Today was one of the least annoying days I’ve had in a bit.

Too lazy to blog for real but I will give you a little succinct update spotlighting the two points of good news:

1. After chooch got his MRI on Monday, the results were emailed to us and of course Henry and I were googling “how to become an orthopedic doctor in 5 minutes.” The results seemed…not great? I saw things like TEAR and DEEP FISSURE and EDEMA and other things that sounded like fancy ways to expand the syllables of OUCH. But today the surgeon called after reviewing and his explanation was basically BAD BONE BRUISE. I did not know that was a thing but I googled it and it sounds like a not great thing. But!! The upside is that he thinks it should heal on its own and recommends that Chooch continue to wear the brace for another 4 weeks and he’ll have a follow-up appointment at the end of March too. My big question for doc is WHEN CAN HE RIDE ROLLERCOASTERS AGAIN? Now? Is it now? Hmm? Did you say NOW??
2. Tickets for the Cure’s North American tour went on sale today.
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   The verified fan thing was pretty messy but I did get us two seats and those two tickets combined still cost less than half of what I paid for one ticket to NCT Dream and even lesser than NCT 127 but let’s not talk about that. Let’s just be thankful that I got two reasonably priced tickets to see my favorite band of all time even though they said that their 2000 tour was going to be the last one and here we are, 23 years later and this will be my…7th time to see them? Don’t make me count. It’s relax-y time. Kara checked in with me today to make sure I was alive and more importantly, obtained tickets. Happy to confirm!

I told Henry I should find someone to take with me, someone who might actually propose to me. I think he said, “go ahead” which harkened back to the time I briefly dated this guy Erik and then some random guy named … Kevin? I dunno his name, I had literally just met him at a gas station and invited him over to party lol.

Ok so Kevin asked Erik if he could have me and Erik said BE MY GUEST.

The best/worst part is that I have this on VIDEO somewhere.

I’m writing this in bed and have to go now because the man who won’t marry me is snoring and I need to lodge my knee firmly into his ass.

Ending yet another blog post apropos of nothing, we are.

I am going to see NCT Dream in Chicago, you guys! I did the whole Ticketmaster Hunger Game Fiery Hoop Jump Blood of My First Born bullshit exercise on Friday and managed to get an ok seat, I’m happy. For this tour, the floor is standing room only and I am not too proud to admit that I am no longer flirting with a season of life that sees me comfortably enduring a sit-in outside of an arena for god only knows how long in order to get a good spot by the stage and then stand with wobbly legs while being pushed and shoved all night, praying I don’t become involved in some catastrophic crowd crush. Sorry, but concerts scare me now.

I don’t want to die for ANY band.

So I got a seat in the very front row of a lower level section and I will be content, I will go and scream and leak a mixture of joyous and crazed tears. I will swoon over Renjun and Haechan. I will wave my NCT lightstick. I will be the best 43-year-old czennie that NCT ever saw.

I bought these patches a few mths ago and never did anything with them so I felt inspired to buy a new pair of Vans over the weekend to put them on. They’re not glued down yet but this picture is as good an example of any how it will look! And I bought myself a new shirt to wear too. I asked Chooch to make me NCT barrettes or a headband with his 3D printer but he wants no part of this.

You guys though – it took me hours to calm down on Friday after the ticketing ordeal before I could finally let myself be happy. Please someone save us from Ticketmaster. I was so stressed on Friday that Nate tried to prevent another coworker from adding me to group chat, knowing she would likely compound my anxiety but she still did it anyway and I accepted out of reflex but then didn’t participate because I was numb to everything that day. Literally I could have stress-ate an entire box of donuts if someone would have presented them to me that day. So pathetic.

I’m so stressed out about Chooch’s knee (MRI was yesterday, should know something tomorrow), work, life, neighbor situations – things like this are a privilege, a respite for my sanity, a rare opportunity to experience joy these days, and I’m so grateful.

Anyway, this has been my OMFG NCT DREAM FINALLY Interlude!! Now I just need to convince Henry to buy himself a cheap nosebleed seat!

OK my post titles get dumber and dumber. You can agree, it’s fine.

Last week’s overnighter in Toronto was so chaotic and disjointed. Truly, the only really good, pure, magical moment was the Kang Daniel concert so I’m going to save that for last. Considering that this was the sole reason for the trip, this was the only thing that really needed to be EXCELLENT, and the rest was just extra. So for now, I’ll recap the things we ate on Wednesday before coming back to Pittsburgh, leaving out the sidewalk bickering, bleeding blister from so much walking, etc. etc. I really don’t know what my fucking problem was aside from the fact that I was so offended that Henry doesn’t pay attention to what I tell him! HE SINGLE-HANDEDLY GOT EVERYTHING WRONG, BOTH DAYS. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? OH, BECAUSE SOMEONE DOESN’T LISTEN.

There was a vegan Japanese bakery that I wanted to go to for breakfast, and a cafe that we were supposed to have gone to the day before but Henry is LE DUMBZ0RZ so we were supposed to go to these places on Wednesday. Breakfast at the Japanese place, then coffee, then head over to a vegan bakery to take some stuffz home.

LONG STORY SHORT: Henry thought we were only going to the cafe, had us take a subway, transfer, and then walk a million blocks to the wrong place and this is where I once again proceeded to walk far ahead of him because I feared that if we walked together, I might push him in front of a streetcar and I am much too delicate to go to prison.

So: lots of anger. This is what you missed from me last Wednesday morning.

Then it was CALL AN UBER, NEVER MIND, I’M JUST GOING TO WALK, WHY HAVEN’T YOU CALLED AN UBER, HOW FAR AWAY IS THE CAR, OMG YOU’RE SO FUCKING CHEAP, YOU CAN’T EVEN GET AN UBER and he’s like, “I can’t get an Uber if you don’t STOP WALKING.”

Anyway, this went on and on and on until we ended up in Chinatown and walked past a place called TRUE BREAKFAST which I found out later has all one star ratings on Yelp (FWIW, there are only 5 ratings and it only just opened, so…) and maybe that’s so but it will always live on in my heart as the place with the toast that saved our relationship, lol.

I had black sesame, and Henry had coconut cream. Aside from a guy who came in after us and ordered takeout, and two UberEats pickups, we were the only people dining in and it took an absurdly long time for our toast to be made, which was confounding to me because….toast. But still, it was delicious. I love Asian breads so much. I believe this place was specifically Taiwanese.

I was OK after this, almost for our entire walk back to where we parked in Koreatown. The whole reason we parked there was because there were several shops I like that I wanted to hit up before we left, but nothing was open yet! One of the shops opened literally in like 4 minutes, but I was already back IN A MOOD so I stormed off and said LET’S JUST LEAVE WHERE ARE YOU GOING WHY CAN’T YOU JUST DRIVE TO THE CAFE I WANTED TO GO TO NEVER MIND JUST GO HOME WOW I CAN’T BELIEVE WE’RE JUST GOING TO LEAVE YOU RUINED THIS WHOLE TRIP I HATE TORONTO I NEVER WANT TO COME BACK.

And then Henry found a parking spot literally right around the corner from Milky’s, the cafe on my list, so I was momentarily satiated.

Was it worth it? I mean, the maple latte was really fucking good and the barista was super cute and I watched a sweet old lady happily buy a chocolate chip cookie there with a handful of change, so yeah – it was nice.

It doesn’t matter if Henry liked it.

By now, I was a lot calmer having had food AND caffeine. Having a boyfriend who listens to me (and maybe proposes after less than 21 years) would have done a lot to improve my mood too but WE CAN’T HAVE IT ALL.

Next, we stopped in the Kensington Market area to go to Bunner’s, a vegan bakery that I have wanted to go to for quite some time now. I had mentioned it approx. 87 times to Henry prior to even leaving our house last week but for some reason, his failure to hear me had him completely eradicating Bunner’s from the itinerary both days. Every time I reminded him of its existence, he acted like it was the first time hearing about it.

Listen, Pedro – it’s like, we crossed the border and suddenly Henry was a champion abuser of gas lamps. He was driving me absolutely insane. He was drawing me closer and closer to the edge with every second I was near him in Toronto

Henry IS the yellow wallpaper.

But finally, Bunner’s! The girl working that day was really chill and didn’t make us feel rushed or unwelcome which, I’m sorry, is something that we tend to encounter quite frequently in vegan establishments. I specifically wanted to come here because after all the previous times we have been to Canada, I had NEVER heard of Nanaimo bars until recently. It’s apparently like the national treat of Canada! And Bunner’s has a vegan version!

We got 2 of those, a cookie (I will admit that the cookie was just OK), some chocolate overkill cupcake and a carrot cake cupcake for Chooch. I think that’s all we got? Henry and I shared one of the Nanaimo bars in the car and GOOD LORD, I’m an official stan. If we have another pie party, Henry is making a tray of these bitches.

Here’s what they look like from Bunner’s:

I want one right now.

Then we walked around and I got that clown masterpiece that I posted about the other day.

A few weeks ago, we had watched some vlog on YouTube where this couple went to a donut shop in St. Catherine’s and their reaction to every donut was a very serious exultation of THAT’S FUCKED UP. Henry and I couldn’t tell if that was good or bad? Turns out, once their eyes rolled back to the front and they stopped making gaping fish faces, it meant that these were the best vegan donuts that they ever had. So the day before, we ordered several to pick up on our way home.

ST. CATHERINE’S SQUIRREL.

The donut shop is called Beechwood Donuts.

I spotted this place across the street though and made the unilateral decision that we needed to get an empanada to go because all we had had that day was SUGAR and I needed something substantial. Um, I got a vegan one and Henry got RANDOM MEAT and we both agreed that these were like the sleeper hit of the trip. Maybe it was just because our bodies were starved for something without sugar, who knows. But yeah, I immediately wished that I had ordered two.

Planning his next gas lighting attempt.

In the actual picture, he’s smiling, but I adjusted the live version and stopped it on a frame where he looked the worst :)

The donuts! I took this once we got home and dug into them with Chooch. They were….not fucked up. But decent. The matcha blueberry and carrot cake fritter were my faves. Oh and the raspberry cronut was also delectable, but nothing that made me wish I lived in St. Catherines and I don’t even think I would make the slight detour the next time we’re heading to Toronto. It takes A LOT to impress me when it comes to donuts! I’m mostly just a classic sugar or glazed gal, anyway.

The only other notable thing that happened on Wednesday was when we stopped at a Tim Hortons on our way to pick up the donuts, I was waiting for Henry to use the bathroom when two teenaged boys approached me. Immediately, my guard went up because I am always prepared for the worst when it comes to kids. ARE THEY GOING TO MAKE FUN OF ME? ARE THEY GOING TO PICKPOCKET ME?

ARE THEY GOING TO CALL ME M’AAM??

These are all concerns.

But it was none of these. They wanted to know if I knew “Super Fan” who it turns out is apparently the Raptors #1 fan, has gone to every game since the 90s. And of course I don’t know who he is, I am American, I don’t know of these Canadian pop culture icons, let alone any person associated with basketball in general. They showed me his picture like this was going to help jog my m’aam-ish mind.

I still didn’t know who the hell they were talking about, but they were really excited because apparently he was in Tim Horton’s the day before and they got to meet him. I guess they just wanted to share this excitement with someone but I wouldn’t be lying if I didn’t suspect that they were planting some sort of graffiti crime evidence on me or taping a FAT GIRL sign to my back.

Henry came out of the bathroom and gave me an OK STOP TALKING TO YOUNG BOYS AND GET IN THE CAR smirk.

“Congratulations on meeting him,” I said as Henry whisked me away.

“They were in the bathroom when I went in,” Henry said. “One of them had hand sanitizer in his eye and the other was trying to help him rinse it out,” he laughed.

This checked out because when I first saw them on my way out of the bathroom, they were at the counter giving a hand sanitizer bottle some hearty pumps while one of them was exclaiming, “I hate germs!”

It was an eventful pee/coffee break.

Anyway, this is the guy they were talking about – I guess he really is a local celeb:

My liveblog was so janky from the day we were in Toronto and some of the stuff I had written didn’t post because of service issues and I truthfully was so annoyed that I didn’t feel like even attempting to retype what I had lost. But basically what happened was that we were supposed to have a decent chunk of time Tuesday afternoon to visit at least 2 places on my TO DO LIST (a cafe and a bakery – v. important places). I even made sure to pick two that were in the same area so that we could easily to hit up both. But then we ended up getting in a bit later than I anticipated, and the hotel that Henry had booked was actually a little bit PAST Toronto proper, so that took even more time away. Then we had to check-in, Henry had to answer WORK TEXTS which is my LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT HENRY’S JOB, like he is not a fucking hedge fund guy, you know? There is no reason he should be getting work texts on his day off, ESPECIALLY WHEN HE IS EVEN OUT OF THE COUNTRY.

So immediately, my mood soured. It flipped a switch in my brain and I went from being rearin’ to go to itchin’ for a fight. So I became super disagreeable. Literally kept flinging myself facedown on the bed and screaming JUST FORGET IT. So this was about an hour of that. What it also boiled down to is that I needed caffeine and sugar. Bigly.

Finally, Henry got me to put my coat on and we set off for the Danforth Music Hall, because Henry’s plan was to park there and take the subway to the cafe/bakery destination. So we did this with little conflict, but then I panicked because it was only 4:00 and there was already a line of people outside of the theater. Our tickets were general admission / floor but I am really just all out endurance when it comes to camping out to get a good spot, so I basically at that point had resigned to the idea of being way in the back, unable to see.

Anyway! The lot we parked in was right next to the subway station so that was nice. Except that Henry parked in a spot that had a HUGE puddle on my side so I couldn’t get out, which caused me to have ANOTHER emotional breakdown and start crying, “I JUST WANT TO GO HOME” and he calmly said, “Let me just pull up and you can get out” and after a bunch of resistance, I finally let him do this so that I could get out of the car without stepping in the puddle.

Then we got on the subway, which was fine. I am OK with the subways in Toronto. But  what Henry didn’t tell me was that we would then have to get on the STREETCAR and after we had a weird experience the first time we used one of those (the driver yelled at us because we didn’t pay correctly or something, I can’t remember but it was embarrassing and I felt like I was in school getting yelled at by a teacher in front of the class and it was humiliating and clearly something that has squatted in my mind ever since). So we got on one that was still idling outside the station, waiting for the departure time, and some guy was sitting in the back loudly screaming about people looking at him or something and then he was calling someone the f-word and it was soooo uncomfortable. Meanwhile, the whole time I was like, “WERE WE SUPPOSE DTO PAY FOR THIS FIRST??” and Henry was like, “No one else did” but then I saw a guy come on and tap his card and I started to SWEAT.

“Maybe we’re supposed to pay when we get off,” Henry said, clearly not worried about this at all, while I sat there scrutinizing every single person that walked on. And then once we started moving, I paid close attention  to everyone who was getting off and still couldn’t tell if we were supposed to tap our card somewhere and also how did we request a stop!?!? I was DYING. Legit wringing my hands. Suffocating on my anxiety. Pubtrans seriously makes me so nervous (EXCEPT FOR THE SEOUL SUBWAY).

Oh, and then!! I realized that at this point, it was 4:50 and BOTH PLACES I WANTED TO GO TO CLOSED AT 5.

“Let’s just get off here, there are plenty of other places around that we could go to,” Henry said at one point when the street car slammed to a stop at a red light and the doors opened. I cannot compute such impromptu instructions so my head was SPINNING as Henry leapt out of his seat and practically swan-dove out the door, and then JUMPED OVER A SNOW BANK to the sidewalk. I ran after him, looking like a thief probably, like, “HEY THAT GIRL JUST SKIPPED OUT ON THE FARE!” literally I was waiting for the driver to come running out looking like Chris Farley in Billy Madison, hollering about calling the Mounties on me.

None of these things happened, but the street car was still sitting there because of the redlight and I just felt EVERYONE WAS STARING AT US so I FREAKED OUT AND LEFT HENRY. I just turned and started powerwalking in the opposite direction, away from the sreetcar and where we apparently needed to cross the street, and proceeded to WALK ALL THE BACK  TO THE SUBWAY STATION WHERE WE GOT ON THE STREET CAR.

It really wasn’t that far. Maybe a 25-minute walk. Henry trailed behind me the entire way, I refused to let him catch up with me. He kept trying to ask me what was wrong and I cried, “THE WAY YOU JUMPED OUT OF THE STREET CAR LIKE A PETTY CRIMINAL WAS SO EMBARRASSING” and he was like, “The fuck are you talking about?” and OK, now that we’re a week away from the INCIDENT, I am rational enough to admit that perhaps my mind, reeling from lack of essential nutrients (yes, caffeine and sugarssss) perhaps was replaying this scene to me in blown-up proportions best reserved for balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

I can be honest with you about that. Perhaps it was me, sabotaging this entire day because I am being eating alive by stress in all other areas of my life and God forbid I should allow myself to calm down, relax, enjoy myself.

Anyway. We took the subway BACK to the street where the Danforth is located, and I had SORT OF calmed down a little bit by then but was still craving things. I had really just wanted a coffee and baked good, but then we started to walk past a vegan chain called Fresh which I knew a bit about, and I saw CAKES in the window, so I said, “Let’s just go here.”

For some reason, I didn’t realize this was a sit-down and order type of place. I thought it was more of a Panera, but no – as soon as we walked in, we had to wait to be seated and I fought the urge to turn around and leave because Henry HATES it when I do that even though I point out that people do it all the time and just because I walk inside somewhere, doesn’t mean I’m stripped of my right to change my mind!?!??! (Granted, I have also down this after being seated and ordering drinks, so I can see how he would be feeling some type of way every time we enter a restaurant lol.)

I basically willed my mind to just shut down and allowed myself to go with the flow. That’s sad right? That I have to use mind-control on myself to just follow a host to a table? Oh, to be a normal functioning human. What does that feel like!? I guess I could just ask Henry.

RIGHT AWAY, I had to fight another urge to flee because Henry, and I can’t believe he did this, took the seat at the table that was on the banquette side, leaving me to sit in the regular chair with my back exposed to the foot traffic of the restaurant.

I NEVER SIT IN THIS SPOT!!! I ALWAYS HAVE TO HAVE MY BACK TO THE WALL! IT IS THE INNER FBI AGENT IN ME!!!

Oh, I was furious. I think our server could tell too, and I was trying so hard to make friendly eye contact and smile naturally every time I interacted with them.

Now, instead of just getting a dessert, I felt obliged to order actual food. I suggested that we just get an appetizer to share and Henry, knowing he was on THIN ICE, LIKE WE’RE TALKING COMMUNION WAFER-THIN HERE, quickly sputtered, “Whatever you want!”

We agreed on the dumplings, but when the server came back, I said to them with the most confidence I have spoken with in months probably, “We’ll have the ONION RINGS” and then I shot Henry a tight-lipped smile across the table. His expression was priceless. He let out a silent “You bitch” laugh and then said, “Oh, OK. And I guess I will also order the dumplings.

”

Can I just say that those were the best fucking onion rings I have ever had in my life? They had QUINOA in the batter and were sooo crispy and totally perfect. We are both still talking about them!

The dumplings were fine.

Food aside, it was one of the most awkward dining experiences I have had in a while. First of all, the staff was CHAOTIC. So many different people were flitting about but there weren’t that many diners, and then everyone seemed like they kept distracted. It was like being in a restaurant run by Sims. Every time our server would come to check on us, they would ask us something and then start looking all around the restaurant, over their shoulder, anywhere but at us, while we were talking and it felt like every since interaction ended on a cliffhanger. I felt I had whiplash. The food came out super fast, but the service was sooo strange and disjointed. Couldn’t be more impersonal unless I, Erin Rachelle Kelly, was every server.

Secondly, some guy was dining alone right next to us and I had to face him since Henry took the seat I wanted. I think he might have been waiting for someone and then ended up ordering for himself once he realized he had been stood up, because he was already seated when he got there and didn’t order until much after we did, because he was looking at his phone the whole time. He ordered this big nacho plate which looked and smelled amazing, and then afterward, he got a huge hunk of chocolate cake which also looked like something I could easily demolish on my own, probably while crying.

I wanted to also get a slice of cake, but was starting to panic about getting in line for the concert so we opted on getting a chocolate chip cookie to go. Henry didn’t like it but I thought it was fine.

Those onion rings really saved the day, though. That and the candied ginger that came speared on a toothpick with Henry’s housemade ginger ale, which I immediately plucked from his glass and popped straight into my mouth while he watched with mouth agape. I was such a fucking bitch on this day, moreso than I typically am.

(I know, I know, so many people who know me IRL think I AM SO NICE, SO SWEET but Henry knows the real Erin, the one who grew up being called Sybil by her family. SMILEY FACE.)

I would like to go back to Fresh for a full meal COMPLETE WITH CAKE but probably in a different location where it hopefully won’t feel like the entire kitchen staff is going to self-implode around me. My chai tea and onion rings helped right the wrongs of the day, rewire my sizzling brain, and get me in READY MODE for the Kang Daniel show. Who knew adding quinoa to onion rings could be such a game changer?!?!?

Last Saturday, I finally invited some peeps over to eat pizza and chill in the attic/game room/lounge/ WHAT SHOULD I CALL THIS ROOM. Chooch has basically rejected it so I guess it’s mine now and I can call it whatever I want! But no, please help me.

Anyway, Corey and Janna came over AND THEN WE HAD EXTRA SPECIAL GUESTS: CHRONICA!! Do you guys know how long it’s been since I have hung out with them? Definitely since before the pandy.

I shouldn’t have called it that. Why did I call it that.

Anyway, we ate so-so pizza (from fucking ANTONIO’S – I should have went with my gut and stuck with my ride-or-die Giovanni), talked x 100, and then played some trivia game. Well, everyone played the game but me because only 6 could play (according to Chooch) and I didn’t feel like it anyway SO THERE. Instead, I fucked around with my Party!Party! app, literally the only good thing that those A Beautiful Mess bitches ever produced.

So please, be enjoying some pictures of people in my [ATTIC TBD ROOM]!

First of all, it was delivered at less than room temp. It was NOT GOOD.

Henry has suddenly decided he wants to drink wine and bought a bunch of super sweet candy wine which is kind of cute because you know, Henry looks like he should be drinking port out of a tin can.

SRS PIZZA TALKS & CHEWS.

That trivia game was hilarious from a spectator’s POV. Janna had to read the questions for Chooch’s turns and he was getting SO MAD at her for not doing it fast enough. At one point, Janna cried, “OK YOU GUYS! I ACTUALLY AM SMART, YOU KNOW!”

Corey was waiting all week for this shot lol.

Chooch looking surly either because Janna was reading the questions or because his gimp knee had him trapped up there with a bunch of mildly-blitzed adults. OH DID I FORGET TO TELL YOU THAT CHRONICA BROUGHT POST MALONE WINE?!

Henry couldn’t see the card every time it was his turn to read the questions to Janna because I refused to turn the overhead light on (IT WOULD KILL THE MOOD). During one of the final rounds, Janna was prepared and held the flashlight of her phone over the card for him. She did it with such a heavy sigh, too!

One of my favorite parts of the night was when Janna calmly said, “My sister had a baby last week…..it’s NOT cute.” Classic Janna!

What a perfectly chaotic evening!!! We gotta do this again.

Here’s our Party!Party! reel lol:

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I have so many things to say about Toronto (THE GOOD THE BAD THE UGLY CRYING AT THE KPOP CONCERT) but I am still recovering because that’s what it is like when you road-trip in your 40s, I guess.

Also, my back fucking hurts, man. I can’t remember the last time it didn’t, though.

Ok so instead of doing a full recap right now, or writing about last weekend’s pizza party which I just realized I had forgotten about already because I guess that is also what it’s like to be in your 40s.

Before we left Toronto yesterday, we made a quick stop to Kensington Market for vegan baked goods but then also walked around a bit because we needed to find a toy-snack for Chooch (literally his response any time we ask if he wants something). There was some store with an array of goods from local vendors and at a glance I thought it was going to be your standard artisan soap bullshit but it was actually a pretty wide selection of stuff, some might even say SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE.

It was on the way to the register that I saw it.

I screamed.

I BET IT IS LIKE $7383!!! I said to myself.

BUT I HAVE TO HAVE IT!

I grabbed it with a tender touch and carried it gently over to Henry.

“I want it,” I hissed.

He gave me that disappointed frown-smirk mash-up that I hate so much.

“It’s only like $20USD!!”

Yeah I know – I couldn’t believe it was that cheap either!! Skull Studio is really underselling themselves.

Anyway, look who came home with me!!!

I need Henry to make me a small floating shelf over in Clown Corner for this babe. What should I name him?? I’m getting big Charlemagne vibes.

I’m fully obsessed with him. I GOT NO REGERTZ.

I’m starting a live blog just in case things heat up but so far, it’s just us in the car listening to WDVE and eating a pathetic Sheetz breakfast. (Mandarin orange slices in a cup and unbuttered toasted croissant for me; some gross meat stick and a cookie for Henry. Mm.)

It’s 10:13 and we’re in Erie, only Erie ugh. There is snow everywhere up here and I’m not used to it!! We had been having such mild weather in Pgh!

You haven’t missed anything aside from us having a heated argument over why I get emails for other Erin Kellys- I’m telling you, it has something to do with the dots in gmail addresses but Henry keeps saying it’s an issue with all the places that are sending emails to other Erin Kellys, for instance, one of them recently signed up with Duolingo and I kept getting her PRACTICE YOUR IRISH reminders so I UNSUBSCRIBED her and Henry blamed Duolingo.

I actually got annoyed that I snapped, “I AM ENDING THIS CONVERSATION NOW BC YOURE GOING TO MAKE ME BREAK SOMETHING” and bitch, it’d likely be his glasses.

10:46am: Literally if I didn’t start conversations we would just drive in silence forever. The only time Henry ever talks out of turn is to say something stupid like, “look at the plane” and I’m not going to look. I’m just not.

Now we’re arguing about the border already and we’re still like 60 miles from it. I said that he’s going to get all nervous and stammer like he does every time when they ask us what brings us to Canada (NEVER FORGET WHEN WE GOT SEARCHED BC HE WAS BEING SO SHIFTY) and he said, “IM SORRY BUT I WOULD PREFER TO BE IN CHARGE WHEN IT COMES TO TALKING TO AUTHORITIES BECAUSE GOD FORBID YOU SNAP OUT AND LAND US IN JAIL.”

Wow. Actually I did have a scenario play out while I was washing my hands in the GetGo bathroom back in Erie where the border person asks us why we’re going to Canada and Henry says “UH UM C-C-Concert” and when they ask who we’re seeing and Henry wipes the words “Kang Daniel” from his lips along with all of his panic perspiration, they go, “oh is that one of the members of BTS?” and I get out of the car and flip it over in rage.

That’s the scenario.

11:04am Ugh I just opened the Ticketmaster app to double check the start time for tonight and SAW THAT NCT DREAM TICKETS ARE GOING ON SALE THIS FRIDAY and now my nerves are sizzling. Please pray for me on Friday.

11:26am: pee stop at what used to be my fave rest area in NY but now everything but the convenience store is closed??!!

Struggled with the sink as per yuje.

11:55am: here we go!

Henry did it! That took less than 4 minutes total! We had a nice lady who asked us rapid fire questions, which Henry answered with hesitation yet somehow she felt that he wasn’t hiding explosives up his asshole so she said ENJOY and now here we are in Canada, eh.

1:07pm: at Odd Burger!! We chose the location in HAMILTON because I knew I couldn’t make it to Toronto without lunch.

ok what a great experience!! First of all the Odd Burger guy walked me through the whole menu when I excitedly blurted out ITS MY FIRST TIME HERE which wasn’t necessary but a nice touch! I made Henry add a tip because of that and he grumbled but did as I said.

Anyway, I made Henry order the Famous Burger because it’s what I really wanted but knew it would be too much. It’s supposed to be a vegan take on the Big Mac and I would say that they succeeded. That shit was GOOD and actually made me realize that I must miss McDonald’s on some subconscious level.

I ordered the Chikun Cordon Bleu because I can’t say no to fake chicken sandwiches.

It was like a 1/3 of the size of Henry’s burger but just right for me. The chicken was so crispy!! I really liked it a lot.

We also split an order of the wingalings with Korean sesame sauce and those were a delight (also the odd burger guy’s favorite menu item – he told me so while Henry was in the bathroom; we really had such a great, deep convo).

Ugh I wish Pgh had anything like this. Pgh sucks.

We’re back on the road and Henry just said that he liked the wings. “The sauce was good too.”

“IT’S MADE IN HOUSE,” I screamed and Henry said, “Yes you told me that like three times already.”

Sorry. That was my big takeaway from the personalized tour I got of the menu.

2:58pm: at hotel. Should I wear this to Kang Daniel?? It’s very cold out and this is cozy. I’m leaning toward YEA vs NAY.

4:45pm: fought for an hour, parked near the venue, took a subway, and now we’re on a streetcar. Henry is on my last nerve.

6:12pm: we’re at Fresh having apps before Kang Daniel because everything else was an epic disaster (fine, hyperbole) but nothing worked out so we came back to where we started (LONG STORY SHORT) and Henry is still annoying but at least Fresh is nice. Gonna post this now because it’s almost time to get in line for Kang Daniel who will undoubtedly save this dreadful evening.

Now that Henry doesn’t have any pressing home projects to finish (well, except for the Seoul subway sign which he is finally able to resume work on now that the attic is done!), and the weather was so nice, we spent a leisurely afternoon out of the house (Chooch didn’t come with us because of the whole “Can’t Walk” thing but truth be told, he likely wouldn’t have come with us anyway because of the whole “Teenage Boy” thing).

Originally, we were just going to go for a walk at the cem, but then I wanted to go to Sugarspell Scoops even though we didn’t partake in the pint preorder, because they were doing a limited run of a special flavor paired with a Limousine Beach flexi disc and I wanted it. I wanted it bigly.

On the way to the cem though, I screamed, “WHAT IS THAT” as we drove past a storefront called VENDOR BENDOR and I caught a glimpse of the writing underneath that spelled out something about INTERNATIONAL SNACKS IN VENDING MACHINES. Henry made a quick turn and found a parking spot right next to it because we are not the types of people to pass up the opportunity to splurge on int’l snacks.

We spent entirely too long there and then only got 5 things lol.

I’m pretty well-versed when it comes to Asian snacks, but I have to admit that I’m not very knowledgeable about IRISH treats, but I have heard of Tayto because it’s also the name of an Irish amusement park! (Well, it was up until 2022 and then the sponsorship ran out so now it will be renamed, which means the POTATO MAN MASCOT will probably also be retired and now I’m sad that I didn’t make it there in time to experience this.)

Anyway, all of this is to say that we got the cheese & onions Taytos and I am a fan, sign me up for the club, here are my dues.

Um, those Big Foots are also straight up magic. The Korean sweet potato treats were delicious as expected but the UK Monster Munch thing was not that good.

Then it was cemetery time!

Henry was being annoying.

I was so excited because after years and years and years of the mausoleum being locked to the public, it was open! We were walking by and I noticed that for the first time in years, there wasn’t a sign on the door instructing people to go to the office for visitation access so we tentatively tried the door and BAM, ACCESS. I got to pee inside the mausoleum like old times!!

THAT NATURAL MAUSOLEUM WINDOW LIGHT, THO.

Then Henry took this dumb picture of me.

Last stop: Sugarspell! I didn’t get anything to eat right then because I knew I’d get a stomachache, but we got a sundae for Chooch (actually it was a banana split-type thing and in his text to Henry, he said, “Make sure they give me a banana” because one time Henry got a sundae there that was supposed to have a banana and Amanda (we’re on a first name basis with the owner, *blows on nails*) forgot to put the banana in it and then realized it later and was like OMG and I was like “who cares, it’s just Henry” and she was like NO I HAVE TO MAKE THIS RIGHT so the next time Henry went in, she gave him a random banana and now it’s like a thing and I thought that Chooch was just being CHEEKY (lol I have never used that word IRL before, only just when I do Austin Powers cosplay in your nightmares) but when we came home, he said, “No. I was being serious. I didn’t want them to forget my banana.”

Wow. OK. Calm down. We have bananas in the kitchen if needed. Sugarspell Standby Bananas.

Um anyway, how cool is this collaboration. I love them so much, everything they do is so brilliant and cool! AND THIS FLAVOR IS RUBY CHOCOLATE. 

DE-LEC-TABLE.

Came home and played with my cats and squirrels. That was Sunday. Today is Monday. But nothing happened today except work stuff.

I’m going to sign off now because tomorrow Henry and I are going to Toronto for the Kang Daniel concert and I still have no idea what I’m wearing but apparently it needs to be warm AF because it’s still Actual Winter in Toronto. I was really starting to get used to not wearing a coat, too. Well, hopefully my next couple of blog posts will be more interesting.

*Well, mostly final form! There’s still some art/photos that need to be hung. But this is the gist of it and I’m so happy – it’s colorful, cozy, and fun!

I’ve had these wooden crates since I lived in my first apartment back in 1998. I have no idea where they come from, but I painted them with leftover paint from when I had the GREAT IDEA to paint rocks for my patio, which was basically just Janna and me full-on dunking the rocks into the paint cans, resulting in the patio (let’s be real, it was more just a small concrete slab) to get splattered with paint and this ended up being one of the many thing referenced on my eviction notice lol. (I 100% deserved to be evicted from that place. I was a wild 18-year-old with no job or responsibilities, living in a loft townhouse fully paid for each month by my mom. When I say it was like one continuous party for an entire year, I’m not exaggerating….)

But, yeah – the crates! I guess they’ve been chiling in the attic all these years. We used one to store some of Chooch’s games until we get the actual shelves in the closet sorted.

I got that lamp at a flea market years ago.

I took all of those last night before we had a pizza party. Here are some from today in the daylight!

I still love this view so much!

I brought that rocket cat house up to the attic in hopes that the cats would be inspired to hang out but….not yet. I’m still working on them lol.

The fringe curtain makes you think you’re entering a new dimension. (Maybe that’s just me.)

I hope that Chooch loves this room as much as I do, but knowing him and his enthusiasm limitations, I’m going to say at most he just “likes” it. Teenage boys though amirte.

Anyway, now that this is finally complete, guess what Henry is working on now? THE NEW SEOUL SUBWAY SIGN, WOO HOO! He hasn’t had a chance to work on it since the beginning of December. Let’s see how long he makes it this time without having to stop and take care of a hole in the ceiling or whatever. IT’S ALWAYS SOMETHING.

I don’t feel like counting today so let’s do freeform and not limit ourselves to just five things, k?

• I found out the other night that Henry has NEVER SEEN STEEL MAGNOLIAS. I am shook over this. I have been quoting from and referencing this movie ever since I saw it as a kid and he has not once in the 21 years we’ve been not-married has he once stopped me and asked, “Wait, what is that from? Oh, I have never seen that.” NOT ONCE!! Wel, until the other night. So, once! HE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT IT WAS ABOUT. I rapid-fire listed off the entire cast to him and he was like, “No, this still doesn’t tell me anything” so then I made him watch trailers for it on YouTube and then an entire episode of Donahue (LOL) with Olympia Dukakis, Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Dolly, and Julia Roberts (and later – Tom Skerritt!) which just made me remember how much I despised Phil Donahue as a kid. What an asshole he was, truly. But also, the audience members were FUCKING ME UP. They all looked like Barb from Stranger Things, basically. Even the men. Everyone looked like a mom back then.
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• Because I’m a big person, I can be real with you and say that after more than a decade of hating on Miley Cyrus’s music, I actually finally like one of her songs and Chooch pointed out that it’s probably only because she SORT OF sounds like Lady Gaga in it (“Flowers”) and I think he might be right. This song does give Lady Gaga vibes. But yeah, I like it so much that it’s the ONLY non-kpop workout routine I will do on the Give Me Five Thailand channel.  But yeah, I truly can’t believe I like a Miley Cyrus song. Who am I becoming. A 1990s mom in the Donahue audience.

PHUCK YOU PHIL.

• I was talking to HNC’s squirrel-hating wife the other morning. Cross-driveway relations have been calm and peaceful lately probably because it’s still winter-ish so she’s not out there trying to crucify my Buddys for digging up her plants lol. Anyway, we were talking mostly about Chooch’s injury and I have to say, it’s nice of her to be concerned about him, actually. But anyway, she was then telling me about how her 18-year-old granddaughter went to Georgia recently for a concert and because I’m a judgmental bitch ass, I scoffed in my head, “Pfft, probably some lame country singer” but then she gestured toward me and said, “It was that NCT, actually” and e-friends, when I tell you that I made my screechy voice ricochet up and down the driveway and bounce off the houses like a tennis ball when I yelled, “OMG I LOVE NCT!” – I’m downplaying it a bit. I kind of had delayed embarrassment that settled onto my mind after I went back in the house.
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  You know the kind, where you suddenly an instant playback of what you did and the only correct reaction at that point is one of OH SHIT LOL? Yeah, it was that. Anyway! After my outburst, she goes, “Yeah I know” and that’s when I realized that she was gesturing at me when she said “NCT” because I was wearing my NCT sweatshirt. Love being so dense.

• Went to dinner at Scolio’s with some friends last week and had to boomerang our wine bottle, which I kept as a souvenir because…that’s just what I do. I keep things. Yo, when we were cleaning out the attic, I found a PENNY in a ziplock bag with a piece of paper from a hotel that said, “LUCKY PENNY FOUND IN THE BOTTOM OF THE SAUNA AT OUR HOTEL.” It was from 1989!!! Did I throw it away after finding it in a box in the attic? NO, I MOVED IT TO ANOTHER BOX!!!!

• Did you read my story about the drunk Yinzer Jennifer Coolidge?!!?
• This morning, I was trying to hand Chooch his crutches when he was getting out of the car at school and he was like, “I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP, YOU’RE SO EMBARRASSING” so I said, “WELL I CAN’T JUST SIT IN THE CAR BECAUSE THEN I LOOK LIKE A DEADBEAT MOTHER” and his friend Zakk was just standing there like, “THIS IS WHY I KEEP MY EARBUDS IN.” Chooch-on-Crutches has got to be in Top 3 least favorite versions of Chooch.

• Henry won’t stop talking to me from the other room and I getting really mad. CAN’T HE SEE THAT I HAVE MY BLOGGING HAT ON.
• Today I saw someone spell broccoli  as”brochli” and I am to the point where I don’t know what to think anymore, come n’ get me, gaslighters, that I actually googled it before making fun of the spelling in case it was some new hybrid vegetable that they’re serving up at all those pretentious FARM TO TABLE establishments. No, just an idiotic spelling error. This same person also spelled potato as “potatoe,” so congrats on winning the Dan Quayle Vegetable Spelling Bee.

• My NCT Dream bias Renjun released this today and I am in love.
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• I just glanced over at Henry who is at the computer doing greeting card orders and he was full-body flailing to Aespa’s “Girls” but no, he does not like Kpop. I force this on him and he is miserable, he hates it so much.
  • OMG I just realized that he is trying to do the actual choreography, my face skin is flaming on his behalf.
• I had two different nightmares about the hawks this week. They have actually ruined my life.

Well, I think this is all I feel like writing right now. It was another long and frustrating week.

Dear Internet Log,

Today Chooch had an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon at Children’s Hospital. I actually decided to tag along for this even though I get so queasy with even the tiniest injury.

“Great news!” I said to Chooch on Monday after my half-day was approved. “I’m coming to your appointment on Wednesday!”

“Thats….not great news for me at all,” he mumbled. OH, THE LOVE. I CAN FEEL IT.

Anyway, I’ll skip over all the parts where Henry had parking garage rage and made us get out while he continuing circling for a parking spot and then Chooch fucked up the self-check in by insisting on doing it himself and then we got an ERROR at the end because DUH HE IS A MINOR so we had to check-in with a real person and I was so mad.

Henry had joined us by this point so now Chooch and I got to complain about his heavy breathing which sounds even heavier behind a face mask so then Henry got all up in a snit and dramatically moved to a seat across from us.

Enjoy the show, everyone!

I was pretty impressed with how seamless everything went aside from Chooch fucking up the self check-in, though. We were even called back to the exam room 10 minutes early!

The first doctor came in and made Chooch bend his leg and he was being a big baby about it but there was also a part of me that wondered, could he be—-nah. No, is he….? Don’t say it, Ma. IS HE FAKING IT?!

She left the room and said that the main doctor would be in soon and we were like, “Bye and sorry our son is a baby.

” (OK he actually wasn’t being a baby, I just wanted to pretend for a second that he was handling this the same way I would have.) But then about a minute later, she came back in.

“Actually….” she started, “I took a look at the x-rays that were taken at his emergency room visit, and there is a fracture.”

THERE IS A FRACTURE AFTER ALL!

She pulled it up on the monitor and was like, “See?” and I nodded. Sure. Yep. I see. It was like being shown Chooch’s sonogram all over again. “Mmm, yep, I see it, totally a boy….”

BITCH WHERE.

Anyway, for a very brief window, I felt moderately relieved. This is good, right?? A fracture is better than a ligament or whatever, right??? Like can we just slather on a bone coozy and call it a day!?

But then the main doctor came in – ALSO VERY AWESOME, I WAS SO PLEASED – and did the same types of probing around the knee and forcing Chooch to flex his leg. He pulled up the x-ray and explained things a bit more, which I am sad to say did not really help my extremely non-medical brain. I cannot compute these things and was too busy feeling nauseous at the mention of these internal pieces that it was hard for me to focus.

But the gist, according to Henry, is that the doctor said IT FELT LOOSE whatever that means, and then he was explaining the fracture in greater detail – it’s a nondisplaced tibial spine fracture.

Again, whatever that means.

He then explained that when “most people” injure their ACL, it’s a tear, but with Chooch, his pulled from the bone!? At least that’s what his assessment is pre-MRI. I do not know what this means, but looking at the paperwork, if his assessment is correct, this might be able to heal without surgery, and just continued brace-wearing (they gave him a much better one) and physical therapy.

But it all comes down to the MRI, which is 2 weeks away.

There is also a large effusion. #whateverthatmeans

So….we know more now but also still feels like being in the dark.

Then we went to Patron for dinner. This has been my “What was the point of Mother coming to the knee appointment?” blog update. Thanks to all who have checked up on my idiot kid with the bum knee!

(Lol clickbait.)

Henry and I were working on the Gameboy project Saturday night, being the wild and crazy kids that we are (I at least sipped on a glass of wine during the art sesh, lol ugh this lame life). The firetruck came by for a visit, which is not unusual given the crazy street I live on. From what we deduced, our neighbor a few houses down had smelled gas, so after the firetruck came, so did the gas company. This is like the third time of late that the gas company has come in for this – the last time, both local gas companies were here all day, doing their gas company things, and I guess the result was “no leak”?? I have no idea, but I really hope that if something is going on over there, someone fixes it soon. I want to move, but I’d like that to be into a new house and not a burial plot, you know? IS THAT TOO DARK FOR MONDAY.

Anyway, this was all just my usual preamble to set the scene, I guess.

Around 10:30, I decided I was done playing with clay and retreated to the couch. Right after I sat down, I heard a horn blaring and saw a blue light flash outside of the window. It was an ambulance, and they were beeping at the DRUNK WOMAN SHAMBLING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE.

“Well, there’s a drunk person walking past our house,” I reported to Henry, who had asked for a Pioneer Ave update from the dining room.

Usually, I do not care much for people, but this broad was making me capital N nervous. She was D R U N K, and just like, “Tee hee, I had three Fuzzy Navels with my gal pals” giddy drunk. First of all, why was she ALONE? I opened the front door just in time to see her nearly get hit by a pick-up truck, stagger even farther into the road, where she came close to being clipped by a car passing on the other side.

Might I remind you at this time that I do not live on a quiet residential road. This ain’t Maple Street, my guy.

(As I write this, the gas company is back on my block.)

“Don’t get involved,” Henry warned, now in Dad Mode. “Someone probably already called 911. Let them deal with it.”

WOW look who doesn’t want someone else to steal the hero thunder. Mmm.

Yes, there is always the risk that the person in question is psychotic or belligerent; and yes, it’s true that, at my core, I truly do not care much for people because all of my love is for animals, but if anything happened to this broad, I’d carry that to my grave. My capacity for carrying guilt is huge. You could fill quarries with the guilt I got loafing on my conscience at all times.

I went outside. Prayed to the Kpop idols that this wasn’t going to backfire. Gently called out, “Hello, are you OK?”

She looked up at me with glassy, unfocused eyes, and this was the first time I really gained a sense of what I was dealing with: a classic White Yinzer of approx. late 40s to late 50s, possibly even younger if we’re going the “rode hard and put away wet” assumption.

What came next was a deluge of slurred words, something about trying to get somewhere, no one answering, where’s the road, etc. “I’m drunk,” she tacked on, a disclaimer that I did not need.

“OK, well, let’s stand here on the sidewalk while we figure this out,” I said, blocking her from drifting back out onto the street.

“Why are you being nice to me?” she asked, and OK I dislike people, we know this, but wow, that one made me feel something in the ice box.  I explained that I saw her in the street from my window and didn’t want her to get hurt.

She said she was trying to get to Liberty, and I was thinking she needed to go downtown and I’m sorry, I wasn’t committed enough to offer this broad a ride. If she needed an Uber, I was happy to wait there with her until one arrived, but then she finally got ahold of her friend, Lorraine. She put Lorraine on speaker and started yelling at her for not picking up, and then she goes, “THIS GIRL IS HELPING ME, HERE TELL HER WHERE YOU LIVE” and then she screamed, “SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!” to Lorraine when I was trying to tell Lorraine where we were standing. Henry was watching this from the front door and asked me later, “Did she tell her friend to shut the fuck up?” with a laugh. Yes, yes she did.

Turns out, LORRAINE only lives one block away from me, on the same street. This drunkard had actually shambled past Lorraine’s house and good thing I found her when I did or she may actually have ended up downtown at some point. Who could be sure.

So now I’m trying to get the broad to turn around so that we can start our walk to Lorraine’s.  Again, she asked me why I was being so nice. And maybe I was even asking myself this too, but dude…girls gotta look out for each other, no matter what. ESPECIALLY ON PIONEER. The residents around here are like a jar of mixed nuts, literally. Imagine ROB or LARRY intercepting. No, on second thought, do not imagine.

Rob, coincidentally, did come out of his front door during this but it wasn’t to help, it was because he waiting for his….customer.

By now, I had asked the lush for her name.

“Fred,” she spat her alleged name into the air, and if this were a graphic novel, imagine the letters F R E D  coalescing in the space before us in glittering liquor droplets, like a dive bar’s marquee.

OK. Fred.

You know, it just occurred to me that she sort of resembled Jennifer Coolidge but like, a rough blue-collared Yinzer edition, like if J.Cool was born, raised, and possibly perms hair in DA BURGH.

In front of my neighbor George’s house, Fred drew in a harsh sniff. “I smell gas!” Here is where I remind you that the gas company is still present, parked in the lot across the street waiting for more crew to arrive. Pioneer had multiple story lines playing out on this night. I explained to her that my neighbor had already called 911 about it and pointed to the parked gas company car.

“YOU’RE GON’ SPLODE!” she frantically slurred. “BUBBY, THEY’RE GON’ SPLODE YOU!”

Did I mention that she called me Bubby during this guided tour of Pioneer? But with her level of inebriation, it was coming out more like a burped “buhhhhhby.”

Now we’re about four houses away from my house, still on the same block, when we passed a parked car with people inside. PRETTY SURE they live in one of the houses on my block, so, you know, technically my neighbors. Fred, apropos of NOTHING, lurched toward the passenger window and fucking barks, “FUCK YOU! FUCK! YOU!” into the rolled-up window.

“OK, no, let’s not…no,” I said, giving her a tug to keep her moving.

“I like to FIGHT!” she cried. “I just really love FIGHTING, Bubby!!”

“Gotta stay on your good side!” I laughed nervously, while in my head I’m like “GOTTA STAY ON HER GOOD SIDE” sans laughter.

Did I tell you that we were holding hands the whole time? Yeah, we were holding hands. Looking back on this has me feeling very uncomfy now.

Fred, forgetting about the random people in a parked car that she wanted to fuck up, asked me with so much gravity to her warbled voice, “Bubby. Does your husband hit you?” (She may have said “hate” instead, I couldn’t tell, but either option is depressing.)

I said no and the ERIN IN ME wanted to use this opening as yet another platform to whine about my unmarried status, but THIS NIGHT WAS ABOUT HELPING FRED, NOT MAKING IT ALL ABOUT ME AS USUAL.

We had finally reached the next block (I could have walked here in about 30 seconds if I didn’t have a drunk lady leaning against me, nearly breaking her ankles in the wedges she was wearing.

I asked her where she had been coming from, and she said Slapshots. You guys, Slapshots is a bar on a very busy main road. It’s a very doable walk…BUT NOT WHEN YOU’RE DRUNK IN WEDGES?! I was telling my friend Nate about this at work today and he was like, “Erin. She walked to your street from SLAPSHOTS? HOW DID SHE NOT GET KILLED.”

You cannot just stumble into West Liberty Avenue in a drunken stupor and expect to live. That road is fucking busy, always. Fred must have had a goddamn angel gliding above her this night.

♣ Slapshots

♠ Lorraine’s house 

♥ MY HOUSE WHERE I FOUND FRED IN THE STREET

Trying to make small talk as I led her across the street like a school crossing guard with my arm out to stop oncoming traffic, I asked Fred if Lorraine was her friend, or sister, or…

“SHE’S MY BEST FRIEND!” Fred shouted. “I had another really good friend too but she hanged herself last year. It’s been a really bad year.” And then, a quiet burp pushed out the rest: “I’m so depressed.”

Honestly, same, but I was also relieved that we had successfully crossed over Pioneer while she was spilling these dark truths.

Before I had a chance to really unpack what Fred was saying, A COP ROLLED TO A STOP NEXT TO US. because of course, this was bound to happen. I had seen him earlier when I first went outside to get her out of the street so I’m sure he was just circling the block LIKE THOSE MOTHERFUCKING HAWKS, hoping to have a reason to cuff some chicks, let’s goooooo.

“Everything OK here?” he called out of his passenger-side window. My natural instinct is to sneer in the faces of cops, but I just wanted this expedition to end without escalation. GET FRED TO LORRAINE’S. IGNORE BOOBYTRAPS. DODGE DISTRACTIONS. DON’T LET FRED FALL. DON’T LET FRED ENGAGE IN FISTICUFFS. UNLOCK LEVEL LORRAINE’S HOUSE.

“Yes, we’re fine. I’m just getting her to her friend’s house right down there.”

He gave us a douchey invisible hat-tip, before setting off to look for other ways to meet his ARREST quota.

“YOU’RE AWESOME!” Fred screamed at his patrol car, and then as he drove away, she tacked on, “YOU FUCKING PIG.”

Classic Fred.

You guys, we made it to Lorraine’s. I knew this because Lorraine had said it was the only house with a tree in the yard after I asked her to repeat her house number for the third time back when we were on the phone, because I was too distracted by Fred’s precarious swaying to retain the 4 digits she kept giving me.

And then Fred recognized her car parked on the street so that was the clincher.

“Let me drive you home, Bubby! You have to let me drive you home!”

Um…no way was this broad getting behind any wheel. I told her that I was fine to walk back (literally took me a minute) and that the only thing she should be doing was going into Lorraine’s house, hydrated, and getting some sleep.

And now Fred had half-crashed into me, half-pulled me into a hug. “I can’t let you leave!” she cried into my shoulder.

Oh my god. Get it together Fred.

Of course, Lorraine had a steep set of steps leading up to her house, so that was a treat. I was walking behind Fred, I don’t know what I thought that was going to do – she’d have taken us both out if she fell.

Once we made it to Lorraine’s porch,  Fred just opened the door and walked right in. My heart started racing, hoping that this was the right house and we weren’t about to get our faces shot off. Fred ran/stumbled straight ahead and faceplanted HARD into a black leather couch. Lorraine was sitting in a recliner next to the door, with her back facing me. She looked over her shoulder and said “Thanks.”

That’s all. Just thanks.

I mean, I wasn’t looking for cash (although Fred was trying hard to give me money) but the way this bitch was just like BIG SHRUG really pissed me off. OK, maybe this is Typical Fred Antics but c’mon you dumb bitch, this is your friend and she was literally out in the wild of Brookline, where she could have been picked up by a rapist, taken to the drunk tank by that smarmy cop, GOTTEN FLATTENED BY A TRUCK…Fred’s night could have ended up in so many worse ways. The fact that Lorraine didn’t even at least stand on her porch to look for us? That really pissed me off. Fred deserves better.

I’m sure Fred forgot all about this immediately upon hitting the couch, but I think I will remember Fred forever.

***

My entire body wasn’t even in the house yet before Henry’s rang.

Hot Naybor Chris: “What is going on out there??”

Ah, Pioneer Avenue’s tagline.

Duuuude, We had a pretty productive weekend, I’d say. Put some finishing touches on the game room that Chooch has lost all interest in so that’s fantastic, I guess it is my room now. My favorite thing that we finished this weekend is this bitchin’ Gameboy art:

I found the Gameboy a few mths ago when we were still in “cleaning out the attic” mode. I guess it was mine?! Was it?!? It came with a camera attachment though and that does seem somewhat familiar. I immediately started screaming about we should frame it and make it some type of rad art piece since, you know, this room was originally meant to be….Chooch’s game room. 

I had a vision of a totally bitchin’ frame with 90s abstract designs made from Sculpey, and that is exactly what happened thanks to Henry and his willingness to go along with everything I say with little to no deviation.

He did the zigzags and I did the dots. He used Sculpey but I used some kind of air-dry clay which required me to hand-paint each one the next day so I really regerrrrrted my decisions then but nonetheless, I think both of our shapes came out quite nicely!

This is what we were in the middle of doing Saturday night when there was a DISTURBANCE ON PIONEER, but I will recount that tale in a separate post. I am too mentally drained to use my words, so here are some more pictures (or, as one of my co-workers says, “pict”) of the Gameboy piece, which by the way I failed to mention, is also FUNCTIONAL ART – Henry Velcro’d it the backing so that it can be taken off and played if anyone ever pops over with a pocketful of Gameboy cartridges, because we surely do not have even one.

I WONDER WHERE THEY ALL WENT??

Henry was sitting up here by himself today, listening to an audiobook on his Bluetooth. So now when we can’t find Henry, one of us will say, “Have you checked the attic?”

I don’t want to totally junk up this wall with too much stuff, but I would definitely like to add a few more things at some point. I also cannot find a good spot for this fucking chair!!! I have moved it like 8x. I know in my heart that it belongs in this room but nothing had felt right to me yet. I will keep trying.

Janna and Corey are coming over next Saturday for pizza, snacks, maybe games in the room that was intended for hosting game nights so maybe we should actually do that. And probably by then I will show pictures of the other side of the room because it’s finally finished. Jesus, I was gung-ho about this project up until Chooch hurt himself and now I’m just like, “who cares.”

I will say one thing though!! This whole process has kind of made me want to start making paintings again!? Just little ones. And no customs.

*sorry I needed the alliteration, I CLAIM POETIC LICENSE.

Since I have been sorting through boxes of my entire life’s history, I’ve been unearthing some really…interesting shit. I will say that the prospect of becoming a certified hoarder in my elder years has really terrified me into pitching a ton of stuff, mostly the boxes upon boxes of pen pals letters. Because let’s be real: when am I ever going to read those?? And when I die, Chooch will definitely just have all of my stuff 86’d anyway so might as well lessen the load now.

Anyway! I thought, wow, what a fun Friday Five it would be to share some of the handwritten notes I’ve unearthed recently. I actually had so many options, but I narrowed it down to these five for today and maybe I will do more in the future, LIKE A SERIES??

1. AARON LOVES ERIN

I have definitely posted about this on here before, but it was a very long time ago and I think I just transcribed it. But today you get the ACTUAL LETTER.

It’s like my dad always said: I have a personality only a prisoner could love.

2. A Postcard from my Grandma

1989! This would have been my first trip to Europe, but no mention of all the times I embarrassed my grandma by being a frumpy fatty. LOL, jk kind of. I don’t think I have ever noticed how my grandma’s handwriting fluctuated between lowercase and uppercase – I do that too for sure but not that harshly! The randomly capitalized “e”s are really intriguing to me. I wonder what that means, from a handwriting analysis standpoint? Any pros here wanna weigh in?

P.S. LOL @ how she accidentally signed the card with their names and had to scratch it out.

3. VANETTA ROCKS

You guys, when I found this card, I literally said, “AWWW” out loud. Vanetta was the teenaged daughter of the people who, many moons ago, lived next to Hot Naybor Chris except that it was so long ago  that he didn’t even live there yet! Her family had already been living on this block for some time before I moved in back in 1999 and they had at least 3 other kids (I want to say two younger girls and a boy). You know I hate me some children, but I really, truly enjoyed the presence of these kids. They were just…really good and sweet. Back then, neighbors used to actually talk to each other and we’d have small block parties from time to time. I can remember one of the girls (Kristen I feel like her name was?) having a birthday so I went out and got her a present which probably wasn’t anything wild but I fully remember her being so appreciative.

Really liked that family a lot. Now Vanetta – she was the oldest and I feel like perhaps she was a half-sibling to the rest? I think she had a different dad and she was very sweet but kind of troubled. She glommed on to me pretty quickly because I wasn’t that much older than her, but older enough for her to feel “cool” to be in my presence? I will admit that she could be kind of annoying and a pain to get rid of, but at the end of the day, I did really like her. Obviously you already know by the card above that I let her come to X-Fest with Wonka and me and she was OVER THE MOON about it.

Her family ended up moving to Florida and I was so sad to see them go, but Vanetta stayed here with her dad, except that she ended up living in A MOTEL down the street for a while!? I’m not sure whatever happened to her but I would like to find out. I don’t know her last name, not sure that I ever did. Wherever she is, I sure hope she is doing well.

OH! One other funny Vanetta thing is that she was one of the first people to find out about me and Henry when she was coming over to knock on my door one day just as he was leaving and it was SO OBVIOUS that we were TRYSTING because he was leaving with wet hair after showering here. I just remember her looking at him, and then looking at me, and then looking back at him – you could hear the wheels grinding in her head!

OH! One last funny thing is that I’m pretty sure I threw out the referenced picture in that card because OMG EW I LOOKED FAT. Ugh, I hate myself bigly.

4. OLIVIA

OK OK OK, so the first time my grandparents took me to Europe, there was another girl my age on the same trip with her parents! Her name was Olivia and we became BEST FRIENDS. I can remember her parents & my grandparents scheduling phone calls for the two of us periodically after returning home from the trip. I would be so excited, waiting for the phone to ring at my Pappap’s house, thinking that it was so amazing a telephone could connect me to this girl from the west coast. Honestly, these phone calls probably only happened once or twice, lol. Sadly, my friendship with Olivia did not last very long but I bet if social media or at the very least cell phones had been prevalent at the time, maybe we’d still know each other at least at arm’s length?!

Props to her parents for including my beloved stuffed animal in the salutation, lol.

1

I FORGOT HOW COOL SHE WAS! Very Blossom-esque. Actually, perhaps she was a year or two older than me.

I was…not a cute child. LOL.

5. You guys, it’s gon’ get dark…

I actually just found this tonight when I was looking for something else and it knocked the wind out of me a little bit. So…apologies that this is about to get fucking dark, but this letter is from THE SHITTY MEAT COMPANY owner’s son, Eric. Now, you might remember that Eric sexually harassed me here and there during my 4-year tenure at this shitty job. A lot of it was suggestive, or inappropriate comments (like, “Would you fuck Stacy Dash?” Literally, the fact that I remember this one like it was yesterday….), almost threatening (“I’m going to come to your house tonight and have sex with you”), to downright blatant physical assault (RUNNING INTO MY OFFICE AND GRABBING MY CROTCH WHILE I WAS AT THE FILING CABINET, FILING INVOICES).

This was from 2000-2004. I was so young. So green. The world wasn’t what it is now. I worked at a family-owned company with no HR. Was this what the professional scene was like? Who knew!?!

Some things you need to know about Eric is that – AND I AM NOT EXCUSING HIS BEJHAVIOR – he was VERY emotionally undeveloped. This guy was in his 30s and literally had the maturity of a middle schooler. He was helpless, extremely unintelligent, just fucking clueless. His mother basically did all of his school work for him so that he could coast through high school and it showed. It really showed. On the other side of that letter up there, he spelled “imagine” as “amagin” and “celebrity” and “celiberty.” That….that was Eric.

So, the reason I have these letters is because, a few mths before everything came to a head at that place, resulting in me and Carol to walk out and me win a settlement after having a mediation with the EEOC (oh, looking back at it now, after #MeToo changed the climate of this shit, the sum I received was PATHETIC), Eric’s parents made him check into a rehab facility several hours away. He was an alcoholic and I *think* cocaine was his drug of choice? I’m not sure. But this man was so unstable and toxic.

His dad came into my office one day and asked, LOL nay – instructed, me to write Eric a letter. “It will make him feel better,” Joe said. And because I was FUCKING YOUNG AND STUPID AND THOUGHT THAT BECAUSE MY BOSS WAS TELLING ME TO DO SOMETHING NOT IN MY JOB DESCRIPTION, I STILL HAD TO DO IT EVEN IF IT WASN’T EVEN WORK-RELATED, I wrote the fucker a letter.

You guys, the day Carol and I quit, we had a screaming match with Joe. I said the shittiest things to him about Eric. It was 4 years coming. So much pent-up vitriol.

A few days after we quit, Eric had left the second rehab facility that he had begged to be transferred to because it was in Florida and it was more of a work-release type of situation where he was able to leave and he had a curfew?! I remember thinking that this sounded like an awful idea, and of course he ended up getting in trouble for breaking curfew too much and I’m sure other things happened that I can’t remember because I truly have SO MUCH of that time blocked out in my mind, but long story short, he either left or got kicked out and his MOMMY had to fly down there to bring him home, and a day later, he was speeding down Rt 837, hit a tree head on and died.

Fucking died.

A few days after I had a screaming match about him with his dad.

When I say that this happened in 2004 and I am still deep in my feelings about it to the point where I sometimes get so choked up that I can’t speak and have to just wave a hand in the air and change the subject, I am not kidding.

Yeah, so this letter. Ouch. The other one was signed FRIENDS FOREVER.

FRIENDS FOREVER, you guys. This man was so oblivious to the fact that I fucking hated him…yet at the same time, I had so much pity for him as well. His parents let him become that man. They did him no favors.

So wow – on that dark note! I’m about to go chug a glass of wine, me’thinks. Should this be a series?? NOTES FROM THE PAST? You tell me.