Victor: We should take Hailey to California for a weekend this year. They’d love the Monterey Aquarium.
me: Actually Hailey and I already talked about it and we want to go sleep in the Lizzie Borden Murder house. We know everything about it. It’s in Idaho.
Victor: The what now?
me: Or Iowa. No, Idaho. Fuck. It’s in Green River…Idaho? Or Green Falls…Iowa?
Victor: First of all, no one wants to spend a weekend in a murder house. Secondly, you don’t know everything about it if you don’t even know what state it’s in.
me: It’s in…Green River Falls, Idowa.
Victor: That’s not a real place.
me: Siri, where is it that Lizzie Borden may or may not have killed people? Hang on. Siri is giving me websites on wrongly accused murderers. So I guess we know where she stands.
Victor: It’s in Fall River, Massachusetts.
me: Huh. Well I got the Fall part right. And Massachusetts is right next to Iowa.
Victor: In what world is Massachusetts next to Iowa?
me: Oh. I meant Idaho.
Victor: ALSO NOT EVEN CLOSE TO MASSACHUSETTS.
me: Well where is Massachusetts? It’s on the right, right?
Victor: If by “right” you mean “East”?
me: Same thing. Plus, if we go to Massachusetts we can also go see where the Salem Witch Trials were. Unless…they weren’t in Salem, Oregon, right? Because that feels too far left but now I’m doubting everything.
Victor: How did you pass high school?
Me: I dunno. We weren’t required to take a Geometry class.
Victor: *stares at me* Say that again.
me: We weren’t required to take Geometry. I took Ag classes instead.
Victor: Geometry?
me: Oh fuck, Geography. Well, I didn’t fucking take either.
Victor: Wow.
me: The sad thing is that I think I took my ADD meds this morning so this is me at my best.
Victor: The school system really failed you, didn’t it?
me: Maybe. But I can totally tell if your cotton crop has a weevil infestation.
Victor: Can you really?
me: Probably not.
Iowa has the axe murder house at Villisca so you were still in the right about axe murder houses.
Haha!!! This sounds like my wife and I have discussions. Thanks for the much needed laugh today. 💜
This is like my brain.
U r too funny Jenny 😂😂
Ok, I peed a little. And related hard.
The house was for sale in 2020: https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/lizzie-borden-house-sells-ghost-adventures/
Oh, fudge. This is a priceless conversation. And reading the post helped me put off washing dishes a little longer. I only went to my phone to start music, but got the tweet notification about your post, read it, shared it, left this comment and only then remembered I have 5 minutes to leave. Adderall only does so much 🙃
Go. To. Massachusetts. Salem is really fun, as is Pioneer Village nearby. And you can visit all the places in Marblehead and Salem that they filmed Hocus Pocus.And you’ll be near Boston, where you can go to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, which is a really cool old house and had the largest unsolved art heist ever (there’s a Netflix documentart about it). And if you head out to the Cape, you can go to Provincetown, which is just awesomeness in rainbow form.
Greetings from Idowa! So, we don’t have Lizzie Borden BUT we do have the Villisca Murder House where a whole family plus some random kids were axed to their demise. Which I think is the same thing as Lizzie Borden or really close anyway. You can totes spend the night there, too. Murder Houses road trip!!!
If you come to Salem I volunteer to play guest tour guide. Only you should be aware that I am terrible with directions and have only lived there during the pandemic so I will probably get us really lost and tell you things that are probably incorrect about it.
Maybe you can tempt both Hailey and Victor with these?
Victor gets to see the Aquarium.
You and Hailey get some spooky/murdery fun!
Plus..food?
https://www.montereybayfoodtours.com/blog/2019/10/23/monterey-bay-ghosts
Crying laughing. Geography is hard.
But yes the Lizzie Borden house is in Massachusetts, and Salem is close by and I live in the western part of that state and say COME VISIT!!!!
Thank you!Thank you! Thank you ! I needed the big laughs reading this gave me after dealing with family healt iissues for the past few days. You are the best!
I can relate to this conversation. I always pick Geography first because I think it is the hardest. One of the questions was what country is known for having classic cars? WTF? The Arby’s in the town next to mine has a cruise in every Friday. So do lots of places. The answer was Cuba. How am I supposed to know that?
The best! Just went to the Lizzie Borden house and Salem last August it’s amazing… go!!
I often wonder how my husband puts up with me. This was our conversation lady week.
Matt reading his phone and drinking his coffee this morning…
Matt: the queen has covid.
Me: Latifah?? That’s terrible.
Matt: the real queen.
Me: *gasp* Beyonce????
Matt: Why do I bother?
Me: ….wonder if Jay-Z has it too…
Matt *heavy sigh*
My corner of the woods! I live right next door to Fall River in Somerset, MA. The Lizzie Borden House is great and would love to have you visit!
OMG! This is the type of conversation that makes me laugh until I pee!!! It’s just like the scenario when you told Victor that Jesus was a zombie. Hilarious! Thank you for posting this! I needed it so very bad! Love you!
Ooooo, come to Kansas! We have the Bloody Benders family! Although, I don’t think you would see anything but farmland. I’ll have to look into that myself. Anyway, if you’ve never read about them, they would be totally up your alley!
Hilarious! I love your books! I actually laughed really loud at my desk. (I’m at work). It always happens when I read something of yours! I love you! Please continue to make us all laugh until we pee our pants!!!
My Hubcap is a relation of Lizzy Borden.
I have been there, with confusing geometry and geography–and I aced both those and my English classes!! Words are hard, especially in English. I tell the kids I teach ESL to that English is hard, it’s okay to mix things up all the time.
Funniest thing I’ve read in ages. Thank you.
Oh! Also, come to St. Louis, we have the exorcist house! And lots of famous haunted places here. Plus an aquarium, and a very fun City Museum.
AND here we have it: further proof that high school is completely unnecessary for a successful future. Jenny, you’re proving my 16YO daughter right, and if you keep it up, I’m going to drop the surly teen on your doorstep and run away. 😜
Actually, I know your trademark is quirky. But do go to California. Go to San Diego (NOT SAN FRANCISCO). I grew up there as a kid and then revisited there when I found out I had a half sister living there. IMAGINE THAT! The zoo is incredible. The safari zoo is incredible too. La Jolla is beautiful though it stinks because of the sea lions. Yes, I said sea lions and they are noisy and fun to watch. I used to fear San Diego because of the traffic but now traffic here in DFW is just as bad. So go! Take you daughter to visit the West Coast with the palm trees and the terra cotta roofs. The food is fresh but expensive. The weather is beautiful. I absolutely love that place but can’t afford to live there. 🙂
Salem of the Massachusetts would love a visit, and I would also offer my meager directioning skills. We do still have witches, and history, and another set of wrongfully accused folk… and Fall River is not all that faraway, comparatively, and, oh, Victor, the Boston aquarium is home the the ginormous ocean tank so you wouldn’t be missing out either!
Jenny,
The Lizzie Borden house is operated as a B&B and you can spend the night there. https://lizzie-borden.com/
Also, the house she bought after her acquittal is currently for sale if you and Hailey want a vacation home here in Massachusetts. (I suspect Victor won’t be into it.) https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/306-French-St-Fall-River-MA-02720/55984161_zpid/
Bonus, possibly haunted!
Happy travels! 👻
I’m laughing so hard! But I vote you see both the freaky murder house and the Monterey aquarium. I went to the aquarium 10 years ago and really thought it was great conservation and education work.
OMG. I laughed my poor lungs out. This sounds too fun. Also don’t even trip I did take geography class and I can’t be bothered to learn the names of Streets where I walk everyday for almost 13 years.
If it makes you feel better, for the first 18 years of my life, I thought I grew up on the Asian side of Istanbul, when in fact, I lived on the European side. We would just say we’re going to the “other side” when visiting friends and family across the bridge and I just assumed that meant Europe.
Maybe I’ve missed the relevant info but at least I am quite happy that Your husband Victor seems to have recovered successfully from Covid, doesn’t he? Congratulations! Because, You, Jenny, are usually hilarious already on Your own but Your interactions with Your male counterpart usually add so much surplus humour to Your narrations. So i do wish You all a very nice weekend and good health (sorry for eventual mistakes as English isn’t my first language). All the best to You all! 🙂
My husband was talking about the treaty of VerSally’s the other day, so I feel Victor’s pain on this one. It took me a while, but he meant Versailles. And, tell Victor that I TOTALLY want to spend a weekend in Lizzie Borden’s house AND go to where the Salem witch trials were! (Massachusetts or Oregon, don’t care)
Yes! Come visit Massachusetts and see both Salem and the Lizzie Borden House. We would love to have you.
I have a friend from college who believed that Pearl Harbor happened in Boston. (And she is from New Hampshire. Next state over). So there’s that.
Go to Massachusetts and see the Lizzie Borden house, and Sturbridge Village, and the then check out Boston, Cape Cod and the Whydah Pirate Museum and Edward Gorey House and especially the wild and wonderful Provincetown, rent bikes and try out the shoreline bike trails and those in Nickerson State Park where you can swim in a kettle pond, then take a ferry over to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, and then check out these weird and wonderful attractions in the state of Massachusetts
https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/massachusetts/places#geo-places-row-3
And also
https://www.roadsideamerica.com/location/ma/all
If you go just before schools let out in June for summer it will be more fun and less crowded. There are lots of little places you can chill out and relax and enjoy a great casual meal.
You will all love it and it couldn’t be any more uniquely different from Arizona and California.
Years ago we were on a sailing trip…my husband Jeff had made huge plans of where to sail and go each day…he’d ask me if I wanted to stop anywhere. “No…you decide.” Then when I saw we were sailing by Fall River I told him I wanted to stop and see the Lizzie Borden House. It messed up the next 2 days for us…he was not happy BUT HE DID IT. We pulled up, and he stayed on the boat while I went to see it. The Borden house is a B&B, or was, and you could sleep in Lizzie’s room OR the rooms where the father and stepmother met their demise. and they served you cookies shaped like axes. I wanted to spend the night but that was going too far for Jeff who said no, alas. Wherever you go will be a blast!
This made my day! Thank you for the laugh!!
Um pretty please with sugar on top come stay at the axe murder house in Villisca Iowa because I’ve always stay there. You can invite me along and all of our dreams can come true. Well except maybe Victor’s. But seriously I’ve heard the best things about this house. Like ghostly stuff happens to everyone who stays there. A local radio station interviewed the owner of the house in October and it made me want to go even more. It’s not that far from me. Pleeeaaasseee let’s do it!
We stayed in Fall River in 1992 — on our *honeymoon*.
Opted out of the Lizzie Borden house tour, seeing as how we were all hopped up on wedding hormones and such and didn’t want to kill the buzz (pun intended).
Still married!
Oh there are TONS of people who would want to spend the night there. How would they be operating an overnight rental place otherwise? Also, at $225 a night for two people or $1500 for the whole house, I’d better be tucked in my some mfing ghosts. 👻
If one faces the map at school, East is right and West is left. North is up and South is down. I live in Texas, which I always thought was the deep South, considering how long we are and our pointy end points to Mexico. I was wrong.
Just wanted to say to commenter #7, Anonymous, that “Adderall Only Does So Much” is now the official title of the memoir I will never actually write. Because, you know…
You can book a haunted tour (not my website):
https://usghostadventures.com/
Don’t feel bad. I didn’t have to take geography, either. I was in a “gifted” program, and was pulled from regular classes to learn important stuff. Like Architecture, How to Stage a Theatrical Production, Slight of Hand Illusions, and, oddly enough how Geometry works whilst playing Billiards, Bocce, Darts, and Bowling.
Fall River, MA also has this amazing pierogi restaurant: http://www.pattispierogis.com/
LOL!!!!
I have NEVER related to a post more in my life. Thank You!!!
I’ve been to the MBA exactly once and I want to live there for the rest of my life. Also, I put the MBA shark cam web on my big screen in my workplace every Friday. (I work in a public middle school library)
A hilarious geography lesson!
Boston also has haunted places and nighttime graveyard tours by bus. And a really nice aquarium.
Have you ever gone on the Haunted San Antonio tour downtown? It’s amazing to find out so many buildings downtown are haunted!
The best thing to do about weevil infestations is to ignore them and never mention them again. See no weevil, hear no weevil, speak no weevil.
Don’t worry about it. You had a fabulous conversation. There’s something good about that!
My friend and her daughter slept at the Borden house! And they go to Salem all the time…. I have cool friends.
I love this so much, I laughed so hard I was crying hahahaha
My husband and I went to Salem for Halloween a few years ago, and stopped in Falls River on the way back home. The Lizzie Borden house is a must see, the tour and the tour guides were excellent, and the house has been remolded to appear as it had when the murders occurred.
If you get lost trying to get to Idaho and Massachusetts and wind up halfway between them, maybe go south a little and you’ll end up in Iowa anyway? We don’t have Lizzie Borden but there is a pretty cool castley mansion thing in Des Moines called Salisbury House. They also sell really good hand lotion, for some reason.
Omg I totally needed this laugh today! This is awesome. I love it. Also, does Victor even know you? Of *course* you want to spend a weekend in a murder house! And I’m betting plenty of people who read this blog would love to as well.
The Villisca Axe Murder House here in Iowa is totally creepy and fun to poke around. I’ve been there a couple times and I would totally go back.
OK, if you come to Massachusetts, I will not only show you around the Boston area (although you’ll have to drive, as I don’t even know how), but I’ll make you all kinds of yummy gluten-free baked goods to boot. The North End! Old cemetaries! Old churches! The grave of the woman who was allegedly the model for Hester Prynne, although I’m pretty sure the A on her tombstone is more of an armorial symbol than anything else! Lots of cool museums in The Fenway! And huge-ass Canada geese who crap all over the damn place and sometimes chase people on the lawn of the Museum of Fine Art! Also, the first place where an actual American flag was flown is within walking distance of my apartment! And hey, if all else fails, you can always hang out at my place and love on my big brown polydactyl tabby cat Romeo, eh?
This made me laugh way too hard 😂
I have friends who bought the HH Holmes murder house in Irvington, Indianapolis, IN and they rent it out as a vacation house for those interested in HH Holmes and the murders. Yes, Victor, murder houses and staying in them IS A THING.
I doubted myself halfway through the conversation but I’ve listened to enough true crime podcasts to be pretty sure you need to head way east. Fecking weevils. https://possumscatsthingsgnawingatme.wordpress.com/2022/02/15/i-just-wanted-a-nap/
I live in California and am a member of the Monterey Bay Aquarium! Maybe I can persuade you by telling you the jellyfish exhibit is amazeballs and some severe jellyfish stings can kill you???
Ok, but if you come west, you could fly into San Jose, go to the Winchester mystery House, which I swear is haunted and I say this as a former tour guide (when I was in high school), it’s big and it’s weird/cool too. There is a séance room, just saying. Then drive over the mountains to the boardwalk at Santa Cruz where you can ride a 1924 wooden roller coaster overlooking the ocean. However, on the way in the mountains you can stop at henry Cowell State Park and see amazing giant redwoods (think Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Hitchcock lived in these mountains), just the smell of the redwoods is wonderful, ride on a 1800s steam locomotive train if you want through those redwoods, go to the creepy mystery spot, or a swing by the Bigfoot museum. None of this is very far because it’s only 35 minutes from the mystery house over to the beach in Santa Cruz (and 1.5 hrs drive from the mystery house to Monterey). Ymmv w traffic. After that you can drive down the coast, through Castroville where Marilyn Monroe was the first artichoke queen, then land in Steinbeck country a.k.a. Monterey. At the Monterey Bay aquarium you can pet starfish (everything is very hands on) and absolutely delight at all of the otters playing in the ocean from their deck. If you walk on the beach sometimes they will play in the waves with you. After that, you should totally take the touristy “17 mile drive”, because you’ll see the most beautiful coastline in all of California. No lie. Then since you’re practically there, hit Carmel where the whole town is built to look like fairies live there. Oh, and not to be left out we’ve got murder houses here in California too, lol. And no snow.
Don’t tell Victor, at one point the Lizzie Borden house/museum was for sale. I saw the listing a year or so ago. Bookstore owner, Murder House B&B owner…. Don’t you just love the look of that on a business card????
I had Geometry in school…but never Geography….Now at my advanced age, I can find most of the states on a map. Okay, except those square ones in the middle and all those little silly ones in the top right….. Well I can find them all if they are labeled properly. And how is it a map if they aren’t marked?????
I can’t tell you how much I laughed over this post! It’s totally me! I want to print it off and carry it around in my pocket so that whenever I need a boost or a pick me up I can pull it out and read it. Like when you’re in line at the post office, then you laugh out loud and everyone thinks you are crazy and they leave the line! Winner!
You can go to Massachusetts, do the Lizzie Borden house, Salem, Provincetown (aside from fabulous arts also haunted), and still do the New England Aquarium in Boston then eat seafood right outside because that’s pretty much the only type of restaurant there is and it will feel like you murdered the fish you just admired. Then everyone will be happy. Except the fish.
This might not be as to-the-point for anyone not raised in a mountainous state, but a prof. at university said, back in the day, we should all take geology so we wouldn’t take everything for granite. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what he was teaching. But I can almost always recognize granite — as well as things that are NOT granite.
Just to further confuse you, the Salem Witch Trials actually took place in what is now Danvers MA (it was called Salem Village in the 1600s). But I second all the recommendations to visit MA!
Massachusetts is definitely on the right. And I wondered for years if my state’s capitol was where the witch trials were (yes, I’m from Oregon).
I only really know where states are if I’ve been to them for longer than 8 hours. Same goes for countries. Obviously the education system failed me as well. No geo… classes required. But I can drive around my home town without a GPS – and not get lost, most of the time.
Though this might seem boasting but it’s not meant that way: In my eighth grade North America was one of the subjects of geography. And in one of the tests we pupils were given a blank map of North America which we had to fill out: All of Your US states and their capitals, the 50 biggest rivers, the biggest mountains, the 50 biggest cities if not already one of the capitals. And the same for Canada and Mexico as well … And except for 2 all the other 31 of my classmates scored 100% correct in this test (some so called totally normal gymnasium in the early eighties in Germany). And we had Geometry and Analysis as well … But of course today it would be completely impossible for me to do the same test. And my fluency in Latin reached by the end of school too has gone away of course. But at least we DID learn that the world consists of a lot of more than our own country. The next year Asia and Africa where the subjects of geography … Germany and Europe were in sixth and seventh grade … It is totally possible to do some learnring though one might ask as well what I or we did then with all this knowledge
Do you ever listen to the “Morbid” podcast? They live in Massachusetts. I feel like if you got together, extreme awesomeness would blossom.
I Love this 😂. I’ m also as good as you in the mathemati…no wait geometri..no, well what ever. But I also can’t remember witch one is Eest and witch West, so I use left and right: in the left on Finland or right of Finland. 😄Works as long as the other person has theme right …
I wish Hailey could write a book. I all ready have a name for it: What really happend when we pretendet it never happend. Sorry misspellings.
Even though I try to be good at Geography I’m still always confused by all the states in the middle! But I never get the orange pie in Trivial Pursuit! Sports? Really? Not a chance. My ADHD likes Geography facts, but hates team sports apparently!
My parents come from Fall River. When my grandfather was a kid, he helped out the milkman, and she gave him a tip for delivering her milk. When I was a kid, we visited the Lizzie Borden Museum, which was in her house, and the staff was so nice. They let us study original documents and letters while sitting in her actual rooms.
My husband is from the midwest and always sighs hard when I tell him I couldn’t point out Illinois on a map. Everything is just so jumbled and close together up there! 😉
I too recently had a debate with my math advanced offspring and hubby; I tried to convince them I was intuitive with my geography skills…meant to say Geometry. Kind of took the wind out of my sails.
I totally vote for Monterey. The aquarium is awesome and the Monarch butterflies overwinter there.
California has the Winchester Manchester. Story is fascinating
Staying in an ax murder house sounds like an excellent vacation idea. Even if nothing strange happened during the visit it would still make an excellent story.
You need thishttps://www.raygunsite.com/collections/other-states/products/idawahio-1
And also, the Salem Witch Trials actually occurred in nearby Danvers, Massachusetts. Guess history thought Salem had better branding….
If you come to New England, come down to Connecticut and let me take you 3 through the house that I swear inspired the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler!
Lizzie Borden House is awesome! You should go the first weekend in August. They do anniversary things. Also, you can totally lay on the reproduction couch and pretend to be dead for a picture. Not that my sister and I ever did that. Because that would be creepy and weird. But you can do it. If you want to.
Thank you for telling me that depression lies. I think that every time I need to. That this isn’t the real me. And it will go away, this time, when I restart taking the right medicine again. Hate my insurance, do not hate myself
Keep going .. very cool content.
Holy shit I think this may be my favorite conversation you’ve ever posted, and also you would fit right in with my friends and I. Or my kids and I.
Lizzie Borden’s house is located in Massachusetts, so if you plan on going on vacation there, check out https://www.corporatehousingbyowner.com/ to book a house.