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I know that the internet is already sick of hearing about this, because it happened like HOURS ago and plus earthquakes happen other places and other things happen, too, and GOD WHY DO WE TALK ABOUT ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET AT ALL JUST BE QUIET EVERYONE. (I’m truly puzzled by this because now that we have all of the communication that we could possibly want, I think we’re realizing, “Oh, right, I want you to shut your face.” More than two tweets in a row about any possible subject and the “Move on, already!” brigade shows up. “Talk about something else for three seconds until I get sick of that and then await further instructions!” Jesus. Go for a walk.)

Anyway, at some point fairly recently, the husband and I were talking about how not into natural disasters we are. I mean, Pittsburgh has its faults, but the worst thing you can say about it, weather-wise, is that winter steps on your neck every year. And aside from the odd blizzard, even that isn’t too bad. We like going about our days not worrying about hurricanes or tornadoes (much). And I think we had watched a video of the earthquake in Japan and were both like, “EFF THAT! I am so glad we don’t have those here. I am not into earthquakes at all.”

Obviously, I had no idea what an earthquake was like. And yesterday, while I was sitting at my desk and felt the building move, a lot of thoughts went through my head.

“I’m pretty sure the building’s moving. That’s odd. It generally doesn’t do that. It kinda feels like how the new Target does when cars drive in the parking garage beneath it. But…we don’t have a parking garage in this building. Maybe they’re doing some kind of heavy construction on this building? But it’s silent. Oh, shit. I bet I’m having a stroke. Or the psychosis is finally taking full control. ”

Then I noticed some of the stuff on my desk vibrating and finally, in a very tiny voice, said, “Um, is the building moving?” Tiny voice because if you’re pretty sure that your brain is imploding, you’re not really keen to announce it. “HEY GUYS! THE BUILDING IS MOVING AND ALSO PUDDING ROGER THAT GOING TO POOP ON THE FLOOR NOW!” But one of my co-workers confirmed that she felt it, too, and had been similarly hesitant to survey everyone else. However, my other co-workers did not feel anything, which put us back to being concerned.

“Could it have been an earthquake?”

“NOOOO! We don’t have those here…Er, well, I guess there was that one about a year ago. Hmm…”

Now, this is, I think, just the cutest thing I’ve ever done: I opened a new tab, pulled up Google, and typed, “earthquakes.”

Just that. Not “earthquakes Pittsburgh” or even “earthquakes WTF?” Like, I went to Google and basically just HURR DURRed at it. But Google knew exactly what I needed and pointed me directly to the NSGS site…which told me that, yes, there was just an earthquake in Virginia and you felt it where you are and aren’t you sweet, just sitting there through it.

“You guys…that WAS an earthquake! Ack! We were supposed to stand in the doorway!” So, I got up and stood in the doorway, even though by that point the earthquake had ended about 10 minutes ago. My emergency preparedness is on a bit of a delay.

Then I got kind of scared. Remembering how it felt made me dizzy and hearing everyone poo-poo it didn’t help. I know that they happen everywhere all the time and are much worse, but the first time experiencing it was pretty scary. I feel fairly certain that West Coast residents might remember being aware of an earthquake for the first time and being freaked out by it, so a little bit of sympathy would have been nice. Just sayin’.

A few weeks ago, the sister-in-law was in town for the weekend and we took the baby to a class he was taking at Dance Alloy in Garfield. After dropping him off, we ran down the street to grab a cup of coffee. Garfield is an area of town that is currently being gentrified. The people involved in that community I’m sure don’t like that word and would rather I say that it’s being “creatively revitalized and resuscitated from the consumptive plague of urban blight through art” or something. Whatever, I’m not judging, since I obviously participate in it. I’m just saying that building modern, eco-friendly lofts next to a crack house rings a lot of gentrification bells. It’s cool.

Anyway, I noticed that the constant, low-to-mid-level pissiness that seemed to define my personality in my 20s must have tapered off. When we exited the coffee shop, I saw a parking meter that someone had yarnbombed and it made me irrationally irritated in a way that seems to have been absent. Yarnbombing, for those of you with the wisdom to ignore the antics of idiots, is sometimes called “guerrilla knitting” and is basically putting yarn around inanimate objects because…I don’t know. All I know is that I imagine someone saying, “I made this fence a sweater because I’m so full of life and appreciate beauty and yarn lulz!” and I just want to kick something because that is moronic.

I had to ask a homeless guy to get out of the frame so that I could capture my whimsy!

None of this has much to do with anything but I thought of it because I’ve had several shitty days in a row following a kind of okay vacation in Conneaut Lake with my family last week. Don’t get me wrong, most of it was really fun. There was just stuff like the mattresses in our cottage being from the Eisenhower administration, which sort of forced the husband and I to sleep on the floor if we were to maintain any mobility. There was also me taking steps to maintain my healthy eating but getting sidelined by alcohol and candy. Despite noshing on stuff like kale most of the week, around Wednesday evening I snapped and started being that person who’s like, “I’d like a steak a la mode,” and, “This Champagne would be really good with some chocolate covered pretzels in it.” Kind of gross. And I didn’t work out once and I gained like 8 pounds which just made me mad. I also got my period at a restaurant because I’m like 13 or something and can’t handle the bodily function that I’ve had every month for nearly 20 years. Are you there God? It’s me, diddy.

For as good as I’ve been feeling all summer, and as deftly as I’ve handled upsetting moments in recent months, I find myself looking at empty hands where coping skills used to be. Everything’s fine, or rather, everything that needs to be fine is (we’re all healthy and fed and whatnot). Things have just been pretty rough for me the last few days.

That’s all.

How have you been?

I don’t know if you’ve heard but it’s been crazy hot here this week. As such, everyone is becoming a little…punchy.

For example, me taking a picture of myself first thing in the morning just so I can show you how my hair has been acting.

We don’t have air conditioning in our house and this is one of the few days out of the summer where that just sucks. So there’s lots of ice water being consumed and cold showers being taken. Last night, I climbed into bed and realized that there was no way I was going to fall asleep without cooling myself down somehow and de-stickifying my neck and cleavage. So, I hit the shower and then got back into bed. That meant that I was putting my wavy hair to bed wet and then waking up in the humidity. The results were some kind of science experiment.

If it wasn’t so messy, I would have just rocked this Shirley Temple ‘do, but it was obvious that my pillow had styled my hair so I clawed a brush through it.

Downstairs, I set about getting my coffee, breakfast, and lunch together for the day and I was supervised by my cat, who I had forgotten to feed yesterday. Today, he made sure that I wouldn’t make the same mistake.

That’s his food bin that he’s sitting on top of. And he meowed at me in a very direct tone. He’s very subtle.

After I got myself and my hair out the door, we rode in to work. Close to my office, we gaped at a man who was easily over 6 feet tall riding along on a Razor scooter.

Like this, but completely absurd.

The image of him hunched over and kick-pushing his way to, presumably, educate the youth of America has now burned itself into my brain. Imagining him kissing the wife goodbye, all, “Off to bring home the bacon, honey! Hey, son, I’m taking the Razor today,” makes my head hurt. Zombies can’t be far behind.

We went to see Harry Potter last night and the baby got all dressed up for the occasion.

He is currently devouring the books and while I don’t share his enthusiasm for the franchise, I’ve found almost all of the movies to be pretty enjoyable. I didn’t sob through the last hour of the movie like the grown women in front of me, though. I mean, I get being attached to characters that way, but histrionics in public are a little unnerving.

I posted to MamaDojo last week about our impending trip to Kennywood and tried to explain the tradition of the park, Rick Sebak, and the importance of French fries to non-Pittsburghers. I’m not sure if I did an adequate job or not. But the key takeaway is this: the annual trip to Kennywood is an essential part of growing up in Pittsburgh. There are many rituals involved, from attire to the order of rides to what food is eaten when.

Strategy: get a few of the big coasters in right away. Then proceed straight to Potato Patch for a box (yes, a box) of restorative fries.

The husband, the baby, and I made our annual trip last Wednesday and it was one of the best Kennywood visits we’ve ever had. The weather was gorgeous and it wasn’t crowded, which meant no extremely long waits for rides. This was good because I woke up feeling not so great and I ended up riding the bench a couple of times throughout the day, but didn’t risk wasting much time doing so.

When I was a kid, going to Kennywood meant freaking out on thrill rides and shooting furtive glances at boys. Looking back, it was also usually a rare occasion when my parents and I would spend the day together and have fun for the most part. When the baby became big enough to go and actually ride things, I remember being really excited to share the experience with him. And after a few touch-and-go moments on the Pirate Ship, I could tell he was hooked.

I think what he really likes about it is that it’s the three of us playing together. We all pile into the Racer and boo the other coaster or scream throughout the Phantom’s Revenge. I don’t think anyone would ever accuse the husband or me of being overly mature, but we’re definitely parents. And for a day we get to be kids with our kid.

The baby is still too short to ride the Thunderbolt or the Sky Rocket, so we missed out on those. But it was on some of the tamer rides that we had the best moments of the day. He and I rode the Bayern Kurve together and he cracked up the whole time. Hearing him just goofy with happiness for a few minutes straight was just…awesome.

We had saved a few rides for the night because they look the coolest in the dark and with the lights on. One of these was the Paratrooper. The baby and I sat together and the husband was in the parachute behind us. Again, the baby laughed and oohhed the whole time. It was wonderful. He’s getting to an age where he’s trying to appear older and tougher than he is. Hearing the little boy that is still inside of him made me find the little girl that is still inside of me and I laughed right along with him.

At the end of the day, the husband and the baby wanted to squeeze in one more ride on the Phantom’s Revenge. I had had enough for the day and waited for them on a nearby bench. I watched people file out with absurdly huge stuffed animals and kids look for the parents with only the vaguest sense of panic. I listened to that old song that they always play at the end of the day and felt the twinkly lights on the rides warm my skin.

After they had managed to do not one but two final rides, the husband and the baby and I made our way out, too, pausing to document our sweaty, gleeful, fry-stuffed selves in front of the sweet “Goodnight” heart.

Then came my favorite part: walking through the tunnel toward the exit. Everyone whoops and hollers and giggles at the echo as they shuffle along, the mark of a perfect summer day firmly pressed into their memory. Nobody looks back because they’ve all had their fill and the best part of the night is yet to come: that glorious post-Kennywood shower and sinking your tired feet into bed.

Because the folks at Kennywood want everyone to be able to experience a perfect day like this, they want to give you a chance to win four free tickets to the park. To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment below. You can also earn additional entries by posting a link to this giveaway on Twitter and Facebook. Just be sure to leave a comment here with a link to your tweet or Facebook post. The winner will be selected and posted on Tuesday, July 26th. Good luck!

Disclosure: I was provided with complimentary tickets to Kennywood in exchange for hosting this giveaway.

Update: And our winner is…Gina! Congratulations, Gina!

One of the churches in our neighborhood (I’m not exactly sure where it is because, surprise, I don’t seek these things out) is having a festival this weekend. I’ve seen signs posted all over for it and whenever I read the name of the festival, Resurrection Fun Flair, I can feel my tongue locking up because my brain wants it to be “Fun Fair” and that extra L just totally messes with me. So my brain goes through several iterations of “Resurrlection Fun Fair,” “Resurrection Flun Fair,” “Lesurrection Fun Fair,” trying to figure out where exactly that L goes until I finally read, “Resurrection Fun Flair.” Then I have to take a nap from the exertion.

The signs are mostly very basic that someone with an old version of Microsoft Publisher or something did. Then there’s this one rogue sign on a barrier rail on Brookline Boulevard that is made up of a huge banner with the church’s name and a very plain sign next to it with the name and dates of the festival. Its size and starkness always strikes me when we go past it because it’s like:

RESURRECTION FUN FLAIR JULY 6, 7, 8, 9

So while half of my brain is doing its usual, “Resurrl–…Lesurr–…Flun–…” tap dance, the other half starts giggling about the word “resurrection” being so prominently placed next to the word “fun,” and suddenly this image is all I can think about:

Party up in hurr!

Clearly, no thought is safe in my head.

Speaking of my head, I wrote a little bit about my bummedness over on MamaDojo this week, which was partially prompted by facing my student loans and being completely terrified by what I saw. I spent some time being upset about it for all of the usual reasons: debt, paying for something I kinda sorta regret a little, handing over money that I would rather set aside for my baby, various other dreams that might not come true because of this money, etc. Pure melancholia. But in this period of, “Less mope, more action,” that I’m in, I put fingers to keyboard, got it out, invited others to share their current woes, then got to work. I researched my options without panicking and quitting and sticking my head back in the sand and I think I actually found a feasible solution, a way through this financial muck that won’t choke me. I’m only kind of irritated with myself for not doing this sooner and instead allowing myself nearly two years of anguish because that somehow seemed like the most appropriate way to deal with it. I can’t get mad at myself for being ignorant in the past.

Alright, enough of this Stuart Smalley business. The weekend is upon us.

Not long after I published my post on Friday noting that I hadn’t uploaded last day of school pictures, I realized that I totally had and just forgot all about it. Dur. So, here is the (not so much) baby on his last day of third grade.

That crumpling sound you hear is my heart. Please ignore.

But anyway, I’m coming off of one of the best weekends I’ve ever had and I have the messy kitchen and piles of dirty laundry to prove it. Friday night I accompanied the husband to Eclipse where he was playing records. That place is decent, though I was a little put off by the Ikea-heavy decor and the odd 1998 look of the place. However, the original glass block bar is so cool-looking. I gawked at it for a good 20 minutes. We took off kind of early because we had a big day on Saturday.

I got myself and the baby up kind of early and my mom took us into Shadyside where I was getting a long-overdue haircut and pedicure. My mom dropped me off at home and she and the baby went to Legofest at the convention center and I made one more stop to the nail shop to get my fingers looking nice. It was, as Truvy from Steel Magnolias would say, “a full day’s beauty.” Then the husband and I got dressed and headed into town.

Aren't we swell?

We ate at Seviche, which we’d been dying to return to since we ate there last year, and had one of the best meals ever. Here’s our obscene list of tasty things:

Strawberry Mimosa Champagne Mojito
Cuban Pomegranate Martini
Trio of Chips and Salsa
Traditional, Curried Tropical Fruit, and Fire & Ice Seviches with Ahi Tuna, Scottish Salmon, and Hamachi
Mojo Criollo Nigiri
Bistec Bocadillos with Filet Mignon
Chorizo Wrapped Diver Scallops

I also made the executive decision to order a really expensive bottle of Malbec and noted to the waiter that we splurged because of the special occasion. As a surprise at the end of the meal, he brought us a piece of Tres Leches cake with fresh strawberries and two glasses of Champagne.

After dinner, we walked over to the Consol Energy Center for the Sade concert. It was a happy coincidence that it came around the time of our anniversary, because it was the no-brainer special event. And the concert was so, so amazing. Sade the singer and Sade the band are all so beautiful and talented and smooth and wonderful and sexy. Sade didn’t speak much, but when she did her soft British accent made things like, “Pittsburgh, you’ve built a lot of bridges and they all lead directly to my heart,” and “He charms the birds out of the sky because they want to bask in his light,” sound beautiful and poetic instead of kinda cheesy. The stage was gently lit and adorned with sheer white curtains that would dramatically fly away or drop into the recesses of the floor.

The music, of course, was beautiful. The highlight for me was “By Your Side.” I’ve always liked that song just fine, but never really regarded it as one of their greatest. But for that song the stage was lit in this warm, sunset color and at the end confetti was shot out over the audience. The husband and I were literally by each other’s sides and I knew that we would remain that way for many more years to come.

Edited to add: Can’t believe I forgot to mention Father’s Day, which we spent at my mom’s house with my dad, grandparents, aunt, and uncle. After a slight panic early in the afternoon, we had a rad cookout and then went to see Super 8 at the drive-in. Yeah. This weekend ruled.

The husband returned from Chicago yesterday and was able to resume his Driving Me to Work duties this morning. Of course, I got to experience one more morning commute to work aboard Port Authority Transit. On a Monday, no less.

Pittsburgh doesn’t have the worst public transit in the world, but it is beleaguered by a perfect storm of inadequate funding and the city’s troublesome topography. It’s also just not the simplest system. You kind of just have to KNOW how it all works. And with frequent service and route changes, I’ve had multiple experiences in my close to 20 years of PAT history of shuffling up to the driver and saying, “Uh, I think I screwed up. This is not where I was trying to go.” (But, then again, I’m kind of an idiot.) This has made me less than confident in my ability to get anywhere and last summer when I was in New York, I had a great deal of anxiety about navigating the subways by myself. Of course, as I soon found out, NYC’s transit is amazing and idiot-proof. After all, it’s a huge city with all manner of people in it. And really, this guy, whose mind is obviously preoccupied with other things, gets around just fine so I should really quit getting my ovaries in a bunch about it.

Anyway, yesterday the bus was a little late, but I had told my boss that I was going to be arriving around 9:30 on the days that the husband was out of town because that’s just how it is when I have to get the baby off to school first. We meandered out of Brookline and I turned my attention to my phone as we headed into downtown. I looked up a few minutes later because I noticed that the bus had been idling awhile and realized that we were in Allentown.

I immediately became concerned because while Allentown is far from the worst place on earth, for me I’m always wondering, “Why are we in Allentown?” if we hadn’t intended to go to Allentown. I glanced at my fellow passengers to gauge how I should be feeling, because I sincerely thought that maybe I had passed out or something and managed to get on the wrong bus. This seemed reasonable because I had two sleepwalking episodes (and one sleeptalking episode in which I requested some chicken) when I was a kid and now I’m just waiting to become one of those people who is like, “Oops, stepped off a building.” Everyone else had that Allentown face, too, though which brought me some relief until I realized, “Holy shit, no one knows why we’re in Allentown!”

The bus driver sped past people at two stops who were trying to flag him down and at that point I concluded, “Well, this is it. He’s driving us to the woods somewhere and is going to make us dig our own graves behind the murder shed.” But then I remembered that I hold the internet in my hands and was able to ascertain that there had been some massive power failure in the Mt. Washington tunnel. This was but a detour, which made a little more sense than my murder shed theory.

We finally pulled into town a little after 9 and a 61B quickly arrived, thus beginning the second part of my journey. I anticipated a quiet ride to work.

No.

The 61B was filled with one of each of the characters that God created specifically to ride the bus and make your commute that much more interesting. It was like the Noah’s Ark of mass transit. Loud Talker was there, as was Smelly Guy. The lady who refuses to sit on the seats or touch any of the handles was there, stumbling about and bumping into people. I mean, I get where she’s coming from. I, too, have seen those Dateline specials that have titles like, “Fecal Matter Everywhere” and “Feces Pieces” and “How Much Feces Are You Inadvertently Eating Right Now?” But I figure at some point someone told me to, “Eat shit and die,” and I’m just kind of going along with that. But if you’re going to go the germaphobe route, own that shit (no pun intended). Get on the bus in your hazmat suit and gloves. Don’t put all of your faith in your ability to defy physics. It’s annoying.

I realize I’m being very snotty, but that’s what such an eventful bus ride will do to a person. It changes you, strips you of your compassion. This seems to be a universal experience:

One of my favoritest people on the internet is Gayle. As she so hilariously puts it in her bio on MoxieBird, “she works as an actor and writer to support her passion for secretarial work.” A few weeks ago, she told me that the Bricolage Production Company was going to be having a blogger night to celebrate the opening of their newest play Hunter Gatherers. It had been awhile since Gayle and I had hung out, and there were going to be some free drinks, so I agreed.

I had never been to Bricolage, but it’s a very cool space downtown with an intimate stage, plus a resident dog, Odie. There was a quiz before the show started to find out if you were a hunter or a gatherer. I am an Ultra Gatherer, which they didn’t have an explicit sticker for. So I hacked mine with a ballpoint pen, hence the horrific scrawling.

So, the play…

Two couples have been friends since high school and have continue their annual dinner through their 30s. On this particular night, all four people are at a crossroads in their lives and none are satisfied with keeping things the way they are, no matter how badly they want to believe that they’re living the lives that they’re supposed to. Over the course of the evening, they each strip away their middle class veneers and get down to their base human natures. They’re shocked at how primal they really are as they allow themselves to indulge in carnivorous urges of all kinds: sex, procreation, alpha male posturing, and actually eating meat.

Yuppies breaking down might not sound particularly funny but the writing was quick-witted and hilarious. And the actors were inspirationally good. As in, I wanted to become an actor SO BAD watching them on the stage, fully engrossed and kicking ass.

Hunter Gatherers will run at Bricolage now through May 7th and I highly recommend that you take in a performance. As we emerge from that excessively long winter, it’s wonderful to be reminded of what an amazing cultural community we have here in Pittsburgh.

To get you started on your spring/summer activities, I would like to offer you the chance to win two tickets to a performance of Hunter Gatherers. All you have to do is leave a comment here and I’ll pick a winner at random next Friday, April 22nd. Good luck!

“Alright, let’s get going. We still have to go to the store.”

I gathered up my purse and my camera. The baby girl stared up at me from her swing and I bent down to tickle her behind her ears one more time and pressed her tiny, round feet in between my forefingers and thumbs. We hugged her daddy good-bye and walked outside into the late afternoon sun.

The smell was almost intoxicating. The ground was warming up on the first legitimate spring day. It inhaled the sun and exhaled the possibility of life beginning again, much like how the baby girl’s sighs and giggles had filled the room. The nearby steel mill pumped its scent into the air. The baby girl’s mother had commented on it earlier with a somewhat weary tone, not looking forward to another hot summer with that smell permeating the humidity. “I kind of really like it,” I admitted. “There was a mill in my neighborhood where I grew up. I’d forgotten all about that smell.” That mill was long gone now, the land being reborn into luxury apartments and townhomes. Those don’t have a scent, as far as I know.

The train roared past, announcing our departure from Braddock. Entering that small town had been like a trip back in time for both me and the husband. Despite the tremendous efforts pouring into the community to restore it, it remained a worn version of itself from when it started its rapid decline when we were kids. “This is exactly what Pittsburgh looked like when we were little,” we marveled. “All of it. The houses, the streets…” and the intangibles that we couldn’t quite grasp, like the way your dad smells when he comes in for dinner after working outside. Everything seemed…slower…drowsier. Happy and sad with the knowledge that life just keeps on going, like spring afternoons and baby toes and a groaning, creaking steel mill that used to pump the lifeblood of a community and now just pumps weird scents into the air.

We rode toward our end of town and I let the wind create small knots in my hair, brief suggestions of red lace. We sped past Carrie Furnace, which imposed itself against the landscape of still brown trees aching to burst with yellow-green buds. The rusty red stairs and bridge demanded that you look and respect it. As my baby dozed off in the back seat, the husband turned up the song that had come on.

Home is where I want to be. But I guess I’m already there.

I was sure I’d been somewhere else all this time, lost and alone with no way back. Looking at that huge furnace and its bright red appendages, my chest suddenly ached. This is my home. This landscape created me. It shrivels and dies and seems to disappear, but its elegant beasts remain, landmarks to remind me of where I’ve always been.

Two things worth noting about this video: 1) I’m wearing a shirt that says, “There is no R in Warsh,” warsh being how many people in this region pronounce wash and 2) I did my best to just say the words as naturally as I could. I’ve noticed lately that I do have a bit of a Pittsburgh accent for certain words and that I kind of talk out of the side of my mouth. What’s that about?

Anyway, this has been all over the interwebs by now but I saw it most recently here. The full list, if you’d like to play along, is:

Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught

Added on: Pillow, Toothpick, Milk, Eggs

Questions:

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called? Edit I can’t believe I skipped over this one. The word for that type of drink is pop!
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you change the TV channel with?