Category Archives: no i really do love ohio

Why Life is So Great Right Now

Posted by plumpdumpling on July 30, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Filed under creepy boyfriend obsession, everyone's married but katie, living in new york sucks so hard, no i really do love ohio
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1) Last weekend, I was out all afternoon on the hottest day of the year, and Kamran texted me at one point to say that he thought the air conditioner had stopped working. I arrived at his apartment later with a couple of iced coffees just to make fun of him and his overactive imagination, but no, there was definitely warm air coming out of his vent. We spent the remainder of the night sitting perfectly still on the couch, afraid that moving would allow the sweat rivers dammed in our hair to unleash on our foreheads. It. Was. Miserable.

Way wore than the night we lost power in my apartment, because Kamran lives in a studio with windows on only one side of the room, so there’s no way to create a cross breeze unless you open the door. And I wouldn’t have been entirely opposed to propping the door if New Yorkers weren’t so infamously curious about other people’s habitats; you know every single person who walked by would’ve stopped dead to watch us gnawing on ice as we watched Manhunter.

I texted my best friend, Tracey, about it, and she suggested I fly to Ohio and enjoy her central air. I also considered going back to my own apartment, figuring that a single wall unit for all 900 square feet was better than nothing, but I didn’t want to leave Kamran alone with his take-home law school exams. We went to bed around midnight, but Kamran woke up at 2 a.m. feeling like he was having trouble breathing and thinking we’d need to go to a hotel, which made me EXCITED. But then he remembered a box fan hidden in the back of one of his closets and aimed it right at us so we could at least not die during the night.

Two days later–after his exams were all finished, of course–his landlord graciously had a guy come and install a brand new unit with a timer and remote control so we never have to leave the couch again.


2) You may think of me as some huge important chef thanks to my starring role in Julie & Julia and my wildly popular food blog, but the truth is that about the most I do is heat up some hotdogs for breakfast in Kamran’s convection oven. But his oven went out in March, and we kind of didn’t bother to do anything about it, which means I’ve been heating up my hotdogs in skillets.

Skillets.

But early this week, when the new air conditioner went in, the landlord also sent him a new microwave. A huge one, with a light underneath to illuminate the stovetop, and a vent on top to keep the apartment from smelling like pigparts.


3) Last night, I met Kamran to go shopping for toilet paper (romantic!), and as we were leaving Duane Reade (a pharmacy that got its start in NYC at the corner of Duane Street and Reade Street–clever!), I realized that it was my chance to buy my favourite generic lipgloss, which I’ve been without for several months now but have been too lazy to walk an extra block to the Duane Reade for because the CVS near his house is so much nicer. I forget sometimes that the littlest things can make such a huge difference to my happiness.


4) I’m in Ohio for the weekend for my stepsister’s wedding! This means I’m the only one of the five of us kids who isn’t married. Last time I was home, I told my grandmother that Kamran and I are going to California to visit his parents early next month, and she said, “Oooooh, are you going to pin him down while you’re there?” And I said, “Um, haven’t I done that already? We’ve been together almost four years now. The only thing we haven’t done is move in together.” She didn’t like that.



And you?

4th of July in Ohio (Featuring Bethany!)

Posted by plumpdumpling on July 21, 2010 – 2:45 pm
Filed under holidays don't suck for me, no i really do love ohio
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I’m notoriously bad about doing really exciting things and never posting about them, but luckily, I have my cousin to write me e-mails that say things like, “When you’re expecting to STAR in a WORLD-FAMOUS BLOG on the INTERNET, it’s tough to be patient.” This is for her:


Tracey shows off a sparkler amidst a backdrop of our matching Mmmerica! shirts with a flag made out of bacon and waffles.


Crazy Aunt Dort™ dishes up a slice of her famous chocolate cake and homemade ice cream in her deliciously 1970s kitchen.


Off-center fireworks shot posing as art


My cousin, Bethany, gets her punishment for coming in last at our game of croquet.


My cousin Alex displays his “muscles” while playing Cornhole with his dad.


A view of my childhood home from my grandparents’ backyard


Despite their stinkiness, dogs totally redeem themselves by looking forward to seeing you way too much.


Despite her stinkiness, Bethany totally redeems herself by talking her mom into committing heinous acts like this.

Like I said . . . Really. Exciting. Things.

Truly the Heart of It All

Posted by plumpdumpling on July 12, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Filed under no i really do love ohio
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Last night, Kamran and I were walking down his hallway after putting the laundry in downstairs, and I said, “It smells like Johnny Marzetti up here!”

And then I was like, “Whoooooooa.” Because I haven’t said the words Johnny Marzetti in probably 16 years, which was the last time I ate an elementary school lunch. And I certainly haven’t thought about it since then, because I didn’t even like it at the time.

Kamran Wikipediaed it for me, and the entry says:

Johnny Marzetti is a baked pasta dish, or casserole, consisting of noodles, tomato sauce, ground beef, and cheese. Other ingredients and seasonings may be added to adjust the taste. The dish originated in Columbus, Ohio, at the Marzetti restaurant, and spread to other parts of the United States as variations of the recipe were published in magazines and cookbooks during the mid-20th century. The dish is still served in Ohio, especially at social gatherings and in school lunchrooms.

How great is that?! It started in Ohio and is still served there! Things like this fill me with such sentimental feelings for Ohio. I know that other states have culture that’s specific to them, but Ohio’s seems so much better to me: Euchre (which is supposedly from Pennsylvania but is only played by Ohioans), Cornhenge, Marilyn Manson, the U.S.’s first traffic light (in my hometown!), the world’s largest horseshoe crab, Bessie the Lake Erie Monster and now, Johnny Marzetti.

Had you heard of it?

Ohio Weekend Photodump!

Posted by plumpdumpling on May 25, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, everyone's married but katie, no i really do love ohio, super furry animals
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My second-cousin Keith got an elbow to the stomach from his new bride, Rachael. Their wedding photographer only seemed to be taking super-serious photos, so I felt self-righteous about this one.


But then Keith made the photographer let the groomsmen pose for this picture, and all was right with the world again.


My cousin, Bethany, and my sister, Joanie, were in attendance and looking as stunning/ridiculous as ever.


I attempted to teach my 85-year-old great-uncle to use the laptop I bought him while my best friend, Tracey explained the Internet to my great-aunt:

Tracey: You can use Google to search for anything!
Crazy Aunt Dorothy: Oh, we don’t want that.
Tracey: It’s just a website you go to if you want to look something up.
Crazy Aunt Dorothy: We don’t really need the Internet. Just take us to that Circleville Pumpkin Show website.
Tracey: Uhh . . .


Tracey took me to a movie at the indie theatre in Columbus, the Drexel, and the ceiling fan vent looked like giant-sized art to us. But maybe that’s because it was midnight and we were running on five hours of sleep.


Tracey’s cat is a wild animal. I go home to visit pets as much as people these days because I like her cats so much. Except when I wake up on her couch in the middle of the night to see one of them flying over my head with his claws outstretched as he jumps from armrest to armrest.

I also went to an 80s dance party, ate the Splenda cheesecake at Cheesecake Factory for the first time, visited my friend Katie and was forced to hold her six-day-old baby (Evelyn) but did not drop her, went to visit my cousin Ethan and his six-day-old baby (Kaydence) and used my newfound not-dropping-baby skills to also hold her, celebrated my sister’s birthday with our parents and her husband, and explained to my parents that the smoke monster in “Lost” makes the same sound that a taxicab’s meter does.

I really, really love going home.

When I Was Young in the Mountains: Ett Family Outhouse Edition

Posted by plumpdumpling on April 23, 2010 – 3:30 pm
Filed under no i really do love ohio, too much information
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When I was growing up in Ohio, our little farmhouse had an outhouse. We didn’t use it, of course, but we would paint it when it started chipping, knock the wasp’s nests off of it when they began to show up in the summers, and peer curiously into its butt-size seat hole when we’d use it for concealment in games of Hide & Seek.

My mom used to tell my sister and me about the days just after she and my dad got married in the 70s, before they built a bathroom onto our house. The two of them actually did use the outhouse as if it was a normal toilet back then and would just drive up the road to my grandparents’ house to shower every morning. Sometimes when my mom would have a hard time pushing her poop out–and I can tell you this because she’s dead now and likely won’t be able to do anything about it–my dad would bring a glass of hot water or milk to the outhouse in the middle of the night to help her out.

Can you imagine this? It’s the dead of winter, the ground is covered in snow, and you have to trek out across the yard in your parka to get to the bathroom. And once you’re there, you have to sit in this unheated little wooden room, shivering and still half-asleep.

AMAZING! And, you know, my parents only did it for a year, I think, which is crazy enough. But I wondered to myself today: who lived in our farmhouse before us, and what the hell were they doing without a bathroom?

Fetuses are Still Freaky

Posted by plumpdumpling on March 25, 2010 – 3:30 pm
Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, no i really do love ohio
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Barefoot Katie with Maria – 9/21/08

My second-best friend back in Ohio, Katie, is expecting her second baby in 7 weeks. Considering that I like her firstborn more than most adults, which is really saying something for a girl with an I ♥ Abortions t-shirt, I’m pretty pumped about the idea of another one running around.

Do not take this to mean I’m getting soft.

Why Yesterday was the Best

Posted by plumpdumpling on December 30, 2009 – 12:00 pm
Filed under a taste for tv, no i really do love ohio
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1) I spent the night with my best friend, Tracey, as I will do nine out of the thirteen days I’m in Ohio, and as she was dropping me off at my parents’ house yesterday morning, one local radio station played Soundgarden’s “Blow Up the Outside World”, and another played Grant Lee Buffalo’s “Truly, Truly” after it, and we affirmed our dedication to 90s music despite the overall concensus that it sucks.

2) While getting ready to go to my great-aunt’s house to decorate a gingerbread house with my cousins, I happened to turn on “Degrassi” to celebrate the fact that my parents have cable for the first time in my entire life, and it was the episode where J.T. gets stabbed! Which I had never seen before! It was meant to be.

3) I came home from my great-aunt’s house to find my dad, one of his friends, and my step-sister’s future husband using a wooden board in the backyard for target practice. I was surprised to find that I thought it was kind of cool.

4) My parents drove me two towns over to buy New Super Mario Bros. for Wii as my final Christmas gift, and the guy who checked us out at this tiny gaming store that probably sees ten customers a day told me, “Just so you know, this game is awesome.” I didn’t tell him that my co-workers Jeff and Steve stayed late at work with me every night the week before vacation so we could beat it on the office Wii before I left for Ohio.

5) My parents and I watched Julie & Julia, and then when they went to bed, I found an episode of “The Office” on. It was the one where Jim tells Pam he loves her at the office casino night and then kisses her. I am a sap and won’t apologize.

Santa Claws

Posted by plumpdumpling on December 15, 2009 – 4:05 pm
Filed under holidays don't suck for me, no i really do love ohio
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My friend Roy sent me a link to Sketchy Santas yesterday, and while I appreciate their offerings, I think I have a photo of the sketchiest Santa of all:

Tracey may be smiling here, but not ten seconds before, she was crying out in horror from her car at this giant red-faced Santa. The thing has been hanging outside of my Crazy Great-Aunt Dorothy’s house every Christmas for as long as I can remember. The smashed nose is a recent addition, but the duct tape holding it up is not.

We’re thinking it may have been used as anti-American Indian propaganda back in the day. No?

Circleville Pumpkin Show 2009

Posted by plumpdumpling on November 20, 2009 – 11:35 am
Filed under no i really do love ohio
Tagged as

I went home to Ohio last month for

which is a five-day street fair in a town ten minutes away from where I grew up, beloved by the world and chock full of country charm such as


the belief that pumpkin-related foods are entertainment,


so many effin’ pumpkin displays it makes the pie center of your brain kick into triple overdrive,


inappropriate signage,


and so much food that you start to force feed it to your family pets just to get rid of all the treats you bring home with you.

All of our eatin’ is cataloged here at donuts4dinner.com, because you non-food-loving types don’t deserve to get to see photos of deep-fried peanut butter.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor

Posted by plumpdumpling on November 11, 2009 – 11:00 am
Filed under living in new york sucks so hard, no i really do love ohio
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Last week’s New York magazine had the most interesting article about a co-housing community trying to plant roots in Brooklyn. The idea is that they’ll buy an abandoned factory or warehouse, fit it with something like 30 apartments, and include huge common areas where people can gather. They’ll make all decisions as a community, eat dinner together, keep their apartment doors open, and basically be family to each other in a city where people pride themselves on anonymity.

I love the idea. I’m now dying to be a part of it and would be in a second if I had the $500k for one of their apartments. I talk daily about how much I miss the way people say hello to everyone they pass in my hometown in Ohio, the way you have to respect and care for each other when you know each other’s fathers and brothers and were taught by each other’s grandmothers in elementary school. When you pass different people every day and your neighbor literally runs into his apartment to avoid having to exchange pleasantries with you, it’s much easier to feel separate and to be selfish and rude. Imagine how many fewer people I’d have to kick in the balls on the subway if we all knew each other personally and didn’t assume our problems were worse and ourselves more deserving of a comfortable spot on the train. It’d be like living in a college dorm room all over again, except with children and puppies.

Yet everyone else I’ve talked to seems to think this is a terrible idea. You?

Nom Nom Nom

Posted by plumpdumpling on October 15, 2009 – 11:45 am
Filed under no i really do love ohio
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I mean, I’m the last person to judge a person’s parenting skills, but maybe your baby shouldn’t be teething on the dishwasher.

Unless I can take pictures.

A Post Basically Posted for the Sake of Fast Food

Posted by plumpdumpling on September 9, 2009 – 7:04 pm
Filed under no i really do love ohio
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Here’s a hugely long rundown of my trip to visit the fam in Ohio, which is actually very brief if you consider everything I did:

Wednesday: My best friend, Tracey picked me up at the airport at 10 p.m. after my first on-time flight all year. After a stop at McDonald’s (YES!), we went back to her apartment to watch all of the reality TV on her DVR until, you know, 5 a.m.

Thursday: We woke up just in time to get lunch at Dairy Queen (YES!), where I sang along with every country song I remembered from my childhood growin’ up on the farm. We went shopping at Walmart (YES!) for Tracey’s parents and spent some time at their house in our hometown, using phrases like “this milk smells blinky” and admiring their new window trim. After picking up dinner at Arby’s (YES!), we visited Tracey’s friend Kim to admire her new house and watch “Project Runway” before our tradition of going to Ladies 80s at a local bar. We danced until 2 a.m., sat on the patio and reminisced about high school until 3 a.m., and then let the gays hump us until 4 a.m., at which time the place closed, and we had to go to Steak’n'Shake (YES!).

Friday: We woke up moments before noon and decided to see Julie & Julia at 12:50. I was desperate for Wendy’s new boneless buffalo wings and a Twisted Frosty, so we rushed inside and used our fatty skills to scarf down our food in mere moments. After the movie, Tracey drove me twenty whole minutes from her apartment to my parents’ house, where we saw my stepsister’s new Mastiff puppy, because she lives two houses away from my parents with her boyfriend and his 11-year-old twin girls. And who lives in the house in between? One of my stepbrothers, his wife, and their new baby. How country is that? My parents took us to Bob Evans (YES!) for dinner, and then Tracey and I went to a deck party at our high school friend Katie’s house. That’s right; they had a party for their new deck. We left at midnight and went to Momo2, an Asian hangout with karaoke, bowling, a lounge, snacks, and smoothies. We got a private karaoke room for two and literally sang everything we knew from the song book. The cashier had told us they might close before 3 a.m. if it was dead and joked that he wouldn’t forget about us, but at 3:06, we left our room and found all the lights in the place on, everything shut down, and our cashier with a very surprised look on his face.

Saturday: We had Dairy Queen again for lunch, because we think it’s hot to order frozen hot chocolate: not only is it not on the menu, but it seems to only be available in Ohio. Tracey drove me to my parents’ house in the afternoon for my dad’s birthday celebration, which involved homemade carrot cake courtesy of my stepmom and homemade ice cream courtesy of my dad. My sister came up from Kentucky, and we spent the night watching television shows about kidnapping, because there’s nothing else to do in the country.

Sunday: I went to church with my parents and sister, where we saw my crazy great-aunt Dorothy. Before I told her anything about my plans for the day, she said, “It’s a shame you can’t come over this afternoon–say about 1:30 or 2–because your cousins are going to be there.” I just nodded like, “Yeah, it’s a real shame.” But then at the end of the service, she told my sister and me that she’d see us another day, and my sister said, “Or maybe today!” So then she got all overly-excited and kept saying, “Okay, see you later today! You can come over any time! I’ll see you today! Oh, girls! I’ll see you later!” Godloveher. That night, Tracey and her husband picked me up at home and took me to Olive Garden (YES YES!), which exists in NYC but feels icky and touristy here. We went back to Tracey and Dan’s and watched the end of “Lost” season 5, which means I’m officially caught up with the series OMG.

Monday: We met our friend Katie for lunch at Wendy’s with her husband and baby and learned that adult conversation ceases once a baby exists, but it’s an awfully cute baby. Tracey and I spent the afternoon watching Adventureland, which was just as good the second time and is seriously a great movie–absolutely in my top ten–and it’s ridiculous that it’s not more popular, although of course I secretly enjoy that it’s not. I went home for dinner with my parents, which was supposed to be at a local pizza place we love but ended up being at O’Charley’s (YES!). My parents and I spent the entire meal fighting about public healthcare, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and whether or not there’s an impending civil war. My stepmom brought up death panels, I snapped at her for believing that nonsense, and she said she’s glad I’m not the one taking care of her when she’s old. It was a great way for us to end my time at home together, obviously. They dropped me off at Tracey’s, and she and I spent the next two hours talking about politics, inheritances, and how parental sickness really tears siblings apart. We finished the conversation while getting ice cream at our favourite place, Graeter’s, and then went back to her apartment to watch Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, which suuuuuucked just like I thought it would, and Welcome to the Dollhouse, which didn’t.

Tuesday: Tracey took me to Dairy Queen one last time before dropping me off at the airport. Coming back to the city no longer feels weird to me, but going home feels just as good.

Latez

Posted by plumpdumpling on September 2, 2009 – 9:18 am
Filed under no i really do love ohio
Tagged as

I’m leaving for Ohio tonight for an entire week of chain restaurant dining without guilt, Harmony Korine marathons (we’ve only ever seen Kids and Gummo OMG), and . . . okay, probably nothing else. But Ohio is still totally fun, I swear!

I mean, only in Ohio do high school notes between best friends such as this one happen:

Katie: Is he hot or what?
Tracey: His value went up even more when he said “llama”.

And only in Ohio do penny horses operate themselves at Meijer while Tracey and Katie creepily film them:

See you in a week! (And don’t write anything important in your blogs between now and then, thanks.)

There’s No One for Me in Arkansas

Posted by plumpdumpling on September 1, 2009 – 6:13 pm
Filed under no i really do love ohio
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As I’ve told you before, I’m a member of the OkCupid dating site so I can threaten Kamran with how many boys are e-mailing me despite my “in a relationship” status every time some hot law school co-ed starts talking mergers and acquisitions with him.

Today, they sent me this:

The entire area that I grew up in and love? WORST.

Where are all of the tractor-drivin’, homosexual-lovin’ Midwesterners?

Sody Pop

Posted by plumpdumpling on August 18, 2009 – 12:41 pm
Filed under living in new york sucks so hard, no i really do love ohio
Tagged as ,

I never want to be one of those people who thinks she’s better than the place she came from. I want to always think Columbus and the village (seriously, village) where I was raised in Ohio are unbeatable.

For the longest time, I fought the word soda. I was raised on pop, and soda sounded funny to me every time I heard it used. No matter how many times people told me I gave myself away as a Midwesterner, I refused to switch. Why should I feel bad about where I’m from?

But after about a year of living here, I found myself saying soda automatically. And when I went home to visit and my best friend said pop to me, I accidentally made fun of her without even realizing what it meant for my heritage.

Seriously, though, this picture from my last trip home still cracks me up:

Not only does it say pop, but it only costs 35¢! How adorable, right?

I’m still not buying into other NYCisms like stand ON line (instead of IN line) or call OUT sick (instead of IN sick), though. I still have some standards.

(Also.)

Take Somebody to Applebee’s, and Give Them Hot Wings

Posted by plumpdumpling on August 12, 2009 – 8:55 am
Filed under it's fun to be fat, no i really do love ohio
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Although I absolutely can’t get behind Charlyne Yi’s weak chin, there’s one reason I’ll be seeing the movie Paper Heart, and it’s this clip from the trailer:

I am a hot wing fiend. But only boneless wings. And only the ones at Applebee’s, really. Sitting in a booth with my best friend in Ohio during Applebee’s happy hour, when a basket of wings will run you $3.50, is my idea of heaven. I once knew someone who worked at Applebee’s, and when I asked him if he could get me a bottle of the buffalo sauce, he told me it comes in a 20-pound bag. And while that should be disgusting, it only made me love it all the more.

However, there’s one thing that may keep me from ever eating a buffalo wing again, and it’s these photos of my friends Jack and Jeff from our recent outing to Leisure Time Bowl. This should not in any way dissuade you from going to Leisure Time, though it may dissuade you from keeping your lunch down:

Poop of Love

Posted by plumpdumpling on June 30, 2009 – 5:17 pm
Filed under creepy boyfriend obsession, no i really do love ohio
Tagged as ,

Kamran and I get a little too excited when we jinx:

And now I’m going to Ohio to see the 4th of July fireworks!, because inexplicably, New York fireworks suck. And these things matter.

BFFs in o-HI-o

Posted by plumpdumpling on June 5, 2009 – 2:12 pm
Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, no i really do love ohio
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One of my writing professors (and a member of my senior thesis panel), Michelle Herman, wrote this really excellent book called The Middle of Everything that’s supposed to be about motherhood but is actually about best friends and how terrible life is when you don’t have one. It’s been years since I read it, but I thought about it last weekend while I was home in Ohio visiting my family and my best friend, Tracey.

When I moved away to New York without really so much as asking her what she thought of the idea, she should’ve given me up. If I’d been the one left behind for some stupid city she’d visited only twice where she only knew one person and didn’t have a job waiting for her, I first would’ve cried my eyes out and second would’ve deleted her number from my cellphone. Instead, Tracey sent me postcards and packages and called me and let me call her eight times a day all through that first year when I was so poor I could only visit, like, once.

Now that I’m toooootally rich and visit all the time, we pretty much spend all of our minutes together playing with her cats, watching TV marathons, visiting the one high school friend we still care about (inflammatory!), and eating all of the chain restaurant food you can’t get in NYC. Which is how it should be with best friends.

Highlights from my very short trip this weekend include trying on the tiniest purple fur vest at Forever 21 on our way into the premiere of Up:

and making this video that will only be awesome to us and our friend Eric Leath:

Imagine life without that.

The Week of Tracey’s Wedding Minus the Wedding Itself

Posted by plumpdumpling on March 25, 2009 – 2:13 pm
Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, everyone's married but katie, no i really do love ohio
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Before I get into all the to-do surrounding my best friend Tracey’s wedding, allow me to showcase the other awesomeness that occurred during my five-day trip back home to Ohio.

After picking me up at the airport on Tuesday night as is tradition, Tracey whisked me back to her apartment to see if three months of working out every day and eating only half as many quesadillas as I would’ve liked made me lose the FIVE INCHES I needed to in order to fit into the lovely black satin and tulle bridesmaid’s dress she’d purchased for me.

Finding that I still needed at least a half an inch less flesh to get the thing zipped, we drove down the street to Walmart (yes, Walmart) and bought two body-shaping corset things. But it turns out that they’re not like getting liposuction at all. Even the one that was so tight I had to bend over and hold on to the dining room table while Tracey attempted to snap it closed didn’t work. Tracey calmly told me that maybe we should’ve just had the dress altered back in December when I first found out I’d had her buy it way too small, but I appreciated the motivation, and hey, I did manage to lose at least four inches. So suck it, Tracey.

The next afternoon, after a trip to the fabric store, she drove me down to our hometown to visit our old neighbor, who happens to make wedding gowns for a living. Her scrapbook full of bridesmaid’s dresses from the 80s with puffy sleeves made out of what looked like floral-print carpet were a real treat, but the best part of the day was chasing her six pet chickens around the yard, where they freely roam:

SO COUNTRY!

That evening, I went over to visit my friends Katie and Nick, who are married and have a home and a baby and cook dinner and seem totally weird to me:

I’ve been friends with Katie since we were in the womb and met Nick in college while working at the science museum in Columbus where Tracey would have her wedding, and since I set them up, I take particular interest in their relationship and pretty much claim their kid as my own, because 10-month-old Baby Maria is sort of the cutest thing ever:


Even my dad agrees that a baby has never been cuter, and as my father, he’s not technically allowed to say that.

Visiting them makes me feel like living in our hometown wouldn’t be the worst idea possible, because they have things like a finished basement with a bar!:

Where they have things like creme de menthe on hand at all times!:

And where they teach their children to be lushes!:

Ohio is HEAVEN, I tell you! Listening to David Bowie on vinyl, drinking homemade cocktails, and tossing balls at a baby on a pool table:

The next morning, I went with my dad to get the tires changed on his truck, which turned out to be an hour of standing around, listening to men talk about how hard it must be for stock car racers in an economy like this with the cost of tires so high. My dad is an enviable small-talker, so I busied myself with Chubby, the garage dog who eats nuts, bolts, and scrap rubber:


You can’t tell, but Chubby is chewing on a hex wrench here.

But the best part of the garage were these words stenciled all over the floor, not that I’m elitist or judgemental:

So, who’s coming back with me next time?

Another Wedding in Ohio Yay!

Posted by plumpdumpling on March 17, 2009 – 10:01 am
Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, everyone's married but katie, no i really do love ohio
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I’m going to Ohio tonight, because Tracey and Dan are getting married on Saturday! Even though we both agree that societal conventions like marriage are ridiculous! And Tracey’s going to take his last name to boot! I’m using exclamation points sarcastically to voice my displeasure!

No, no, I kid. I mean, come on, look how cute they are together!:

Plus it means an excuse to see my dad!:

And my recently-married little sis!:

And my other friend for life, Katie, who no longer has a pregnant belly for me to gnaw on!:

But it’s really all about this one!:

Best friends montage!:

These are the times when living away from my friends-since-we-were-babies especially sucks. One of Tracey’s other bridesmaids had to plan her shower, and I just got to fly in back in January and enjoy it. And Tracey somehow feels like she has to make up for me having to buy a plane ticket in for the wedding, even though I’m the one who moved away. And when she and Dan should be enjoying their last moments of unwedded freedom, I’m going to be tagging along to their romantic dinners and forcing Dan to entertain himself otherwise while I play hours and hours of Scene It? with Tracey. Ahhhhh, the life I lead.