Today is apparently National Haunted House Day so I guess it’s a good day to share some pictures of the haunts we’ve done so far this season!

Last week, we went to Haunted Hollow on Friday, and Infernum In Terra on Sunday, the latter of which has solidified itself in my short list of faves now that I’ve had two amazing experiences there in a row! Here are some pictures, first from Haunted Hollow:

I mean, he had the option to stay home but he CHOSE this.

I’m excited that it’s flannel and beanie weather – my favorite Henry OOTD!

This Beetlejuice did a great job projecting his namesake’s sleaziness, that’s for sure. I have never been called sweetheart and touched so much by one stranger in…well, it’s happened before but it’s been a while, lol. This place was OK. It’s a walk-thru, a non-scary hayride (it’s basically just a mode of transportation to get you to the outdoor section), a trail, and a very small corn maze. We had fun but I wouldn’t be pushing people out of the way to get back in line, if you know what I mean.

I didn’t realize until later that Chooch was using an ear of corn (given to him by a scare actor in the maze as a prop), lol. It’s actually still sitting on our kitchen counter.

The next one is 100% worth the drive to WV (not that far from us, actually):

Look, one day one of our descendants will be thankful for all these dumb selfies. MAYBE.

I wonder what selfies will be like in the future…

They had a really long debate about how to scale a barbed wire fence, how tall the ladder would need to be, the probability of breaking bones upon landing – it was all very boring for me. I need to make some friends.

But yeah, all the details are in my HAUNTED HOUSE JOURNAL as usual but this one is incredible. When it comes to my style of haunted houses, I’m all about the cozy October feels, the 90s nostalgia, the perfect blend of giddiness and fear and this one checks all the boxes. It reminds me of the ones that used to be a dime a dozen around Pittsburgh in the 90s – at the YMCA, firehalls, abandoned schools.

I’m not trying to say this is hokey or cheesy – just that they put more emphasis on the scare actors (they all seem like high school students) than some fancy Hollywood set design with no one in the room to scare you.

I loved it! The highlight was when I couldn’t bend down to walk through a corridor/tunnel that had one of those damn black inflatable things lining the top, so I dramatically fell to my knees while screaming, “MY BACK HURTS I CAN’T DO THIS” only to be face-to-face with a “dead girl” on the other side who broke character and laughed at me.

Then last night, we went to Crawford School of Terror!

We’ve been going to this one since it first debuted onto the scene several years ago (I think we missed one season) and I can honestly say that this one gets better and better without selling out (well, it’s definitely seen a bit of a price inflation since the early years, though, I’ll tell you that much!).

It used to be $15, according to my haunted house journal! And last year it was $20! It’s hard for me to say if *any* haunted attraction is worth this much but I will tell you that I walked out of there not fussing about the admission price at all because it was SO FUCKING GOOD.

Henry waited outside since it was more expensive this year and we have our Newark (ughughugh) trip in a few days. Thank god one of us is economically conscious. But really, when you’re a family who is really into haunted houses and tries to go to as many as possible every season, it gets extremely expensive. We’re not poor BUT WE AIN’T RICH either.

You guys. This was the first one is A WHILE that had me so scared at one point that my heart was galloping, and I actually walked through the last portion of the three-level school with my hand clamped firmly over my chest, chanting, “OMG OMG OMG.” Lol. I’ll just tell you that there was a hide and seek portion. And there was a song playing. And there were no lights. And, that song. OMG that song. :/

You know they did it right when we came out and Chooch strode right over to Henry and started telling him stuff about it. You know, Mr. “IDK I Guess Mmm”? He actually had a lengthy verbal review!

This is another great example of a place that stacks their haunt with kids (mostly kids, some adults) who put their whole-ass heart into it. And the rooms are decorated SO WONDERFULLY! I don’t think there was a single room that didn’t have a scare actor in it, nor was there a single room where I didn’t scream my face off. I love this place SO MUCH and was so amped on the way home that I actually declared that I would consider going back there again – IN THE SAME HAUNT SEASON. That almost *never* happens unless it’s Castle Blood!

Fuck all those commercial cash-grab haunts that pay for the “Scariest in America!” title. I’m done with Hundred Acres Manor, been done with Scare House (save for last year when I had a temporary lapse in judgment), and I’m even over Demon House because while at least there is a Groupon for this every year so it’s not that expensive, it just doesn’t live up to the hype or its potential. They have such a great space and what they *do* have set up inside the house is cool, but then it just gets really boring/lame/anti-climactic. Like, there’s an entire clown portion that never gets updated and it is sooooo dumb. But I do like their ticketing system where they give you a group number so you can roam around, get food, watch a horror movie in the outdoors theater, sit by a fire, and wait for your group number to be called.

So much better than waiting in a fucking line. I HATE LINES. I mean, who loves them? Find a line-lover, and there’s the real monster right there.

Well, this is getting rambly and Henry has some chores that I need to supervise. I will be back with more haunted check-ins later on in the month!

 

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Hi. Let’s get it.

1. Chooch: Driving my car and driving me crazy.

After Chooch turned 16, I thought he would be hounding us to drive but, aside from casually pissng around with the online permit practice test while standing in line for roller coasters, he kind of just dropped it. Something happened at the pie party though, maybe SOMEONE ASKED HIM IF HE HAD HIS LICENSE YET, because he started pressuring us bigly to teach him to drive. I couldn’t take it anymore, so last Saturday I screamed, “CLEAN YOUR ROOM AND THEN WE’LL SEE.” Then I forgot to actually check to see if any cleaning was done, lol, but I took him to Jefferson Memorial for some “bad weather” driving practice. He said he needs 5 hours experience of driving in bad weather, so I guess tooling around the cemetery, dodging squirrels in the rain, counts.

He actually did OK, although my right foot was cramping from all the times I practically standing up in the passenger seat to stomp on the imaginary brake. I’m sure Henry was a nervous wreck  – we left him at home because he had chores to do – because he is A PROFESSIONAL DRIVER and probably felt like I stole something from him by taking Chooch without him.

It’s kind of cool though because this is where I learned how to drive too – my friend Lisa taught me in her family’s Jeep.  My parents refused to take any part in this process because I was a “bad seed” and could not “be trusted” so I actually didn’t even get my license until about a month before I turned 19 and again, it was my friend Lisa who took me to the DMV in Uniontown to take my test – twice, lol. I liked that this is where Chooch is learning how to drive now too, ALMOST 30 YEARS LATER, ugh.

So he was all ready to go and take his permit test but Idiot Henry can’t find where he put Chooch’s social security card, so he had to go and request a new one on Monday. I had to laugh (HA HA) because when the guy at the social security office looked up Chooch’s info, HENRY WASN’T LISTED AS HIS DAD LOLOLOL. The guy was like, “Oh, that’s usually what happens when the parents are married” and instead of giving Henry a hard time about, somehow let the request go through.

But yeah GOOD JOB NOT MARRYING YOUR SON’S MOTHER, ASSHOLE.

Anyway, every day this week, Chooch has stormed into the house after school, barking, “DID MY SS CARD COME YET” in lieu of the HELLO that I deserve. It actually came today, which surprised me because that was less than a week! So now Chooch thinks he’s going to the DMV after school but his fate rests in Henry’s hands, as usual. We’ll see if Henry gets home from work in time, or if he will remain on Chooch’s shit list.

2. HATER HATER TALK TALK

I got a surprise shirt in the mail yesterday! Henry and Chooch immediately confirmed that they don’t care enough about me for it to have been from them, so I asked Instagram and I should have known it was my NCT bestie, Veronica!! We have been going ham lately over this NCT127 tour. She just went to the LA date last night and I watched some of her Instavids (trying to avoid it though because I want the setlist to be a surprise!) and immediately started sobbing. I haven’t been this stoked for a concert since probably the last time I saw the Cure!!

I don’t have a lot of friends with common interests so when I do get one, I cling tightly!

3. 28 Reasons Why I Love this Song

OK I’m not actually listing 28 reasons because I’m too distracted as usual but Seulgi’s solo debut is more than I ever could have wanted. The way this song and her beastly choreo give off stong Taemin vibes to me….This has been in my head ever since it came out the other day. (She’s, IMO, the best part of Red Velvet and I’m so glad she finally got her own solo!)

4. Red Jeans

I dunno what made me think about it, other than the fact that I was going through old pictures from when I was in high school, but I started thinking of my signature scent back in the day – Versace Red Jeans. I thought that it had been retired, but when I googled it, I found it on Amazon! I added it to the cart just for funsies and then it arrived a few days later because Henry saw it and actually experienced of moment of goodwill, and contrary to what was previously stated in #2 of today’s Friday Five, actually bought it for me.

OMG that first spritz TOOK ME BAAAAACK TO…..

5. This one October night in 1997

I’m always inspired to look back through old haunted house journals this time of the year and this one night in particular remains one of the best haunted house hopping nights of my life. It was me, Lisa, Angie, Angie’s bf-at-the-time Mike, Lisa’s little Youth Group friend Darren, and a family friend of Lisa’s – Bill. I just remember going all over the place in Lisa’s minivan (not the van that I learned how to drive in!) and then my Psycho Mike ( :/ ) meeting us later at Home Cookin’.

Fun fact about Darren (middle): He grew up to be the screamer in a successful Christian metal band!

Ugh Psycho Mike. I have a vivid recollection of him extremely dick-ish this night because he hated Lisa (for no other reason than she was my friend and he wanted nothing more than to isolate me from everything and everyone, you know, classic abuser behavior). Somehow, we ended up hanging out in my grandparent’s yard (their yard was huge so no one even knew we were there) until like 3am, completely sober but using our natural reserves to act like complete giddy morons.

This was when I was at the height of my Jacki Sorenson aerobic obsession and would use every opportunity to break out into one of the many routines I had memorized.

And then I apparently hurt myself in doing so, lol.

These pictures are also making me remember that I had to wear my hair in a ponytail every day around this time because I was in the process of growing out a REALLY BAD HAIR CUT. OK here’s what happened: I was with Lisa and our friend Kim. Kim had (probably still does) extremely long and straight hair. Like, LONG. We were in Century Square (probably to go to PHAR-MOR which I hated but Lisa and Kim always wanted to go there ugh) when Kim decided to stop into Fantastic Sam’s to get her hair trimmed. Now, a place like that isn’t going to fuck up a trim when the hair is long and straight so good for Kim. But something made me, the queen of layers (back then: THE RACHEL GREEN), decide to also get a hair cut.

Oh, chingu, the way they slaughtered my layers. It was a hot mess, before people were saying “hot mess.”

You can bet I had the delicious notes of Red Jean wafting in my wake on both of these occasions: fun night and bad haircut day. (I had to pause and sniff my wrist just now. Yessss. 90s Erin is BACK!)

OK, signing off. Henry just texted me and said that Chooch passed his permit test so I guess this weekend will be full of “CAN YOU LET ME DRIVE NOW??” begging. Pray for us.

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Yo, let’s spend this entire post talking about the decorations and people who came to eat pie and whatever else I decide is worth being chronicled. I’m admittedly still recovering from this day. It was a lot of socializing but it also kind of invigorated me in a way, too, and made me remember how much I love(d) having get togethers. Now I want to have a Christmas gathering at my house! Possibly! I think so!

First of all, I want to say that when we decided to bring back this “event” back in June, my plans were bigly. Oh, I was going to buy all new decorations! I was going to have games for the CHILDREN! I was going to have disposable cameras on all of the tables because that is something people sometimes do at wedding receptions and this is the closes to THAT I’ll ever get!

But then — roadtrips and rollercoasters, man. All summer long. A bitch had no room in her heart or mind to be caring about pie decor. I mean, we still had some stuff left from previous years, but things like the giant sequined PIE PARTY sign and the rustic burlap tablecloths have seen better days, son. Most of our DIY pie pedestals were still intact (though one broke AT THE PIE PARTY before I even had a chance to put it on the table) but man…I just really shit the bed with the aesthetics this time around.

I didn’t even have centerpieces!!!! Usually I have dumb fake flowers in autumnal colors sticking out of rando’ glass bottles from my idiot beverage collection.

One thing I did do that was new was create a stupid photo backdrop. It occurred to me on the way home from Party City that the backdrop I bought was DEFINITELY created with “gender” reveals in mind. But you know what? Fuck that antiquated bullshit! Pies can be pink and blue too. I mean, those are the first colors I think of when I think of…crust.

Corey, bless his heart, arrived early to help me decorate. I feel like every time I have a pie party, someone always asks if they can help and I’m like “Yeah come early and help me set up please” and then they come like 90 minutes into the damn thing. But Corey was reliable! And also, tall. Which is what I needed when it came to hanging shit.

I was SO PISSED when I opened the package for this damn baby shower fringe because it was in NINE PIECES. Corey and I spent approx. 2 minutes trying to figure out how to hang it before giving up and phoning a friend (aka Henry).

I dunno, I think it turned out OK in the end after Henry MacGyver’d it with twine and a SWITCHBLADE.

OK it wasn’t a switchblade, actually. Just a boxcutter I think. But then he left it open on one of the tables and people were starting to arrive so Corey and I were like WE HAVE TO CLOSE THIS BEFORE SOMEONE GETS HURT (that’s what you get for bringing a pie to a box-knife fight, etc etc etc). Then we were too scared (OK I was too scared and Corey just couldn’t figure out how to close it) so we had to call Henry over again to bail us out.

Did I mention that Margie and her daughter Jordan were the first guest to arrive and got to witness Corey and me, the Super Sibs, practically wrapping ourselves in twine while trying to hang decorations? Hope you enjoyed the show, Margie and Jordan!

I took the above picture with The Good Camera as a test shot and it came out fine but I didn’t feel like fucking around with lighting and settings once people arrived so I ended up just using my phone for the pie party people shots. :/

Test photo with the iPhone. It was fine!

I totally forgot that I made these “Eat Pie” buntings two pie parties ago and they haven’t gotten any easier to read. I made 3 of them for some reason?? OK Erin, calm down.

OK, I failed to get pictures of every single pie partyer in front of the dumb baby shower-y backdrop, but here are the ones I did take, starting with the Sibs: me, Amy, and Corey:

Amy’s husband Dick was also in attendance but he is the one taking this lovely photo!

Random fact of the day: I was adamant on having environmentally-friendly plates and forks, but Henry bought the smallest plates ever and people were legit outraged over this.

“They are literally dessert plates!” Henry cried defensively.

“YEAH BUT THIS IS A FUCKING PIE PARTY, WE NEED LARGE PLATES LIKE FOR A BUFFET!” I screamed back. Luckily, he had also thrown a pack of larger Dixie paper plates in the car in case we ran out of the others, so everyone just went straight for those ones. Whatever.

My work frenemy Glenn (not pictured: his wife and daughter, Amanda and Eve) and Chris, one of my oldest pals! We’ve known each other since kindergarten. Chris is the purveyor of a wonderful local honey company called Sonny Rose Ranch so if you’re in Pgh and need some honey, look for his products around town! He also makes an excellent hot honey, FYI! Anyway, Glenn and Chris know each other because they worked together at Macy’s a long time ago! Glenn tried to tell Chris that I’m the office bully but Chris did not believe him for a SECOND because he knows me to be the SWEETEST GIRL EVER.

Fun Fact of the Day #2: Henry had changed out of his “nice” shirt while he was loading everything into the car and then forgot to change back into it so instead of wearing a non-descript gray shirt to the pie party, he wore a gray shirt with the EVERFRESH JUICE LOGO on it and I was really angry about this even though no one comes to any of my events expecting Henry to be wearing a nice polo shirt and boat shoes.

Nate and Lori!!

More pie decor that I forgot about. Corey was super smitten with this one for some reason.

Fun Fact of the Day #3: The day after the pie party, Margie Jabbered me at work and thanked me, Henry and COREY for hosting such a lovely event. I texted Corey and to tell him he had somehow been promoted in people’s minds to cohost and he admitted that at one point during the day, after he had greeted the umpteenth person and taken their pie for them, he thought to himself, “Wait, what am I doing?” LOL!

Corey is a natural people-person. Hit him up if you want to buy a house and also walk away with like 87 inside jokes in the process!

Eric and Megan! They were on the tail end of action-packed wedding festivities for Megan’s brother, so the fact that they even showed up let alone were able to engage in conversations was amazing. Megan did look like she was falling asleep while holding a pie plate at one point though, don’t blame her!

Gayle and Jeffrey! Gayle brought one of Jeffrey’s photos of Pittsburgh to raffle off. I was the lucky bitch who got to pull the ticket from the can (actually we used the empty box that the Panda snacks came in lol) and it was Lauren! Congrats, Lauren!

Fun Fact #4 of the day: Gayle is actually the reason why the pie party was resurrected. She had texted me last spring and was like PLEASE CONSIDER and I was like OK I AM CONSIDERING and well, THE REST IS HISTORY.

So they say.

God, I hadn’t seen Gayle in quite some time so it was nice to see her familiar, friendly face, now framed by multi-colored fringe!

Henry and Wonka, talking about electrical / computer / welding stuff probably. It looks like there is no one there but before you get all hater hater talk talk, please note that this was in the final hour of the pie party after most of the pie eaters left and the last wave rolled in.

Lucas came with his daughter! Aside from several late shift happy hours back in the day when I actually went out after work, I don’t think I have ever actually seen Lucas at a non-work social event!? He casually mentioned at, well, CASUAL LUNCH the week before that he was coming with his daughter and I almost died. It took a decade, but I think a lot of work friends finally started to understand that the pie party was a real event and not some weird seance in the woods that I was luring people to.

Fun fact #5 (?) of the day: I think I only cut one slice of pie on my own all day and relied heavily on others for the rest. Here is Henry cutting a piece of the beastly big boy pie that came courtesy of Kara’s husband Chris.

Chooch being a test subject for the PIE BACKDROP before the party started. I needed to make sure my dumb phone was going to take ok pictures, etc. I barely saw him all day, as usual. This time, he called his friend Zakk right before the party started, but after we were already at the pavilion, and made him take the T to South Park and then was going to make him walk the 45 minutes to the pavilion. “Or I can send a random person to get you,” I overheard him saying, so I was like OMG just tell your dad to go get him!

Basically, Zakk is to Chooch as Janna is to me.

MARGIE refused to have an OFFISH PIE PARTY PIC taken so the only photographical evidence I have of her and her daughter’s attendance is this one, and also the back of Wendy who was there with her daughter Summer but left before I started forcing people to pose for me.

Fun fact #6 of the day: Wendy actually was supposed to only stay for like 30 minutes because she had to go all  the way back home for Summer’s soccer game later that afternoon and she lives pretty far away and also her husband Shawn is the coach, but she ended up staying for well over an hour and I heard her tell at least 6 people, “I have to leave now” only to find her talking to someone else 15 minutes later.

This is so VERY VERY WENDY, and if you don’t know her, now it’s basically like you do!

Me & Debby I.!

Fun Fact #7 of the day: I babysit those children sometimes. They kept trying to get me to play with them and I was like, “I can’t right now, I’m playing with *my* friends!” HAHAHAHA. I truly don’t think that they realize I’m an adult. I said this to Henry tonight after another babysitting shift and he said, “No one really does.”

Kara and Theo! It’s been so long since I’ve seen either of them that Theo didn’t even remember me :( Kara wasn’t able to make it to the last Pie Party in 2017 and I think it was the first time she ever missed one and it was really sad, so I was stoked that she could make it to this one, but unstoked that I barely had a chance to talk to her. I literally cannot function at social things. Every time I try to flashback and hover on the ceiling of the pavilion to spy on myself, I feel like I was a blubbering mess the whole day. WHAT DID I EVEN SAY TO PEOPLE?? I can’t remember! I just made grunts and whinnies, I think.

The Robbins Gang, plus Haley’s mom, and Blake’s friend Artie and his son Asher.

Fun Fact #8 of the day: Artie was at the very first pie party in 2010! I had no idea who he was, but he arrived early with Blake and proceeded to climb into the rafters of the pavilion roof and throw pennies at me while I was trying to set up. That was legit my first memory of him. Now he’s an adult with a kid and he works with Henry! He’s Henry’s work son!

Also, Haley’s mom is motherfucking goals. LOOK AT HER! Sometimes, I actually mistake her for Haley, she is so ageless.

I love this photo of Corey cutting me a piece of the Earl Grey pie! I wish I had used my “good camera” more that day, ugh. Anyway, this picture is hilarious to me because when Corey was younger (like 13 or 14?), we went to a murder mystery dinner and Henry had to cut his pork chops. Now we’ve come full circle-ish!

YOU GUYS Todd actually showed up! After trolling me year and year after when I invited him to the pie party, this time he finally showed up! I think he genuinely misses his old team! Here I am with my frenemy GLENN, Nate, Lauren, and Todd!

I’m posting two versions because I love that Nate is laughing so hard in this one! Man, we were a great team. SIGH. ALSO I JUST REALIZED THAT NATE IS WEARING CROCS. This was a really huge and important discussion we had a few mths ago in our group chat at work where Nate was like, “I FEEL LIKE I NEED TO BUY CROCS BECAUSE OF THE SUMMER ACTIVITIES I WILL BE DOING WITH MY NIECE AND NEPHEW BUT I’M SCARED” and some of us were like DO NOT but as you can see, he crossed over to the Croc side. It’s fine. Nate is the type of person who can wear Crocs without letting them define him.

I think.

No, he is. It’s cool.

They’re not as cool as my Vans though.

Here’s Nate talking to Margie probably about his Crocs.

We collected more people! In this one, we added Gayle who used to be part of our work group, and Rachel, who used to be the supervisor of our group. Henry was getting tired of taking these pictures, I think. LOL oh well.

OMG OMG OMG along with Todd, the other surprise guest of the day was Aaron and his twins!! Aaron has also trolled me for years: “Oh yeah, SURE I’ll come to the ‘pie party’ tro lolololol.” This time, he said nothing when I sent out the invite on Insta and at work. So I was really surprised when I turned around at one point that day and he was there!

And he admitted the next day that it was actually fun!

Ethan and his girlfriend! I was so happy they came out for this! Ethan is like me in some ways and is very much like “Aw that’s cute that you thought to invite me to this thing that I was most definitely not be attending” but he ended up coming! I think maybe it was also because I was giving Sandy her GOODBYE gift (she left The Law Firm last June, still very sad about this) that day and it involved him.

(I made another one of the annoying Paint Gem pictures, with Ethan’s face as the focal point. I would post it here but it is several layers of inside jokes and I’m actually only on the sidelines of said jokes so you would really probably not give a shit at all, blog reader.)

Nate, Lauren, and Lori!

Jack, Jill, and Regina came later in the day!

Fun fact #9 of the day: Chooch’s interest in driving had a revival on this day for some reason and he started taking the practice permit test on his phone again. Regina and Rachel were SUPER INTO this and shouting out their guesses.

Jess and Wonka! They GOT MARRIED since the last time I saw them! I made some snide comment while Henry was in ear shot about how we are still just UNMARRIED and Jess tried to make me feel better by saying that nothing really changes by getting married, and then asked, “Do you even really want to get married?” and before I had a chance to answer, Wonka said, “Oh yeah. She does.”

EVERYONE KNOWS THIS BUT HENRY, SOMEHOW.

Fun fact of the day #10: I met Wonka in a local Pgh chatroom in 1999 and we are still friends somehow even though he is a Major Smart and I am le dumz0rz.

Sandy and Zoe! Not pictured: Ben and Elena because I think they had already started walking to the car when I screamed SANDY WAIT, lol.

Fun fact of the day #11: The first pie party is actually how Sandy and I went from co-workers to actual friends. She had heard some people talking about going to the pie party and she came to my desk and said, “I want to come to the pie party too” so we became Facebook friends and I sent her the Facebook event and the rest is history! I remember super vividly that she came straight from a flag football game and was still wearing a bandanna in her hair! She hated coming to South Park then, and she still hates it now, as the first thing she said to me that day was, “I hate driving to South Park SO MUCH.”

Fun Fact of the day #12: In Pittsburgh, depending on what side of The River you live on, you hate crossing the river to go anywhere on the other side. Sandy lives in the North Hills and has to come to the DREADED SOUTH HILLS for the pie party every time, so this is a testament of how great the pie party is, that she religiously chooses the anguish of crossing The River to come out for it!

Michele and her baby Mina! Not pictured: Michele’s husband and two other kids, and her visiting sister and her kids. Michele had actually emailed me a few days before the party and said that her sister was visiting from NY and asked if she could bring the whole crew, and I was like YES PLZ because at this time I was sincerely worried that barely anyone was going to show up!

Everyone is always welcome at the pie party!

Amber and Ellie! OMG this was my first time meeting Ellie and her laugh was CONTAGIOUS! I kept hearing it in the background and it was making me so happy!

Sadly, Amber left before Todd got there :(

Me, Janna, and Ivy!

Fun fact of the day #13: While Janna was peeing in the PORTAPOTTY, she had Kara holding Ivy’s leash. I guess Lily, Henry’s granddaughter, was riling Ivy up, because Ivy jumped and she and Lily bumped heads. Lili start crying hysterically, and everyone stopped and stared, and I happened to be standing right in the epicenter of it so I had to pretend like I was also concerned but honestly I had no idea what was going on. Kara kept saying really loud, “WHERE IS YOUR MOM, DOG?” and it was hilarious because the “between the lines” of that was, “THIS IS NOT MY DOG, I WAS JUST ASKED TO HOLD HER, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE.”

It ended up being fine though. Blake and Haley were totally unbothered by it because it was obvious that Ivy didn’t actually bite her – there were no marks on Lily’s face – and that’s when it was determined that they probably just bumped faces. Honestly, the scariest part to me was Kara screaming when it happened, lol!

Also not pictured: two of Janna’s friends who came toward the end of the day! Kelly and Jen, I believe.

Fun Fact of the Day #14: This was the first time ever that Chooch drove, and I thought Margie was kidding when she said, “Why is your kid getting into the driver’s side of your car, Erin?” and I was like, “Oh ho ho he must just be effing around” and then HENRY GOT IN THE PASSENGER SIDE? He just let him drive around the parking lot a little bit, but it was scary, watching my car lurch forward, poor Jinki. :(

Yeah, more on that later, lol.

Overall, it was a really successful pie party! Hopefully we’ll do this again next year so those who couldn’t be there this time can hopefully make it next time – PIE OR DIE, YO!!

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Chooch informed me that today is Penelope and Drew’s 7th birthday! In case you were unaware, they are legit sisters from the same litter and we adopted them together in 2016 when they were several mths old. I do vaguely remember Sandy (who adopted their brother) telling me that their birthdate was October of 2015 but I am a terrible lady and forgot the actual day. Thank god for Chooch!

It’s kind of interesting because they usually just stay away from each other but today they were sitting on their tower at the same time and they’ve been “playing” together most of the evening almost like they’re celebrating?? By playing, I mean chasing and attacking each other though, so…

Anyway, I can’t believe they’re 7!! It seems like yesterday when we told Chooch we were taking him to his new foster home because we couldn’t afford to take care of him anymore but really we were taking him to Sandy’s friend’s parent’s house to choose a kitten to take home after living a year in a catless house after Marcy’s death and then we came home with two* which Henry said he was fully prepared for and had been bracing himself for it.

*(we actually only came home with Drew that night; I knew based on a photo that I also wanted Penelope but they couldn’t catch her that night so she was brought to our house several days later, long enough for Drew to think she had become the alpha lol.)

But yeah look how surly they look in that picture haha.

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It is COZY TOWN up in here these days and I’m alright with that even though I do really miss wearing shorts everyday. I’m not opposed to the shorts-n-hoodie look but it’s just a bit too nippy for my wussy legs to handle the exposure. As it is, I’ve been walking around the house with a throw wrapped around me like a toga, trying not to think about how it’s only going to get worse.

Anyway, it’s Monday and I’m feeling free-flowy, so let’s just talk about things that have been going on, etc. etc. tra la la la.

Such as, my new drawer pull! OK back up. So when we re-did the kitchen, we got this counter thingie from IKEA. Because it’s IKEA, it didn’t come with cabinet knobs or a drawer pull for the middle drawer. We took care of the cabinet knobs quickly by using the same style we used on our wall cabinets, adding pictures of Michael Jackson, Boy George, and Rick Astley to them, because of course.

But that motherfucking drawer. I knew I wanted to use something ridiculous as a drawer pull, and I kept looking on eBay for various 1980s relics. Nothing felt right though so we had to live with opening a cabinet first in order to pull open the drawer. Chooch flipped his shit a few weeks ago. “I’M SO SICK OF THIS DRAWER WHY CAN’T ANYTHING IN THIS HOUSE BE NORMAL” so I sidled up next to him and said, “I’m so glad you brought this up, Sonny Boy, because look what MOTHER just purchased on eBay!” and then I showed him this BANGIN’ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Burger King kids meal toy.

“I don’t know what that is,” he mumbled, brushing past me to return to his lair.

Henry attached it to the drawer the other day and  I am so satisfied with it and my chintzy-ass fucking house that I don’t own. (LOL OK fine that’s a lie, I am decidedly not satisfied with this house as a whole, that’s for sure.)

I had dinner with Marlene, Megan, and Debby the other night at Bonfire, which I had never been to before and was pleasantly surprised when I walked in and was greeted by Chooch’s old piano teacher, Cheryl! I had a really nice chat with her, and was finally able to address the elephant in the room: her name change, which Chooch had randomly told me about years ago but I was never sure if he was trolling me or not, so as she was walking me over to my reserved table, I blurted out, “So I’ve been meaning to ask you, DID YOU CHANGE YOUR NAME TO LAVENDAR?” and when she confirmed, I said, “OK I wasn’t sure if I could trust my kid or not, so I’m sorry that I have been still calling you Cheryl for 80 years,” and for some reason she thought the “80 years” part was really funny so I think I’m forgiven.

Then I got to introduce her to my crazy work pals once they arrived. I miss the days of Chooch’s piano lessons, but I’m glad she’s back in Pittsburgh!

Anyway, she wasn’t our server though – we had someone named Amanda and I had a mild crush on her because she was very no-nonsense and firm with us which appealed to me. I like to be verbally rough-housed in restaurants sometimes. I mean, THERE’S A TIME AND A PLACE, etc.

It literally took us an hour to order, so I’m sure Amanda was motherfuckering us up and down in the kitchen. I had the mushroom and kale flatbread and let me just say that I have never actually had a flatbread that I felt writing home about but if I had a pen and paper and a stamp and envelope with me, this would have been the one. It was actually so wonderful that I am still thinking about it a little and wish that I hadn’t let Henry have my leftovers as payment for dropping me off and picking me up although it’s a good thing because I had too much to drink and actually had the spins that night :/

It was nice getting to witness Debby and Marlene’s sibling-esque banter again though! They both retired in 2021 and are living their best lives now. I took over some of the stuff that Debby was responsible for and let me just tell you, I am, on my best days, the dime store Debby knock-off. And on my worst days, aka today, I’m barely a Goodwill bin Debby. Sigh.

On my bill, I scribbled, YOU ARE SO AWESOME AMANDA in the scrawl of a town wino, and I wonder if she could pick up on THE FLIRTY UNDERTONES.

(Did I mention that the cheese on my flatbread was like FONDUE? Holy shit.)

Drew, chillin’ with Buddy. Everything was fine until I said, “Drew, do you wanna let Buddy in the house and you can share your toys with him?

Speaking of Buddy, Girl Buddy was visiting the other day and I had my hand out with walnOOts in it and before I had a chance to hand her one, she came over and, in an attempt to help herself from serving platter of a palm, she BIT MY FINGER. Well, “bit” is hyperbolic. But my fingertip went into her mouth! We made eye contact immediately and it was as if she realized what she was doing, that my fingertip was not FUDZ (that’s their word that they share with the cats for “food,”) and she released me with no damage done. Henry was like a fountain of frowns though.

I got this Suspiria shirt recently and it’s perfect to wear to haunted houses <3 Suzy Bannion forever. (I used to always spell her last name as Banyan and truthfully, I like that so much better, but whatever. It’s not *my* movie.)

We also worked on the new carouselfie wall this weekend. I decided months ago that I lowkey hated the first version of it. I hated the wall color and those stupid flowers were so, well, stupid.  I bounced around several different ideas but then you know what? I went with my old tried and true: stripes. I fucking love a striped accent wall. Yeah, we have a lot of them in this piece, but oh well! (OK really only five, that’s not THAT many.)

I picked two colors at Home Depot almost immediately and then as Henry was taping off the wall later that day, he realized that my project had very quickly become “his” project. “It’s because you’re so good at painting stripes, sweetheart,” I mumbled while watching NCT content, probably.

Then I was like, “Oh and btw, now ‘we’ need to repaint the picture frames too.” LOL. I’m sorry, but now that the wall was changed to pink and green, the frames clashed! I chose solid white and he was actually happy about that. Like, when do I ever choose white for anything?? But in this case, I think it was the best bet, YOU KNOW?

The final touch was a strip of pink neon. We’re not done hanging frames yet, but you get the picture! The best part is that now that they’re spaced closer together, there’s room for more. And you know I have a lot of carouselfies planned for next year!

I like having themed areas, I dunno. Organized chaos, and all that.

In non-NCT127 KPOP news, I am beyond stoked that EXID is back!! I thought that they had disbanded for some reason but then they came out of nowhere with this banger and I am so pleased. They will always remind me of my early days in the KPOP scene, and Hani is one of my all-time favorite girl idols. I love her so much. And I just saw in the comments that they funded this comeback themselves?! Literal queens.

Well, that’s about all I had on my mind so I will see my way out now.

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After a five year hiatus, I was finally worn enough by some fanatical pie-eaters and agreed to bring back the BELOVED PIE PARTY. The last one we had was in 2017 and was just really disappointing – we had a very shitty turn out and I 100% blame the fact that I left Facebook and you know, out of sight, out of mind. My invitation just didn’t have the reach that it did in years past when I was creating stupid Facebook Events for it.

This time, I posted about it on Instagram, personally texted people who aren’t on Insta, and sent a group email at work. In the beginning, my “interest check” on Insta seemed to really kick up a lot of excitement but I would say only about 1/3 of the people who said they were coming actually showed up. Somehow, even though the weather forecast was showing all day rain and storms, we had a really great turnout! I haven’t done an official headcount yet, but I want to say there were about 50 people overall. Of course, this was over the span of 6 hours. I didn’t have high expectations for this, so I was actually pleasantly pleased at the turnout, and there were some surprise appearances too!

And guess what, you guys? The weather was actually DELIGHTFUL. There was a very small window toward the end of the day where we experienced a downpour, but I swear it only lasted about 5 or 10 minutes. I will divulge all the details in another post, but I wanted to share pictures of some of the pies today, because we all know that’s what the people want.

Some of these photos are courtesy of my brother Corey since I was too distracted to take many of my own. :/

Megan and my sister Amy are definitely tied for most creative (edible) pie. Megan brought a Root Beer Float pie that was soooo refreshing! I have never heard of a root beer float pie before, leave it to Megan to find that recipe!

And Amy made a PAW PAW pie! If you don’t know, paw paws are fruits that are regional to the Ohio area. They have a big festival that I’ve always wanted to go to but never have. Thank god Amy and her husband Dick went or we wouldn’t have been treated this to! I have never actually had an actual paw paw before but I had seen a comparison between them and cherimoya, and if you know me at all, you will know that those bitches are one of my favorite fruits ever even though they look absolutely DISGUSTING. Literally like wet, white flesh with huge black seeds – it just looks like you’re eating the end game of a high school science class dissection. I can’t really explain it any other way but I have to really set aside my texture phobias in order to enjoy a fresh cherimoya. So I can confirm that the paw paw *does* taste similar based on the flavor of this pie! It’s kind of like a mild pineapple / mango flavor, without really giving off tropical vibes. If that makes sense. The texture of the pie was similar to the guts of a pecan pie. I really enjoyed this!

It was extra funny/exciting because a few weeks ago, there was a discussion about weird fruits in the Support Group Chat, which as you might remember, I am not a member of the support team anymore, though they do invite me to their chat every Friday as the “Special Guest” where I proceed to do little else than annoy Glenn. Anyway, this wasn’t a Friday but Amber quickly added me since it was in my wheelhouse. Wendi* had name-dropped paw paws which OF COURSE none of the fruit pleibs knew anything about but I did, since I am the resident weird fruit authority. Anyway, I thought it was crazy that someone actually a brought a paw paw pie!

*(Wendis a newer member of the team and so awesome! I aggressively invited her to the pie party at our recent in-office Casual Lunch. She said she had to visit her grandma that day and I practically lunged across the table and shouted, “BRING YOUR GRANDMA!” Clearly this was not something she wanted to do because neither Wendi nor her grandma showed up on Sunday but to be fair, Casual Lunch was the first time she ever met me IN REAL LIFE so that was probably a lot to digest for the time being. We did chat about the day after the pie party though and she said she definitely wants to come next year now that she knows it’s not a trap, j/k she didn’t say that last part but I’m just guessing that’s what she was thinking.)

I’m not sure who brought the lemon meringue pie but thank you, kind soul, because Chooch obsessed over it for days and insisted that out of all the leftover pies, this was the one that HAD to come home with us. I think he even caught Henry offering it to Janna at the end of the day and quickly swooped in. I was Pie Party 2022 days old when I learned that my son’s favorite pie is lemon meringue. Literally have never witnessed him ordering this at any restaurant ever but maybe it’s something WESLEY’S MOM used to bake for him when he would go to their house to play. UGH WESLEY’S MOM.

I am so pissed about this because I originally had it spelled correctly but then it got smudged and when I re-wrote it, I FUCKING SPELLED IT WRONG. FML.

Anyway, I don’t want to be like, “Hello, it is my pie party and my pie was the winner,” but everyone was like freaking out over this pie so I think it was the winner?? I mean, we don’t judge. It’s not a contest. Also, it wasn’t actually my pie – Henry baked it. HOWEVER, it was my idea AND I had him change the recipe and use a shortbread crust instead of regular crust because you know, tea and BISCUITS or whatever.

I only had a tiny slice and can’t even remember anything about it other than it was good, but all day people were like EARL GREY this and that and I was like OK I guess “Henry’s pie” was a success but I had to keep interjecting myself into convos to alert people to the fact that I found the recipe and the shortbread crust, WHICH REALLY TOOK IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL, was also my creative design.

Corey apparently posted about this on Facebook because my friend Lisa, a seasoned pie party attendee who now lives in Idaho, texted me on Friday and was like WHAT IS THIS I HEAR ABOUT AN EARL GREY PIE?? Her interest was piqued and she decided she wanted to attempt it for the her game night the next day so I had to be a recipe relayer between Henry and her and that was pretty annoying because she would ask me specific questions about the recipe and then Henry would have some answer I didn’t understand and it just went on like that until the last text I got from her said “Hard part is done!” whatever that means. I should probably ask her today how it turned out….

Haley made a shoofly pie (which as you know is a pie type that I am also obsessed with thanks to my strong ties to the Amish world) and broccoli and cheese hand pies so she won the award for “something no one else brought” because those hand pies were a great idea and it’s always so great to have some savory offerings on the table too, like Sandy’s famous corn and tomato pie which she brings every year and I think pie party OGs would revolt if she ever stopped! Kara’s husband also made a savory vegan BBQ seitan mac & cheese casserole pie which was a great addition to the lonely vegan section (it was hers and Henry’s three pies, and then literally not a single one of my vegan friends came, oh well;  thought animal-free options would bring the Vs to the park, but I guess I need to find new ways to lure them).

I *think* that pumpkin pie up there was brought by Haley’s mom; regardless of who carried it in, it was delicious! Aside from Debby’s baby pumpkin streusel bites below, I think that was the only pumpkin pie variety of the whole entire day which is actually crazy to me!

OMG these were both so good. I’m so glad Debby came with this tray of delicate little one-bites. The lemon blueberry ones had a ladylock-like crust!! Also, Corey wrote the tags and it took 4 people to tell him how to spell streusel. The pie party is more than just pie, it’s also about learning.

Henry made three other pies. A vegan banoffee pie which he is STILL angry about because he followed the recipe to a T and it turned out “FINE” but it was not what he was expecting and he keeps threatening to “comment on that video!!” I mean, I agree with him though because the whole point of the video was that it was a 5-ingredient recipe but then in the actual recipe portion, there is a SIXTH INGREDIENT!? I dunno, it was ok but just *really* rich. It was a bit too much. I know the bananas were like part of the name or whatever, but I think I would have liked it better without them.

Anyway, Henry let me decorate this one! I was watching him pipe the whipped cream around the edges and said, “OOH CAN I WRITE SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE” and he got real tense and asked, “Like what?”

“I dunno,” I shrugged. “ERIN RULZ.” Because obviously I knew the whole time.

Henry sighed and mumbled, “Whatever.”

I think this is a big reason why no one was trying the banoffee pie, because they assumed I might have baked the entire thing, lol.

The sad vegan section. Henry’s third vegan pie back there was a carrot pie and it was so delicious but no one really tried it! I kind of wonder if people were afraid of the vegan tag or if they though it was reserved for the imaginary vegans? In any case, we got to take half of it home with us and I enjoyed it throughout the week. If you don’t believe me, you can ask the scale in my bedroom.

The fourth and only non-vegan Henry made was ALSO MY IDEA. I really wanted to incorporate my beloved G-Dragon into the festivities somehow and OBVIOULSY the best way to accomplish that was a dragonfruit pie. There are actually quite a few recipes out there for this! They all call for regular dragonfruit, but I made Henry use a fire dragonfruit, since they are such a deep, bright shade of fuschia which is also a hair color GD has sported numerous times over the years. I made the GD and peaceminusone flower cut-outs from regular dragonfruit. Anyway, this was another hit! It was demolished halfway through the party so sorry to the people who came for the last half.

I was really nervous though because Henry’s granddaughter Lily kept taking my GD doll and calling him a girl and I was like “OK HE IS A MAN NAMED G-DRAGON CAN I PLEASE HAVE HIM BACK NOW OMG.” It was just a bad scene. Apparently, several people witnessed this and made fun of me about it later but COME ON, MY GD DOLL IS NOT A TOY, THANK YOU.

My work friends were neither surprised nor confused about this pie. They are fully aware of my childish obsessions.

Um I dunno who brought this pie but it was BEAUTIFUL!

I think that about does it for pie pictures, sadly. I can also tell you that two more shoofly pies arrived later, we had three key lime pies in total (!), someone brought an apple sour cream pie that I couldn’t stop eating, and there were pies galore with every type of berry you could imagine. It was such a great spread but HOO BOY am I all pie’d out.

Oh! The winner for most creative pie overall was Nate, who brought this set of Chinese dominoes:

Chooch very quickly swooped in and claimed this.

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You guys, one more day until the best, most superior month of all! It’s always October in my heart but I really can’t think of a time when I’m consistently as happy as I am from Octover 1 – October 31. Sigh. I will say it’s not AS GOOD as it was when Chooch was little and still dressing up and trick or treating, or when I was in high school and actually had friends who wanted to go to haunted houses. But, it continues to be wonderfully magnificent, just in new and different ways as I age.

Right now, I have a black cat blanket around me, Blair Witch Project on the TV behind me, getting stoked for when I log off work and go to a haunted hayride with Henry (and possibly Chooch if he feels like hanging out with his dumb parents). But in the meantime, let’s do some fiving! I thought maybe in preparation of haunted house season, we could have a jam sesh to five of my favorite horror movie theme songs?! Yeah let’s do it!

1. Suspiria theme by Goblin

OBVIOUSLY.

2. Cry Little Sister – Lost Boys

This song truly is timeless. It’s just as epic now as it was the first time I watched this movie in 1987. Related but random: Chooch and I were at Mad Mex for dinner last month and the song from the infamous BATHTUB SCENE was playing there. I was like, CHOOCH LISTEN, and he couldn’t tell what it was at first but then it clicked for him and we bonded for .0003 seconds over The Lost Boys before he went back to complaining about his food and doing dumb shit on his phone. Anyway, this was a significant moment for me because when I was young, I was obsessed with that song and SO PISSED when I bought the soundtrack only to find that it wasn’t included! Cry Little Sister is still the best song though and let’s be real, the whole soundtrack could just be that song 12x in a row and a bitch would be happy. (Well, as long as Mummy Calls was on there as a bonus track.)

3. Dawn of the Dead theme

Sometimes I just put this one when I need to concentrate on something. It’s a mood.

4. Love Song for a Vampire – Bram Stoker’s Dracula

OK maybe not what you have in mind when you think of horror movie songs but I have always been ohhhb-sessed with this Annie Lennox Dracula classic. I used to listen to it on repeat in my bedroom and cry when I was in middle school.

5. Maypole Song – The Wicker Man

 I mean come on, this is fucking creepy and still to this day makes me ultra uncomfy.

Obviously the theme to Halloween has got to be my fave but everyone knows that jam.

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I forgot that we brought “the good camera” to Florida with us last April because literally time it was used was the last day when we went to the Fountain of Youth. I was being lazy and didn’t feel like carrying it so Henry ended up sort of using it. Here are some pictures he took, which I didn’t know existed until I was using the camera on Sunday at the pie party and saw them when I was scrolling through the pictures. I know it was forever ago that we were there, but I wanted to post some anyway because it was such a fun trip and I still think about it a lot. Traveling with Henry and Chooch keeps getting better the older we all get even though we still HAVE OUR MOMENTS of cattiness, ha.

Speaking of getting older, one thing that I appreciate so much more now that I’m nearly middle-aged (am I already middle-aged??) is plants! I never would have given a shit about Florida’s vegetation back in the day but now that I’m a houseplant hoe bag, I had to run my fingers along every plant that I passed. I loved these ones and I have several similar plants in my house! Of course, they’re tough for me to keep happy since they’re tropical-y.  I was happy when I discovered these pictures on the camera and saw that  Henry took one of these!

There were all kind of crab-things in that water and it was creeping me out, bigly.

That bruise on my calf! What a temporary memento of all the insane coasters we rode on this trip.

The fact that we paid like $20pp or something to enter this sulfur water tourist trap and spent most of the time fucking around with the peacocks, pigeons, and squirrels is very on brand with the Appledale clan.

WHOA. AMAZING. 5 STARS.

***

We don’t have any road trips set in stone until Thanksgiving, so I will be occupying my mind with haunted house-hopping and counting down to  the NCT127 show in Newark (doesn’t count as a “fun road trip” because the drive to Newark, and Newark itself, is never fun).

I love fall so so so much but a bitch is depressed that summer is over, sitting here shivering in leggings and a hoodie. :( I was just going to whine about how I haven’t ridden a rolleroaster in x-amount of time, but then I realized it was literally less than a week ago, lol. STILL.

(As I was writing this I had no idea that St Augustine was affected by Hurricane Ian. I hope everyone is ok!)

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1. All I Want – Darcey Bell

Henry and I listened to this audiobook on the drive home from New Hampshire after my birthday and it was dumb, not scary, had really stupid characters. 100% forgettable. I only chose it because it was relatively short and we wanted something that we could finish the day, and I thought the cover was snazzy.

2. The Weird Sisters – Eleanor Brown 

The library’s recommendation service really did me dirty with this one. A trio of insufferable sisters, a cringey dad who speaks exclusively in Shakespeare quotes, no plot, messy narration. I truly didn’t care about any of these people except for the mom who spent the whole book in the background battling breast cancer.

What a waste of time.

3. The Last Guest House – Megan Miranda

This was OK but I think I need to recognize the fact that Megan Miranda books just aren’t for me.

4. The Summer Place – Jennifer Weiner

My least favorite book of Weiner’s so far because the characters were flat but I still cried at the end. I’m not a monster, you know.

5. Just Like Home – Sarah Gailey

What did I just read. This was fine, but not what I wanted and now that I’m recapping my August reads I’m just feeling depressed because did I read anything good and worth recommending to my bookish peeps??

Actually, this book was interesting and well-written, it just wasn’t what I was craving. I am SO PICKY with horror these days. It’s been a good long while since a book SCARED ME. Maybe I should just re-read Peter Straub’s books because barely anything compares to him in my eyes.

If you’ve read a really good horror novel recently, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, tell me about it.

6. Memphis – Tara M. Stringfellow

OK OK, finally, a 5-STAR BOOK in August. I love generational family sagas and this one was IT. Wait. What’s that burning sensation in my face – oh that’s just the tears springing up at the memory of the amazing women in this book.

It was good. Read it.

7. Hide – Kiersten White

…aaaand right back to a 1-star read! Why-o why-o why-o did I not DNF this trash book-o? Ugh. I was reading this on our trip to Wildwood too and it was so fucking bad. SO FUCKING BAD.

Well, let’s go with my Goodreads review: One of the most terrible books I’ve ever read. All the characters (too many, IMO) felt like SIMS. The plot was a cluster. The whole time, I just kept saying WHO CARES. This is supposed to be an adult novel but it felt middle grade at best. (Not to knock middle grade books – I’ve read books from that age bracket that are so much entertaining and compelling than whatever this is.)

8. Just Like Mother – Anne Heltzel 

Four stars! Not what I was expecting, but pretty fucking creepy, I’m not going to lie. I love cult stuff and this was actually a good one with a pretty original plot. (I’m not sure that I would consider it horror though? Thriller, yes.)

9. Black Cake – Charmaine Wilkerson

That’s another 5-star book for me, Stu. Drop what you’re doing and pick this up STAT. And bake me a black cake while you’re at it.

10. Vacationland – Meg Mitchell Moore

OK this is the book that I wanted that recent Jennifer Weiner one to be. 4 stars, maybe even 4.5 – I was invested in this family! The kids were GREAT – I loved the chapters that included the letters one of the young, elementary school-aged daughters was writing home to her dad. Hilarious and heartwarming. Everyone in this book had my whole heart. If it was turned into a TV drama, something along the lines of Brothers and Sisters (LOVED THAT DAMN SHOW) I would consider getting cable again.

I need to read more from this broad and see if she legit has the potential to be a new fave author or if it was just a fluke. I WILL REPORT BACK, MAYBE.

11. Mika in Real Life – Emiko Jean

I really enjoyed this. I don’t know what else you want me to say. Mika was charming and lovable and the story was heart-warming.

12. The Pallbearers’ Club – Paul Tremblay

OK Paul Tremblay. I see you.

While this wasn’t as scary (or scary at all) as I had hoped, it was actually a really good story about the relationship of the guy and girl that made up the very short-lived Pallbearer’s Club. I loved that it was written as a novel transcript from the POV of the founding member of the club several decades later, with “editor’s notes” from the other member scribbled in the margins in red font. It’s lowkey a vampire story but mostly just a really sentimental exploration into the friendship between two people.

I wish I was better at reviewing books lol.

One of the Booktubers I follow on Goodreads said it much better: “Imagine you’re in a movie theatre watching a lonely and slow little indie film following 2 unlikely friends throughout the years, but you think you can vaguely hear an epic vampire movie playing through the walls, three theatres down.

That about sums up the reading experience for this book (and the amount of horror it contains.)” – BooksandLala, 2022

13. Cult Classic – Sloane Crosley

The fact that I was going to DNF actually scares me because this ended up being a solid 5-star read for me. OK listen, what happened was, I had the audiobook for this first, and I just couldn’t pay attention to it while out for a walk. In all honesty, this isn’t the type of book that can be “casually listened to.” It is SO SMARTLY WRITTEN and so BRILLIANTLY FUNNY, but it deserves your full and undivided attention. I’m glad I gave it another shot in physical book form because I became obsessed with it. It was so funny and weird and obscure, unlike anything I’ve read before.

It’s a fucking trip, and it was a great end to a subpar reading month.

That’s all. I read 13 books and only truly remember maybe half of them lol.

 

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Heyo I’m having issues with my blog AGAIN and I can’t upload pictures so instead of whatever worthless bullshit I was going to publish onto the Internet, here is NCT127 performing a medley of their best songs to give you a taste of how fabulous they are.

“Kpop is all auto tune and lipsynching.”

Bitch please. These boys ate the damn CDs.

“NCT127 is noisepop.”

YES WE CAME FOR THE CHAOTIC NOISINESS AND STAYED FOR THE HONEY VOCALS.

(My fave is Back 2 U in case you were wondering. And please appreciate the harmonizing on Favorite. I love them so much. OCTOBER 13TH!!!)

In other news, I dusted off the haunted house journal! Technically I already have two haunts under the belt for 2022 season and I am have my schedule penciled in for the next several weekends. BRING IT!!

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Before I start this post, I want to express my sadness for the terrible events that took place at Kennywood, the night after Henry and I were there. Honestly, nothing related to gun violence is shocking or surprising anymore, but it’s still very much sad and maddening. It’s very fortunate that no one sustained life-threatening injuries, but the fact that a gun was even able to make it into Kennywood at all is a huge problem. The part that made me angry-laugh was that I actually thought, “Well, it sounds like it was at least just a regular gun and not an assault rifle” Because that’s where we are right now in America, I guess. “Thank god it was a least-bad type of gun.” “Oh, thank god it was just a dispute between people who knew each other and not a random mass shooting.” “Thank god that person was ‘just shot in the leg’ and nowhere worse.” I could go on and on but it’s the same effing story every damn time. Come the fuck on, America. 

I hope everyone involved have speedy recoveries and no PTSD, though that’s one hell of a hope. :/

I haven’t been to Kennywood’s Fright Fest, or whatever they’re calling it now, since 2006. And as much as my appreciation for Kennywood has grown over the years, I gotta be real here: I am REALLY glad we didn’t pay for this. Since it was the Pass Holder preview or whatever, the crowds were fairly light and but the lines for the haunts were pretty long. I would have been a lot angrier about that if we had paid to get in.

I’ll save the haunt reviews for my WRITTEN JOURNAL that no one cares about, but I’ll just say here that we only did two – Villa of the Vampire and Malice in Wonderland – and the cemetery walk-thru.

The best part of Villa was standing in line (we did this right when we got there, well, ok, after Henry peed, so the line wasn’t too outrageous yet, maybe 25-30 minutes) was watching this little boy get totally pwned (do the kids still use this word? and by kids, I mean people who are now probably 35?) by the clowns at the entrance to one of the scare zones. He was acting so tough until one of them chased him and then he let loose the mots high-pitched shriek YA’LL EVER DID HEARD. He was super entertaining, especially when he asked some old man if he could borrow his cane to beat the clown!

Highlight of the Villa: Luca, the vampire in the beginning that I immediately imprinted on, and the old ass Vamp King who descended from his throne in order to get in my face and ask me to be his Queen.

“Sure, I’m single,” I shrugged.

Everything else was dumb and by “everything else” I mean the absolute nothingness that happened.

The sign was cool though.

Honestly though the best part was getting to ride the coasters, boiiii. Here we are in line for Jack Rabbit which was almost a walk-on.

Also – Chooch didn’t go with us because he was SO TIRED. And also, HIS PARENTS ARE LAME.

After this, we waited in line for the Alice in Wonderland thing for AN HOUR. Maybe longer. Apparently, it’s an upcharge on normal operating nights? I mean, there was a ticket booth, so I dunno. The line was pretty uneventful except for:

• annoying teenagers who bitched about their Pepsi tasting like Not Pepsi, Maybe Poison but still drinking it, taking pictures of each other for a solid minutes using the .5x option.
• little kid crying because he lost his spider ring and I totally knew where it was in line because I remember staring at it and willing it to come to life and infecting me with venom while Henry was talking about something dumbz0rz, but then his mom walked back through the line until she found it so I didn’t get to be a hero :(
• seeing one of the scare actors and realizing he used to work at Castle Blood.
• two skunks scuttling around the Steel Curtain area, looking for a food. An old man security guard kept watch.
• Old Man Security Guard asked the line attendant, “Is that group going in next?” she said yes. “Can I go with them?” she said yes. Now annoying teens with their annoying selfies and Poison Pepsi were going through a haunted house with a POPO lololol. They looked very not happy about this but the hilarious thing is that my takeaway from his exchange with the line attendant was that he was on his break and just genuinely wanted to check out a haunt. See what all these civilians were lining up for.

All I’ll say about this one is that immediately I was S T O K E D. The actors were very made-up, super into character, the room designs were immersive and creepy-whimsical, there were genuinely good jump scares, the Tea Party room was chaotic as it should be, there was a really great mirror illusion involving a banquet table, the Queen was scary….all of this happened in the first 5 minutes, so much to pack in! And then after the Queen, the exit to the Steelers County courtyard.

The end.

An hour in line for 5 minutes inside.

NOPE, KENNYWOOD. That’s not how this shit works are you new???

I would have been PISSED if I paid to get in, first of all, and then paid extra on top of that.

Man, so much potential with this one!

Then we had pizza and I was served some old-ass corner piece that was about 3/4 crust and Henry was like, “Do you want me to ask them for another piece?” and I said, “no” in my pouty tone, but then Henry asked anyway and the 12-year-old kid working was like, “I just put in a new cheese pizza, if you don’t mind waiting” and you know what? I did mind waiting, so I took my dumb crust piece and sulked off. Henry picked the pepperoni off of his slice and gave me half because he didn’t want the night to take a turn.

While we were eating, Old Man Security Guard strode by, shoveling the last quarter of a pizza slice into his bent back head and then stuff the paper plate into one of the clown trash cans in Kiddie Land.

“Wow, he is literally having the best night ever,” I said, watching him meander off toward another haunt. Love that for him.

Terrible haunts aside, it’s always nice to be at an amusement park on a chilly fall night, fog in the air, creepy lighting illuminating the paths. The scare zones were pretty fun, I will say.

This is actually where the shooting took place the next night. :(

Everyone knows by now that the real reason we went that night was to ride our One True Love, Phantom’s Revenge. <3

There were two young girls in the row next to us and the older one was seamlessly roping me into their conversation. She was telling me ALL KINDS OF STORIES like how Black Window broke down recently and everyone got stuck upside for an hour. I went along with it but Black Widow doesn’t go upside down and I’m pretty sure she’s confusing it with Aero360 which got stuck for 5 minutes earlier in the season.

I also told her I liked her shoelaces and Chooch would have been melting into the ground from the sheer force of the secondhand cringe.

But OH BABY Phantom in the pitch darkness on a chilly night, plummeting into darkness…this is the best part of Kennywood. This is why enthusiasts ALL OVER THE WORLD have Kennywood on their bucket list.

So damn good, it’s almost disgusting.

And it was FLYING that night. So smooth!! No back-crunching!

After that, we did Exterminator – lights out! I love this ride so much but the last couple of times I rode it, I started to not love it as much. Well, my love rebloomed last Friday because this was hands down the best ride I’ve ever had on it. I was scream-laughing SO HARD, ask Henry. Go on, ask him!

What else – we rode SWINGSHOT which has replaced Aero360 as my favorite flat ride. I love that stupid ride so much and I can’t believe that it was actually the LAST TIME I was at Fright Fest in 2006 that I ride it for the very first time with Kara and then quickly vowed to never ever ever ride that fucker again. I’m so glad I let Chooch talk me back on it when he was younger because wow, a trip to K-wood is not complete without at least one ride on this thing. My only complaint is that I am CERTAIN the cycles are shorter  now and that makes me sad.

Also, I thought my ex-boyfriend Jeff was riding this with us but my eyes are bad and it probably wasn’t him. I mean, I haven’t seen him since the year we broke up (2001!!) so I wouldn’t really know what he looks like aside from what I see on Insta.

One more ride on Phantom and it was 10:30 already. Park closed at 11 but I was SHIVERING and Needy Chooch was texting us for food, god it’s always something with him!! J/k we love that pest.

Henry thought I was getting in line to go through the Vampire thing again and then we had a big laugh about that, lol.

The facade was so nice though! Maybe they just did a half-staff thing for pass holder preview but if that’s the case, that’s pretty rude.

P.S. I forgot about the cemetery. It was very very very tame but I enjoyed this ghost bitch wading in the green-lit fountain.

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Hello from the second half of our ultra fun day Great America! It was just Labor Day Weekend but they were already setting up for their haunt. I made Henry stand in this tunnel thing so I could photograph him like one of my french bitches.

I think he’s actually opening his little packet of aspirin in these pictures, lol. Can’t ride more than two coasters without it.

For Snack Time, I had this Dole Whip swirl. It was mango and strawberry. It was fine but like, why so much hype for Dole Whip though? Henry got a pretzel for his Snack Time and I had regertz so I gave him the rest of my Dole Whip in exchange for like 3/4 of said pretzel.

In line for the Flash – Henry dislikes Intamin Impulse coasters but I super-love them and he was my riding buddy on this day so SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP.

I always get extremely nervous waiting for the launch but guess what?? It was actually really weak. So weak that I thought they were having an issue but no, it was nervous I guess. Nowhere near as thrilling as my beloved Wicked Twister (RIP baby).

I always enjoy a good fling on the Batman clones! This one looked like it had a really long line but it wasn’t long at all. Really none of the lines were bad all day except for Joker (low capacity) and MaxxForce (this is just problematic and I feel like the line would be long no matter what).

I didn’t get anything from here but thought it was cute, OK.

At some point in the day, Chooch rode his 250th coaster and actually had one of his friends take a picture because I told him MAKE SURE YOU GET A PICTURE because you know me and my obsessive need to document every little moment of his life for the future MOMMY LOVES YOU scrapbook that I’ll be sure to present to him in front of a crowd someday.

OK, I was extremely excited to ride American Eagle! It was Intamin’s first foray into a wooden coaster and all I knew from coaster vlogs is that it is a legit HIKE through this queue, and boy they weren’t wrong. You just keep walking and walking, up and down and up and down, across a ROAD, until you finally reach the station. If that entire queue is ever actually filled, I would be horrified.

Halfway through our leisurely Sunday stroll through the American Eagle queue.

The line didn’t even actually begin until we reached the bottom of the steps leading up to the station. Then we played musical rows because I couldn’t settle on one – we started in the middle row because the only way Henry would agree to ride any of the wooden coasters was if I agreed to sit in the middle and not my beloved back row. But in the end, I had maneuvered my way to the front row and that’s where we stayed. It was right next to the ride op’s room and there were various rubber ducks lining the edges of it which was entertaining to look at it while waiting for the slow AF ops – it’s supposed to be a racing coaster but they were only running one train on one side, which was annoying  but I swear this seems to be the new norm anymore – King’s Dominion, Cedar Point – maybe King’s Island but I can’t remember now? – were all running one side only on their racing coasters the last few times we were there.

Our thoughts on American Eagle:

Henry – it wasn’t that bad, I’ve ridden worse wooden coasters.

Me – I FUCKING LOVED IT. It made me laugh my effing ugly face off so hard, it was ridiculous. Not nearly as rough as it looks like it would be, and the HELIX, YO. THE HELIX. Do not skip this if you go to Great America.

HERE IS A PICTURE OF US EXITING THE RIDE.

WHIZZER!!! Holy shit, Great America – you got a super weirdly-rounded coaster collection! This Schwartzkopf (I am NOT looking up the spelling, sorry imaginary journalism degree) oddity was so unique and felt like something the Brady Bunch would have ridden together and Alice would have been screaming into a kerchief while Marsha was making eyes at the muttonchopped ride op.

It’s a toboggan-style coaster where two people sit front to back on one long seat so I would have had to try and sit between Henry’s legs without jamming my knees into the seat in front of me.  I was super worried that Henry and I wouldn’t fit in one car together so we had to ride separately because I wanted to spare us from the trauma of being fat-shamed.  This was definitely made for two children or a parent and child and I noticed other adult couples were also riding stag so that is what we did too, sorry Henry, I know you were looking forward to squeezing your thighs against my saddle bags. Much erotic.

After this, we passed Chooch and his SQUAD GIRLS! The girls happily waved hello to us like normal functioning humans while Chooch looked like he wanted the earth to open up and engulf him whole. I can’t remember where Henry and I were headed, but we ended up changing our minds and going back to finally face the MaxxForce line which was hovering between 60-90 minutes all day.

GUESS WHO HAD THE SAME IDEA??? Chooch and his squad girls! WOO!! So much to Chooch’s chagrin, he ended up having to live the waking nightmare of standing in the same line with his PARENTS and GIRL FRIENDS for NINETY MINUTES. Yeah, I didn’t even realize we were in for 90 minutes until Chooch was bitching about it later and I was like “There is no way we were in that line for that long?” but he argued that we were, so I checked my phone for receipts because I texted Corey the moment we got in line with them and then I took that picture down there of Chooch right when we were next in line, and yep.

Ninety fucking minutes.

The big TO DO of this line was the fact that Chooch was wearing the same shirt as that guy behind us. His girl friends (Anna and Lexi) were dying over this and I said, “That’s his Dad Shirt” and that made them lose it all over again and Chooch kept making INSANE ORCHESTRAL CONDUCTOR hands motions next to his head like he was willing to swallow a stick a dynamite in order to escape the pain of his Mexico world colliding with MOMMY.

I was super engrossed in what they were talking about, too, but Henry kept gently pulling me back by my shoulders and making a subtle, “Give them space” eye blinks.

UGH.

They were totally talking about CIEE people and I wanted to know!!

At one point, Chooch made eye contact with Anna and then turned and made eye contact with me, and screamed, “STOP LOOKING AT ME!!” and the anguish on his face you guys, the wet glint of agony in his eyes. It was hilarious. Anna was laughing so hard and squealed, “Why do you get so upset when people look at you?!”

Oh, the trials and tribs of Riley J.

(Speaking of, we were very good about calling him RILEY in front of his friends although Anna found my Insta and knows about “Chooch” now so he was like, “And I would like to thank you for that.” LOL.)

THAT FACE THO.

We did not ride Little Dipper for absolutely no good reason. Apparently, Chooch didn’t either and he was pretty salty about it because it’s all about the COASTER CREDS. Guess we’ll just have to go back!?

Somewhere after MaxxForce, we rode Superman and it was excellent (Henry hates flying coasters but admitted it was OK) and whatever their indoor wild mouse is. Gotham something. It was about a 25 minute wait and also the only time all day that I got mad at Henry because I was trying to tell him a really important story and he kept looking past me and I HATE THAT because it makes me feel like he’s not listening to me so then I gave him the silent treatment and he cried and begged me to be his friend again.

Then on the ride, he caught the hat of the guy in front of us and it was probably the most heroic he’s felt since he was IN THE SERVICE.

That ride was actually good too! I think Great Adventure is where we rode the clone and I don’t remember thinking that one was any good because the theming was shit, but this one was SO GOOD. The theming was there and the ride itself was actually really intense and I nearly got whiplash.

Then I demanded Henry buy me a Six Flags sweatshirt because I was legit freezing in a t-shirt and shorts all day. So now I have red Six Flags sweatshirt which was actually a hassle to buy because some asshole family was hogging the whole rack and then I had to ask an employee if they had Mediums and she had to forage “in the back” for one. At that point, I was locked in. Had to buy it.

I have to say though, while Six Flags can generally be so hit or miss (they have major issues, I’m not even exaggerating, basically the Walmart of theme park chains at this point) their gift shop employees have always been EXCEPTIONALLY FRIENDLY AND HELPFUL. Literally every single park.

Anyway, this sweatshirt was a game-changer. Or, mood-changer really. Because I was really getting cranky but now that I was warm and cozy, I felt like I was given a do-over and was ready to get back out there and have fun again.

Got a late night black bean burger at some place in the Raging Bull area of the park. It was OK but they apparently didn’t have the sauce that was supposed to come with it and I get really mad about stuff like that because I LOVE ME SOME CONDIMENTS. The waffle fries were surprisingly good, but the pretzel bun was very dry and didn’t really do much for me. I would have preferred whatever bun Henry had on his meat sandwich.

Running back to try and get one last ride on Goliath before park closed. I LOVE the feeling of being in a park when it’s nearly ready to close. It’s like, romantic or something, I dunno.

We made it in line for Goliath and GUESS WHO ELSE DID TOO? LOL. They were behind us a bit. I let Chooch know we were aware of his location by texting him a picture I took of him from my spot in line, because I read the Creepy Mom Handbook when I was pregnant and it’s gotten me this far without causing a complete and utter relationship severance, so why stop now.

They ended up getting on the train right after us and I tried to get a picture of them coming onto the brake run but I stupidly moved before it was done so it was just one big blur. :(

We talked to them for a little bit after they got off Goliath, while watching the fireworks. Chooch was sure to point out that his night ride was better than my night ride because the fireworks started when they went up the lift hill.

“I don’t know if you guys realized this about him, but he is VERY competitive,” I said to Lexi and Anna, rolling my eyes, and they cracked up because OF COURSE THEY KNOW THIS. Everyone who spends even a few minutes with my kid knows this.

I TRULY DON’T KNOW WHERE HE GETS THIS TRAIT.

Oh also so that ride up there? Fiddler’s Fling? HENRY WOULDN’T RIDE IT WITH ME. Actually, HENRY WOULDN’T RIDE ANY FLAT RIDES. And this park actually had a pretty unique flat ride collection so I was super sad. I definitely need to go back – with someone else!!

The (weak) Flash.

Oh yeah! We rode this earlier too. It was Henry’s first ever 4d Free Spin and he didn’t hate it as much as he anticipated. I was scream-yelling the whole time. I hated this ride the first time I rode it in New Jersey, acquired a newfound appreciation for it in Massachusetts, and changed our status to IN A RELATIONSHIP in Illinois. You and me, Joker. 4 lyfe.

Oh look another ride he wouldn’t ride with me.

Literally one of the most beautiful amusement park landmarks.

Before we left, I blurted out, “CAN I TAKE A PICTURE OF YOU GUYS” and the girls said ABSOLUTELY while Chooch was quickly looking for a vampire to turn him so he wouldn’t appear in the picture.

I don’t know what else to say – I loved this day so much. I loved the whole weekend. It was weird not being with Chooch all day but I also so happy that we were able to arrange this reunion for him and ugh, sometimes I really am such a mom! See?? I do have the maternal stuffs in me. It’s just sometimes buried by my Forever 16 personality traits.

 

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Yo when was the last time we sat down and had a good old fashioned Friday Fiver? Legit can’t remember. But if someone asks you this tomorrow, you can say, “Hey guy, it was just yesterday!”

1. The Witch of Pioneer

Have I mentioned lately how much I truly hate HNC’s wife? She is actually the most miserable person I have ever known, maybe even more so than Henry’s ex-wife! Anyway, on Wednesday I was sitting here working, just minding my own business. I work at a desk in the dining room, right next to the window that faces her side of the house. So I get to hear her out there putzing around in the driveway, screaming at HNC, threatening neighbors with baseball bats because they parks too close to the entrance of our shared driveway which INCOVENIENCES HER (never mind the fact that her one daughter can come over and park at the top of the driveway, effectively blocking us in, because Mummy is Queen of Pioneer). Anyway, yesterday she came out of the house with her white trash daughter on speaker phone. She was out there fucking around with her stupid porch plants when suddenly she starts getting more and more worked up. I couldn’t tell what was happening, but then I heard her say “people who live outside of the country…” and my ears perked up thinking she was about to go on some MAGA anti-foreigner rant but then she ended it with, “HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE FEEDING WILDLIFE.” OK, so she was talking about the countrySIDE…but wait, what?? NO, SHE WAS TALKING ABOUT ME.

“THEY HAVE NO RESPECT FOR ME! I PUT SO MUCH MONEY IN THESE PLANTS JUST FOR THEM TO BE DESTROYED. FUCKING SQUIRRELS!!!”

I’m assuming by “they” she is referring to us. Because we are the only people who feed the squirrels. /sarcasm. Do you know how many houses in our neighborhood have those cute little squirrel feeder picnic tables!? A LOT. WE ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES WHO ENJOY THE SQUIRRELS.

She is the odd one! She is the hateful bitch who finds no joy in anything!

So then I was like “OK two can play at this game” and I called Henry and started screaming to HIM by the open window about how THEY have no respect for US because they have turned our shared driveway into a fucking LOT OF BROKE DOWN CARS. “THE CARS! THE FUCKING CARS!” I screamed in a replica of her nasty Yinzer voice.

I was so ridiculously stressed out over this that it actually ruined my entire Thursday as well. Like, I kept picturing myself fighting her, I don’t give a shit that she’s in her 60s.

Fuck that bitch so hard. I hope a squirrel attacks her.

2. Chooch’s Mexico Gallery Wall

Just posting this because writing about HNC’s cunt wife got my heart rate up and I needed a happy visual. How can this not make you happy?? Look at those colors!

3. A Super Social Tuesday

This past Tuesday, I had plans with some people from my old team to have dinner after work. But then MARGIE scheduled our department casual lunch on the SAME DAY so then Wendy was like, “Oh good, we can have an in-person meeting that day too” and then the admin people of the whole entire Pgh office were like RSVP FOR SOCIAL HOUR TUESDAY AFTERNOON!

I was really stressed about this day because we have recently switched to a hoteling situation so most of the desks were stripped down to just one monitor. I cannot work like that!  I have a very particular, Type A set-up! So my plan, which was very clunky and stupid, was to come in from half the day, attend the meeting, have a piece of pizza at CASUAL LUNCH, go home and work, then come back for dinner.

Really dumb, amirite?

When I got to work on Tuesday, I immediately went to Margie’s desk and pouted about the new sitch and she was like, “Just sit in that office right there – it has two monitors and it’s not assigned to anyone” so just like that, my biggest problem of the day was solved and then I was able to be moderately normal (by my standards at least) for the rest of the day.

It was really nice getting to see so many of work friends on one day! I opted out of the office Social Hour though, claiming that I was people’d out but really it was because I was nervous of being around more food and then going to dinner, love this weird fear of food that controls my life. But it’s easier to blame social anxiety because that feels more acceptable and reasonable than saying I’m scared or food omg hold me.

Then I went to dinner with Amber, Lauren, Megan, Carrie and Wendi! It wasn’t the original dinner plans for that night but it was just as lovely! I was fucking starving by then though, having only had a small bowl of cereal and literally the smallest, driest piece of pizza I could find for lunch. Carrie and I shared a burrata salad and ravioli and I BEASTED my halves. Carrie also treated Megan and me to a bottle of wine for our recent bdays and I was feeling GOOD, MY PEOPLE.

I am really lucky to work with friends. That is all.

4. Nooworks #1 Fan Girl

Nooworks released a new print on Sunday night and I had to buy a shirt because LOOK AT IT. THE DESIGN. THE COLORS. It was like it was made for me. I love Nooworks so much. #NotSponsored but #IWishItWas.

5. Pie Party Prep

You guys the first pie party since 2017 is happening this Sunday. The weather is supposed to be absolute TRASH too, of course. We’ll still go through with it though – the pavilion is big and has a roof, after all! I think it rained at another pie party once too and while it wasn’t ideal, the pies didn’t care.

Henry did a trial-run on one of his pie prospects last weekend and it tasted so good, so there’s that. My only responsibility up to now was working on the play list. It’s up to over 8 hours and the party is only 6 hours long so I think I can cross that off the to do list now.

I dunno man, this was a lousy Friday Five but I’m beat, says Erin from 1975. We’re going to the pass holder Fright Fest sneak peek tonight at Kennywood and that’s all my mind can focus on right now. Perhaps one day things in my brain will change and I will be able to to tell you how I got my blogging groove back, says Erin from 1998.

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Yoooo, there was no way I was leaving this Great America without a carouselfie on their majestic double-decker carousel! Originally, I had wanted to get one of us PLUS Chooch and his SQUAD GIRLS but he was like, “We are never ever ever ever ever doing that together and if you don’t stop asking, I’m going to start singing that in the tune of Taylor Swift.”

He did not actually say that because he’s NOT AS FUNNY AS ME, THIS WAS ALL ME, I MADE THAT UP.

He did say something similar not in so many words, probably something like, “Nah, I’m good.” I’m honestly still sizzling about this though because the Friday before we left for this Labor Day trip, Chooch texted me at 6:30AM on a morning that I was planning on “going for a walk later” rather than at the exact moment I wake up inside of the 6AM hour. But nope, here comes  Chooch, foiling mommy’s plans AS USUAL.

He wanted me to walk to the Potomac trolley station to see if his wallet was there because he suddenly didn’t have it when he was on the T. He said he was almost certain it fell out of his pockets on the shorts that Henry bought him that don’t fit right so this, in case you were wondering how he was going to work it, was how he was able to twist it into being someone else’s fault.

Anyway, I angry-stomped my way to the station and there was his stupid Pokemon wallet, laying face down on the platform under the bench. No one even tried to steal it or turn it into the fare booth guy.

That motherfucker is so lucky because, while he only had a dollar in there (lol, that unemployed life), all of his amusement park membership cards / season passes are in there in spite of the fact that Henry keeps trying to confiscate them. Well, the confiscation was successful this time!

Yeah so I told him that for my reward, I wanted a group carouselfie and I feel like a GOOD BOY would have obliged but no, I got stuck with this bullheaded jerk.

So it was just Henry and me, and ew why does he look so sleazy?!

Quick carousel review: for as lovely and bitchin’ as this merry-go-round is on the outside, the actual ride was very lackluster. In lieu of traditional calliope tunes, some ride operator was up on the top deck, screaming Six Flags trivia questions over a speaker and it was just very disconcerting. Bro, I don’t play games, I want to believe I’m living in Mary Poppins times with a whimsical rabbit squeezed between my thighs.

Um, OK, unclear what sort of vibe he’s going for here but I feel violated somehow.

I think it’s weird when some carousels require you to actual fasten the seatbelt. Like, for what reason? In case it needs to brake real hard?

This was my feeble attempt to get a mirror carouselfie.

Well, that’s my account of our 5 minutes on the carousel. We’re actually in the process of redoing the carouselfie wall (it’s done, we just have to rehang the pictures and haven’t had time because this week is all Pie Party Prep, All the Time) and I’m really excited to include one of these. The exclamatory nature of that last sentence is implied.

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Today was babysitting day. We made Chooch come with us for a walk to Scoops on the Boulevard for some ice cream.

It was the slowest walk of my life but they were good. And they all actually finished their ice cream without making an utter mess which was very shocking to me. I mean, there was still a mess and I wouldn’t let them touch me, but we did ok.

Then back at their house, I kept saying that I was going to leave because I had to exercise (Henry would have still been there, god don’t report me!) but they were like NO DONT LEAVE US WITH BORING PAP so Calvin suggested that I exercise there.

I declined this invitation to use his play room as a gym but then he said “well how about you teach us some exercises?”

SO I DID! We did sit-ups and crab dips! Then Calvin was like OK NOW LETS DO DANCE EXERCISES ALEXA PLAY GUMMI BEARS and I was like OMG GUMMI BEARS? YOU KNOW THE GUMMI BEARS SONG?!

I was so stoked but it turned out it was some different gummy bear thing and not the theme song to the 1980s cartoon like I had anticipated:(

“Just so you know, I put this on the pie party play list,” I said to Henry while it plays loudly on the TV.

“Oh great,” he muttered but I know he secretly loves it even though he was probably IN THE SERVICE when this was on.

Speaking of IN THE, I watched the penultimate episode of IN THE DARK tonight and I am done.

Totally exhausted from the sobbing. This show kills me. Which is why today’s blog post is a cop-out because I’m drained and I have actually been doing a lot of weird crying lately?!

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