everyone being like, “????” but then not really caring to know because this was also around the same time I was obsessed with Zsa Zsa Gabor too so my peers just knew when to walk away.

Well, now that I was fully immersed in the Troop Beverly Hills cast list, Henry admitted that he had never seen it. Friends….WHAT. I have clearly done this man a disservice if I wasted 20 years of opportunities to rectify this.

I know that we’ve talked about this movie before at least because he was there in the early 2000s when I realized that JENNY LEWIS was in Rilo Kiley — I used to love them so much in their early years! And fun fact: When Chooch was born, I opted for him to have Henry’s last name because I thought that “Riley Kelly” was too much like “Rilo Kiley” and also didn’t cascade off the tongue as beautifully as Riley Robbins.

Back then, when I told people my reasoning, they were like, “Rilo who?” It got even better when I said he was named after the drummer of Thrice.

“Thrice?”

But I digress! Now that I knew that Henry hadn’t seen this, and after watching the 30 year reunion of some of the cast (Shelley Long is the greatest) on YouTube, I made the unilateral decision that we would be spending our Friday night by watching one of the best movies of my whole childhood.

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I screamed at the Frankie and Annette cameo!

This movie REALLY HOLDS UP. I forgot about how perfectly it makes fun of itself. And how fabulous Shelley Long is. And how much I miss the show Life Goes On.

And guess what?? Henry said that he didn’t hate it and I kept staring at him to make sure he wasn’t falling asleep. Of course, he did his typical “ok what?” smirk here and there but that’s only because he doesn’t understand Girl Scout things.

I screamed, “I can’t believe you never saw this!

” And he goes, “What year did this come out? YEAH, I WAS 24.”

OOh OK, tough guy. So, after he went AWOL.

Still on that Pia Zadora tip though and needing someone to stop me from purchasing a vintage Pia Zadora satin bomber jacket for $130.

I’ll leave you with the opening credits because I forgot how amazing they are and also because I WAS OBSESSED WITH THIS BEACHBOYS SONG and 100% had this recorded from the TV onto a mix tape so I could roller skate to it in the basement.

Just so good, I’m crying, I want to be 9 again (well, actually no).

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Hello, I am here to tell you about one of my favorite moments of our vacation. To some people, it might sound like a horrible drag, but…just stick with me.

We got to Busch Gardens Williamsburg early enough that we were one of the first cars in line for parking. The lot wasn’t open yet so we had to wait for about 15 minutes. The thing about amusement parks is that there is so much waiting involved. I guess that can be said with travel in general. So much of our lives is spent…just waiting.

I actually cannot stand the anxiety that builds up like plaque in my heart while waiting for parks to open. Especially Cedar Point. And I even said that I didn’t want to do this shit on this trip, yet here we were. Not so much by choice but because we just left too early from wherever it was that we stayed the night before – I honestly can’t even remember now aside from the fact that it was one of the worst beds I have ever slept on in my life and I threw a big fit. The mattress was like a waterbed without the water! I felt like I was going to flop right out of it!

But I digress.

Of course, when the gates opened and the cars started making their way through, our line came to a standstill because as usual Henry chose the WRONG LINE. He always goes right to the one where someone in front of us doesn’t understand how to pay for parking or starts asking the attendant for, I dunno, Netflix recs. It never fucking fails. So Chooch and I were screaming at him and Henry was shouting, “IT DOESN’T MATTER! IT DOES NOT MATTER!” and some lady in the car next to us called out, “Oh, it matters!” sarcastically because her kid was doing the same shit to her and it was the funniest, heartwarming moment of Coaster Parent solidarity. I loved it.

So then we finally got through and parked the closest to the entrance we have EVER been. Like a row away, ISTFG. But as we’re walking to the entrance, Henry realized he forgot his man-purse or something and WENT BACK TO THE CAR. Chooch and I had our tickets so we were like, “Fuck him” and continued on in. It ended up not being his man-purse and now I can’t remember what it actually was. His eyeglass rollercoaster strap I think. Actually, who cares.

We were behind only ONE PERSON!!  And then somehow, even though there were 5 or 6 gates, we managed to be the FIRST PEOPLE IN THE PARK?? Yo. This day was off to a sweet start.

FIRST!

So, since it wasn’t 10am yet, we could only make it through this first area until we reached the “crossroads” where a park employee was standing sentry. We were still first in the now-larger group of people gathering at this point but weren’t allowed to go any further until the park officially opened. We knew that Pantheon, our most coveted ride du jour, was off to the left somewhere, so we scooted over to that side and stood along the wall.

HOWEVER!!! Some bitchass older man inched his way over so that he was on the other side of us. I was so pissed. Like, how are you just going to pull a bitch move like that when we were clearly at the head of the pack and did the work to get there first??

THEN!!! Two dumb teen boys casually did the “do-doo-doooo” whistle walk right past and got even further than the man did! I was outraged and started to stare them down and they knew it so they wouldn’t look at me. Chooch was like, “Please stop trying to fight with minors” and I was like, “FUCKING RUDE AMERICANS” like I’m not from here.

Because I’m not.

I’m from a beautiful country in my mind where I’m fluent in Korean, the sky is purple, the temps range from 55 to 85, and Josta is the national bev.

(Seriously, long live Josta.)

There was two younger people (like early 20s?) behind me talking about how they didn’t want to run, but they also didn’t want to get mauled over, and I started to really panic now because I didn’t want to run either and I hadn’t planned on it and had hoped that Busch Gardens was not a running of the bulls / rope-dropping type of park but then the clock struck 10 and it was MAYHEM, MARY. Everyone started running. Chooch was at the head of the pack and people behind me started to pass me up so my fight or flight response kicked in as a combination of both I guess and off I went too.

OK, I GUESS I’M RUNNING, I thought grudgingly.

The girl that was behind me talking with the other person about not wanting to run was also running but she FELL on the train tracks and her glasses flew off and I felt so bad but don’t bad enough to stop and help because I had about 15 kids and frat boys that I needed to gain on, and also I had no idea where I was running because this was only my third time at this park and I am awful with directions and also part 2,  I was wearing newish Vans and even oldish Vans aren’t great to run in so you can imagine my misery as my feet slapped the pavement with NO ARCH SUPPORT.

Eventually, I started passing people. Kids were dropping left and right. The two stupid asshole teen boys COULD NOT HANG with this 42-year-old track star, Lucy, and they too eventually dropped out of the race.

Turns out, it was actually kind of far to where the new coaster was, and I almost gave up because my vision was going gray and my lungs were SCREAMING, like they were trying so hard to assist with my breathing but also they’re like, “WE ARE 42 YEARS OLD, HON, CAN YA SLOW IT DOWN TO A JOG MAYBE?”

I vaguely remember sprinting (I can only imagine how I must have looked) over a bridge and as my vision was graying out and the cymbals were crashing in my ears, I looked up just as I was passing the last kid and now the only person in front of me was…

CHOOCH.

And right up past him?

PANTHEON.

We made it. We motherfucking made it.

FIRST! FIRST FIRST FIRST!!!

Well OK, I was second, but still Chooch and I were a team so I’m co-opting his win.

But, LOL, instead of the sweet horns of victory we were instead met with SAD TUBA as we saw a park employee standing at the entrance to the ROPED OFF PANTHEON AREA.

“Is it….closed?” I huffed, bent over with my hands on my aching knees.

“Unfortunately, we’re having some maintenance issues and Pantheon will be having a delayed opening today,” the young guy named EVAN said calmly. “You’re welcome to enjoy the many other rides the park has to offer, such as Tempesto and Apollo’s Chariot which are directly behind you.”

“Can we stay in line?” I wheezed, and Evan was just like, “I mean…” You know these people are instructed by the park to try to deter lines forming in front of closed rides in any way possible and some parks are actually SUPER FORCEFUL about this (COUGH*KINGS ISLAND*COUGH). But I was like, “No, I ran here. I am 42-years-old and blew past all those bitch ass kids, did you see me? Shout out to me, right? Also I  came here from *wheeze* Pittsburgh specifically to ride this *pant* so please don’t make me leave.”

Now some little kid had also made it over to us and his family caught up with him around the same Henry meandered over like fucking Huckleberry Finn strutted through a meadow I have no idea where I’m going with this but I was still bent over, huffing painful breaths of what sounded like PLEURISY* into my knees, and he started cracking up because it wasn’t even open.

*(I have been obsessed with pleurisy ever since I got my grubby little hypochondriac child hands on a copy of the Merck Medical Journal and then kept it on my nightstand for some light bedtime reading. I always think that I have this anytime I have even the slightest twinge in my chest!)

Sandals Guy was behind us from the beginning with his son and wife. I heard him talking to the parents of the small kid who made it to Pantheon after us, and he was saying that his family were big coaster enthusiasts but then said that King’s Island was owned by Paramount and that Carowinds was a “world class park” like OOOOOH-kay buddy boy. He eventually turned his attention to us and I told him we came from Pittsburgh so he started trying to get me to care about some cavern that his family had just went to and made me look at pictures of it on his phone and it just made me real uncomfy, swiping through a  stranger’s phone, you know?

Then I didn’t like him anymore because he was saying to the other family, “Wow and your boy here was the first one in line for this too! I saw him running the whole way here, like lightning!”

LIES.

EGREGIOUS LIES.

THIS IS ERRONEOUS.

MORE SYNONYMS FOR BULLSHIT.

Chooch and I locked eyes and telepathically exchanged hexes. Like hell that bitch kid was first! If he was first then why were Chooch and I at the front of the damn line? BECAUSE WE WERE THE CHAMPIONS.

WE RAN LIKE THIS WAS THE ORIGINAL MOTHERFUCKING OLYMPICS AND THE GODS WERE DOING THEIR ANCIENT-ASS VERSIONS OF TIKTOK DANCES IN THE CHEERING SECTION.

WE DID IT ALL FOR YOU, PANTHEON.

Meet Benjamin and Zach. Poor Zach was tasked with continuously walking the line to inform everyone that the ride was down and there was so estimated time frame. Benjamin was the more-senior ride op, from what I could tell, and he would periodically come down from the ride’s station, where maintenance was doing the damn thing, and get on the little microphone thing to implore us to move on with our lives and ride other things.

Every time he came down the sidewalk, the mom of the non-first kid would scoff in disgust, “Oh here he is again” and her husband yelled, “SAVE YOUR BREATH!” So after Benajmin gave his canned spiel for the 3rd time, an hour into our wait (oh, yes we had crossed the 60 minute threshold by now), he walked all the way down to us and said to me and Chooch, “You guys are die hards, I love it” and fist-bumped us (I felt SO SEEN) and then he goes, “Which one of you said ‘save your breath’?” and shook the dude’s hand! It was so funny, but I actually had really started to despise both families behind us after a point because while their little barbs were funny at first, it was starting to wear on me. Look, none of us woke up that morning wanting this to happen!

The one lady kept saying in her annoying South Carolina drawl that they were there yesterday and the same thing happened but it was because of a staffing issue, so every time one of these poor employees would try to say that maintenance was working on it, she would call out, “Yeah, OK we know you’re just waiting for more employees to get here!” so Benajmin was like, “Look, between just the three of us standing right here, we have enough people to run this ride right now, but we literally can’t until maintenance gives us the all-clear.”

She was such a fucking know-it-all! If any of these assholes were actually “thoosies” like they were pretending to be, then they would know that the manufacturer of this coaster is notoriously unreliable. (But fuck, Intamin makes some world class coasters though so I can’t hate them.)

This is my boy Evan, who was stuck having to look at us all morning and as if that wasn’t bad enough had to deal with people CONSTANTLY coming up to him and asking, “Is this not running or something? When will it open?” POOR FUCKING EVAN. We were like, “You should just start making things up like, ‘it ran out of gas.'”

I sincerely liked this kid and I hope that he liked us too because we were literally the only ones at the front of the line not being entitled dicks. I also appreciated that he was ONLY divulging behind-the-scenes info with me and Chooch. It made me feel like a VIP.

Like here in this picture, you can see the guy who told Benjamin to “Save his breath” BERATING THE MARKETING DIRECTOR. What the fuck is she going to do to solve this problem?? She is in marketing not maintenance!

Furthermore, I don’t know why this guy even gave a shit because he was barely in line. He left his wife and who I assumed was the older daughter to be placeholders while and his kid WHO WAS NOT FIRST kept running off to ride other rides!!

Eventually, the Know-It-All It’s-A-Staffing-Issue family of Karens called it and left the line after about an hour or so. Good riddance! Go find the nearest restroom to lodge your complaints up your asses. About 30 minutes later, the Sandal Dad family also called. The dad wished us luck and honestly I should clarify that none of these people were *that* bad. They were just middle-aged and grouchy, and I don’t care how many parks they allegedly attend, if this was true, then they would have more patience. Once we started really getting into park-hopping, we learned super quickly that you gotta walk into these parks with low expectations. If you go in thinking that lines will be short, rides won’t break down while you’re in line, and that you’re gonna collect every single coaster cred…

….don’t go to Cedar Point, lol.

We learned the hard way.

Now that the old asses were gone, we had young people behind us! I was so happy to have refreshing convo happening behind us. We now had the girl who fell and her brother, and a group of 3 young people: I think two of them may have been a couple, and then their third-wheel friend who was SO COOL. All of these people were in their early 20s I would and I was trying to breathe in their youth.

The third wheel girl cried out at one point, “OMG I love your nails! Did you do that yourself??” and I realized she was talking to ME, an OLD?! Then she told her friend to look at them.

“Yeah!” I said, fluttering my fingers. “Thanks!”

“And they match your shoes too! I love it!”

“I like to coordinate,” I blurted out because I couldn’t think of anything cool to say and couldn’t catch any of the current slang swirling around in my mouth fast enough to put sound behind it.

Chooch straight scowled at me and turned his back in embarrassment. I think his favorite part was when I thrust my hand toward the guy in their group (who earlier mentioned that he had waited 4 hours for VelociCoaster and it was worth it), and said, “Do you want to look, too?” and he goes, “Oh. Yeah, OK sure.” We were going on 2 hours at a standstill, you guys. Your girl was getting slap-happy.

Suddenly, a voice called out from the nearby Tea Cups, “Why are you guys in line for a ride that’s not even running?” Turns out it was a group of middle school boys. The guy who I forced to look at my nails fired back, “Why are YOU in line for the TEA CUPS?”

“Because it’s the best ride here!” one of them shouted back and they all cheered like dumbos.

“What a lame response,” the guy who looked at my nails said. “If they had said, ‘because at least it’s running’, that would have been a sick burn. But…best ride here?”

“We’ve now reached the point of this endless wait where we’re having battles with kids over which ride is the best,” someone said, and I deliriously cracked up.

Then!! Evan got some intel in his headset and came over to tell me that the issue was that one of the trains was not connecting to the WIFI. I….didn’t know what that meant but I made an appropriate-sounding, “Ah,” to fool him.

Then I heard the Girl Who Fell and her brother (the things you learn in line: family trees) say something about how she was going to punch someone in the face if it was really a staffing thing so I passed on the WIFI message and it turns out that the brother used to work at Carowinds and he said that this was a legit thing! Apparently newer coasters have control panels that use WIFI…OK I can’t remember. But this was something that genuinely happens, I guess.

And then, at exactly the TWO HOUR mark, Evan quietly turned around and unchained the entrance to the steps. No loud announcement, just a quiet, “Go head, guys, have fun” and Chooch and I took off. We still had to walk (run) up a small set of steps, over a bridge, down the steps, across the Pantheon courtyard, and FINALLY through the ride entrance, where a Pantheon worker was standing and nodded at us. Chooch and I ran all the way through the empty line, up the steps to the station, and straight to the front row. I like front row on launch-coasters, OK?!

Apparently no one else ran because it took a bit for all our friends (and Henry ugh) to catch up and fill the inaugural train.

The energy in the station was palpable! It was like we all had BEEN THROUGH something. Also, it was so crazy to now see Evan and Zach in the station and not standing in front of the closed-off line delivering “no news” to all of the people who were demanding ETAs! They had joined Benjamin and some other crew and it was exciting to see them doing their thing. Then one of the ride operators was like YOU GUYS READY FOR THE FIRST RIDE OF THE DAY?? and we were SCREAMING. Oh, the vibes, you guys. I’m getting all teary as I write this.

I’m shit at reviewing coasters. I have a hard time remembering various element names, etc., but this ride exceeded expectations. I had watched so many videos on it and it is so hard to imagine how great it actually is. I was low-key worried that it was going to be over-hyped and that I would regret waiting 2 hours. But yo. This fucker is fucking satanic I swear to god. That backward launch over the hump and up into the spike is BONKERS.

When we returned to the station, the whole train exploded in uproarious cheers and applause (Henry probably didn’t join in though – FYI he ended up sitting near the back with the DAD OF THOSE DICKHEAD TEENAGE BOYS WHO TRIED TO CUT! The boys didn’t make it on the first train with us though because they opted to wait for the back row).

Our young people friends!! A memorable moment was when the girl on the left was inexplicably bleeding from her elbow in line and the friend who liked my nails sprung into action by asking Evan if there was first aid anywhere.

“Dammit,” Henry mumbled. “I had band-aids – from Korea! – in my bag—”

“–purse,” Chooch and I corrected in unison.

“—but I left it in the car.”

Don’t worry! She procured a band-aid for her elbow-dripping friend from “some mom back there in line.”

See?? I don’t carry band-aids on my person so I’m still cool and not entirely mom-ish.

Even if you have eyeglass straps, they still make you put your glasses in the bin so Henry looked like this on the ride ^^^ lol.

I really wish that anyone reading this could just jump into my blog and have a virtual ride on Pantheon because it is so hard to put in words how outstanding this coaster is.

Our friends behind us!

WE EARNED THIS! When we got off the ride, Evan was like, “Well, was it worth it?” and I gushed, “YES IT WAS AWESOME!!” and Chooch gave me the “stop talking” eyeball warning.

Stand back a little bit farther, Henry. People can still see us.

I had so much love in my heart for the Pantheon crew that I made a point of stopping by customer service before we left that night. I was so excited to give them the names of each employee and gush about how awesome they were in light of all the bullshit vitriol they had to catch from a lot of the park-goers. We have never had a bad experience at Busch Gardens and the ride operators have always been so awesome, but these customer service hags were AWFUL. First of all, there were three of them there behind the counter, chatting away as I walked up. They looked at me and then continued their conversation. Finally, the youngest broad asked if she could help me, like yeah duh that’s why I’m not here and certainly not to eavesdrop on your lame-ass chit chat.

Anyway, I told the bitch that I wanted to give props to the Pantheon ride crew and I had to wait for her to pull out a binder for comments while pausing to talk more to her co-workers. I was so excited to tell her how awesome these guys were and she never once smiled, said “That’s so great to hear,” nothing. She just went through the motions of writing down what I was telling her and then said, “Anything else? OK, thanks.”

I should have said, “Yeah, there’s something else. I’d like to also put on record an account of a shitty experience I had with a park employee” and then this would be the part where I menacingly read her name off her name tag. But in reality, I just walked away. I was shivering from Pantheon night rides and I wanted to eat some of the delicious cookie that Henry had just purchased.

Additional things that happened on additional rides later that day:

• Zach remembering us and exclaiming, “You’re back!” and me saying, “The wait was a LITTLE shorter this time, ha ha.” (We only waited about 25 minutes for the back row!)
• We got back in line toward the end of the night and there were verbal fisticuffs when two meatheads cut the line and another meathead called them out and it was super passive aggressive and then the guy who called them out yelled, “let’s all cheer for the line jumpers!” and it was tense but also kind of exciting?!
• On our last ride of the night, there were two guys in front of us. Their friends were on the train right before, so when that train came back, one of them ran over and took the one guy’s hat and the other guy’s glasses for them so that they wouldn’t have to put it in the loose article bin. But then THE RIDE BROKE DOWN. So the one guy goes, “Awesome, now I can’t see” and his friend said, “And now my hair looks like this” and made an annoyed gesture toward his head. WHY WAS THIS SO FUNNY TO ME, I ACTUALLY LAUGHED OUT LOUD AND CHOOCH WAS SO EMBARRASSED. Anyway, the ride was only down for 10 minutes and then Chooch and I got the nightride of our lives (well, after Hat Hair and Bad Eyesight Guy).
• There was a guy in line front of us on one of our rides and he had these interesting lines of symbol tattoos. I asked Chooch if he knew what he was and he said no. But then a few minutes, Chooch said, “Oh, it has something to do with Naruto.” I was like, “Wow Chooch really has his finger on the pulse of…whatever Naruto is.” Then we were in line for the next ride and I saw someone with a shirt with the same symbol shit on it! “Did you watch Naruto or something?” I asked Chooch, and he admitted that he only knew it was Naruto because in the Pantheon line, there was some young girl in line behind us acting like an idiot and she bumped into the tattoo guy. He turned around and said, “I like your shirt” and then pointed to his tattoo. She was wearing a Naruto shirt. After this, I couldn’t stop seeing Naruto shirts at every turn. It was weird.

We were recapping our Pantheon experience for days and days afterward, and I mentioned that I thought the 2-hour wait actually made it more memorable. 100% worth the wait.

“Yeah,” Chooch agreed. “It’s about the memories you make along the way.”

Chooch should get that tattooed on his neck. And I want “That Time I Ran to Pantheon” on my tombstone.

Here is a video of Pantheon. Because, Pantheon.

And here’s my FAVORITE coaster vlogger’s experience:

P.S. The formatting of this post is trash and the font mysteriously shrunk near the end. I cannot spend any more time trying to fix this so apologies for causing you to squint.

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I’m going to insert some filler on here because I have a sneaking suspicion that no one really gives a shit about roller coasters and people I want to kill while standing in line. So today, instead of PART 2 OF BUSCH GARDENS WILLIAMSBURG OMG, let’s look at 30ish pictures from the first part of our day in St. Augustine, Florida.

If you don’t know, St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied settlement in the United States and it was founded in 1565! You bet your sweetly-spanked ass that I googled that fact. I did know about St. Augustine, generally, though, all the way back to fifth grade when we did a chapter on SETTLERS in history class or whatever. For some reason, and this REALLY is singed into my fossilized brain, I was completely panicked about the upcoming test so my Aunt Sharon helped me study. She made me index cards and helped me come up with mnemonic devices, and because of this, Ponce de Leon is like a legend in my mind. I can’t remember exactly what we came up with for him other than associating him with the Fountain of Youth, but for Jacques Cartier, she was like “THINK OF MY CARTIER WATCH” and I was like “OH YEAH GOOD ONE” and  even though this was just some dumb fifth grade test, it is literally something that I think about every now and then because it’s one of the best memories I have of Sharon. She was a LOT of conflicting emotions toward the end of her life, and caused me lots of grief and stress, but she was also a fucking awesome aunt for ALL of my childhood, when it mattered most.

Um OK wow, I didn’t intend for this to be all that, but cook on, Erincheffer.

The last time we drove through Florida, I desperately wanted to stop but Henry was all, “Ew barf history gross gag.” This time, I got my way. The older Henry gets, the easier he is to wear down.

Plus, we had a full day on Friday of nothingness, since all of our Florida parks had been satisfied, and we wanted to eventually start our drive home that day. And St. Augustine is on the way!!

We got there bright and early, right before the rush of tour groups and school field trips and traipsed around Castillo de San Marcos. I like historical shit as much as the next bitch, but I opted to not pay to tour the innards of the fort and chose instead to just enjoy the scenery on the outside. We had plans to go to the Fountain of Youth later anyway, and I knew Henry would go, “PICK ONE, WE ARE NOT DOING EVERYTHING. THIS STUFF COSTS $$$$. ROAR.”

It made me feel like we were on a movie set or something I don’t know how to explain it LEAVE ME ALONE.

I’ll tell you, it felt strange not running from one attraction to the next but instead, walking leisurely like regular people on vacation. Well, at least for the morning….

HI. IT ME. My feet were so broke-down by this day. It was nice to lean against something, briefly.

This one’s best because you can’t see my idiot face lol JUST KIDDING I AM TRYING TO LIKE MYSELF BUT REWIRING ONES THINKING TAKES TIME. Ask me in a few months (years lol) how it’s going.

I love this picture of me and Chooch so much because he 100% did not wish to pose next to a palm tree even though I did because I had suddenly realized that SHIT it was our last day in Florida, and we had not taken advantage of any palmy photo props.

“It’s not even a good palm tree!” Chooch scoffed in disgust. Just for that I made him pose with other palm trees on his own lol.

Smile, fucker!!

Why is this actually an OK picture of Henry? What is he thinking here?

I’ll go first: Remembering the time he visited a record store with his SERVICE buddies and slowly flipped through all the Pia Zadora albums. Obviously, this was before he went AWOL.

Then I got bored of that area, so we went to the quaint little shopping/historical district and saw THE OLDEST WOODEN SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE USA OMG WHOA YOU DON’T SAY.

The first place we went to was Auggie’s Donuts but they weren’t open yet, so we explored the candy shop that shared the space with them. I bought two packages of licorice: one Dutch, one Finnish, because ever since I became An Old, I have a newly acquired taste for licorice. SPECIFICALLY Finnish and Dutch licorice, and I think also Swedish? There was some DIVINE and STRONG stuff I bought several years ago at Jungle Jim’s. I took it to work thinking it would be a big hit with the rest of my International Candies but NO ONE THERE LIKED IT. Not even Glenn, oddly. So, I ate it all and now that I’m typing away about this, I want very badly to go back to Jungle Jim’s and stock up on some more.

Anyway, this Tid Bitz one was SO FUCKING GOOD I WANTED TO DUMP THE WHOLE BAG INTO MY MOUTH IN ONE SITTING which wouldn’t have been that much of a feat considering “one sitting” was basically a 5 hour car ride later that day.

Finland knows what’s up.

While we were in there, the neighboring HOT SAUCE store opened and Chooch was like “FIRST” as he ran across the threshold but then wailed, “YOU HAVE TO BE 18 TO TASTE TEST.” The lady behind the counter laughed and said, “Oh you’re ok, hon, go for it.” And he basically tasted as much hot sauce as he could before he got sick.

Don’t worry, we bought a bottle of BBQ sauce and a jar of hot pepper flakes for pizza since we were close to overstaying our welcome.

Then the donut guy told Henry it would be about 10 minutes for his fryer to heat up or something, I wasn’t caring much at that point, and for some reason the desire for donuts had shifted from me to Henry, who was like, “WE CANNOT LEAVE NOW, IT WILL BE CROWDED ONCE HE OPENS” and I was like, “Dude, I’m not standing here watching oil heat up, I want to go look at stuff” so Henry stayed back at the donut place (I think he was still in that GET TO THE COASTER BEFORE THE LINE GETS LONG mentality) while Chooch and I went off on our own.

LOL, Chooch and I off on our own!

First, we went to the PUBLIC RESTROOMS! It was uneventful although Chooch felt that the men’s room was haunted. I can’t remember why now but it was probably a dumb reason.

We had to walk past some stupid shops selling PRO TRUMP novelty shirts and hats because FLORIDA, but then we stumbled upon this gem: St. Photios National Shrine!! RELIEGIOUS SHIT!! The reason why I noticed it was because there was HARMONIOUS MONK CHANTS wafting out of the entryway!

It was basically calling to me.

The whole little garden area was filled with the mournful music.

MY.

FUCKING.

JAM.

Since it was still so early, we were the only people there!

THE ONLY GREEK NATIONAL SHRINE IN THE COUNTRY. If you are Greek and religioso, you probably already know this.

There was recently some sort of drawing contest for kids and the entries were displayed in one of the rooms. Not gonna lie, it was the room we spent the most time in.

A NINE YEAR OLD MADE THIS.

Amazing. I would proudly display this on my wall if it was for sale.

I only took a picture of this because some old guy in front of me did lol.

Then we walked through the gift shop and I wanted everything. But then I didn’t have my credit card and stupid HENRY was still waiting for donuts so we had to leave the gift shop. The lady was so nice too and told Chooch to go right ahead and handle the nesting dolls at his leisure and I always have to pause and regroup when this happens because to me, he is still that 6-year-old bull in a China shop and not an almost-16-year-old who can handle himself appropriately around delicate items.

I swear it was just yesterday when we walked into an antique shop in Philly and the old man proprietor locked his attention on Chooch immediately and was SO CLENCHED, just waiting for him to break something so he could force to pay for it.

I’ve definitely referenced this before but every time we made it out of shops like with nothing being broken, I always think of the time when I was a kid in Italy (Assisi I think?) and we went to some Delicate Items shop. My grandma was like TOUCH NOTHING and then continued to convey this order to me numerous times thereafter with nothing more than her lips pulled into a taut line.

Yo, I made it out of that shop with nary a casualty under my belt.

But you know who didn’t?

GRANDMA.

Oh it was delicious. The sweetest irony. She ended up knocking several glass things off of a shelf with her gigantic purse as she turned around.

GRANDMA BROKE IT AND BOUGHT IT.

Well, Grandma broke it and PAPPAP bought it, to be clear.

Then we walked off the main road onto a path that led us to some old timey textile shop run by a man WHO NEVER BROKE CHARACTER even when we were talking about Apple Pay. At first, Chooch goes, “I’m not going in there, there’s nothing—-oooh, a sword I want a sword!” so inside we want. He did not get a sword (it was actually a dagger anyway, nice try) but he did get a “booty box” and a compass necklace thingie.

We were able to handle this without Henry’s aid because, as previously mentioned, Chooch asked if he took Apple Pay and he was like, “AYE MATEY” or something, he wasn’t a pirate so I don’t know why I defaulted to arrrr speak but he was something….old timey. Anyway, Chooch had to help me use it because I never do it right and he gets soooo frustrated and then it turns into a big deal where the cashier wants to insert themselves into our bickering and it’s a hassle, which is why I always just use a physical card when possible.

Technology. Pfft.

Don’t even get me started on NFPs!

No really, you can’t get me started even if you wanted to because I don’t understand them and have nothing to say about that.

Meanwhile, Henry started texting Chooch threats about how if we didn’t start walking back to the donut place, he was going to eat them and Chooch didn’t answer fast enough so then Henry posted a picture of the donuts on Instagram and tagged us and we died of second-hand embarrassment. Why is he like this. Suddenly my inability to use Apple Pay wasn’t so cringey because now OLD ASS HENRY was clobbering around on Instagram, and that was way worse. So now Chooch and I were back to being on the same age-level and making fun of Papa H together.

The dynamics change super-fast with us. Try to keep up.

The donuts were OK. Not really worth waiting for like Michael Myers in a bush. But OK Henry.

I wish this place was open because I would have taken a crepe over those donuts! The donuts were good, don’t get me wrong, but not like, “OMG IF YOU GO TO ST AUGUSTINE, GET THESE DONUTS.” I mean, if you like donuts in general, then Homer it up, friendos. Don’t let my blasé review sway your doughy decisions.

Anyway, after we inhaled our donut kebabs (they were actually awkward to eat, all impaled on a wooden stake like so), we excitedly lured Henry back to the SHRINE PLACE and he was like, “I’m not going in there” even though it was free to enter, so Chooch, currently on Team Erin, hissed, “MOM WANTS SOMETHING IN THE GIFT SHOP AND YOU HAVE TO BUY IT.” I’m sure Henry was nervous, thinking it was something extravagant and exorbitant, but it was just a $5 cross magnet made from sand and ocean water from the St. Augustine beach!

Also, Chooch got some religious medallion to put in his BOOTY BOX, which is also filled with all of the pressed pennies he collected on this trip.

But just as Henry was thinking he was free to leave after this transaction, we remembered that we needed cash money in order to light a candle. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, fishing for two dollar bills which he then angrily thrust at us like we were going to run off to 1982 and buy a pack of cigarettes instead of lighting prayer candles.

“I lit mine for Ukraine, what did you light yours for?” I asked Chooch after SHOWING HIM HOW TO GET HIS CANDLE TO BURN SINCE HE “COULDN’T FIND THE MATCHES.” Seriously.

4.0 GPA.

0.0 Common Sense.

“Oh, I didn’t know we were supposed to light it for something. I just wanted to light a candle for fun…”

Oh don’t worry, there was much more St. Augustine action. Fountain of Youth, coming soon!

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Being back from vacation hurts. In so many ways, lol. I still haven’t gone through all of my pictures, but I do have the ones from our first park, Busch Gardens Williamsburg, all sorted so I will share those today. That’s what we’re doing. I will save my BIG PANTHEON STORY for a separate post because I will probably have way more to say about it than is necessary. You know, the usual.

Super awkward shot but I just love this section of the park so much!

We were waiting for Henry to find out if there was any place in the entire land that served veggie burgers because the last time we ate pizza at FEST HAUS, we all got sick (not like, food poisoned, but more like THAT WAS A LOT OF CHEESE). We were going to eat in the Italian section of the park but the line was extremely long even though the park wasn’t very crowded, so….Fest Haus it is, I guess.

Chooch pointed out the strawberry cake and then I couldn’t not see it so guess who got the strawberry cake? It was Henry. But only because he knew I wouldn’t get it for myself so he got a slice to share. Henry doesn’t care about his gut health so he always takes one for the team.

Dude it was actually quite good.

This time I split one personal pizza with Henry and it was the perfect amount. It did not bind me, nor did I find myself doubled over in extreme intestinal strife for the rest of the afternoon. Guys, we do not come to parks to eat. We come to ride.

Bro.

I actually felt uncomfortable with them performing so close while I was trying to eat and by eat I mean shovel cake into my gnashing maw. Especially when they were trying to shame people for not participating in the Chicken Dance. LOOK LUCY, I like to cluck around with the energy of your average kindergarten birthday party attendee, but not while I’m trying to mow down a thick wedge of strawberry cake. Thanks, and kindly piss off with your lederhosen, Tuba Terry.

Meanwhile, Chooch had raspberry cheesecake which he somehow stuck his elbow in, as evidenced by the schmear of raspberry glaze I spotted on his sleeve shortly thereafter.

Henry told him to go to the bathroom and use cold water, and he proceeded to return to us with half of his sleeve drenched in water, because instead of just spot-cleaning, he stuck his entire forearm under the faucet.

That’s my brilliant son, people. Gifted status. Don’t be fooled.

It was in the 50s on this day which was fine at first but as the day went on, I started shivering and then couldn’t stop and then eventually I was practically convulsing and Chooch was yelling IT IS NOT THAT COLD, STOP IT but I could barely hear him because my ear canals were frosted over.

We were really concerned about the potential crowds on this trip, being spring break and all, but it seems that our school district’s spring break falls later in the season than most so we pleasantly surprised at the crowd levels for Park #1! Granted, this was still a Saturday and the weather wasn’t TOO bad, but we were still enjoying station waits and/or walk-ins for some rides, although the “crowds” did seem to come in waves. For instance, we walked onto Apollo’s Chariot earlier in the day, came back in the afternoon and walked away after seeing a – gasp – line, but then got a station wait a bit later. It was almost as if the crowds were moving in a clump. And that was fine with me!

Griffon is so photogenic! We didn’t ride it on this visit though. Dive coasters just aren’t our favorites. We did ride Alpengeist though (pictured in the shot above this one) and it was the first time we actually had to “wait” in a line, and it was only about 25 minutes but spoiled Chooch was not having any of it. He gets so surly sometimes.

Even when the sky is gloomy, this park is still so lovely.
<
Now that I think about it, I don’t even think any of us fought the whole time we were there?!

YOU GUYS. Remember last summer when I was so sad that I didn’t get to ride LochNess because of dumb stupid idiotic lightning?? Well, I got my redemption ride.

It wasn’t as great as I remembered it to be, aside from the EPIC TUNNEL/CAVE THING. Unfortunately, I was too concerned with the fact that some asshole in front of us had his phone out the whole time, so then I spent the second half of the ride in fear of needing plastic surgery once my face is done being a Samsung billboard.

My favorite part of Busch Gardens is the walkway down by the water! There are steps next to the entrance of Lochness and it always feels like a secret.

Mr. McDonald’s pays for his own stupid fucking games now!

F R E E D O M.

Here are the Robbins Males, in line for Verbolten, which they both thought was WAY TOO LONG yet only  took about 20 minutes and everyone knows that Verbolten is the best ride in the whole damn park and 100% worth the wait, so can it.

(OK, Pantheon is the new Daddy of this joint, but Verbolten is still a solid coaster. I always my laugh my fucking face off on it.)

I have no idea which ride line we were in for this. Everything is a blur.

Seriously though this park is gorgeous.

Oh! Here’s a great story. I had been craving ice cream ever since earlier that morning when I saw one of my ENEMIES (we will talk more about this in a separate post) indulging in a cone while waiting in line for Pantheon. The last time we were at Busch Gardens, we couldn’t find any ice cream places that were open because even then, a lot of (if not most) parks were understaffed due to Covid. But I figured out that he procured this icy delight at Roman Frieze. This also worked out well because it happened to be the same place that was selling the pineapple Dole Whip served in a pineapple that kept taunting Chooch throughout the day. (“I REALLY HAVE TO HAVE ONE OF THOSE,” he kept announcing, and I don’t know why but the image of Chooch walking around spooning himself ice cream from a pineapple while wearing a hoodie just made me LOL.)

So we get in line for the damn ice cream and it’s all confusing because some worker tried to get us to leave the line and go to a new line that he had just started but we were already nearly to the counter and other people were already getting into the new line so I politely declined his offer. But he kept pushing for us to go to the new line and I said, “But I don’t want to lose our spot?” and he gave me this shit-eating OK HAVE IT YOUR WAY look, like I’m some big stoop passing up his once in a lifetime offer.

I guess you had to be there but he was for real stressing me out and then Henry didn’t want him waiting on us because he was touching door knobs and people’s backs with his gloves on and then didn’t change them when he got back behind the counter.

But then he did change his gloves so Henry unclenched.

I wanted the KIDS SUNDAE because sprinkles and whipped cream seemed like a delectable choice at the moment, but when I ordered it, the LINE MISMANAGER instantly grabbed a waffle cone and started filling it up with softserve. I thought that maybe he was doing someone else’s order first because now that there were two lines, it was chaos in there. But then he squirted it with whipped cream and did all the other FIXINS and as it dawned on me that this my KIDS SUNDAE, I said to Henry, “You can just have that and I’ll order it again but specify that I want it in a cup.”

BECAUSE I ASSUMED THAT A SUNDAE WOULD AUTOMATICALLY BE SERVED IN A CUP IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Henry started to protest but I swiftly took the waffle cone, passed it off to him like a frozen Olympic torch, and then placed my do-over order.

Oh meanwhile, Mr. Economics blanched at the price of the Dole Whip in the pineapple (it was like $12 I think) and opted for just the Dole Whip in a cone. His McDonald’s paychecks are really teaching him the value of a dollar, for sure lol. Everything is SO ASTRONOMICAL to him now.

As we sat down on a wall to eat our icy snacks, I peeped Henry’s pout. “What’s your problem?” I asked.

“I didn’t want this!” he cried, chopping a hand toward his KIDS SUNDAE cone. “I wanted DOLE WHIP!”

Chooch and I promptly cracked up.

I forgot that this happened or else I would have included it in some of the postcards I sent, lol.

Later, we had a weird experience in line for Invadr because the family in front of us were annoying but in a strange way. It was three young kids (an older girl and her two little brothers) and they all had SUPER BIZARRE cartoon voices and the mom looked like Biggest Loser: Little House on the Prairie edition, I’m sorry, that was mean but this was the thought that passed through my asshole brain as we stood in line behind her.

The kids weren’t bad by any means, but it was their voices, man. Their voices, especially the girl’s, were like Rugrats IRL. Like an adult doing theatrically fake child voices. Like Elmira on Tiny Toons. Just really strange. And then they were playing this weird game about how many cookies something would cost and I swear I saw Chooch’s ghost leave his body. He was like, “I’m outta here-yaaaaaaaa.”

Anyway, while we were standing in line, Chooch was watching the train go past and suggested that we ride it when we were done on Invadr (really great wooden coaster, btw). So when we got off Invadr, Chooch and I ran straight to the train platform and made it JUST IN TIME. We scrambled into a row and then saw Henry calmly walking up the ramp. He saw us and shook his head.

“Thanks for telling me where you were going,” he huffed, having JUST made it before the train departed. LOLOLOL.

Chooch said I looked possessed here. Thank you! How sweet.

This is Chooch turning around to see what was screaming behind us and why its keeper wasn’t doing anything about it. I really hate screaming children.

Chooch took this right before we left – Henry and I doing our best “couple pose.

”

I left out all of the PANTHEON stuff because it deserves its own post. But I will tell you that after eating that ice cream, my body temperature plummeted, combined with being whipped into oblivion on coasters on a 50ish degree night, and I was shivering so hard by the end of the night that my body was straight WRACKING. Chooch was appalled by this and at one point yelled, “IT IS NOT EVEN THAT COLD!” and was even inspired to look up the weather when someone in line was also saying how cold they were.

“OK, you’re over here shivering, that person over there is whining about being cold, IS IT ACTUALLY COLD? I’m looking it up,” he said, because this kid is hot-blooded. Of course once he saw the temperature, he gave me the ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS look because it really wasn’t THAT COLD but somehow IT WAS?

Then I lost my voice at one point too and panicked because what if I had gotten Covid, but then I woke up the next morning and felt 100%, so I guess it was just all the screaming and being cold. I do get cold extremely easily.

/abrupt ending.

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Hello from Savannah, Georgia, where we are crashing for the night. We left Orlando early this morning and spent the day in St. Augustine. Much fun was had, at the expense of our feet as usual, and I will relay all of the details at a later date. But for the purpose of this post, I want to talk about the place we ate lunch.

Sarbez.

I may have planned the entire day around this place because hello: a grilled cheese arcade with tons of dive bar aesthetic? Oh yeah, I will make my travel companions go out of their way for this experience.

“Is this it?” Henry the Stoop asked. No, it’s the grilled cheese arcade across the street, Henry.

God.

First of all, THE CHOICES. I almost made a custom g.cheese but then I saw the VEGAN GRILLER which has TEMPEH and I am an avid tempeh eater. Sometimes I like to cut some up and mix it into my morning scrambled eggs. I’m getting very fancy in the kitchen these days.

Chooch got the Hashton Kutcher, sans sausage, and I don’t know what Henry the Meathead got. Who cares.

Wishing I had purchased a chocolate tape for five dollaz.

Alas.

We were assisted at the bar by a really awesome guy named DALE who held our hands through the ordering process. Then he noticed Henry’s VelociCoaster hat and asked, “Were you guys at Universal?” and then we started gushing together over the perfection that is VELOCICOASTER and how it is quite possibly the best in the world and I was like, “FRONT ROW AT NIGHT” and he was like “OH MAN I DIDN’T GET TO RIDE IT AT NIGHT” but at least he lives in the same state as Universal and can hopefully return soon for a night ride.

I legit cannot stop thinking about it.

We also got a pickle dog to share and it was SO GOOD. A pickle deepfried in cheese, on a bun, with some type of amazing sauce. Yeah BOY-O.

Hallelujah! Cheesus has risen.

(Vegan Cheesus, that is.)

Not sure what type of vegan cheese they use there but it was delicious and had a decent melt to it.

The bathroom was playing Elvis which normally would have been MEH but in this case, it really added to the ambiance.

(Hold on. I’m remembering my sandwich and missing it.)

SING IT SISTER.

Part of the arcade was decorated with a VHS tape wall and it made me laugh because I have tons of these, similarly-labeled, in our dumpster of an attic. I was SUPER into renting movies when I was in high school and then copying them using my fancy-pants dual tape VCR. I miss renting movies from Blockbuster, Hollywood, and our local supermarket’s Iggle Video section, but I *really* miss all of the independent places that were super small with porn in the back. :(

Henry knows all about those types of places. The one I remember the most (aside from Incredibly Strange Video which was my SPOT) was this place in Baldwin called Firehouse Videos. I used to rent horror movies there to watch in my basement with dumb Psycho Mike after eating next door at HOME COOKIN’ where my fave waitress used to make me incredible grilled blueberry muffins, which I would also eat with a side of cole slaw and everyone there was convinced I was pregnant.

Holy shit, thank god that psychopath never actually got me pregnant!!

Back to Sarbez and all of its glorious mirror selfie opportunities.

Henry Wah Wah I Lost My Ball had to call DALE over to help him and Dale was like, “Your ball’s right there, dude” and I wanted to die because Henry is so embarrassing everywhere we go.

Chooch made me play Pong with him and I proceeded to win 7-0 BUT!! I think that I actually wasn’t playing and that it was the computer, because at first I thought I was controlling it but then there were several times when it felt weird so…

Don’t tell Chooch.

He mumbled, “I hate you. I hate this game,” and stalked off to play something else lol.

What a great effing experience. I mean, it made my stomach hurt bigly because I just can’t eat heavy stuff anymore, but it was worth it even though we proceeded to spend the next 2 hours in the car driving to Savannah and bickering, ugh.

Oh well. More travel lies ahead so I guess I should say goodbye and goodnight.

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Hello I have had no time to pop in here because we have been busy running from coaster to coaster but I’d be remiss if I didn’t update to say that a few minutes ago, Henry was eating his gross Dunkin’ breakfast sandwich and got a stain on his shirt so he was like WHERE IS THE TIDE STICK and I knew where it was because somehow it’s been in one of my travel toiletry cases for like years even though I would never know how to use a TIDE STICK so he did his business, changed shirts, and then IMMEDIATELY got another stain. Chooch and I are SO DISGUSTED and I screamed IF YOU WOULD JUST SIT DOWN AND EAT LIKE A CIVILIZED PERSON and now he’s pouting.

Anyway, we spent all day yesterday at SeaWorld and it was ultra successful (a few low points but nothing that ruined the day, we will discuss at a later date, I’ll set up a symposium) (what even is a symposium) and today is the day we have been the most stressed about – Universal Islands of Adventure. I am bracing myself for massive crowds since it’s still spring break but if I have to wait 3 hours for Velocicoaster, so be it.

Still better than sitting at home, logged on to work.

#mantra

#thatsalongmantra

Tomorrow we are driving to Tampa for the day so I should be able to blast out an update then too.

Meanwhile:

Henry: “oh good it only takes 11 minutes to get to Universal” *goes right into the bathroom* lololol

UPDATE FROM UNIVERSAL: Eating lunch. Henry got another stain.

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I don’t have an intro.

But I guess that was my intro.

1. No One Belongs Here More Than You – Miranda July

See last month’s review of the Miranda July book I read, but subtract one star because: short stories.

2. Inside V – Paula Priamos

I had never heard of this book, nor this author, but I needed something to listen to while tromping around the ‘hood and this came up as recommended on Scribd. Dude, it was good! A domestic thriller/mystery, great pacing, kept my attention. Would recommend to you, just like Scribd did to me.

3. Lemon – Kwon Yeo-Sun

You know I love me some translated-from-Korean thrillers and word about this one had been spreading like wildfire on the bookish webs because suddenly everyone is on my level now with Korean stuffs. This wasn’t bad, but also a tad disappointing I guess because of all the hype. It’s about the murder of a high school girl and at times I was kind of confused because the chapters switch narrators and timelines. I would say it’s more of like…suspenseful literary fiction. I gave it a three.

4. Grown Ups – Marian Keyes

Also a three for me because it was UNNECESSARILY LONG – like over 500 pages with tiny type. It’s basically like reading an entire season of a dramedy about an extended family and honestly it was just too much. Too many characters. Borderline annoying dialogue. Only two characters in the book were even slightly compelling to me and I enjoyed the tension of their relationship but then the end is soooooo unsatisfying. And one of the characters had an eating disorder and I’m not going to lie, I was pretty triggered. This one got so much love and hype from some of my favorite Bristish Booktubers and I’m kind of shocked.

It was entertaining enough but I don’t feel inspired to pick up anything else by this author.

5. Reprieve – James Han Mattson

I thought I would love this. A haunted house/escape room in the 90s? Fuck yeah. But again, no compelling characters and I was kind of bored.

6. The Hawthorne Legacy – Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The problem with me and book series is that by the time the next book comes out, I can’t remember anything from the first book. So, I was lost through nearly the entire first half. There are two many Hawthorne brothers to keep track of, and two of them are basically the same person in my mind. But it’s still a fun read, I like the mystery/puzzle-solving aspect of it, and there’s a love triangle that held my interest. But the real star of the show is that goddamn book cover. Ye-ow-sah.

7. All Her Little Secrets – Wanda M. Morris 

Dude. This was EXCELLENT. (OMG that’s literally what my Goodreads review was and I didn’t even realize that until after I typed this, lol.) And this was a DEBUT? 4 stars from me, Sam. Loved our main girl in this and was screaming at times. Trying to get Henry to read it – you should read it too!

8. True Crime – Samantha Kolesnik

Trash. I gave it one star because Goodreads doesn’t allow for NO STAR ratings. This was just “how much shock value can I stuff into a novella?” and it failed. This was not interesting, entertaining, or even slightly well-written.

9. When I Am Through With You – Stephanie Kuehn

Actually hated this. Not a single likable character and then it turned into a survival story which I dislike so I guess this is on me for not knowing more going in. It was so boring that I kept forgetting the main character’s name and then I couldn’t keep the other characters straight. Seemed like too many people and not everyone even mattered, so….if this hadn’t been an audio book, I would have DNFd it but I needed something to listen to on my walk(s) one day when I was off work and didn’t feel like looking for something else.

ALSO, I DON’T HAVE TO EXPLAIN MYSELF TO YOU, MOM.

10. Made In Korea – Sarah Suk

Just the palate (eye ball?) cleanser I needed after reading back-to-back 1-star books. This was adorable, Korean, and straight-up fun. I wish someone was selling Korean beauty products from their locker when I was in high school! Also, I love reading books written by Korean American authors because they typically will throw in some Korean words and I always know what it is before it’s explained. That’s just a really good feeling. I can’t speak the damn language but I have at least learned some things!

11. House 23 – Eli Yance 

Did we ever learn why this was called House 23? Did we ever care? This was dumb. It started out intriguingly and I was in it to win it, but then it got real dumb real fast and ended up being so unsatisfying. Apparently, most people on Goodreads agree with me on this so I should have probably put some stock in the low ratings before diving into this.

12. Ain’t Burned All the Bright – Jason Reynolds / Jason Griffin

Oof. This one hits hard. Beautiful art paired with poignant text about the last several years in America, during Covid and the BLM movement, my eyes were burning with tears.

This is from the synopsis because it explains it perfectly:

And so for anyone who didn’t really know what it means to not be able to breathe, REALLY breathe, for generations, now you know. And those who already do, you’ll be nodding yep yep, that is exactly how it is.

Yeah, this one really knocked something loose in me.

13. The Cartographers – Peng Shepherd

Um hello, Peng Shepherd. This was MAGICAL and SWEEPING. I never thought I’d care about a book about maps but this had me thinking I was really part of the action. I was IN THIS STORY. I loved every fucking character. I loved the glimpses into the lives of the young Cartographers. I might actually want to learn how to read a map now. (Future Henry is reading this, choking on whatever Hostess product he inhales in the privacy of the FAYGO FACTORY, like “YEAH RIGHT.”)

Five stars for me, Mary.

OK BYE.

 

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I mentioned several times in passing that Chooch has been attending some “Mentors in the Making” program at the Carnegie Science Center’s “Fab Lab” since October.  I had no idea really what it was but he came home with a sign-up thingie from school and expressed interest because all students who stuck around until the end of the program got to keep the laptop they were each assigned, which came loaded with various programs they were going to be using during the…thingie.

I will be honest – I only half-understood what was going on, but I know they made small projects using a vinyl and laser cutter and lots of shit using a 3D printer, which is how we came to be a 3D printing household. Mostly I had no idea what he was doing for two hours on these Tuesday evenings.

What I also didn’t know was that in addition to these small projects, each student also had to develop, research, and complete a capstone project, which they then worked on with their assigned mentor.

Anyway, two weeks ago, I got an email from someone at the someone at the Fab Lab informing me that I was invited to some such “we are done with the program” ceremony thing at the science center. When we dropped Chooch off for his last class, I reminded him to ask if there would be refreshments & he became very annoyed because I allegedly asked him this twice in two days & also the word “refreshments” is annoying in & of itself apparently. These are the things I learn, just from mom’ing a 15-year-old.

The EVENT was last Thursday evening and GUESS WHAT?

REFRESHMENTS.

The cookies were very good. They also had pizza, and the lady in charge of the Mentor program thingie kept trying to push more and more slices on everyone and I was like, “I ALREADY ATE DINNER I JUST WANT SUGAR THANKS.”

So, the one thing I wasn’t aware of was that the refreshments were essentially a RUSE to get us to sit quietly and endure nearly two hours of the kids presenting their capstone projects. YES, CHOOCH WAS GOING TO BE DOING A PRESENTATION.

“Did you know this?” I whispered to him, and he just casually shrugged because literally nothing fazes this child.

Because he’s Chooch and has my great fortune, he was the first one called up to present. Of course, my heart was racing because WHAT WILL HE SAY?? He is so unpredictable!

First, he introduced himself, his mentor (I already forget his name but he was slated to get his Doctorate the very next day, that I do remember) and his project – A SQUIRREL FEEDER. He explained to everyone in the room that he came up with the concept because, and this is a loose quote though pretty damn accurate because this moment is seared in my mind: “when the pandemic started, my mom had nothing else to do so she became obsessed with the neighborhood squirrels.”

So everyone in the room started to laugh and look over at me which you all know I hate being under the spotlight, so I was sitting there with my face in my hands and a wad of half-chewed cooki in my mouth. Henry loved every second of it, of course. Chooch maybe could have mentioned at least that I was also working from home, instead of painting me as a shut-in, sitting by the window with squirrels climbing all over me.  Meanwhile, the other kids made projects like a distance sensor for the visually-impaired and an anxiety puzzle for people with ADHD & depression.

My kid: SQUIRREL FEEDER for his crazy mom. But…I fucking love it.

And another mentor (the guy in the picture up there) helped Chooch make a very dramatic commercial for the product on Blender:

View this post on Instagram

 

And he got an award thing!

There was one extremely obnoxious teen girl there but I am trying to turn over a new leaf (for the billionth time) by not publicly dragging children and parents on the Internet but OOOF, it’s hard. I might have to take to my old trusty paper journal to get this one off my chest. I will say that while she was presenting, I lost my cool and texted Chooch a puking emoji because I am just that mature.

I haven’t tried this bad boy out yet because Chooch made the opening too small and peanuts won’t fit in there so now I have to get sunflowers or something.

But yeah, what a cool thing that the Carnegie is doing! The fact that such a fascinating array of brilliant minds took time out of their busy science-y lives to help a bunch of high school kids learn and become more interested in basically engineering is just really heart-warming for normal people who have hearts and I guess I must because I’m getting all SOFT-LIKE just thinking about the impact they made. Ugh. But on the other hand, I can’t imagine being  that kind of person who would choose to work with kids unless it was like, court-appointed or a work requirement. So I guess I still got some charred sections of the ol’ pumper.

And because he completed this program, he is now eligible for internships and other mentor programs (like, he can be the mentor for a younger kid) that they have. Of course, the first thing that was offered to him he had to decline because he will be studying in Merida during that time. I love that he has these options now though! And that this isn’t something we had to force him to do.

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Henry had lots of chores to do today but the weather was pretty nice out so I allowed to him to take me out to play. Knowing him, he’d have rather stayed home and worked, but I had to get away from the House of Unruly Spawn next door. Also, I really wanted a SMOOTHIE BOWL from Salud in Shadyside.

I love smoothie bowls so much.

Anyway, here are some pictures of us in the cemetery because you have never seen pictures of us in the cemetery before.

This is a brand new concept.

“DOES THIS LOOK OK?” I yelled to Henry, who *grumble*d in response.

I mean I just really don’t know what else to do with myself.

I was probably saying something stupid here because he doesn’t just ever *smile* when we take selfies.

I took this one first but then I was like WAIT I WANT MY NCT DREAM PIN TO BE OPEN SO YOU CAN SEE THEM and Henry was like *grumble*.

“Take a picture of me sitting with this bitch,” I said and Henry was like *grumble*.

I dunno what this is. “Landing Pose” I guess.

I decided today that I want to be buried by my grandparents at Jefferson Memorial, and Henry can just be dumped in the pond.

Also, we saw ZERO squirrels.

This is all I have for you today. I am super irritable due to the fact that I am perioding while simultaneously living next to Kindercare.

P.S. Henry peed over the hill behind me.

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I don’t know* if I have five things for today and I don’t feel like counting, so I’m using bulletpoints and you can’t stop me.

*(or, as I word nearly every note I leave at work: IT IS UNCLEAR TO ME….)

• Have I mentioned that Henry was fixing some vent cover issue that Janna was having at her house? I don’t have much knowledge (IT IS UNCLEAR TO ME) as to what the actual issue was because I kept zoning at the BORING ADULT WORDS being passed back and forth, but the good part was that Janna recently got a kitten so I got to play with him on two Sundays in March! She needed help naming him and when I told Chooch (who has yet to meet the kitten because HE WORKS EVERY WEEKEND) (Chooch does, not the kitten, although I can totally picture him saying, “Do you want meows with that?” into his headset) (the kitten, not Chooch) (although I could totally picture Chooch saying the same thing) he suggested that Janna name the kitten KIRBY. Janna was like “haha cute” and then continued calling the kitten “The Kitten.”
  • Chooch is now 0/2 at naming Janna’s cats. His suggestion of “Ted Nugent’s Cat” for Janna’s other cat several years ago did not stick, except for when Janna REFERS TO HIM AS THAT IN JEST.
  • At last pressing, Janna appears to have opted for “Simon” as the name.

• Before going to Janna’s on Sunday, Henry and I stopped at Onion Maiden for the Chick Habit popup and got some faux-chix sandwiches to take to Janna’s. Janna had never had any type of fake-meat/chicken type of meal before this and I did not know that! Anyway, she got the classic chicken sandwich and was like “omg” and I was like “right?” Chick Habit is great. Not Slutty Vegan-levels of great, but Pittsburgh Vegan-levels of great. And you know, that’s still…great. I failed to take a picture of our sandwiches in my haste to pigout, but here is a picture of one of Chooch’s drummies that we brought home for him:

• I forgot to mention in my NEW HAIR update from yesterday that while I was at the salon, “That’s Not My Name” came on and I was SO TRIGGERED. Yesterday was the first time in a while that I made it through the whole day without being called KELLY but that’s also because I had the day off. HOWEVER, over the weekend, I had an eye appointment and the dumb bitch who is not the doctor but does all the pre-exam “LOOK AT THE FARMHOUSE” types of tests called me KELLY three entire times even though I had repeatedly corrected her. And then she tried to explain it was because my name appeared “last name first” on my file. You know, just like everyone else’s. But OK, cool fucking excuse. Bitch. I hate Visionworks so bad and really need to find an actual eye doctor to go to instead of panicking and going back to Visionworks at the last minute every year because I’m running out of contacts. Come on, KELLY. Put on those Adult Trousers and power up. (Maybe also put on a name tag.)
  • Even worse than that was the fact that I had to sit across from Teenage Jonny Craig in the waiting room who was wearing slides with no socks and doing the TRUCKER SNIFFLE (oh you bet your freshly-spanked ass I was masked the fuck up) and watching TikToks on his phone outright, no ‘pods.

• Literally no one asked but Kpop Dad’s favorite song off the new NCT Dream album is “Saturday Drip.” He was in the kitchen the other night, blasting it while prepping overnight oats. It was adorable but don’t tell him I said that.
• My period started today and I’m only telling you this because I was looking back in my vacation journal to see what I was doing on April 1, 2018 in Korea and apparently my period started that day there too (it happened in the bathroom at the Line Friends store in Itaewon! #ThingsWeRemember) and the travel package of tampons I brought with me “just in case” only had three in it which, OK, cool, so go to the store and buy more, right? Except that in Korea, there is this so-called myth that you can’t get tampons so expats have to get them sent from home because they only sell pads in stores and I was like, “This cannot be true” except that yeah, at least in 2018, it was true. I mean, unless there was some underground menstrual market I wasn’t privy to, I had to buy a thing of pads which is whatever but now I’m remembering how I had to use them on the 13 billion hour plane ride home and that literally the first thing I did when we got to JFK was buy tampons. (Well, you know, after all the administrative bullshit.) And yeah, there’s a “Korea: The Stuff They Don’t Tell You Except For When They Do and You Don’t Believe It” story for you.
• Me & Penelope with our matching fur/hair:

• Hey speaking of Janna’s house, did I tell you that it is SATANIC?? Like actual Devil worshipers lived there. If you ask her, she will tell you that I am speculating but the one time we were over I was like SHOW ME YOUR BASEMENT and there was some black magickal CIRCLE carved into the floor. I was like OMG IT’S A SATANIC RING at the same time Janna and Henry said something about a coal furnace, BUT I KNOW WHAT I SAW. Then later, Janna was like “the person who lived here before me must have had a cross hanging in every room because—” and I cut her off to blurt out “INVERTED CRUCIFIXES YOU MEAN!” And she was like, “OK Erin, yes.” Also they had a bunch of phone jacks so it was also a demonic call center probably. I’m really excited to investigate this further. Janna was supposed to send me A PICTURE OF THE SATANIC PRAYER RING but she has not and I will tell you why – because it’s in her demon-infested basement and she doesn’t want to go down there!!!!!
  • I’m bringing Chooch’s Ouija board with me next time. And also Chooch. He’d be a good conduit I think.
  • Of course after I told Corey he immediately texted back OH PLZ LET JANNA’S HOUSE BE HAUNTED – co-sign!!! What if it’s a “Barbara Hershey in The Entity” situation!
• Drew felt left out so here’s a picture of her too. She squirms up the side of the couch under the blanket we keep draped there, and then snuggles down in the corner so it’s like a tent.  I almost sat on her once though because I didn’t realize she was under there!

• For as much as I don’t care about the OSCAR SLAP, I have managed to still find the energy to rant about it every single day this week and I hate that for me. I’m just mad at everyone, really. And I never liked Will Smith that much to begin with and Jada peaked with Jason’s Lyric IMHO and I have no opinion on Chris Rock but they’re all rich asses who live in their own precious bubbles of unaccountability so….moving on.
  • I do think it’s weird that earlier that day though, Janna randomly sang “Welcome to Miami” reminding me that Will exists as a person, and NOW THIS. NOW. THIS. Henry inexplicably started receiving People magazine in the mail so WILL AND JADA were looking back at me today when I reached into the mailbox. THIS SUCKS. GO AWAY. YOU LAUGHED AT THE FUCKING JOKE, YOU ASSHOLE!
  • OMG DID JANNA AND HER SATANIC CIRCLE MAKE THIS HAPPEN!? She sang the song and her haunted house sucked it down into the bowels where Satan shat it back out in the form of an OSCARS SLAP.

I’m going to eat my oatmeal and watch another episode of Bridgerton now and NO IT DOESN’T BOTHER ME ONE BIT THAT THE OTHER DUDE ISN’T IN THIS SEASON I DON’T FUCKING CARE AS LONG AS IT MEANS LESS BOBBLEHEAD DAPHNE THANKS.

I AM MAD, THANKS WILL SMITH.

UPDATE: Janna finally sent me a picture!! I bet she made her mom come over so she wouldn’t have to go down there alone!

 

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I waited two entire days to post about NCT Dream’s comeback in order to prevent the entire post looking like a gang of toddlers took over.

Because I was excited, guys. Even now, I am screaming these words in my head maniacally as I type them, but you can’t tell, can you? No CAPSLOCK abuse here.

(You can do this, Erin. Be professional. Be-be professional.)

Early Monday morning, NCT Dream dropped their second full-length album, Glitch Mode, and the video for the eponymous first single. Let’s take a morning pause with our fresh cup of coffee to watch this together, shall we? I haven’t already watched it 87 times.

I love that SM doesn’t shy away from super different, unique, not always immediately accessible songs. Very few groups could pull something like this off, and NCT Dream is 100% one of them. Glitch Mode is wild, Mary. It’s already jarring (in all the good ways) and then 갑자기 metal breakdown!? WHAT? IN KPOP? Yes. That happened. And it brought out my old post-hardcore sentimentalities. 

If you want something more slow-jammy, they got you covered there too. This is my current favorite song on the album OMG (OK it’s becoming hard for me  to stay composed now):

But this song is a close second – it makes me want to hostilely speed skate through the neighborhood, knocking over everyone that gets in my way while imagining them to be various people who pissed me off during the work day. (Namely all the people who call me KELLY. I almost made it through the day yesterday without that happening, but nope. There it was. Post-lunch email. “Hi Kelly,”….OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE.)

 

There are other songs that I want to highlight too but I will keep calm and kpop on in private. I don’t know what the b-side will be yet that they’ll perform during the promotions, and I can’t wait to to find out!! I live for this shit – waking up every morning and watching the latest music show performance. It keeps me young, Cliff.

But I will end with NCT Dream’s debut, because it’s really awesome to see how they (and their talent!!) have grown – I think Jisung was only 14 or 15?!?!:

just really love this group. They have kept me afloat during some Dumb Adult Days, that’s for sure.

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