Monthly Archives: September 2011

The Last Thing I’ll Say About the Hamptons This Year

Posted by katie ett on September 30, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Filed under just pictures, travels
Tagged as , ,

Our trip to the Hamptons a couple of weeks ago started out pretty ominously. My roommate (who prefers that I refer to him as my landlord), Jack, and I met our friend Jeff at his new apartment in Queens that has one of those old-style elevators where you have to close an outer door before the door inside the elevator will close. So we loaded our suitcases full of clothes, duffel bags full of liquor, backpacks full of Xboxes, and arms full of cameras into this 2-by-3-foot thing, let the outer door close behind us, pressed the button to go down, watch as the inner door slid closed . . . and just sat there.

It took Jeff about three seconds to silently flip out and then press every button, ring the emergency bell, and begin calling the super repeatedly. After about five seconds of that, I started looking around to figure out if any fresh air was getting into the thing while Jack, I’m sure, was contemplating which of us would be more delicious to eat if it came down to that: the kid raised on Caribbean food or the kid raised on steak and potatoes.

Eventually, Jeff and Jack pried open the inner door and figured out that the outer door just hadn’t closed all the way. So after stopping on every floor thanks to Jeff’s button-pushing, we were on our way to the loveliest dollhouse on the East coast:

The Hamptons

It was dark by the time we got there, so we spent the first night hanging out inside, but as soon as the sun rose (okay, more like 11 a.m.), we were out the door for some lemon ricotta pancakes and some buttermilk pancakes with crispy bacon:

The Hamptons

The Hamptons

As soon as we got back to the house, I walked across the street to the beach. Now, I hadn’t expected the water to actually be warm enough to swim in, but I hadn’t expected the crazy waves. These things had to be eight feet high:

The Hamptons

and green!:

The Hamptons

and coming so far up the shore in some places that they were making separate pools and cutting out big sand cliffs:

The Hamptons

I understood why some of the houses had boards on them still from the hurricane weeks before. And I hope you’re not bored yet, because here are 15 million more pictures of them:

The Hamptons

The Hamptons

The Hamptons
butterfly!

The Hamptons
closer butterfly!

The Hamptons

The Hamptons

The Hamptons

The Hamptons

The Hamptons

Jeff and Jack drove by the beach to pick me up so we could meet everyone at the grocery store to stock the house for the weekend. I found this greeting card resting on the pizza I was about to buy, and it actually did dissuade me from buying that pizza. But not the one next to it. BOO-YAH.

The Hamptons

Our friends Anthony and Chantee arrived that night, and we spent the evening eating Anthony’s cheeses on bread drizzled with honey and solving world problems.

The next day, we went on a loooooooong walk on the beach that included so much propping-Anthony’s-camera-up-on-flip-flops-and-things-to-take-pictures-of-ourselves and then went into “town”, which is a five-block strip of boutiques (that all sell ice cream in addition to whatever their actual purpose is) and restaurants on one street. We took uproarious photos that are all trapped on Anthony’s camera and stopped by a bakery where I got something so delicious it’s getting its own post on donuts4dinner.com. Just knowing that it’s in one of the bags in front of Jack and Anthony is kind of making me mouth-froth right now:

The Hamptons

While everyone else sat out on the deck reading, I got up the nerve to stick my feet in the pool for, like, a whole half an hour before they turned blue. Then, that night, we had a family dinner at the house and then drove to the end of the peninsula to see this:

The Hamptons

The Hamptons

The Hamptons

The Hamptons

And all the joy we felt can be expressed in this picture of Chantee and me:

The Hamptons

It’s just so great there, you guys. The house is three stories of plushy couches and TVs and stereo systems, so there’s always something going on somewhere, and everyone gets along when I’m not accusing someone of having bad taste in music, and everyone stays up so late talking about so much, and we walk to the beach in sweaters at midnight, and we stand out on the balcony and look at the moon and are perfect.

Win a Trip on Greyhound Express!

Posted by katie ett on September 27, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Filed under giveaways
Tagged as

You may remember my dreamy Greyhound trip to Atlantic City last year, and if you do, you’ve probably been dreaming of one of your own ever since.

Well, thanks to my friends at Greyhound, one of you will win a trip for two on their premium express bus! Amenities on these buses include:

• reserved seating

• free wi-fi

• power outlets on the seats, and

• extra legroom!

Not to mention the chance to sit back, relax in those plush seats, and let Greyhound take you wherever you want to go.

Here’s the fine print:

• Greyhound will provide a round trip ticket for one reader and a friend to experience Greyhound Express.

• At least one rider must be over 18 years old.

• The tickets will be non-refundable, which means any attempts at re-booking may involve additional cost at the expense of the rider.

• Trips must occur within 60 days of the contest end date.

• Trips must be scheduled for one origin city and one destination city on a Greyhound Express route in the Southeast or Northeast.

All of the cities Greyhound Express travels to and from can be found here. If you’re near a city with an Express bus to NYC, come visit me! And if you’re not, go visit someone else and tell me about it to make me jealous!

To enter, just leave me a comment telling me where you’d travel to if you won. Or tell me something in general. Or link me to a picture of your cat. No matter what, be sure to include your e-mail address in your comment so I can contact you when you win.

I’ll pick a random winner this Friday at 5 p.m.!

What Will You Pay for Art?

Posted by katie ett on September 23, 2011 – 4:35 pm
Filed under stuff i like
Tagged as

The price of art is a funny, funny thing. I remember seeing a macro photograph of some water for $900 at a museum in Southern California when we were there last month and thinking, “Kamran’s 3-year-old niece could’ve accidentally shot that if we handed her a camera.” I think the venerable OOF painting is wonderful . . . but wouldn’t pay more than the cost of materials for it. I appreciate that our society values art, but I just don’t know how you determine what any of it’s worth.

I guess it’s worth whatever someone will pay for it, right? Well, so, my friend Anthony has been making these decorative picture frames lately. I know that decorative picture frames are going to put you in the mind of, like, wood painted magenta and covered in plastic fairy princess hats and the words Daddy’s Little Future Golddigger or something, so let me just show you some examples:

Not lame, right? The project kind of started as an accident, but now he’s really enjoying it, and I’m really encouraging him to make some money off of it. Neither of us has any idea what you charge for something like that, though.

These window frames were free, but it’s unlikely that future ones always will be. He has about $50 worth of copper in the background of the third frame, and the others all have fabric and matting costs. There’s the time spent burning the edges of the frame or weathering the paint. And if he uses his own pictures, there’s the effort it takes to edit and print each photo. Plus, there’s also the “am I willing to make this myself?” factor, and no, I’m not willing to make this myself.

So, how much would you pay for it? If you saw it on Etsy or eBay, what price would get you interested? Is there a price that would turn you away?

I told Anthony not to read this post so you’ll feel free to be more honest, but you can also comment anonymously, if you like. (Just use katie @ unapologeticallymundane.com for the e-mail address, since my comment system requires one.)

Boys Don’t Make Passes at Girls in Grandma Glasses

Posted by katie ett on September 20, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Filed under narcissism, stuff i like
Tagged as ,

I’ve been wearing the same pair of glasses since, like, forever. I still like them, the prescription still works for me, and I don’t wear glasses that often, anyway. Also I am cheap. So when my vision insurance offers to pay for either my contacts or my glasses, I always go with the contacts.

And then I found out that you can buy glasses online for ridiculously cheap. Like, ridiculously. I’d been thinking about clear glasses for a while and how they would look so freaking good on me, so I called my Ohio eye doctor for my prescription tout de suite. (I felt a little bad not buying my glasses straight from him, but then I remembered that clear glasses don’t exist in Ohio.) I picked out a pair and showed them to Kamran, who promptly told me that only grandmas wear clear glasses.

Well, if that’s true, then I’m one foxy grandma, right?

Clear Glasses

j/k. One of my friends actually called them “BCs” in the Hamptons this weekend. When I asked her what that means, she said, “Birth control glasses. Nobody’s gonna get you pregnant in those.”

I was like, “If I went to Williamsburg in these, I’d get raped in a second.” Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Not Colonial Williamsburg. You know what I mean. But yeah, I really do look like a grandma here, right?

Clear Glasses

But a really sweet grandma who makes cookies and crochets and doesn’t call anybody a whore, though.

If you want some (non-grandma) glasses of your own, I recommended EyeBuyDirect.com, and if you use code IF5Q63MJE6, you get 15% off your first order, and I get some dollars to help me buy another pair that will actually make boys like me!

NYC: The Really Hot Boyfriend Who Beats Me

Posted by katie ett on September 19, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Filed under living in new york is neat, living in new york sucks so hard, travels
Tagged as , , ,

The Hamptons feels so far away from New York City that I sometimes forget I’m still in the same time zone. We ride around in cars there and eat pastries on the empty patios of cafés and stock up for the weekend in grocery stores with aisles big enough to fit carts. The town has ten boutiques, and the people who live there make conversation with you for no reason.

But on the drive home, you quickly realize how close to the city you still are. On the road trips I used to make in college to South Carolina and Chicago, I remember stopping for gas at highway exits that had little else. A truck stop, an adult bookstore, and a McDonald’s perched on a hill with nothing but miles and miles of farmland as far as I could see. I always felt like I was on the prairie, even if I was really in the middle of the Appalachians. On the way back from the Hamptons, if you blink your eye, you’re in Queens. The exits all lead to neighborhoods with constantly-busy streets, strollers full of babies of every ethnicity, skateboarding teenagers, shopping bags on every arm.

There’s no rest. I feel my chest tighten as soon as the row houses come into view and a taxi cuts us off. The fact that I hold my breath all day in NYC is only noticeable after a weekend away with nothing but exhalations. It’s like I’m always bracing myself for the worst.

Brooklyn Bridge

But then we’re on the Brooklyn Bridge, and the city’s skyline is the most exciting one I’ve ever seen, and I tell my friend Jeff, “If I’m this happy to see New York after only a weekend away, imagine how I’d feel after a year.” It’s scary to imagine yourself as a tourist here, older and settled somewhere else and without any more ties to this city than to London or Tokyo. Part of the thing about living in NYC is feeling like you’re in on a special secret that no one else knows about.

Well, no one but the 18 million other people who live here.