Unapologetically Mundane » par-tay

Happy Bigtime Birthday, Tracey!

katie ett — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:30:52 +0000

I know presents are the reason for the season and all, but I was really back home in Ohio for the past two and a half weeks to celebrate my best friend, Tracey‘s, 30th birthday. While I celebrated my last birthday quietly and with fingers crossed that no one would remember it was my 30th, Tracey celebrated hers with karaoke, gigantic 3-0 candles, and Justin Bieber cupcakes all around:

Tracey pretending that she’s not really into this whole party thing.

Guess who ate these in abundance and wore the Bieber rings without irony. This guy!

This is a hilarious picture until you remember that the noisemakers Tracey bought actually turned out not to make noise.

Only a party at Tracey’s house would include a bowl of just pepperoni.

Tracey totally made this for her husband’s last birthday and not for herself. Just so you know.

Tracey’s husband, Dan, presents Tracey with her cupcakes while Erin serenades her.

Graham is mesmerized by the non-noisemaking noisemakers.

Happy 30th birthday, my best best friend!

You are my life partner, my lab partner, my partner in crime, the wind beneath my wings, my baby bumblebee, the demon seed and the factor!

And I love you.

The Time I Had a Couple of Freaks from the Internet Come Stay with Me

katie ett — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:00:05 +0000

My longtime blogfriend Ellie found me because my old LiveJournal icon was a still from the movie Grey Gardens. My longtime blogfriend Kinard found me because we both had an unnatural-yet-totally-not-fangirl-ish love of the band Jump, Little Children, and she sat next to me at a concert without introducing herself. They found each other when Ellie moved from Oregon to South Carolina, and I told her to look Kinard up. They became fast friends and left me in the dust.

Until Ellie’s birthday approached, and they decided that the perfect way to celebrate would be to spend a few nights not doing touristy things in NYC with me. We planned extensively and then totally changed our plans. We watched the TKTS discount ticket listings and tried to convince Kinard she didn’t really want to see Mandy Patinkin and Patti LuPone on Broadway. I woke up the Saturday after Thanksgiving in Ohio and clicked repeatedly and extensively on the Momofuku Ko reservations website until I secured us a dinner spot after mentioning to Ellie and Kinard that it’s the most interesting restaurant in NYC and finding out that they knew of it and wanted to go but never thought we’d be able to get in. We tried to figure out a way to eat both truffles and caviar while they were here. I didn’t tell them our living room still doesn’t have blinds after a year and that they’d be sleeping in full view of our nosy neighbors.

My roommate/landlord/co-worker seemed totally fine with their visit until he realized halfway through our workday on Friday that:

1) I had never actually met either of them, and
2) they were alone in his condo.

But they didn’t steal anything that we know of (not that my candy wrapper clutch is interesting to anyone but me), and I met them and my other blogfriend-turned-real-life-friend Kim at Tocqueville for dinner. It’s one of my favourite restaurants ever, despite what our chef at Momofuku Ko said about it being stodgy. HE HAS NEVER ACTUALLY BEEN THERE. HE DOESN’T KNOW.

We ate hearty squash soups and roasted Brussels sprouts over succulent chicken breasts and truffled grits with dunky eggs and were plied with bowls and bowls of ice creams and sorbets on the house until 7:59 p.m., at which time we decided it was time to leave for our 8 p.m. Broadway show, which was Seminar starring Alan Rickman of Harry Potter and Love Actually fame. It was basically what I wanted every one of my college writing seminars to be and made me nostalgic for a time when people thought I had potential and I wrote on actual paper.

via seminaronbroadway.com

Afterward, we unintentionally walked out into Times Square, and while Kinard and Ellie acted like they didn’t care about it, I definitely caught them doing this:

And also this:

And this:

Even Kurmudgeon Kim was having a good time:

But then Pedophile Mickey Mouse showed up

and we had to go.

The next day, we rode the train into Madison Square Park

and ate sloppy Shake Shack burgers

and cheese fries with little wooden forks:

An evil squirrel came within inches of Kinard’s candy cane/hot fudge/marshmallow shake

but there wasn’t a chance that thing was wrestling a bite away from a girl enjoying her dessert this much:

Ellie, meanwhile, was trying to play it cool and succeeding wildly:

We spent the afternoon at MoMA, which I’ll have to recap in a post of its own, and then stopped at a nearby coffee shop to refuel for that evening’s big dinner at Ko. There was nowhere to sit in the coffee shop, so I had the brilliant idea of leading us down a few more blocks to Rockefeller Center, where there are sprawling plazas full of unoccupied benches.

EXCEPT DURING CHRISTMASTIME, OF COURSE. The streets were brimming with families leaving the Rockettes show at Radio City Music Hall. There were barricades at every corner meant to corral traffic that only succeeded in making the sidewalks unpassable. We finally did make it to 30 Rock, only to discover that the “sprawling plaza” was packed with strollers and women yelling, “Someone’s going to get HURT!” It was, to say the least, a mistake.

So we took the train down to the East Village, made a couple of laps from 1st Avenue to 2nd Avenue and back again until it was time to meet Kamran at Momofuku Ko for the girls’ first Michelin-starred-restaurant experience. Dinner was phenomenal: cheese-flavored broth with bone marrow over brioche, snail and chicken sausage on top of hand-torn pasta, the famous frozen shaved foie gras over fresh lychee and Riesling gelee, just to name a few. Plus that first taste of caviar Ellie was looking for, served in a heap next to a smoked egg. Ellie and Kinard were pros; they ate everything without question and said that some things they hadn’t liked so much in the past were made to taste delicious at Ko.

Kamran said I was being a snobby show-off at dinner, and it’s true that I complained to our James-Franco-look-alike chef that when we were in two weeks prior, the guys beside us had an embarrassing lack of knowledge about food, and yes, even James Franco told me to stop being a snob, but he hadn’t even eaten at Tocqueville, so I think my snobbery is deserved. No? Really? Okay, fine. Ellie and Kinard took it in stride, though, because I imagine they expected me to be a total braggart, anyway.

BFFs!

We spent the rest of the night visiting dive bars and pretending like we’re the kinds of girls who do shots. There was, for some reason, a surprising lack of people out anywhere, so I think NYC came off as this nice, serene place where you can just walk into a bar and actually get a seat and/or service from a bartender. Must have been the cold.

The next day, we went to Artichoke for pizza, because:

1) it is delicious.
2) it’s unlike any other NYC pizza.
3) normal NYC pizza is bland and dumb.
4) some people call it the best pizza in NYC (maybe me, too).
4) I wanted them to have an awesome insider pizza-eating experience.

So of course they were naturally like, “This pizza is okay, but we were really looking forward to getting the bland and dumb pizza Ellie’s boss recommended.” And then I died.

Look at that! So cheesy and creamy and thick-crusted! How could they not love it?!

But we followed it up with karaoke, which they were awesome at despite Ellie’s poor choice of Neil Diamond and my even poorer choice of Cat Stevens, and fries from Pommes Frites in the courtyard of St. Mark’s Church and a quarter-ton of frozen yogurt topped with mochi cubes and peanut butter cups and gummy bears from 16 Handles.

And then instead of walking across the Brooklyn Bridge like we had planned, we went back to my apartment and watched Jackass 3 and “The Virgin Diaries“. Like not-tourists.

And then they left the next day without having seen any New York friends other than me. I win I win I win!

Happy birthday, Ellie, and happy four-days-since-meeting-me anniversary, Kinard!

The Practice Thanksgiving

katie ett — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:00:55 +0000

One of the things about living in NYC that I’ve found hardest to adjust to is not hanging out at people’s apartments. We all either live in places too small to hold more than two people at a time or places too out of the way for anyone to want to travel to. If it’s not one, it’s the other.

But this year, my friend Ash was determined to have a practice Thanksgiving at her apartment and went all-out with impressive invitations, a massive menu, and promises that she would hunt us down and stuff us if we didn’t make it worth her while to take up her entire refrigerator with a brining turkey for two days. So we took cabs or spent three hours navigating weekend subway construction to make it to her and her husband, Michael’s, Queens apartment last Saturday night for a pre-Thanksgiving feast our families will have a hard time topping tomorrow.

Michael and Ash got rid of about half of the furniture in their place to make room for this new dining table they bought especially for the occasion. Well worth it, I say.

Ash carved a turkey for the first time and looked smokin’ doing it.

The turkey was about the moistest meat I’ve ever had in my life. The stuffing was fruity, the sweet potatoes spicy, the twice-baked potatoes bacony, the cauliflower casserole creamy, the green beans smoky, the apple pie belly-warming, the lemon cheesecake rich.

There was gravy, too, but I never eat gravy. Am I the only one who thinks it’s tooooooootally weird stuff?

Michael was in high spirits,

Ash was being Betty Sue Homemaker,

Jack was his usual pleasant self,

Jeff was complaining that the ice cream was regular vanilla and not vanilla bean,

Gizmo was pretending to innocently play with a ball under the table while secretly waiting for dropped turkey,

and Penny, the cat we found in the Hamptons, was acting like all of us would be about two minutes after dinner:

Success!

Hamptons Photodump!

plumpdumpling — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:30:31 +0000

No, we actually did go to the Hamptons. And here are the pictures to prove it:

An amazing array of incredible photos should be displayed here. Click to open the post in your browser to see the gallery.

Most of these were taken by my friend Anthony, who I want to be when I grow up. He took more than 1000 photos during the trip, if that’s any indication of what a good time we had. The pictures of us playing drunken Cranium (which I don’t even like) for five hours every night have been omitted. As have the pictures of me crying for another five hours after I fell down Rollerblading.

I’m Going to the Hamptons!

plumpdumpling — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:00:44 +0000

As you’re reading this, I’m on my way to spend the next four days with eleven of my closest friends in THE HAMPTONS!

The apparent view from our back deck

Our house has a pool! And I’m bringing my new Rollerblades so my friend Christine can attempt to teach me to skate on the boardwalk and fail miserably! And we’re going to have “Top Chef”-style cooking competitions! And my friend Chantee says she wants to be on my team because she “trusts my palate more than most Food Network stars’”! And hopefully we’ll escape the weekend without anyone getting alcohol poisoning or accidentally sleeping together!

It’ll be my first time there, and just the idea of it makes me feel all snobby and pretentious. I love that.

Auf Wiedersehen, Jessica! Hallo, Drunk Katie!

plumpdumpling — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 21:00:41 +0000

My favouritest German intern of all time, Jessica, recently came back into town after being back home in Düsseldorf for nine months. In honor of her visit–and because she bugs me about it at least once a week–here are the greatest photos from the night we said goodbye:

I like how Beth apparently had no idea that this was supposed to be a funny picture
and not a try-out for “America’s Next Top Model”.

These are funny because I’m, like, the not-drunk-est person everyone knows.

Please notice Anthony’s face in the background.

I don’t remember why this was being done, but I do know it was offensive.

We all rode the bull. It cost $15. Someone paid for me, because that’s how I roll.
I broke my thumbnail on it.

Sonya puts this much feeling into literally everything she sings. This was probably “Barbie Girl”, Jessica’s absolute favourite song to do at karaoke. She likes to sing the boy part even though she’s the girliest girl you’ll ever meet.

Classy.

Move back soon, mama.

Atlantic City Times Two

plumpdumpling — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:35:07 +0000

One of my office’s gamblin’ German interns, Niko, finished up the extreeeeemely important work he was doing for us and moved back home on Monday, so nine of us went to Atlantic City two weekends ago to give him a proper sendoff involving a motel with a pamphlet of instructions on how to store your gun, scuffles over moist towelettes, and the finest rear ends I’ve ever seen on a lady.

Emily, Niko, Beth, and Jeff outside the Trump Taj Mahal

The first time I went to Atlantic City last month, my trip was paid for, and I thought it was maybe only fun because I didn’t spend any of my own money. But no! It turns out that I really do like cheesy theme casinos and their atrocious carpet.

Beth cuts a rug. (Get it?!)

Jeff drove Beth and me to Atlantic City on Saturday afternoon, and it was just as exciting the second time seeing the strip and all of its bright lights come into view. We checked into our cheap (but clean!) motel and then immediately went to the Virginia City Buffet in Bally’s to meet the others. We were already standing in line when everyone walked up, and one of the guys tried to get Niko to notice us by pointing to a sign on the wall that we were standing directly underneath. I started jumping up and down to get his attention, but he evidently had real interest in the sign. When he finally did spot us, hugs and laughs were exchanged, and Niko was genuinely surprised, because he’d been told that everyone already had plans for the weekend and couldn’t come to AC. Delightful!

We went back to our rooms after dinner, cleaned up real pretty, and took a cab from the strip to the Borgata for some dancin’. The casino was a totally different experience from the others I’d been in, as it was full of young sluts in formal wear instead of old people in sweatpants. Although maybe that had something to do with it being midnight instead of 2 p.m. Beth had suavely gotten us on the guestlist at Mixx, which meant we got to skip the line to get in but still had to pay $20. And I should mention that there wasn’t actually a line to get in. But still!

The club was actually really fun, and the DJ played a mixx of hip-hop that I’d of course never heard in my life and 80s alternative that I did a lot of happy screaming about. (Sorry, Beth and Jeff.) Beth and I are pretty much the whitest people you know, but we still thought we were really tearing up the dancefloor after a couple of drinks. Jeff disagreed. Still, we stayed until 3 a.m., and he danced with us the entire time, so I’m going to continue to open up the curtains in Kamran’s apartment and shake it for the neighbors every night.

The next day, we met for a fairly awesome brunch buffet at the Marriott across the street from our cheap (but clean!) motel and then went to the Taj to watch the guys in our group lose all of their money at the poker tables. Beth, Jeff, and I stuck to the slots, and I won $20 on one, while Jeff won . . .

yes, that says one penny.

I talked Beth into trying a machine called Kitty Glitter because of its ridiculous name, and she immediately lost half of the $5 she put in. Then she immediately won back a few dollars, so I started telling her, “Cash out! Cash out!”, because I come from the walk-away-as-soon-as-you’ve-made-any-amount-of-money school of gambling. But she refused and lost all of her winnings again, so I basically washed my hands of her. And that’s when she won $36. I was PUMPED. She of course continued playing until she lost $4 of that, but whatever.

Look at them kitties.

The three of us spent the rest of the afternoon walking along the boardwalk with Emily and Niko, eating Rita’s Italian Ice and Nathan’s hot dogs and caramel-covered marshmallows. It was the first time the sun had shone all winter, and we were so unaccustomed to it that we had to take off our coats and relearn how to sweat.

It was getting late by the time we made it to the opposite end of the Boardwalk, so Jeff stopped this guy who was pushing a cart and asked him to take us back to our hotel. I was under the impression that these guys were food vendors of some sort who just hadn’t stocked up their carts yet, but no, it turns out that their whole function is to push lazy people around. Here’s a video of our ride, though I assure you it’s not worth watching except to hear my extremely sexy, unusually high-pitched voice:

I Would Chide You for Using Sports to Escape from Your Pathetic Life, but You Know I Do the Same Thing with Reality Television

plumpdumpling — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:30:57 +0000

I do not care about the Super Bowl. Aside from backyard basketball games involving the word horse, I think sports are pretty stupid. Especially professional ones.

I went to a Super Bowl party last night, though, and I went all the way to Jersey for it. And by “all the way”, I mean that I took a bus 15 minutes to my friend Jeff’s apartment, but I couldn’t use my MetroCard to pay the bus fare, so it seemed like a big deal. I did watch the game, unexpectedly, and I casually cheered for the Colts simply because Indianapolis is much closer to my hometown in Ohio than New Orleans is.

And also because I thought all of the pregame crap about how much a win would mean to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina–which happened five years ago, people–was unnecessarily sentimental and trying to make a story arc where one wasn’t needed. It’s a football game, and its outcome has nothing to rebuilding a city and everything to do with giving the kind of people who stand behind on-air newscasters and scream and show off their replica team jerseys an excuse to get drunk and light things on fire.

Anyway. I found the bidet in Jeff’s roommmate’s bathroom about a hundred times more interesting than most of the Super Bowl commercials, but there was one that really pulled at my heartstrings, and no, it wasn’t the Budweiser one with the Clydesdale and the cow. It was, oddly, a promo for the NFL itself, telling its fans how much better they are than are than NHL and MLS fans:

Funny what a little well-placed Arcade Fire song can do.

If the World was Fair, Candy Pumpkins Would Be Available All Year

plumpdumpling — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:52:58 +0000

This is all that’s left of Halloween, but it sure was good while it lasted. Kamran and I spent Friday night watching horror movies instead of, you know, piecing together a simple costume so as to not disrespect our friend Anthony’s party the next night.

To make us feel extra bad, Anthony seriously went all-out for this thing. As if we weren’t impressed enough to actually know someone who owns a house and can therefore have a legitimate house party (even if it was out on Long Island), he had the place covered in cobwebs and bathed in creepy lighting with awesome additions like strings of razorblades hanging in the doorway to the dining room. His friends all had elaborate costumes, and he went around the party in an H1N1 emergency response team uniform, drinking what he said was germ-ridden waste.

I ended up wearing a pink tank top with a black shirt covered in stars over it and said I was aurora borealis, while Kamran wore a striped sweater and said he was Freddie Kreuger had he gone straight, stopped murdering kids, and gotten his PhD. No one was impressed, but we brought a box of thirty assorted candy bars with us, so we didn’t get egged.

Of course, we ended up eating at least half of those thirty candy bars ourselves and stuffing more in our pockets for the long ride home on the Long Island Railroad, but no one was sober enough to notice.

It’s Not Cool to Brag About Being a Drunk

plumpdumpling — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:29:02 +0000

My office had a going-away party recently for one of our co-workers who moved to one of our locations in Singapore mostly to have better access to prostitutes. Here are my favourite photos from the night, most of which involve us inexplicably sticking out our tongues:

The next day, people kept congratulating me on being a happy drunk, which I suppose is something worth congratulating someone on. My boyfriend was not one of these people, as he was the one receiving texts from me hours after I told him I’d be home that said things like, “i don kno if i can maeuke it!”

When he texted me back, worried and ready to come pick me up wherever I was, he found out that I was thirty feet from his apartment building. Hilarious to me. Not so much to him.

In case you missed them:
Would You Eat This? #1: Fish Balls
Thumbs Down for Thai Me Up

Warm-Weather Weekend

plumpdumpling — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:45:58 +0000

Last weekend felt like the greatest of the winter to spring transitionings ever. I’m not one for sunburns and sweat, but without the burden of twenty pounds of winter coat, walking outdoors suddenly seemed like a joy. After three months of holing up with Kamran in his apartment and dreading every social invitation, I realized that I don’t actually hate my friends. Incredible!

On Saturday night, I first met up with Jessica-the-German-intern and Erika-who-moved-from-Boston-specifically-to-work-for-my-company-a-month-before-they-laid-her-off for dinner at Cucina di Pesce, which we chose because it supposedly had outdoor seating and giant plates of delicious food for tiny prices. But no! My meal was four pieces of toasted raviolo for $2 each. And you know I’m a growing girl. But luckily, the fresh air made up for it, as did the intense debate about whether or not the craigslist killer is hot.

After that, I took the ladies to my favourite freaky sour frozen yogurt place (which is, just so you know, NOT PINKBERRY), where we loaded up on toppings so intense I’ll only be able to tell you about them when I review it in donuts4dinner.com. Look how yogurt-filled and glowing Jessica and I are:

Then we met up with our friend Sonya for her boyfriend, Adam’s, birthday party at ACE Bar, where she was busy wearing a romper, showing off her side tattoos, and basically making out with innocent drunk girls:

Despite the fact that ACE has skeeball, darts, pool, animal-shooting games, and frat boys, Jessica and I were sort of sticking to the vinyl seats and having about this much fun:

So we gathered our friend Beth, ditched the Asians, and went to an outdoor bar down the street for an all white girl party with frozen margaritas and lots of talk about how we should all move to Paris, the white girl dream capital of the world.

I’d planned to meet up with Sonya to continue the Adam-related festivities at Beauty Bar, but then Beth offered me a ride home in her Alfa Romeo, which is a convertible, and convertible trumps claustrophobic bar. So we drove through the streets, wind in our very short hair, lights blurring, people yelling at us from their balconies, “Nice car!”, us waving back:

And that was only the beginning.

Eruption on the M15

plumpdumpling — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:51:45 +0000

I was riding the M15 up from the East Village after a Friday night of karaoke classics at my favorite place to watch my friends make fools of themselves, Sing-Sing, when at a stop near 34th Street, a man stood up from his seat and began yelling at the person behind him, seemingly out of nowhere. This is precisely what I heard:

“You want to step out?! You want to step out?! You’re not so clean! Your butt is dirty! Asshole!”

He was a stubby guy with a backpack and the leftovers of an Asian accent, and his victim was a white-haired, cane-holding black gentleman who didn’t seem to notice that he’d just been given a verbal beat-down. Now to be fair, I was in the back of the bus behind a guy who was inexplicably grunting at ten-second intervals, but I’m positive that’s what the yeller yelled. How he knew anything about his fellow rider’s butt I’m less sure of.

He strutted off the bus with an air of accomplishment, and we were all left to wonder what the old man could’ve possibly said to rile him up.

(Posted on Examiner, which pays me for your visits (hint, hint))

And because I can’t resist:

Steven and Emily singing (or, you know, not singing in this photo) a romantic duet
of Paula Abdul’s “Opposites Attract”

Nik and Charles enjoying Jeff’s rendition of “Stayin’ Alive”

Roxanne showing her Jamaican roots with some Bob Marley, which earned her the eye
of the one other Jamaican dude who sings karaoke in NYC.

Adam unabashedly doing the robot while Steven gets DOWN.

Attack of the Gigantic Smiles

plumpdumpling — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:25:40 +0000

On my way down to Christopher Street for dinner at Agave Saturday night for my friend Bridgette’s birthday celebration, I saw:

a) two things I wrote about in this Examiner.com post

b) An old man waiting for his wife and grown daughter outside of a store called The Pleasure Chest. He looked so awkward standing outside the door and so relieved when his family came through it with their purchases. Or at least I assume it was his wife and daughter. I guess it could’ve been his two prostitutes, picking up supplies for their evening at his behest.

Bridgette’s party was pretty amazing, because

a) it included my three favourite co-workers from my software company who no longer work there:

Bridgette, Beth, me, and LaChantee

b) there was a maple duck confit quesadilla with goat cheese and a fig spread on the menu that LaChantee and I wanted to split, but there was a $5 sharing fee that we were not about to pay, so we just didn’t tell our server about it and felt veeeeeeeeery subversive:

c) I took this picture of Chantee looking like she has a red tumor growing inside of her nose:

d) Bridgette’s friend Sarah and I totally became BFFs. And by that, I mean that I dropped a fork on the ground before she got there and actually told her before she used it to eat her dinner.

Clearly an incredible time was shared by all:

My sister is a Mrs.! (But her last name is hyphenated, and that makes it okay.)

plumpdumpling — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:58:57 +0000

This post is entirely for me and not at all for you, so just scroll through the pictures quietly and don’t even think of complaining about how long it is.

Okay, I’m just going to get it out of the way and say that my sister’s wedding was the best wedding ever. In history. And that there’s no reason for anyone else to get married, because all weddings will pale in comparison and will only serve to make every bride and groom from here on out reconsider whether marriage was the right choice for them what with all of their imperfections being brought to light before all of their family and friends. AND GOD.

So as I was leaving work at 12:30 last Tuesday for the airport, my best friend Tracey texted me to say that her fiancé would be picking me up due to the forthcoming snow and freezing rain. I called her immediately and was like, “Bitch, no. You are a whining asshole baby, and you WILL be at the airport at 5:30.” And she was.

So were about 42 inches of snow, along with ice that coated all the trees, cars, and cats in sight:

We braved the weather long enough to pick up my dark red strapless bridesmaid’s dress at David’s Bridal–that’s right! mere days before the wedding, having not tried it on since November!–and then settled in for the evening at her apartment, where we ended up being snowbound for the next two days.

The drive from Ohio to Kentucky with my parents was three hours of blurry, icy trees

which led to four hours of nonstop fun at the rehearsal at the groom’s parents’ church. It was the most perfect setting for a wedding, with a huge cross cut out in glass at the front, giant ceilings, pews that were interestingly bright blue, and a glass door in the back for the bride and groom to walk through:

The afternoon started out joyous enough

but after an hour of making decisions about when the boys were walking in, when the girls were walking in, and which candelabra was getting lit when, Joanie the Bride was ready to get it all over with:

Luckily, there were her five stunning bridesmaids

From left: her incredible sister Katie, her friends Miranda and Kayla,
the bride herself, her best friend Jessica, and her friend Cindy

posing for dirty pictures on the piano

and her future husband staring at her boobs

to cheer her up. And so the rehearsal started:

My favourite part is when the minister asks who’s giving the bride away
and our dad answers, “Her mother and I,” before realizing that hey,
her mother’s dead, and maybe she doesn’t want our stepmom being called
her mother, but no, we love our stepmom and consider her the best
stand-in possible, and a good laugh is shared by all later.

Joanie’s friends are so much fun that we couldn’t stop laughing all night, and despite mean looks from both the minister and Joanie every time we made a scene, we knew the bride was secretly on our team. She made it not-so-secret when the minister practiced presenting her and Josh to the audience for the first time as Mr. and Mrs., “Everlasting Love” played over the church speakers, and Joanie couldn’t help but dance down the aisle. Every single time they did it. I couldn’t have been happier that my sister had chosen such a non-traditional ceremony.

Dinner was in the kitchen of the church and was perfectly wonderful until Joanie decided to pass out our bridesmaid jewelry and Kayla caught her tissue paper on fire. Unsure of how to handle it, she exclaimed to Josh the Groom, “You’re a man! Do something!” And so Caffeine Free Diet Coke was poured onto the table, leaving quite an unsightly aftermath:

Joanie and Josh had decided against a DJ and had instead rented a DJ-in-a-Box, which lets you program your own playlists but can also basically be used as a jukebox where guests can search for a song they want to hear. So instead of, say, resting on the night before her wedding, Joanie stayed up late with our cousin Bethany, our friend Michelle, and me, doing karaoke and teaching us the Cupid Shuffle for use at her reception:

The next morning, Bethany, Michelle, and I went over early to the reception hall with Josh to decorate

and admire the cakes, one of which was classy with pearls and ribbon

and one of which was meant for BOYS (and Bethany):

We went back to Josh and Joanie’s house to shower, and then Joanie drove me to the church, where we met her photographer and her bridesmaids to apply our makeup

and to flatten and hairspray my hair into what looked like a helmet. We sequestered ourselves in the church’s kitchen to dress ourselves, to each take a turn touching Joanie’s boobs

and to convince Joanie that snow boots weren’t proper footwear for a wedding day (even though I was obviously wearing Crocs):

However, it was later decided that strappy sandals weren’t exactly proper, either, when the photographer had us venture outside to take pictures in the snow. I didn’t bring my camera out with me stupidly, so you’ll just have to imagine how totally beautiful my little sister was standing in the middle of a field, surrounded by nothing but whiteness. Half of the time she was wearing her cream-colored pea coat, and half of the time we bridesmaids were all cuddling around her to keep her warm. And then the photographer posed her in the gazebo behind the church with icicles falling all over it. Miranda was wearing open-toed shoes, and Cindy actually had to take her heels off and walk barefoot in the snow to keep from slipping on the ice, but all of the hypothermia in the world would’ve been worth it for those shots.

We went back inside for more photos before the guests arrived, and of course I couldn’t allow any of them to turn out decently:

but I wasn’t the only one having a good time:

Look at her little socks!

I sorta want to get married just for the pictures.

Dad was incredibly happy before the ceremony

but then pretty much cried nonstop from the moment he stepped into the church, and for good reason. Joanie chose the music of “Edelweiss” for her walk down the aisle with Dad, for God’s sake. And Josh’s dad sang “Can’t Help Falling in Love“. And they took all of the crappy misogynist Bible stuff out of the minister’s monologues and just left the pretty Bible stuff. And Joanie and Josh just looked so happy that for half a second, I thought, Marriage is so wonderful! I want to get married! But then I realized that no, weddings are wonderful, and marriage still sucks.

I smiled literally throughout the entire ceremony, though. Especially when our parents sang “It’s Your Love“, which made my eyes well up from my dad’s first yeeeeeeeah-aaaaah-aaaaah-aah. But I wouldn’t let myself cry, because I was wearing a hell of a lot of eyeliner, and let’s not kid ourselves about my priorities.

I was impressed with how well Josh held up during his vows, but Joanie only made it about two words in before her voice cracked, and the rest of her vows were adorably barely audible. Co-maid-of-honor Jessica later told me that when Joanie reached back to hand her bouquet over so she could hold Josh’s hands and exchange their rings, the tissue she had been holding was completely soaked from sweat. So charming!

After Joanie re-did her makeup on the one eye that she’d wiped too much during the ceremony and we took pictures with various family members who would’ve disowned us had we not included them, I rode with Joanie and Josh to the reception hall. Cousin Bethany was waiting by the DJ-in-a-Box to press the button that played “Sandstorm” and announced to the crowd that the bride and groom had arrived. It was totally cheesy and totally awesome.

What I loved about their reception is that it was completely informal. There were no seating assignments, no one releasing the tables to the buffet at specific intervals, no ridiculous groom pulling the garter off the bride’s leg with his teeth. Josh’s family made all of the food, so it was exactly what they wanted, and they basically just sat back at the head table and let people shower money on them.

After all of the cured meats and mini cheesecakes had been devoured, Josh pushed a button on the DJ-in-a-Box and grabbed Joanie for their first dance, which was to Ben Folds’ “The Luckiest“:

Then it was time to cut the classy cake, which didn’t involve smearing icing all over anyone’s face, much to my chagrin:

Hours later, most of our family had gone back to their hotel for a cannonball contest in the pool, and most of our friends had gone back to their homes in Kentucky or Ohio, but Dad wanted to get his line dance on, so we headed back to Joanie’s house to change into our best country and western duds and then went to have a few drinks at a barn/bar full of college kids. Which led to Cousin Bethany thinking she could bull ride:

So that’s it, a wedding so good it made me almost rethink marriage. And in closing, I offer you this, the picture that pretty much sums up my relationship with my sister perfectly:

I’m saying, “Yay! Whee! I love you!”, and she’s like, “Hold on, bitch. I’m fixing my hair.”

The Posts are a Lot More Fun to Write When I Can Actually Remember Everything That Happened

plumpdumpling — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:33:08 +0000

Saturday night began innocently enough, with five friends meeting for dinner at Mexico Lindo in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan to celebrate an impending birthday.

The friends, in order, are me (managing to look extra-crazed because I specifically tried to look normal), Sonya (in her authentic American Indian headdress), Jack (who is not as perverted as he appears), Beth (the birthday girl and owner of many granny sweaters), and Emily (who arrived twenty minutes late due to hair-straightening needs, which was generally deemed very worthwhile).

Not pictured: Bridgette, who stopped by for twenty minutes before returning to her GMAT studying and who DID sit beside me, lest you judge me uncool for having an empty seat next to me in the photo above.

Dinner, which was scheduled to last two hours to lead up to a showing of The Reader at the theatre across the street, actually lasted four hours due to extensive talk of how best to hide your tampon on your way to the public restroom at work (up the sleeve was eventually decided upon), whether it’s okay or not to pile trash on your friend when he falls asleep during karaoke (perfectly okay), and why Emily’s sister-in-law would buy her a shirt with a scoopneck that shows off ¾ of her boobs (because those things deserve to be enjoyed by all). The waitress brought out a giant bowl full of flambéed pears with a candle on top for Beth to blow out, but the pears were actually the dessert I ordered, because of course restaurants in New York City don’t give you anything complimentary on your birthday. Beth drank her coffee in silence as I licked every last flaming inch of the bowl myself.

After Sonya took it upon herself to explain what Two Girls One Cup is to me and we debated the feces’ similarity to chocolate softserve, the four of us girls piled into the back seat of a cab

and made Jack sit up front while we unabashedly discussed how you have to consciously remind yourself to look at the penises instead of the faces at Naked Boys Singing because you’re trained to be a good girl, and how totally hilarious it would be to hand over a tampon right out of your vagina when your friend asks to borrow one. “It’s only been in there an hour; it should be good as new!” Sonya said.

Having missed the movie, we got a private room at our favourite karaoke spot instead and spent the hours leading up until 3 a.m. enduring Sonya’s renditions of O-Town and the Spice Girls, Jack pretending like he was badass enough to know the lyrics to KISS’s Love Gun, and sadly realizing that only listening to male-fronted bands all my life means that I don’t actually know any songs in my vocal range as I really let Weezer down with my Say It Ain’t So.

Luckily, Emily and Sonya more than made up for it with some super-sexy Melissa-Etheridge-inspired lesbian dealings that would’ve been much sexier had they been in focus

and Beth–literally the whitest person I know–sang not one not two but THREE rap songs. One of which involved saying the word nigger over and over again, causing crowds of people to peek in the window into our room to see whose ass they should kick.

And all of this while we were completely sober.

Fake-Birthday Party Photo Extravaganza!

plumpdumpling — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:14:47 +0000

Guess whose fake-birthday party was Friday night.

NOT YOURS!

Guess who was drunk?

EVERYONE! But especially:

LaChantee!

Jack!

Kamran, who describes this picture as “good sweaty”!

Emily, Beth, and Jessica!

Bridgette, who doesn’t actually drink much and therefore still manages to look pretty!

Owen-who-is-Australian-and-therefore-always-looks-like-this!

Jeff, who looks way badasser in this hat than Jack does!

Jessica’s friend Alex–yeah, the one making the face–who luckily doesn’t know me and won’t know to give me a hard time about posting this!

Chris, who humped Jessica’s friend Alex all night!

of course, Sonya!

but most of all me! So much so that I apparently talked about it all night! That must have been really fun for everyone else, eh?!

Preeeeeeeeeetty much the best time ever. And all in fake-honor of me.

Don’t worry. The tights are only for Sonya.

plumpdumpling — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:15:09 +0000

This is how I feel right now.

Luckily, tomorrow night is my dance-a-thon fake-birthday party with all of my co-workers, and I’m pumped to see someone get down in a way so awful we’ll all still remember it come Monday morning. And I’m expecting that that person to be me.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, my friend Sonya and I are off to buy some gold lamé tights for the occasion.

I Became a Homeless-Hatin’ NeoCon, and It’s All Emily’s Birthday’s Fault

plumpdumpling — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:09:47 +0000

My friend Emily wanted to celebrate her birthday by forcing us to hang out with her allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll day the Saturday before last, so my boyfriend Kamran and I picked up three vats of rainbow sherbet and a pack of rainbow Twizzlers and took the bus down to Tompkins Square Park for a noontime picnic. When we found the party, it consisted of Emily, who was in a birthday tiara, lest you forget who to pay all your attention to

and a handful of our other friends lounging on a blanket with an open jar of peanut butter in the middle of the circle. Kamran and I had come hungry, expecting a potluck, so I immediately thought, “Oh, shit, this is going to be the worst picnic ever,” and proceeded to eat all the paper party favors I could get my hands on.

Luckily, though, Emily’s sister-in-law, Lauren, came back from the dog run with the cutest puppy in the entire world, Penny,

and loads of food came out of hiding, including the beaniest bean salad, two whole chickens, pounds of lunch meat and mayonnaise, an entire German chocolate cake from Magnolia Bakery, and chopped fruits galore.

Emily had asked me to bring ice cream specifically to go with the cake and was a little upset at first that I’d forgotten and gone with sherbet instead, but then her brother, Nathan, thought to put the sherbet in the gallons of spiked lemonade that had gotten warm in the sun, and so we all drank it cold through rainbow Twizzler straws.

Which led to Emily’s mom getting drunk and hilarious and walking through the park with a party hat on

and everyone else generally having a great time, including me

but not including Kamran.

Naw, I’m just kidding. Kamran was a party animal

and didn’t even cut me when this happened:

Hey, Tracey, look at my bracelet!

Here’s a bad picture of Adam and Sonya just to prove they were there for posterity:

The only thing that sucked was all the poor people who felt like it was cool to step on our blankets and ask for our food in the midst of our being rich and merry. Now, I’m generally a pretty giving person, and I genuinely feel for people who have to sleep on the streets (although I firmly believe that if you can sit on a sidewalk with a pathetic give-me-money sign all day, you can stand behind a retail counter making money, too), but the first guy who approached us actually had the nerve to be MEAN about it. Here, I’ll recreate the conversation for you:

Asshole Poor Guy in Cargo Shorts with Backpack Who was Likely Totally Privileged and Had Annoying Well-Groomed Hair: Hey, can I have some of that food?

(Everyone shifts uncomfortably.)

Emily’s Sister-in-Law, Lauren: Sure, let me make a heaping plate for you, because I care about you, even though you’re an asshole and don’t deserve it.

(Lauren piles a paper plate high with bean salad, the most nutritious, delicious, and filling thing we have.)

Asshole Poor Guy: How ’bout some of that bread? I shouldn’t even have to ask, you know.

Me: Beggars can’t be choosers!

(The crowd falls silent, except for Chris, who says, “Ohhhhhhh, shit!” and wins my favor.)

Lauren: Absolutely no problem, sir. Here, take two slices.

The other ten thousand people who approached us were much cooler and much more appreciative, but they sure are lucky Emily’s family was there to be kind, ’cause I would’ve sent their asses packing had it been my birthday. And that concludes my right-wing conservative rant.

Super-Sexy Dance Party!

plumpdumpling — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:52:47 +0000

In honor of my very first New York City friend moving back to NYC for the summer after leaving us for grad school in Santa Barbara last year, I bring you . . .

An Entry I Meant to Post Months Ago but Totally Forgot About Yaaaaaaay!

Meredith was throwing a dance party at her friend Jordan’s apartment and asked us to bring a mix CD, because Jordan had been robbed twice in one week and was re-building her music collection. Boyfriend Kamran and I were on a huge Phil Collins kick at the time (and at all times), so we thought we were being soooooooooo hilarious by bringing a CD full of our Philfavorites. But they ended up using an iPod dock instead of the mix CDs and only people we didn’t know showed up, so after making all the film-related conversation we could with one of her friends, we started to feel a little like this:

For posterity’s sake, I tried to make it look like I was a part of the group and having a great time

but eventually we gave up on pretending and secluded ourselves in one corner with the iPod and plastic cups full of straight Malibu rum, and things took a turn for the better. Especially when we discovered a cabinet full of delights such as

and

and then decided that if no one else was going get down, we’d have to make up for it:

Worst video ever? But I love when I say “really get into it!” and then continue the same totally lame dancing.

Meredith finally took notice of our awesomeness after that and had to come over for some scintillating conversation

but then we left, because we didn’t want to be around when Jordan’s apartment got broken into for the third time.

BFFs!

Benny’s, B-Side, fat cat, and the Sadly Defunct Luca Lounge

plumpdumpling — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:37:23 +0000

Last Friday night, a couple of my friends wanted to get together for happy hour, so we scoured drinkdeal.com and came up with Benny’s Burritos, because we pretty much want to drink giant margaritas all the time. And giant margaritas we had.

For $3, they’ll give you a tumbler of margarita. For $6, you get a Collins glass. And for $9? The biggest beer mug you can imagine. My friends Beth and Charles and I arrived early to take advantage of the deal, which is only offered at the bar, and by the time I finished my coconut-flavored margarita mug, I was giddy. Poor Boyfriend Kamran showed up all professional-like in his button-down and slacks to find me howling and slapping the table at everything Beth and Charles said.

Despite the fact that they live together, Adam has a hard time letting on that he actually likes Sonya.

This is Charles and Kamran’s attempt to look like badasses. SUCCESS!

Fake smile!

Everyone else really sucks at taking non-flash pictures on my camera. Why didn’t I become the steady-handed brain surgeon I planned to be?

And that concludes the Requisite Pictures of People Having Fun portion of this entry.

Not to make this a restaurant review or anything, but I have to mention that our food was pretty great. I’m on a corn kick right now and made Kamran share the corn fritters appetizer with me, which was a plate of little fried balls that resembled hush puppies. And the consistency of their filling was pretty hush-puppy-ish, too, only with CORN added. Best thing you can imagine? I thought so. The burritos were mission-style, so they were huge and full of the stuff you usually see as side dishes. I had the Grilled Mango Burrito, which came with enough mango salsa to douse the thing, and Kamran got the Chicken Chipotle Burrito, which was spice-AY.

Adam was in the mood for foosball, so we walked toward B-Side on surprise! Avenue B. Halfway there, Kamran brought up Luca Lounge, the bar he took me to on our first date lo those many months ago, where we admitted to the embarrassing bands we liked and I made a joke about his timing me while I went to the restroom before remembering that old cellphone commercial where the guy who asks the girl if she wants to time him on the toilet was supposedly a douchebag. Kamran described the red velvet Victorian couches, the backyard garden, the whoa-clean restrooms, and our friends were hooked. And then we got there and found THIS:

Sadly, no!

It was CLOSED! Like, for GOOD! Just then, my best friend Tracey called from Ohio, and when I told her about our bad luck, she reminded me that she and her last boyfriend went back to their first date restaurant on their fourth anniversary, found it had closed, and broke up soon after. NOOOOOOOOOOO! But she’s engaged to someone way awesomer now, so it’s cool. Kamran and I agreed that if this means the end of the line for us, it’s been a good run, and we’ll part without tears and bitterness. Plus, their menu was still lit up outside, and that has to mean something.

We returned to the original plan of B-Side, where we opted for the $5 PBR-and-a-shot-of-the-cheapest-most-painful-going-down-whiskey-you-can-imagine deal. We went to the back room, which was twelve to sixteen hundred degrees but made up for it by having a hugely huge wraparound couch with no apparent rat damage and concert posters for rad bands on the wall. We chugged our whiskey as a group (OR SO WE THOUGHT, UNTIL SOMEONE FOUND A FULL SHOT GLASS LOLLYGAGGING ON OUR TABLE LATER) and then played several thousand rounds of foosball, all of which resulted in outrageous wins for Adam, because he has a foosball table in his office and is a bastard. My camera battery had almost completely died at this point, so I kept turning the thing on for a second and snapping a picture as fast as I could, which resulted in a lot of shots like this:

Yes, Charles is indeed wearing an entire suit. And Beth looks like a mannequin.

Sonya and Adam knew I was starting to get a little sleepy and grumpy, so they dragged us to Le Royale for Robot Rock, ’cause I loooove dancing to some electronic indie whatnot. We ended up having to wait in line for 20 minutes or so, during which time the same guy walked by twice with his girlfriend and said mocking things to us like, “Did you get in yet?” and “I heard this place really sucks.” And when we got to the front of the line, they were trying to charge us $10 to get in. And even though Kamran was going to pay my $10 like the gentleman he is, I refused. WE DO NOT PAY TO GET INTO BARS!

Except when the bar is fat cat, which charges a mere $3 for hours and hours of entertainment. Sonya has tried to get me to go there a million times before, but I’ve always denied her because she’s way too excitable about these sorts of things, and I figured it’d turn out to be super-lame. But there’s pool! And ping-pong! And chess! And Scrabble! And live jazz! And a bunch of dorky hipsters everywhere! It’s a massive (at least by NYC standards) basement with a bunch of tables and chairs for drinkin’ and gamin’, individual netted rooms for ping-pong, and the sort of music that makes you feel like wearing a flapper dress and smoking from an obnoxiously long cigarette holder. It helps that I totally killed Kamran at ping-pong manymany times in a row, but that’s neither here nor there. So I started out my fat cat visit feeling miserable and wanting to leave immediately and ended it by being the last one to want to go.

A+!

Unapologetically Mundane » par-tay

Happy Bigtime Birthday, Tracey!

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