You know how Chooch became obsessed with that dumb radio trivia game last year when I started driving him to school? And he programmed the radio station’s # into his phone so he could call every morning?

Well, it finally happened. Last Monday, he called, and they answered. My reaction? Aw, come the fuck on.

Especially when the co-host Melanie asked, “OK Riley, and who you got with you?” So, he introduced me (Mom Erin) and his friend Zakk who had hitched a ride with us (Friend Zakk) and now we all had to play the dumb trivia game.

I was pretty irritated because I really hate this radio station, and the hosts of the morning show are like, ugh. Not as over the top as some morning show DJs out there, but Bubba especially can get pretty wound up and they just play shitty music overall (Top 40 shit like Post Malone and that SUPER UNCOMFY Nicki Minaj song that plays every single time when they tell people to call for Escalation and I casually turn it way down because that is NOT the song you want your ears to experience in tandem with the ears of teenage boys.

Just, nope.

Anyway, now here we are, on hold while the rest of SUPER FREAK plays on the radio (it is always this song right before Escalation!), waiting for Bubba to put us on the air. Bubba is notorious for SCREAMING the Escalation announcement, super screechy and out-of-tune. As of late, he’s been giving callers the opportunity to weigh in if they want it loud or, I dunno, delicate. I usually turn the volume down because I can’t handle it.

He asked Chooch how he wanted it and Chooch was all, against everything we believe in, “I dunno, go big I guess, sure, why not.” UGH UGH UGH WE ARE SUCH SELL OUTS.

Very quickly, because I’m already tired of writing this since I have talked about it like 27 times since it happened, Escalation is 5 questions, starting at $5. If you get it right, you can give the money back and keep playing for more, or you can take what you’ve won and call it a day. The first question is always really easy. Ours was, “Blank on a shelf.”

Second: “Name a drink you can make with powder.”

I was .00005 seconds away from screaming Tang, but Chooch beat me to it with, “Chocolate milk.”

Mmm, ok. Go off with you chocky milk.

Third question is always – and here, Bubba pauses and makes the caller say MULTIPLE CHOICE: “How many pieces are on a chess board.” I flat out said, “Oh I don’t know this one” but Chooch the savant is over there counting the imaginary chessboard he drew up in the space in front of him and got it right. Thank god someone in our house knows how to play chess!

Fourth question they directed to me since it involved alcohol: Something about what the measurement of alcohol is called in liquor. This was fresh on my mind having just walked past like 7 moonshine distilleries when we were in Tennessee. Chooch was relieved because he didn’t  know it.

The last question, well, I’ll let you watch it:

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I mean, yay us for winning $100, but man, I can’t we sold out AGAIN by actually saying, “I love you” back. I always said I would never say it and there I was, being all fake. I told my hair stylist about it today and she was like, “I always thought that was so weird that he says that to every caller. I hate that for you.”

But can I just say that I don’t know where Waterloo came from? You can even hear it in my voice, I do not sound confident about this. In fact, after I said it, I was convinced that it was wrong and that there was some coven of actually smart Bubba Show listener-Yinzers out there scoffing at my blondness. Literally all of my friends were like, “You probably knew it from Abba.”

I assure you, even though I know Abba songs, that is not one of them. (I googled it and laughed so hard when I saw that the literal first line is about Napoleon surrendering in Waterloo?!) I clearly learned it at some point in school and it was just…repressed.

The one good thing is that this show is on so early in the morning, so I figured probably no one I actually know was listeing. But when I was telling my friend Margie about winning on the radio the next day at work, she goes, “Wait–WATERLOO???” She fucking heard us but missed the beginning and didn’t realize it was me. Great, now I’m Waterloo Girl, I guess.

Even back in high school, I never wanted to be on the radio but I was ALWAYS calling in to request songs. Every time, without fail, I would say that I was Susie from Clairton, but 95% of the time, I was calling LiteFM and I’m quite sure I was part of the 1% of teenagers tuning in for their daily dose of Gino Vannelli and Barry Manilow.

I was cruising on this adrenaline autobahn for quite some time because even though I hated hated hated having to be performative on the radio, it was cool to win, you know? But then that night, Chooch came down the steps and, apropos of nothing, scoffed, “I wish the last question was something different, something I knew the answer to.”

“OH, THERE IT IS!” I cried, knowing that this was probably eating him up inside, the little competitive bitch. “You can’t stand the fact that I won it for us!”

“It’s still my $100,” he said, retreating back to his room to pout.

We were so caught up in everything else going on in life that we barely got Trudy trimmed in time for our party on Saturday! We attempted this on Friday but of course, all of her lights were dead, as they are every year, so we went to Target at 9pm that night and managed to get two boxes of lights even though everything in that section was majorly picked over.

Lo, Dame Trude in all her ‘Tude

‘

We were pretty skimpy with Trudy’s accoutrements this year, to be honest.  Lights, garland, Santa hat, done.

But she still looks smashing! She’s a dish, after all.

I still love this buffet so much and I’m sorry but pink and green are totally Christmas-y.

Hat tip to Chooch.

I added the stars to this wall while watching the last episode of Harry & Meghan, in case you were wondering. I had no opinion of them before but by the first minute of the first episode, I was all in. Totally on their side. Fuck the royal family.

나무

This section needed refreshed so badly. I really loved the cat head wall, but it was time for a change. Now it acts as a better transition between the dining room and living room.

Like I have any idea what I’m talking about, haha.

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

Thank you. That has been my Xmas decoration tour.

In other news, I went into the office today because my work friend Chris is in town from Singapore! Chris left the Firm back in, I want to say, 2015? He was one the most charismatic people in our department and it’s never been the same since. Anyway, he came back last spring!! But the catch was that he’d be working out of our Singapore office. But really, what does it matter considering none of us really work in the office anyway so it’s not like we’d be seeing him either way.

Still, it’s been fun having him back even virtually, seeing his name in my inbox, etc. So, when I found out that he’d be in the Pgh office today, I was sucked it up and went in. It was just Margie, Amber, Lucas, Ethan, Sue, Aaron, and Sharon who were also there, but it was so nice and actually felt like a normal day. We went to lunch at McCormick and Schmick’s where I totally imprinted on our waiter who I SWEAR ONLY MADE EYE CONTACT WITH ME EVERY TIME HE ADDRESSED THE TABLE, HELLO FUTURE HUSBAND.

He is from Buffalo and loves being outside in extremely cold weather for sporting events so that might be a deal breaker. I haven’t decided yet.

At one point during the afternoon, Chris came over to Lucas’s office to ask for his insight on a conflict check he was working on, and then Ethan was chiming in, and I felt this intense wave of familiarity and comfort. I Jabber’d Amber, “This feels like old times” and she said she was thinking the same thing.

I like my current position a lot but days like today make me miss being on the other side of things. I wish I could do both, but I tried that for like 3 years and it just wasn’t sustainable – my brain still feels partially melted on one side from it.

Sorry. Boring work stuff.

It was dark when I left at 5:30. How absolutely depressing, so here’s the new NCT Dream MV to bring the colorful, happy vibes back.

I’m off work today because I had time to use up and I’m bored and restless so let’s do a free-form memory dump. OK? OK.

Firs I want to talk about the Christmas dinner I had with some work friends! Debby and Marlene retired last year, so Megan and I occasionally meet up with them for dinner because keeping in touch is so important. There are quite a few people I have lost touch with over the years from past jobs.  I HATED my job at MSA so bad, but I miss Collin, Bob, and Bill very much. I am still moderately in touch with Bill at least, mostly through his wife Natasha whom I had also become friends with. They used to come to all of my parties and were/are just such great people (and Bill is an amazing baker who, FUN FACT, baked the smash cake for Chooch’s first birthday to match the monster invitations that Henry and I had made!) but then they moved to Arkansas (whomp whomp). But!! Now they livein Harrisburg, which isn’t too terribly far away so perhaps we’ll make a road trip out that way and make them go to Vegetable Hunter with us.

ANYWAY. It was my turn to come up with a venue for our Christmas dinner. I gave three options and they one we all decided on was Zarra’s in Oakland. None of us had ever been there and all I knew was that it’s in the location of the old Electric Banana club.

I made reservations because you can never be too sure but you guys, we were the only people there. Like, the entire effing night. Just our table!! Well, there were two old guys at the table by the door when we arrived, but still.

This place reminded me like a cross between The Zenith and the Bayernhof? I personally loved it but…I’m not so sure about Debby and Marlene, lol. It did feel a bit like it was a front for…something? And our waitress was a young college girl who was TOO CHATTY and talked to us for a solid ten minutes about how she’s a camp counselor, going into great detail, and we were really just trying to order our food.

Also, our salads came after our meals because “he” whoever “he” was, had to go and buy tomatoes?

Also x2, we had to request a bread basket because we were fucking starving and why wasn’t it already provided to us?

Also x3, the waitress went through a painstaking process of telling us “how to eat the bread” (which we had to wait for as well because “he” was slicing it)  with the oil she provided (le duh) and then said, “It’s like sex in your mouth” which was not something that went over well with some, lol.

Also x4, Michael Buble was BLASTING on the sound system which was located right behind Debby and we egged her on about turning it down herself, so she tried to but turned the wrong knob and ended up shutting the whole thing off, but then it randomly turned back on and our waitress ended up turning it down for us and said that she thinks “Johnny is going deaf,” the same Johnny that she also said might be in the mob, the same Johnny who evidently was one of the old men sitting at the front table when we walked in.

We heard a lot about Johnny that night.

I actually hate this picture of me so much, but what can you do?!!? Megan took some cute selfies of all of us after dinner that were so much better than this one which was taken before we had even ordered. I should have waited until we were at least one bottle in before asking for a photo op!

Weirdness of the restaurant aside, I thought the food was delicious. Megan and I both got JUDY’S FAMOUS RICOTTA NOODLES. I got mine with eggplant and practically licked the plate clean.

Our waitress (I want to say her name was Chloe, and she reminded me SO MUCH of Blake’s wife Haley but with blond hair; it was actually quite uncanny to me – it was the way she talked and her facial expressions, so similar) flat out quit coming back to our table halfway through, replaced by a man. At this point in the dinner, I hadn’t learned yet that the owner was the old man we saw earlier, so I blurted out, “ARE YOU JOHNNY??” and he said, “No, I’m Donny, his son.”

Nice guy! He did a good job putting up with our chaos.

After we ate and exchanged treat bags, we roamed around taking pictures of all the stuff, and each other, and each other with all the stuff.  I mean, there was no one there to stop us…

The DUMBWAITER that the waitress referred to several times, with Electric Banana relics in it! It wasn’t until several days later that I found out that JUDY AND JOHNNY ZARRA were actually the proprietors of Electric Banana as well! IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.

Anyway, it was a really nice evening with some amazing ladies. I’m already pressuring Henry to go back with me because it was SO WEIRD there plus the food was good.

Moving on….

Oh yeah, I failed to properly wrap up my Tennessee blog recaps because I forgot to tell you that after we left Dollywood that Sunday night, we went down the street to Rocky Top Mountain Coaster, which if you recall, we tried to do the night before and you couldn’t even get into the parking lot, that’s how crowded it was.

When we went Sunday night? There was one other couple ahead of us.

I’m not going to waste too many words on this but I just want to say for the record that mountain coasters are overhyped, not for me, and actually kind of confusing? First of all, I had some young mountain boy mumbling the instructions to me and actually felt scared and ill-prepared.

There were so many lift hills. It felt like every time you built up any speed and momentum, there was a sign that would tell you to brake for the lift hill, so I would do that but then a recording kept coming up saying NOT TO DO THAT and I was having a major crisis over this. BRAKE OR NO BRAKE?!!?

Anyway, when we were all done and met up in the…station,  I dunno, Chooch said that those announcements were specifically directed toward me because I wasn’t doing it right (I dunno how he would know when he was in front of me, but cook on little bitch-chef) and I got REALLY DEFENSIVE and borderline flipped over so Henry had to try to diffuse the situation by saying it wasn’t true and that it was a recording that was meant to play on repeat but Chooch claims that it was a real person one of those times that had to make the announcement because of me.

NEVER AGAIN.

I didn’t realize this was Girl Buddy at first until after the picture was taken and then she climbed down the wall head-first like Dracula and met me in the driveway for a peanut because she saw that I was on my way to the backyard with my trick-or-treat pumpkin pail of peanuts. I am entirely too attached to this squirrel.

Well, I think that’s all for today. I was also going to tell you about how Chooch and I were on the radio last week but I’m not motivated enough so maybe later this week.

See ya wouldn’t wanna be ya.

One of the projects on THE LIST for our home refresh was a re-refurb of a table that my friend Chris gave us several years ago. She was going to pitch it but asked if we wanted it, knowing that we love furniture makeovers. First, we made it into a G-Dragon table, but it was a fail because the modpodge coating that Henry gave good ol’ Jiyong didn’t hold up.

We were initially going to do a G-Dragon version 2, but then when we decided to have a Christmas party, I thought it would be good to have a coffee table in the secondary seating corner of the living room. That area has The Devil rug, the church pew, the Robert Smith / lyrics wall, and the amber swag lap. So, kind of a darker, more gothic corner of the house, you know?

I knew immediately that I wanted the table to be red with black accents, and then went to Spoonflower to find wallpaper to use for the top. I ended up finding this coffin print on pink fabric almost instantly – I still kept searching for other things but I knew this was it, the ONE. When you know, you know!

Henry said he felt that fabric should work OK with epoxy so I ordered it and then of course it sat around for weeks and weeks until it was literally days before the party. I will say thought that once he started it, he was motivated to see the whole thing through.

The thing with me is that I am great at thinking of the projects, but even better at delegating. I think Henry and I are a good partnership in that regard. I wish I had more patience to do the actual hands-on stuff. (I mean, aside from art-related aspects.)

Henry is just really good at mechanical things, and measuring, and following directions, and using tools, and not losing his temper.

Anyway, Henry hates epoxy big time, and epoxy is not much of a fan of Henry either, and there are definitely some imperfections to this but I love it. To me, it’s perfect. It’s so shiny and the black border is glittery and the coffins are so adorable and THERE IS PINK.

I had to laugh though because I was like, “WE GOTTA FINISH THIS. GET IT DONE” and then I was the only one who sat in the DARK CORNER at the party last night. It was good though because I honestly have never really sat over there before and it was oddly comfortable. Definitely cozy too. I liked it!

I found my old Curiosa program too from when Henry and I went to it in Cleveland! I think that was 2004…yes, it had to have been 2004 because that was also the year we went to Coachella to see The Cure and we saw them TWICE that year because of Curiosa. 2004 was a SHIT YEAR but at least I got to see The Cure twice. Perspective.

Ugh, I love it. One thing that isn’t it done yet is that there is a side drawer that needs a handle – I found a pink skeleton key drawer pull on Etsy and it is currently en route from Canada so hopefully sometime this week Henry can put the finishing touch on it.

Honestly, I wish we had a larger house just so that we could keep upcycling furniture because it is soooo much fun (well, it is for me, anyway – I should probably ask Henry someday if she enjoys this…). Almost everything in our house is spraypainted and totally personalized, which, you know – not everyone’s jam! I’m sure tons of people look at photos I post on Instagram and think, “Wow. They ruined that” or “That’s fucking hideous, and I would never put that in my house” but for me, I just love having furniture that has a story to it, and isn’t something you can buy. And I like that it’s something, to a point, that Henry and I can work on together!

Also, I love knowing that we gave this table a second lease on life. Thanks to Chris for thinking of us!

I still want to do another G-Dragon table, but we’ll just have to thrift a different table for that! (Bets on how long it will take until Henry eventually starts building tables from scratch….)

You guys, the most amazing thing happened after we scarfed down 1.5 cinnamon breads between the three of us: ALL OF THE RIDES OPENED. In this post, we will look at pictures of rides, and us on rides, and I’ll say some things about rides. Sound good? YEAH THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT.

Blazing Fury! I love riding this and screaming outlandishly on the drops. Chooch thought the one ride operator looked like Jonah Hill except he couldn’t remember his name so I went through a list of basically every actor affiliated with Seth Rogen until his name was on the tip of my tongue and suddenly, in a moment of the ride when it was pretty quiet and no one on the train was talking, I bellowed, “JONAH HILL!!!!” so now I think that should be my new dark ride battle cry, kind of like when we went through a phase of screaming, “JANNA!” as a way to express mock-fear on kiddie coasters.

Hey man, I had been wanting to ride this dumb kids ride ever since I saw videos of Dollywood’s new family area, Wildwood Grove.

It was kind of dumb but also hilarious.

I wanted Chooch and I to share a bear but as you can see, that did play out the way I had hoped.

Wow, Chooch put his phone down long enough for Henry to take a picture, I’m shocked.

Back row, Lightning Rod! This was a station wait ALL DAY LONG. Literally could have just walked on at times if we hadn’t been so particular about front or back row.

SIR. I forgot how insane this coaster is. My very first RMC, back in 2018, and still one of my favorites. However, it either got a lot rougher or I just don’t remember it being so rough, but my organs felt majorly jostled on every ride. The quad-down or whatever thoosie name it has is still easily one of my favorite elements on any RMC I’ve ridden this far. It makes me so fucking giddy!

Chooch sang Papa Roach on this again, for old time’s sake. This time though he looked up the lyrics so he could sing more than just the opening part and then made the mistake of trying to make sense of them. Words in a song written and performed by a band called Papa Roach.

Good luck!

We just kept getting right back in line at one during the day. When you can basically WALK ON an RMC, you gotta take advantage of that shit. I definitely had some minor bruising on my person from the re-rides. Not complaining!

I made Chooch ride these acorns with me. I had to do it for the squirrels, you know?!

I also had to take a picture of this because SQUIRREL. Also, in the background, you can see the lift hill for Wild Eagle. We only rode this once – I don’t know why this one isn’t very re-rideable for me. It’s not BAD by any means, I guess I just don’t care much for wing coasters?

This one just isn’t that memorable to me, although the ride operator certainly was. He was some old dude who definitely was taking FULL advantage of being given a microphone and he turned that station into open mic night.

Except he was the only performer.

Chooch got on the train after us and was able to hear one more joke than we did. He was 100% not a fan of this guy at all, and in his typical surly manner, later relayed to me the “dumbest joke of all time” that the guy told as Chooch’s train was leaving the station.

“What was the name of the reindeer in Jingle Bells? Bob. The bells on Bob’s tail ring — no, don’t laugh. It’s not funny,” Chooch sighed when he noticed that I was cracking up at his retelling of the Not Funny Joke.

Here we are standing in line for the new family coaster in the Wildwood Grove section. This wasn’t when Chooch was retelling the joke, but that was similar to the face he made when I laughed at it. This was a new credit for him since it was built after our last visit!

Um OK, can we hold the phone for a sec? Because I think Thunderhead might be in my Top 5 favorite wooden coasters of all time? I think it might even be my favorite coaster in Dollywood? I knew that this was one that seriously gave me giggle fits last time we were there but I was SO AFRAID that it wasn’t going to live up to my expectations. Maybe I outgrew it! I have been on so many excellent coasters since 2018, after all.

But SHIT SON, somehow this felt even crazier, wilder, and more fucking fantastic than the last time. I was not prepared. Not at all. This was another straight-up walk on so after we rode it once, we ran all the way around and got right back on without Henry, who was reading dumb Reddit shit on his phone while sitting on a bench, even noticing.

I made Henry ride this later in the front row and you guys, I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t breathe and came SO CLOSE to peeing my pants. This is what a roller coaster should feel like! Insanity! Giddy! Wild!

Henry sent me this from his terrible phone, but it was a gif so I had to just put a screen shot in here because WordPress is so finicky. Anyway, this is us on the new kiddie coaster that went around like 3 or 4 times – 3 or 4 times TOO much.

Not shown: Tennessee Tornado, which was way less shitty than I remembered it to be so I allowed Chooch to drag me on it twice; Mystery Mine, which I was OBSESSED with the first time we went to Dollywood in 2011! It’s still fun, just kind of underwhelming now. Firechaser Express – I love this family coaster! It’s so much fun and it has a backward launch which always makes me crack up!

Oh wait, I lied! I forgot that I took this video while we were in line:

I think this wraps up the ride portion of the blog posts! I will return at some point with the remainder of my pictures and thoughts, like you care!

Choi Minho’s debut mini-album recently was released, completing the SHINee sólo puzzle. I love that the members have a tradition of “plagiarizing” each other’s solo albums. SHINee just makes me heart feel so good.

Anyway, please enjoy Chase! It is SO SULTRY, a whole mood. I’m obsessed. (Obviously.)

Another weekend full of fucking house shit. OK I guess I’m making it sound like this joint is in shambles, like we’re over here living in squalor or whatever. Honestly, the only thing that ACTUALLY needed to get done was that hole. All the other things are DIY projects that don’t matter but I wanted them to be done before the Xmas party because I am sooooo fucking Type A about this shit.

I let Henry have a break that night by permitting him to accompany me to a Home Alone-themed Christmas party at my friend Megan’s. It was just what I needed.

Drinks.

Treats.

Chats.

I would usually have anxiety in the hours leading up to any type of social event, but I felt strangely calm. Is old me really back after since ROBERT OPENED THE FRONT DOOR?

Look at this detail!

Funfetti cheese ball shaped like the hot doorbell!

I haven’t seen Home Alone probably since I was a teenager so all these little details sparked some memories for me and now I want to give this a decent rewatch soon. The only movies I ever watch over and over and over are horror movies so when people want to talk about their favorite Christmas flicks, I’m like a bump on a log.

Is that what that means??

Here is Henry refilling my snack plate for me. Megan had a festive party spread, but I lowkey was wishing he was filling my plate with Korean snacks.

Taemin.

Jaehyun.

Wonho.

I mean…CLEARS THROAT…deok, Choco Pies, kimbap.

One of my favorite parts was when Henry went into the kitchen to get another bev and then didn’t come back for a solid 10 minutes. Someone mentioned something about him fixing something in there and I was like, “Haha, yeah ok” but then he came striding out of the kitchen like a smug Schneider, this repulsive hero-smirk twitching ‘neath his mustache, flexing about how he was in there fixing the fridge BUT COME TO FIND OUT* that he is the one who broke it in the first place, so….

*(Henry used to always say this when we first got together but I was like, “Stop saying that, it’s lame” and so he retired it from his arsenal of Dumb Old White Man sayings.)

April and Nate!! I haven’t seen April in a REALLY long time. We were trying to figure it out and we think MAYBE as far back as the Chronica Nuptials???

Nate and I Jabber every day at work so it feels like I must hang out with him all of the time but in actuality, I think we have only seen each other 2 or 3 times this past year?? The pie party and one day we both randomly were in the office one day. We supposed to sign WILLS FOR VETERANS as WITNESSES one day in October through the Pro Bono committee thingie at work, but the event got canceled because apparently not enough veterans wanted to have their wills done for free. I was bummed too because if there is one thing I am totally fucking great at in life, it’s SIGNING MY NAME OVER AND OVER FOREVER AND EVER AMEN.

Like, even when I told Henry I had volunteered for it, he said, “Wow that is perfect for you.”

See?

Megan is the cutest and the coolest hostess!

You guys, I got Henry to unpack his other flannels!

Law Firm Frenz!

That was totally a fun time – I always think I’m a shell of who I used to be but then when I actually leave the house and go to where the people are, I suddenly remember how to carry on a conversation. I think it also helps having good friends who have other good friends! Literally every one of Megan’s friends I have met so far has been so lovely.

Then came Sunday. Did some shopping, picked up some ice cream from Sugar Spell, Henry mostly almost finished epoxying the coffee table!

I can’t wait to take pictures of it once it’s 100% complete! It should be totally cured by tomorrow or Wednesday, so he can out the table back together and it will be ready to be used by Saturday. The only thing I won’t have in time is the pink skeleton key drawer handle I bought for it because it’s coming from Canada and hasn’t even been shipped yet. (Ignore the fabric on the outer edges because that’s just the spill-over and will get cut off.)

But yeah, I had wanted to redo the G-Dragon table for a while because it wasn’t done properly so the image that Henry had Modpodged wasn’t able to withstand water-spillage, etc. I’m planning on making coasters out of various G-Dragon heads though for this table, so the G-Dragon theme will still live on in a way.

Then I did a really small bit of Xmas decorating. It’s a start, lol.

Anyway, I’m starting to get excited now for our Christmas Comeback Party. I used to love having these little holiday hangs at my house pre-Covid, even when our house was a total dumpster. We used to have so many game nights here too! I also just realized that this will be the first IN YEARS, MORE THAN A DECADE EVEN, that I will be able to leave the kitchen door open and use it as an extra room for people to mingle in. I’m so excited about that! That room used to be the biggest pit of all time, and now it’s the best room in the whole house.

SHOULD I INVITE ROBERT????

Henry the Not-Drywaller has worked very hard to patch the hole left over by the burst pipe last month. We couldn’t wait for the slumlord any longer, with this Xmas party coming up, and as I mentioned previously, Henry has kept receipts and photographic documentation in order to get reimbursed for this.

How it started:

How it’s going:

He finished it today! It needs painted white but I don’t give a shit about that right now, to be honest. I’m just happy that now I can finish painting and the green wall and get Marcy’s portrait hung up. Apologies XMAS party guests, you will no longer be able to converse with people downstairs from the hole in the bathroom closet floor.

Don’t worry though, there’s still a hole in the other room, from a completely different leak, which is being covered by a piece of … not cardboard but something sturdy and white. I don’t know what it is but it’s been there since early 2020 because quarantine happened so the landlord couldn’t send anyone and then we got complacent.

Welcome to our Shack!

Dollywood doesn’t open until 11am so we were able to have somewhat of a leisurely Sunday, which is almost unheard of for us when we’re traveling. There is not much room for “relaxation” with our vacationing style, lol. I tried to read on our little balcony for a little bit, and then we got a C- grade hotel breakfast downstairs. I mean, it was fine for people who don’t care about what they’re eating, I guess. But I am limited. I settled on scrambled eggs and it got the job done. Meanwhile, Henry tried to mansplain to some young girl how to use the pancake machine and she snapped back at him, which he proceeded to dwell on even a day later, like OK bro, god forbid you called out for being a know-it-all man.

Probably replaying the pancake scene in his head on the hotel balcony before we left for Dollywood.

On the tram at Dollywood! We arrived a bit after 10am because usually places will open the lots earlier than the park, so we try to beat the crowds. Sadly, the driver of the tram got on his little speaker thing and said that he was required to tell us that DUE TO HIGH WINDS, SOME OF THE RIDES WOULD NOT BE RUNNING TODAY.

He quickly curbed any and all questions but continuing, “Now look, I don’t have a list of the rides, but I’m obligated to tell you,” and then he went on to list all the non-ride shit that Dollywood has to offer, like meats and shows. Two things that I do not care for. We were pretty bummed about this but I tried to look on the bright side in that we’ve already ridden everything there (except for the new family coaster) and there are way worse places to be stuck at for a day than Dollywood, lemme tell you.

There was a small crowd already gathering at the gates and we were prepared to stand there until 11, but then they played the National Anthem at 10:30 and started letting people in! Let’s goooo!

DOLLYWOOD, I MISSED YOU!

We decided to take a chance and walked straight to Lightning Rod just to see, and there was already a small line that had formed. This gave us hope because there wasn’t a CLOSED FOR WEATHER sign at the entrance or any other type of crowd deterrent, so maybe the tram driver was given FAKE NEWS.

It did seem pretty windy though, which sucked because the rest of the weather was a bangin’ fall day, man. Sunshine, high-60s, bright blue skies. I was actually starting to sweat a little in my sweater and Chooch was mumbling about how this was why he wanted to wear shorts, wah.

I’m sure it’s park policy that they have to wait until the joint officially opens before the ride attendants can come out and give us the bad news, but it was still annoying that they let all of us coaster assholes loiter for 30 minutes before coming out of their hidey holes inside the station to tell us that the ride was not opening due to winds. Actually, they only seemingly whispered this update to the people in the very front, and not everyone was leaving so we weren’t sure what the fuck was going on until some girl behind us walked up and asked. Then we heard her tell her friends that they said NOTHING was running, and they left the line along with a bunch of other people, so we followed like the sheep that we are.

I was wondering if the carousel at least was running, and Chooch was like, “NO, NONE OF THE RIDES ARE, ESPECIALLY NOT THE CAROUSEL” because he has grown to hate carousels thanks to my obsession with carouselfies.

BUT IT WAS RUNNING!!!

I didn’t realize that they were both sitting in the same position, but they said afterward it was because they were both trying to get the seat belt on which wasn’t even required for adults. (I so badly wanted to end that sentence with “lol” but I my new thing is attempting to write more like an adult and not an AIM child. Bear with me, it’s a struggle.)

I love this sweater so much. I almost said I got it from Delia’s because my mind is clearly living its best life in the 90s but I actually got it last year from Mod Cloth. I usually have bad Mod Cloth experiences, but this one was a winner. You know, just a non-sponsored FYI.

I don’t know which one I like better: 1 or 3? Only one can go on the carouselfie wall!

Since all of the coasters were presumably closed, we took this opportunity to get some critically-acclaimed cinnamon bread. I had been dreaming of this moment. We didn’t know that this was a DO NOT MISS foodstuffs the first time we visited in 2011, because I had failed to do my due diligence, but we rectified our errors the last time we were there and can confirm that this is a park food that 100% lives up to its hype. Holy shit, this damn bread. They give you a whole tin pan thingie of it and it’s like a warm, sticky pillow of decadence.

We got TWO to split between the three of us because last time, we only got one for the three of us and craved more immediately after demolishing the pan in under 5 minutes.

We ate one and half loaves right then and there, and then devoured the rest later that evening because we are pigs for Dolly’s cinnamon bread.

LOL. Also, I begged him to bring other flannels but he of course just brought the one which is so annoying. “My shirts underneath are different every time!” he cried defensively, like that matters. (OK, it does, but Jesus, Henry.)

Then we casually strolled about, taking in the scenery. Dollywood is so cozy and woodsy!

Then something totally amazing happened: EVERY RIDE WAS CLEARED TO OPEN!! The day totally did a complete 180! So, my plan of, “Well, we’ll just have a leisurely, slow day at the park since the rides are closed. We can take it easy and go see some shows or something” turned into, “LET’S GO, BITCHES! GO GO GO!!” as we ran from one coaster to the next. More pictures in the next post!

I don’t know what I was thinking when I said, “Hey let’s have a Xmas party for the first time in forever but also let’s do all these home projects first.” Maybe if we hadn’t had THE PUMBING ISSUE which left us with a HOLE IN THE CEILING, this would have been reasonable, but now Henry is working on patching the ceiling because the landlord has left us hanging as usual and I cannot wait a single day longer for him to send someone because hello, in addition to the party, we’re also hosting Christmas here and I’m not having my family sit underneath a hole. (Oh don’t worry, we will get this deducted from our rent.> Henry has RECEIPTS. No, literally. He has actual receipts to send to the slumlord.)

Some things we’re working on:

• Henry is revamping the subway sign because he didn’t like the way he originally did the lights;
• I repainted the tigers on the front door because when I initially did it in August of 2021, I used paint pens and they faded bigly (this is the only thing that’s complete so far because it was something that did not require Henry’s assistance lol)
• I had just started to repaint the “cat head” wall literally THE NIGHT before the plumbing incident. The hole is like, right above this part of the wall so I had to stop and now I have to wait for Henry to finish patching the hole so that I can finish painting it. I’m painting it a dark green, similar to the green that we used for the picture frames on the Korea all, so it ties in that wall with the dining room now.
• In addition to repainting the wall, I removed all of the framed pictures of my Original Four Cat Crew because I always felt that those pictures didn’t do them justice, and wanted to make real, regal portraits for them. I had been wanting to commission someone on Etsy for years now to assist with this (there are so many artists out there who do the whole pet/royalty portraits) but I wanted to be able to customize them and knew in my mind exactly what I wanted, so then I just decided to do it  myself because I have  to be in control of everything. So far, we only have Marcy done, but Speck should be completed this weekend:

I knew that I wanted the portraits to be raised up and separate from the background, so I photoshopped Marcy onto some Queen bitch and then Henry mod-podged her a bunch of times to a piece of foam board. I wanted the whiskers on the right side to be “real” because it was way too hard to cut around her actual whiskers without it looking like shit. At first, we were going to use one of Chooch’s old stuffed animals but then I felt really guilty and said, “Maybe we can take like, one whisker from several? So  then we don’t leave a stuffed animal whiskerless?” and Henry was like, “I…don’t think they care?” But then Chooch came back down from checking his stash in  the attic and reported that he couldn’t find many with the kinds of whiskers I needed and the ones that did have whiskers were all messed up because he “apparently was really into chewing on them” when he was 5???

Henry mentioned that fishing line would probably work and I screamed, “ASK HNC!!!” and he of course, really did not want to do that, but eventually relented and traded him a VHS-to-DVD conversion kit thing that HNC has been asking for, in exchange for fishing line.

(We really don’t want to know what HNC is converting from VHS.)

Anyway, it worked like magic!

Also please note that the background is wallpaper that was used to Sharon’s bathroom from my Pappap’s house. Sigh. I am determined to make beautiful art pieces with as much of that leftover wallpaper as possible!

• I need a second coffee table for the church pew section of the living room, so we’re refurbing an oldie. Painted it from black to red – that part is done. But now we have to epoxy the fabric in the backgound of the above Marcy portrait to the tabletop. I would have liked for this to have been completed weeks ago, but…the hole.
• Oh, did I mention that while all this is going on, our Xmas card sales have exploded? So that has also been taking a lot of time away.
• WE HAVEN’T EVEN DECORATED TRUDY YET.

I feel so overwhelmed and stressed. It all came to a head two mornings ago when I came back from my morning walk only to realize that my FitBit was completely dead, as in, DEAD AS A DOOR NAIL dead, not just BATTERY NEEDS RECHARGED dead. The.way.I.flpped.out.

HOO BOY. Projection ahoy! The texts I sent Henry during all this will be quite damning if I ever end up on trial for murder, that’s all I’m saying. God, I can be so fucking problematic.

I know in the end, it will be fine, I just want to see my friends and have a use for the beverage buffet again. But fuck, just typing out this blog post made my heart race.

Here is where I eat crow –

(except not this crow)

(wait, I’m a vegetarian, so not ANY crow)

(WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE EATING CROW??)

– the hotel that I threw a fit over actually ended up being….pretty OK. Like, the room was big and modern shockingly, and the shower was very clean and nice, and it had a cute balcony that overlooked the Pigeon Stream or something, I forget what it’s called. It was literally babbling like they say in the fairy tales or whatever. Very quaint.

Lookit!

Here’s what it looked like from the street when we were en route to get our Gatlin’ on.

1. It was like 40 degrees but would Chooch wear pants and at the very least a hoodie? Obviously not.
2. I fucking swear to god Henry as an array of flannels but this is the only one he hadn’t vacuum-packed last spring and keeps re-wearing it because he can’t be bothered to deflate his winter clothes. Sigh.

Pretending he doesn’t belong to us.

GUYS. Guys guys guys guys. There was only really ONE THING I wanted to do while we were in Gatlinburg and that was revisit the Mysterious Mansion. Chooch and I went through the last time we were there in 2018 and it was SO GOOD that I think about it every Halloween season because I wish so badly we had something like this in Pittsburgh.

Aerial views while waiting in the foyer.

The ticket lady made us wait for “five minutes” to see if anyone dared to join us. A group of ladies and their annoying preteen girls approached at one point and one of the moms came in to ask questions. She went back outside and relied whatever info she had gleaned and it turned into a dramatic tug of war because wahhh, the girls were too scared, etc etc. They lingered outside the house for a good while and the ticket lady called out from her window-nook, “Let’s just wait a minute and see what these people are going to do.”

Finally, they retreated and I was tres relieved (lol, I used to say everything was tres this and tres that in middle school for no good reason other than I probably learned it from Sassy). As the lady was finally reading us the rules and letting go through the turnstile into the formal waiting room, two guys showed up and also bought tickets. I was pissed at first until they joined us and I realized that they were adults, maybe young 30s, and as Chooch said, kind of like my brother Corey. They ended up being great companions for our tour through this fucked up house, which requires lots of hands-on action, searching for hidden doors, etc.

I won’t give anything away because there is one thing that this place does that is different from any other haunt I’ve been to and it’s FUCKING JARRING, but for a haunt to have only 2 or 3 scare actors yet still make grown men jump is a true fucking feat. I just want to give a shout out to the Ringu-esque girl and the clown for being the real MVPs, and when I say that clowns usually don’t scare me…

DAMN this one got me GOOD. Like, 87 times. And then I think I imprinted on him.

“Do you think he thought I was pretty??” I breathlessly asked Henry after we left the house, with the clown leering at us from the exit.

“Sure, Erin,” Henry sighed.

:(

Things I didn’t take pictures of:

• Walking to the main drag of Gatlinburg where Henry gave Chooch $40 to buzz off into an arcade while we did a cider tasting at the Tennessee Cider Company (I think this was the name?). Dude. I cannot hold any sort of alcohol anymore, which is perfectly fine with me because I truly don’t care that much about drinking, but after the second sampling, everything just tasted like lighter fluid to me, even though I am first and foremost a cider gal. Not to be a HIPSTER about it, but I was totally drinking cider (Strongbow for life) before it became trendy and…everywhere. Anyway, we had a hysterical cider-slinger assisting us and two other couples. We snagged 6 bottles (3 for gifts, three for us) and everyone who bought at least 2 got a free bottle of peanut butter cider and um, I can see why they were giving it away. Everything we sampled was delicious, but this tasted like smelling a scratch-n-sniff sticker while drinking…blank alcohol. Do not recommend. I honestly preferred the OG plain-ass apple flavor.
• Then, Chooch popped into and was like, “Oh cool, you’re still here getting drunk anyway here are the pointless things I won at the arcade also I lost $20.” This got Henry’s attention. “You’re kidding,” he said. “Nope. I have no idea how it fell out of my pocket. It’s because I left my wallet at the hotel.” Then Henry called him an asshole really loud (not that loud, actually, but he did use his “I’m kind of in a loud bar environment and want to make damn sure my son knows he’s being called an asshole” voice-volume. Then Chooch asked for the key to the hotel now that he had “no money and nothing else to do” and the skulked away. “Wow,” I said. “He’s way more honest than I was at that age. I never would have admitted to losing cash! I would have been like, ‘Hi here I am, back with these two prizes that cost $40 at the arcade!'” I mean, even if he hadn’t lost the $20, he still would have lost the $20 in the games.
• Then we walked the rest of the side of the road we were on. It was SO FUCKING CROWDED. You couldn’t get near the bar in the moonshine tasting places, and the line to ride the cable car had half a block’s worth of sidewalk congested to the point where we had to keep stepping into the street. This was not how I remembered it last time we were there, which was also the weekend after Thanksgiving!

New location: other side of the street.

Christmas dogs!

The best parts of Gatlinburg IMO are the little squares tucked away from the main drag. They’re these adorable little courtyards with fountains and specialty shops away from all the MAGA SWAG and MOONSHINE and RIPLEYS BELIEVE IT OR WHO GIVES A FUCK. (Honestly, how much stake does Ripleys have in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge??) One of the courtyards had a place called FRIAR’S DONUTS and it called to me. Not so much because I was craving a donut (although I could use a sweet carb to sponge up the cider in my gut) but because FRIAR and I saw from the doorway that they had MERCH.

“Oh, I KNEW IT. We have to go inside because I want a magnet!” I cried. “But you have to buy a donut too because then it just looks weird if we only buy a magnet.” This was one of the few times Henry didn’t question my logic because MMMMM, ME EAT DONUT NOW!!!!!! MMMM!

This guy looked so much like Henry’s son’s Blake’s BFF Artie, who also is one of Henry’s drivers at the Faygo Factory! He calls Henry to chat way more than any of Henry’s actual sons, which is hilar to me

A FRIAR AND HIS DONUTS.

We split a glazed and it was CLASSIC tasting. Like, it tasted like a donut my Pappap probably ate at Mr. Donut in the 70s with his drywall employees. Do you know what I mean? Like a genuine donut that knows its role and isn’t trying to be something it’s not. I would go back for more donuts next time we’re in town, for sure, and actually – was this open Sunday morning because I would have preferred another glazed over the meh hotel breakfast we had…

Although I was purposely having a meh breakfast because I was saving myself for the DOLLYWOOD CINNAMON BREAD LATER THAT DAY. More on that later, but I might need to take a break here for a second and stare at the ceiling with my tongue drooping out the side of my mouth as I recall the flavor fiesta in my mouth….

Taffy puller lost in thought.

We also bought some delicious cookies from a very friendly pregnant lady at some cookie place and an assortment of moonshine chocolate from a super bored young guy who was 100% wasn’t trying to make a sale in an empty store in the corner of the FRIAR’S DONUTS courtyard. I thought we were just going in to sample them but Henry was like OH TWIST MY ARM, WHY DON’T YOU and bought a box of 10 and I mean, they were fine but not $20-some worth of fine.

We walked back to the hotel on a much quieter back street, collected Chooch, and set off to do a mountain coaster but all of them were like SO CROWDED that you could barely even pull into the parking lots, so instead we went to a gas station to get beverages (Henry got some smirnoff mixed drink thing in a can and I was like WHO ARE YOU) and then we went back to the hotel, watched Friends as is our hotel routine no matter what (or Golden Girls!) and then got some rest in preparation for a full day of DOLLYWOOD!

(But yeah, if you ever go to Gatlinburg, do the haunted house!!!! DO NOT DO THE RIPLEYS ONE!!! If you see a haunted attraction on the main strip of Gatlinburg, THAT IS NOT IT. The one you want is on a back street, you have to cross over the creek via a pedestrian bridge, and the haunted house butts up against a hillside. Dude, you gotta go.)

If I was a POSER, I would skip the part of Saturday where we came down from the mountain and went to our hotel in Gatlinburg and the sight of it from the parking lot alone made me throw a fit because IT LOOKED SKETCHY so I cried about how the whole weekend was awful and I just wanted to go home and Henry was like NO and I was like YES and Chooch was like *here we go* and then Henry called my bluff and said FINE and started to “drive home” and we made it as far as Pigeon Forge, past the signs for Dollywood, when I screamed, “PULL OVER, I AM GOING TO FIND MY OWN HOTEL” and Henry was like “OK YOU DO THAT” and Chooch was like *this is gonna be good* and I “found a hotel” in Pigeon Forge and Henry was like, “OK LET’S GO CHECK MOM INTO HER HOTEL” and I was like “OK but before I confirm my reservation, can we please eat lunch.”

And that’s how we ended up at Mellow Mushroom, which is tradition (4x makes it so), and then we all had a big laugh over The Fight while shoveling delicious pizza into our mouths.

And then Chooch told me my smile is just as fake as my voice.

I ALWAYS GET THIS ONE, it’s their mushroom pie and it is delectable. The waiter (super friendly chap in a cowboy hat who Henry originally thought was faking his southern twang but I don’t think so) agreed that it’s the best one.

Pretty uneventful (BUT FILLING AND DELICIOSO) lunch, which was actually welcome considering the stressful morning and high-octane temper tantrum of mine. It was nice to just sit in a booth and speak gently to each other. (Gently? Eh, we were still probably being assholes to each other but probably with more good humor and less vitriol.)

Look, so happy and fed! Hanger squashed. Real smiles! People walking by were laughing because we were laughing and this actually happened another time too, according to Henry. “That lady was laughing because she saw you laughing,” he said, slightly concerned.

After lunch, we went to the Old Mill …. something. Somehow, after two trips to this area, we had never known about this! I just happened to see it from the window when I was still sulking on the way to lunch, after the HOTEL HULLABALOO.

Look how beautiful! Once we crossed the bridge, I immediately recognized a bunch of spots from the In The Loop travel vlogs from Pigeon Forge. Legend and Molly are huge Pigeonheads (that sounded good at the time) so it all started to come back to me. We checked out a soap shop and instead of getting local soap, Chooch got a mass-produced brand name (Duke Cannon) bar of Pumpkin Spice Latte soap. I mean, you do you, Chooch, I guess.

Metal-working. Other people were taking pictures so I felt like I should too, but then I realized they were taking pictures of their family members who were metal-working with the professionals.

Next, I bought some local jams for Xmas gifts at one of the Old Mill shops. Surprisingly, this area wasn’t too outrageous people-wise for a Saturday afternoon, so we had a pretty pleasant time

We stopped in this alleged cat house but there were only THREE CATS TO BE FOUND. And then just a bunch of cat art and people clothes with cats on them. It was disappointing except for the actual cats we got to see.

Some cafe was next door. I had a pretty good apple cider chai.

By now, I was fed *and* caffeinated so I was feeling even better about life.

This picture actually became very useful a few nights later when we were back home in Pittsburgh and I lurched forward on this couch. “WAIT, WHERE ARE MY JAMS?” I exclaimed.

“……………..um,” Henry stammered.

I ran out to the car to check, we checked our luggage, but NO JAM. NO FUCKING JAM!! I started to think it was my fault. I vaguely remembered setting the bag down when Chooch and I were sitting in those adirondack chairs in the cafe. But then I was going through my pictures and cried out, “A HA!!!! YOU WERE CARRYING THE BAG AFTER THE CAFE!” So we had to have lost it somewhere between that bridge and our car. There were THREE more shops we went to before leaving: a nut place, a candy place, and a gaming place.

But as soon as I showed Henry this picture, he said, “I set it down in that planter behind Chooch when I took your picture. Fuck.”

I was already mad at him because he took the stupid picture from the wrong angle (the mill was to the left!!!) so this dumb picture ended up costing me $20 in lost goods.

I know, it’s not A LOT of money, but it’s not….NOT a lot. And it sucks, especially because I bought the jam with the intention of tucking them in gift bags for some friends.

AT LEAST HENRY MADE SURE HIS CANDY SAFELY MADE IT BACK TO PITTSBURGH.

And Chooch’s stupid soap! I should have made him carry my jam too!

Anyway, I can’t remember the name of this game store but the guys working there were FANTASTIC. They treated Chooch like a prince and when he asked for suggestions, one of the was like “WALK WITH ME, M’LAD.” I mean, not in so many words. But yeah, I would recommend this place if you’re in the area and looking for a game to play on a rainy night in your hotel, or whatever!

Oh, and the nut place we went to was full of MAGA shit so I did NOT buy a magnet even though their logo was a bad ass squirrel.

Back to the jam! Henry emailed the jam place on a whim to see if anyone turned in the bag.

“No one would have done that!” I scoffed, because my faith in humanity is at an all-time low. I mean, that’s 100% something I would have done – and been super panicked about it too. “WE HAVE TO GET THIS JAM BACK IN THE RIGHT HANDS!” as I’m darting all around Pigeon Forge like Dolly Parton looking for her car in the lot after working 9to5. (Look, that and Steel Magnolias is pretty much as far as my Dolly knowledge goes, but I am sure thankful that she has a theme park!)

“You never know, being the south and all,” Henry reasoned. “It’s worth a shot.”

WOULD YOU BELIEVE that the jam store emailed him and said that they weren’t aware of any misplaced jams being returned, but they would check with the managers of the other stores in the square AND ONE OF THE STORES CAME BACK AND SAID THAT YES, SOMEONE HAD BROUGHT IT TO THEM!

Ugh I’m so pissed that I didn’t realize it was missing while we were still there. BUT they were kind enough to issue me a refund (they also offered the option of shipping it to me but I didn’t feel like dealing with that). Whoever returned this is a true hero.

I mean OK it wasn’t like it was my WEDDING BAND (you can’t lose something you don’t have, lol) or my prosthetic thumb, but it was still a small weight off my shoulders.  I don’t have enough money for “It’s only money” to apply to me.

I did not thank Henry for getting me a refund because this was all his fault in the first place, so…

Anyway, after we left the gaming place, it was time to go back to Gatlinburg and check in.

“Don’t we have to drop Mum off at her hotel first?” Chooch deadpanned from the backseat.

Sigh.

Oh my god, when I found out that NCT Dream was releasing a movie centered around their recent In a Dream concert, and that TWO theaters in Pittsburgh were actually going to be showing it, I bought two tickets immediately the day they went on sale. NCT Dream is the “younger brothers” to the main NCT unit, NCT127. I know, it’s confusing. SM Entertainment really does the most and their convoluted NCT conglomerate takes some time to really parse through. Basically, you can’t really be a moderate or part-time fan of NCT – you gotta be all in because there are so many moving pieces.

Anyway! I fluctuate between who I like more: NCT127 or NCT Dream. At this point, I have seen NCT127 three times (twice at KCON, and once at a full-fledged concert on their recent US tour) and I have seen NCT Drean NONE TIMES.

But I really think that they are my faves. They just make my heart so happy and I want all of the best things for them.

Watching this movie was going to have to be the next best thing to actually seeing them live.

Today was the day of the movie and I WAS FUCKING READY!!!

My Haechan pendant (designed by me, made by Henry) and a NCT lightstick necklace by the talented The Idol Collective.

My Cherry Bomb purse (this is actually NCT127) with my Renjun and Jaemin pins showing.

NCT Dream Dear Diary pin; Haechan Boom-era pin.

You guys, it didn’t occur to me until we got to the theater that I FUCKING FORGET TO WEAR MY NCT DREAM T-SHIRT. I HATE MYSELF.

“It’s going to be dark in there,” Henry reasoned. YEAH BUT…

P.S. We were only about 7 minutes away from home when Henry looked over at me and frowned because I WAS ALREADY STARTING TO CRY. Why do I have to feel so much?

“I should have brought Kleenex because I know I’m going to cry. I can’t help it! I care very deeply about NCT Dream. They’re on the same level as the cats and squirrels,” I said wailed.
Henry:

Henry mumbled, “Wow. So that puts me even lower.”

!!!!!

The girl in front of me took a picture of this so then I had to, too Henry sighed.

I sent this to Chooch, who was at work and “sadly” had to miss the viewing festivities. “Great, now I have to sit next to him while he eats popcorn in a silent theater.” Chooch and I are very much anti-Henry’s Mouth Noises.

IT STARTED WITH RENJUN RIGHT OFF THE BAT AND MY TEARS JUST FELL FREELY.

You guys. I thought there was no way for me to love these guys any more than I already did, but then I spent two hours with them in a theater and my heart was swelling to the point of explosion. This concert was a huge deal for them because it was at the Seoul Olympic Stadium, which is like the PREMIERE venue for artists to perform at in Seoul, it’s what they all aim for. It’s also only their SECOND concert (like, full concert of their own and not just like festivals, etc.) and the first one with Mark, who had “graduated” out of NCT Dream before they had their first concert because originally, NCT Dream wasn’t a fixed unit. It was intended to be a fluid unit with revolving members under the age of 20. So once Mark had his 20th birthday, he “graduated” out of NCT Dream. The fans did not like this one bit and demanded that SM reconsider, bring Mark back, and keep NCT Dream as a fixed unit with the original 7 members. Eventually, SM caved, put Mark back in and promised that the current lineup would be the forever-lineup.

Yeah, I was a mess at most times throughout this movie. My nose was running bigly and my stomach hurt from trying to silent-cry when I wanted so badly to big-sob. And I know you’re wondering: Henry only fell asleep once at the very end, for “like a second,” he said. To be fair, he legit likes them but will honestly fall asleep at any given opportunity. He would probably also fall asleep during a Ted Nugent biopic.

I’m glad that this was available in Pittsburgh and that I was able to go. Yes, it emotionally wrecked me but it was amazing to see so many of their songs as they performed them at their concert in Seoul. I am so proud of them and the huge crowd they drew!

Since the World Cup stuff is happening currently, I’ll end this with a video of them performing Trigger the Fever, which was the official song of the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2017 (whatever that means) and Mark actually has a songwriting credit for this!

And here they are performing it at the soccer thing in 2017 (minus Jaemin because I think he was injured):

They were so young!!!

Afterward, Henry and I went to Angkor for some Thai food and I tried so hard to rehash the entire 2 hours but he barely had anything to say and just nodded a lot, but you know, that’s just Henry.

Sigh.

The first time we went to Tennessee was back in 2011, with our good friends Bill and Jessi, who invited us to tag along on their vacation and subsequently causing us to fall in love with the area! The three of us woke up early one morning in an attempt to do some mountain shit. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I think the sole reason was because my beloved Roadside America app had suggested a place called Clingman’s Dome and it sounded super spacey and weird, so I wanted to do it. I mean, it was only an overlook thing that required a mild hike to reach, but it was still something to do.

I just had no idea that Chooch was going to have such an adverse reaction to this area! He was throwing such a huge fit (“My legs hurt!” “I’m tired!” “CARRY ME, WAH!”) that we were sincerely afraid he was going to alert any neighboring bears to our presence (though I imagine they’d probably have fled the opposite direction, take me with you, bears).

I was cruising through my old Flickr album for the 2011 trip last week, to stoke the nostalgia for our upcoming return, and when I saw the below picture, I thought, “Golly, gosh darn, wouldn’t it be a real barrel of laughs to recreate this shot with Chooch who is now 16 and taller than both of us?”

I posted it on Instagram as sort of an interest check but also to put it out there so that Chooch and Henry would have less room to decline my latest demand. I love doing that to them. “BUT I ALREADY TOLD THE INTERNET!”

We went to breakfast first on Monday with the intention of then driving straight up into the Smokies. EXCEPT GUESS WHAT YOU GUYS. The fucking ONLY ROAD that takes you into the mountains was CLOSED. I went into a tailspin over this. Henry immediately pulled into the Smoky Mountain Visitors Center while I basically cried and Chooch sardonically murmured, “Aw, that’s too bad. I was really looking forward to having  my picture taken. Shucks.” Henry was checking the GPS for alternatives but there was NOTHING. The GPS map even showed that the road was blocked off! The day before, there were high winds in the area so Henry guessed that probably a lot of branches and debris were covering the road and needed to be swept off.

I DIDN’T CARE! I JUST WANTED THE STUPID ROAD TO BE OPEN!

“Go inside the info building and ask them when it will open!” I wailed.

“They’re not going to know,” Henry mumbled, looking for something shiny to distract me.

THAT IS LITERALLY THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF AN INFORMATION CENTER, TO HAVE PEOPLE INSIDE THAT ARE PROVIDING INFORMATION!

I was just about to lose my mind when I glanced at the GPS map and noticed that the “ROAD CLOSED” thingie was no longer showing up on the map, so I whipped around to look out the rear window at the actual road and sure enough, the barricades had been removed!

I was screaming! Henry and Chooch were sighing!

The drive to Clingman’s Dome took about 30 minutes or so but it was so nice because hardly anyone was on the road. I think only about 3 cars had made it in front of us when the road opened so it was as nature intended.

What a huge difference from Saturday, that’s for sure. I believe only 2 cars were already in the parking lot of Clingman’s Dome trail as opposed to the 50+ plus the line of traffic going down the mountain that we ran into on Saturday. Has an empty parking lot ever been so beautiful.

Unforch, another big difference was that the weather on Saturday was BEAUTIFUL, sunny and totally hoodie weather. But on this day, it was drizzling/snow-misting, windy AF, and around 30 degrees (but felt like 20 degrees).  Chooch of course was only wearing a hoodie over his t-shirt, AND SHORTS, and Henry and I just had on light jackets. This was 100% hat and gloves conditions, people.

But I wasn’t leaving without the damn picture, so we set off onto the trail at the same as an Indian family. We had only been walking for about 3-5 minutes when we all collectively realized that, “HOLY SHIT, THIS IS THE SPOT.” I mean, it was pretty much exactly the same, even the log was still there. And then I started cracking up because you’d have thought we’d had been legit hiking the side of a rugged mountain for hours the way Chooch was reacting in 2011. But nope – just three minutes!

I pulled out the camera to take the shot, BUT HENRY BROUGHT THE WRONG LENS. So, this time it was me throwing a tantrum and Henry angrily stormed off to retrieve the correct lens. Meanwhile, three of the older members of the Indian family had cried UNCLE and were making their way back. One of them stopped and kindly asked if we needed help and I said, “Oh, no thank you. We’re just waiting for—-” and I blanked, not knowing how to refer to Henry!? “—our friend.”

He nodded and kept walking, but honestly, I’m sure Chooch and I looked like suspish hooligans, loitering on the side of the trail like we had just found a geocache of drugs and gold bars and Elvis’s molar.

Henry came back, jammed the lens into my person, furiously shrugged off his jacket, lifted Chooch up over his shoulder, and hoarsely hissed, “TAKE THE FUCKING PICTURE.”

I mean, it does look like the same spot, right?? I was actually shook that we found it.

Look at Henry so far ahead of us, lol. He was DONEZO after this. It’s been 5 days and he’s still bitching about his back pain. Oops. But, at least we made the memory!? RIGHT HENRY?

Oh shit, the hilarity of the comparison of these two pictures carried me through most of the drive home. I just kept going back and looking at it and cracking the hell up. I want to say that I can’t believe they went through with this, but c’mon.

I knew that they would.

You knew that they would.

They knew that they would.

I was so angry on Saturday. Henry actually got home from work early on Friday and we had discussed leaving earlier and driving all the way through to Gatlinburg, but then he decided to take a nap until fucking 3pm, so he stuck with the OG plan of driving to somewhere in Virginia and then continuing on the next morning. So, by the time we actually got to Gatlinburg, it was 11am on Saturday. I had wanted to get up into the mountains early!

The plan was to go to Clingman’s Dome and recreate a picture of Henry and Chooch from when we were there in 2011. I was looking forward to it because it was a beautiful day for doing mountain walks, you know? Except, it was so incredibly crowded by the time we got there that we couldn’t even find a parking spot. Can you believe it?! It was like trying to park at fucking Disney, I don’t even know. And the worst part was that some BITCH in her pocketed leggings (Henry HATES when women wear these pants lol) got out of a minivan in front of us and ran through the lot which was horseshoe-shaped, when she saw that a spot had opened up on the other side. Literally ran across the grass that was separating the sides of the lot and stood in the empty spot so that none of the FIFTY (probably!!) cars in front of theirs could claim it.

When we passed her on the way out of the lot (after clearly NOT getting a spot), Henry called her a cunt and I yelled across him, “Must feel cool to be such an asshole!”

“Wow,” Chooch murmured from the backseat. Look at us, setting the Good Examples!

That felt good to get that off our chests, but it was still extremely disappointing that it was SO CROWDED up there. This was my first time really experiencing heavy crowds in nature and it was wild.  We were there at the same of the year, also on a Saturday afternoon in 2018 and it wasn’t even close to being this insane. We didn’t go to Clingman’s Dome that time around but the overlooks and parking lots for other trails were not even almost at capacity and when I tell you that there were people creating their own parking spots on Saturday, I’m not being hyperbolic.

Henry thinks it’s because people are still super-motivated to get out and do shit after quarantine, but now that everything is $$$$$$$$$$$ more people are trying to have free fun.

I was really bummed about this (and projected my dissatisfaction onto Henry, as one does) but honestly, even if we had found a parking spot, there was absolutely NO WAY that we would have been able to recreate the picture we wanted without hordes of people being in the background. So, it was for the best, and we planned to get up extra early on Monday and revisit the spot before leaving for home.

But dude, listen. The best part about this failed drive up the mountain was stopping at one of the smaller overlooks on the way back down and befriending the cutest, sweetest crow!!

He was totally chill, you can tell he was very used to people (probably not a great thing) and was like, “Sure, you can sit as close to me as you want. Can I also get into your car and go into town with you? I have some errands to run.”

“OMG I HAVE NEVER SEEN A CROW BEFORE, WOWWEEEE!”

Chooch and I were competing over who could take the best picture of the crow, but Chooch sadly won. Only because he has the new iPhone and I don’t!! I don’t even know what mine is. It was the newest one available in the beginning of 2020, the Covid edition, I guess.

ILYSM!!!!!!

I wanted him to come home with me and chase the fucking hawk away, ugh.

Such a beautiful bird! A huge highlight of the day for me, for sure.