Author Archives: plumpdumpling

Cape Cod: Only Half as Elitist as You Thought!

Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, travels
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Someday, when I’m old and famous and dying of an exploded stomach, they’ll ask me what the most important thing I learned in my immense life was, and I’ll say, “Make friends who not only fulfill you emotionally but also have nice cars, big pools, central air, and pets.” Several years ago, I made the very wise decision to become friends with my co-worker Ash, who later married Michael, who had already made the wise decision to be born into a family that owns a house in Cape Cod.

Kamran wasn’t feeling well, so I left alone for their apartment on a Thursday night a couple of weeks ago, and then we picked up our friend Jeff and drove the four hours to the cutest little cottage in the Cape:

Cape Cod
my bedroom!

We woke up early Friday morning to hit Keltic Kitchen before the crowds. Michael had been talking about this place for months and telling me it was the best breakfast I’d ever have, but I just couldn’t believe him because of the kitschy name.

But OMG. It was all that he described and more. I had creme brulee French toast with an orange-flavored custard sauce. They had French toast samplers and home fries. We left so stuffed we were unsure we’d ever eat again.

Cape Cod

After playing around in the restaurant’s Irish store,

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we went to a grocery store to stock up on mostly sweets,

Cape Cod

and a surf shop that strangely sold hermit crabs

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to stock up on flip-flops and weaponry to protect us on the mean streets of Hyannis:

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We headed straight for the beach but found the water cold and the skies overcast,

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so we spent the whole time goofing around on a jetty full of fishermen:

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Afterward, ankles still covered in sand, we went to Captain Parker’s for breadbowls full of clam chowder, and then spent the night . . . at the arcade in the mall . . . driving around and singing along to “Kiss from a Rose” . . . and seeing X-Men: First Class. Weird, right?

But it was vacation, and we’ll do what we want! We also had ice cream at Four Seas on Kim’s recommendation, and after watching Ash get ogled outside by a maybe-racist/maybe-just-too-smalltown-to-have-ever-seen-someone-not-white girl, I had some crazy concoction of peanut butter ice cream with peanut butter sauce and peanut-butter-infused baby limbs or something, because nothing that doesn’t involve human sacrifice can taste that good.

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Unable to resist the call of Irish foodstuffs, we went again to Keltic Kitchen the next morning, and I got something EVEN BETTER than creme brulee French toast, if you can imagine that. It was the 2×4: two eggs (over hard), two Irish sausages, two slices of cinnamon French toast, and two bangers, or thinly-sliced pork belly marbled with fat that melts in your mouth and is a lot less scary than its name would suggest.

We went to a different beach that afternoon and left off the sunscreen this time, having learned our lesson from the day before. So of course it was bright and beautiful and we all burned.

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I swear, though, Cape beaches are freaky. The first one was covered in so many shells you had to wear your sandals on the sand, and the second one was full of seagulls plucking crabs out of the sand mere feet from shore.

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IS THAT WHAT I’M STANDING ON WHEN I’M IN THE OCEAN? I don’t think I’m enough of a grownup to know these things.

Afterward, we went to the Christmas Tree Shops, to which I can only say, “What a bunch of horse crap! There wasn’t a Christmas tree in sight.” But really, why would I want there to be in the middle of June? Rename your store, you East Coast pinko hippie holiday-loving scum.

Then we stopped for more chowder at Seaside Pub, also on Kim’s recommendation, and everyone agreed it was pretty tasteless, as Kimerly told us it was going to be, so I’m not sure who you want to trust here. For dessert, we went to Katie’s Homemade Ice Cream simply for the name and despite its three out of five stars on Yelp, so of course it turned out to be truly delicious and to have important flavors like cake batter.

That night, we went to Pirate’s Cove for “adventure golf” that included so many testicle jokes,

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dancing to entertain people waiting in line at other holes,

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holes in one by Ash and me,

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and a shark bursting through a wall that I think has very little to do with pirates but was still cool:

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Sunday morning, we left the house at 8 a.m. and weren’t allowed any Keltic Kitchen due to time constraints, but even despite that severe oversight, it was a relaxing trip that let me see a whole new part of the U.S. Too bad my beach cravings are only 100 times worse now.

Thanks, Mike and Ash!

Someone Once Told Me That Flies Poop Every Time They Land on Something

Filed under just pictures, narcissism, travels
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My favourite photo from Cape Cod:

Of course it’s of myself, right?

Ohio in License Plates

Filed under no i really do love ohio, stuff i like
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Spotted in the Ohio Union at THE Ohio State University during my cousin’s swanky vet school graduation party.

Ohio License Plate Map at OSU
by Jeff Hersey and Robert Swanson

Needed for my apartment. Immediately.

Five Days and Fifty Photos from Ohio

Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, everyone's married but katie, just pictures, no i really do love ohio
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Remember how I went to Ohio on June 8th for my cousin Bethany’s graduation from vet school? No? Me neither. But here are some pictures that prove I was there or am at least really good at Photoshop!

My best friend, Tracey, was teaching a papercrafting class at the Columbus Museum of Art’s Craftacular Spectacular event, so we arrived early to take lewd pictures of her

in the “Don’t Eat the Art” exhibit

before giving in to our basest desires and dipping our hands into the rhinestone, glitter, and button bucket:

Apparently all of the students at the nearby Columbus College of Art and Design hated this sign when it went in outside the art museum (I believe it’s referred to as the “FART sign”), but I love it:

That night, we were supposed to go dancing at Skully’s as always, but I realized I’d only brought flip-flops and heels home. You can never have too many Chucks, so I was naturally pleased for an excuse to buy some new ones to leave at Tracey’s house. She was naturally pleased to be given an opportunity to step all over them with her own beer-drenched Chucks as we danced, because nothing looks so disgustingly new as new Chucks:

The next afternoon, I went to the HISTORIC Marcy Diner near my childhood home–which amazingly has a website that includes mention of the “pop” they sell–with my dad to eat $1 coney dogs. AND SOMEHOW DID NOT TAKE A SINGLE PICTURE OF THE EVENT. But you can bet it was a better hot-dog-eating experience than any I’ve had in fancypants New York City.

That night, I went to a big swanky vet school soiree with my cousin, Bethany, that Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee seemed to randomly happen upon, like he was taking a shortcut through the ballroom in the student union without realizing there was anything going on in there. Everyone was taking pictures with him, and I was all, “Wait, why?”, but this is for Bethany:

The next night, I went to dinner with Bethany and her family, and we spotted this gem in the Barnes & Noble parking lot:

Afterward, we went to her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine hooding ceremony. I guess this is a hooding:

I call it a choking.

She was simultaneously totally annoyed by all of the pictures I took and secretly thinking she was Wonder Woman:

Then we went to Applebee’s (!) for drinks (!), and Bethany’s brother paid for the whole shebang but not before complaining about Bethany’s $6.50 cocktail. I was confused until they informed me that $6.50 is actually expensive for a drink, and the $16 I’m now used to paying in NYC is offensive.

The next day, my dad and I skipped church (!) and went to Rooster’s for lunch instead of our usual Bob Evans. Adventurous! Then we came back to the house and watched my stepsister, Jenny, shave her girls’ 4-H pigs, which are being kept in my dad’s and stepmom’s back yard. Appaaaaaaaaaarently, 4-H judges think they look better when they’re hairless:

I think they’re the cutest things ever no matter what:

But especially when they’re being fed marshmallows:

Before I’d come home, a giant storm took out trees and power lines all over Ohio, and my family’s compound suffered some wild damage. Not only did a tree fall over onto the front porch, but the limb of another blew off onto the garage, revealing that it was hollow inside! And full of bees!:

That night, Tracey and I went to visit our longtime other best friend, Katie, her daughters Maria

and Evelyn (who looks like Toby from Labyrinth, Tracey decided this week),

and her husband-whom-I-introduced-her-to-because-I’m-the-best-matchmaker-ever-but-only-because-I-tried-to-date-him-first-and-he-totally-rejected-me-but-I-still-love-him, Nick:

After being served dinner by Katie, we all went to the backyard so I could take wildly adorable family pictures of them:

and then we watered Katie’s garden.

Well, Katie watered her garden.

The rest of us played in the water.

Well, some of us played in the water while some of us licked the water from the watering can:

Then we went back inside to enjoy the Cheesecake Factory desserts Tracey had brought (the only Cheesecake Factory I had on the entire trip!) and to watch Katie play with her new toy:

Until Tracey got too jealous and needed to see how much she remembered from her one quarter of string instrument training while getting her music education degree at OSU:

And that was it! Tracey and I spent the next day chowing on pizza and Graeter’s ice cream at the mall, and then she dropped me off at the airport so I could return to my babyless, pigless, expensive-drink world.

Tongue-Nose-Pickin’

Filed under no i really do love ohio
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While in Ohio, our friend Katie’s daughter was pinching us and covering us in grass, so my best friend, Tracey, tried to distract her by getting her to touch her nose with her tongue:

This is a feat I’ve never managed to master, so I’m glad Maria couldn’t, either. But she’s a lot cuter trying than I am.