Tag Archives: travels

I’m Totally Not Kidding About Vacationing at the Jersey Shore

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Three times in the past two years, my friends and I rented a Hamptons beach house in a lazy part of town mere steps from the ocean. It was more impressive than any of our wildest dreams had imagined, and it was $900 per night the first two times and then $700 per night the last time because the kitchen cabinets were being worked on and we had to store our food ten feet from the counter instead of three feet. THE TERROR.

This year, I wanted to get an early start on things and wrote to the owners of the house in January to secure it. It was already booked.

Well, no big deal. There are hundreds of houses to rent out there, and maybe we could find an even better one with a hot tub and a pool table and a tennis court for us to admire and never, ever use. I started checking all of usual rental sites and found some really beautiful places right down the street from our usual house.

For $12,000 a week.

Also $20,000 a week.

And yes, $35,000 a week.

But only $110,000 for the month, so no big deal!

So we instead started looking for a house on the . . . dun Dun DUN . . . Jersey shore.

Not this Jersey shore:

Jersey Shore Cast

Deeeeeeeeeefinitely not this Jersey shore:

Jersey Shore Cast

But this one, much, much farther down the shore, so far past even Atlantic City that they actually pronounce it “shore” rather than “show-uh”:

Jersey Shore Collage
photos by 1Avalon1, marc.cappelletti, Wind Watcher, middleda, fotododo, fotododo, 1Avalon1, Wind Watcher

I’m not saying I don’t still secretly hope to see Vinny there, but hopefully the rest of the Guido juicehead gorillas will be farther up the shore.

See you in a week!

Still More About the California Trip We Took Seven Months Ago

Filed under boobies, creepy boyfriend obsession, just pictures, travels
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Southern California Trip

Remember how Kamran took me to visit his family in California last August and how I just barely blogged about it? Well, here’s the photodump from the trip that you haven’t been asking for:

Southern California Trip

We were mostly there for Kamran’s parents’ 40th anniversary, which was celebrated at Javier’s with grandchildren, steak, and my first Sprinkles cupcakes in the form of a cake that spelled out happy anniversary. I got the an:

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

We visited Kamran’s friend Mike, who has a pool in his backyard like everyone else in California,

Southern California Trip

made eyes at the googly-eyed flowers in Kamran’s parents’ backyard,

Southern California Trip

and ate In-N-Out the first chance we got:

Southern California Trip

(There’s nothing more pleasurable to me than sitting in a drive-thru in a car after almost seven years of not driving.)

Southern California Trip

We met Kamran’s uncle at the Santa Monica Seafood café for ceviche, crab cakes, ciopino, and fish and chips (yes, even I ordered and enjoyed seafood (and by “seafood”, I mean “the batter and tartar sauce that goes on it”)):

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

And then went next door to Huckleberry Cafe for some suuuuuuuuuuperfine sweets, including a trifle and a fig that we stole off the tree out back and washed off in the bathroom(!!):

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Kamran’s uncle took us to a house he and his partner have been designing to perfection for 10+ years now that had this view:

Southern California Trip

We drove to San Diego to Balboa Park, which contains the San Diego Zoo, The Museum of Man, the Fleet Science Center, the Air & Space Museum, the Natural History Museum, and a buuuuuuuuuunch more:

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

The architecture was amazing, and so was the weather. The entire time we were there, his parents didn’t need to turn on the air conditioning in their house. And this was August.

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

This is not a tiny fanny pack on Kamran’s hip but his camera case, so it’s fine:

Southern California Trip

At the Natural History Museum:

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Southern California Trip

Kamran’s first 3-D movie (he was only pretending to not be excited for the camera):

Southern California Trip

A huge, bazillion-year-old tree outside the museum:

Southern California Trip

On the way back to Laguna, we passed the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, which look like two boobs rising from the beach, and which Kamran . . .

Southern California Trip

well . . .

I think this is a good place to end this.

Blogfriends in The ‘Burgh

Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, travels
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I have to admit that the first time I read Cassie‘s blog, I didn’t know quite what to think. Well, actually, I did know quite what to think, and what I thought was that she was some mostly-unemployed teen mom who wasn’t sure who her dad is. I wasn’t totally unjustified:

1) She and her husband decided to start having kids right away, so even though they look really young, they’re well out of the age range where old ladies might faint and townsfolk might try to stone Cassie when she runs by with her triple-wide jogging stroller.

2) She only works one day a week because she spends the rest of her time raising her beautiful children to not judge others by the first page of posts on their blogs.

3) Her URL may include the words “whosmydaddy”, but that’s just because she has several father figures. Not because her mom was a lady of the night with an undetermined number of partners.

Anyway. After months of being like, “Who do all of my other blogfriends like Cassie so much?”, I checked her out again and realized that for some reason, I’m really interested in this person who blogs about children, cooking, and exercise.

I know. I have no idea why, either.

So while I was in Ohio for two weeks, Cassie and I made a plan to somehow coerce my best friend, Tracey, to drive me the three hours to Pittsburgh so the three of us could, you know, stuff our faces, taunt some geese, and generally align our menstrual cycles, as women are wont to do.

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

We met as Cassie’s house just outside of the city and said a quick hello to the kids before thrusting them at her wonderful husband, Matt, and driving downtown to enjoy the Christmas decorations

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

and dinosaur decorations,

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

to eat some saucy Mexican food at Las Velas,

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

and to walk along the shore of the Allegheny. Or the Monongahela. I’m not sure.

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

As we were coming up from the riverfront, Cassie warned us to watch our step and to not excite the geese, who frequently attack her with their great, stabby beaks while she’s out running. She began quietly herding them using her best mama duck walk,

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

but of course Tracey couldn’t help but antagonize them:

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

Cassie drove us in her fancy rich people SUV to the neighborhood of Mount Washington, which is perched high on a cliff that overlooks the entire city and takes advantage of it with these balconies that hang out over the edge:

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

It was a cloudy, rainy, gross day, but the view was nonetheless amazing and had us regretting that Columbus and NYC are both totally flat:

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie
view larger

I tried to take some glamour shots of Cassie and pretty much failed,

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

but I was a teeny bit more successful with Tracey, probably because she’s more used to my shenanigans. And is also kind of slutty. (Just kidding! She’s totally respectable!)

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

We took in all of the sights:

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

and then Cassie drove us from neighborhood to neighborhood, pointing out all of Pittsburgh’s landmarks, until we go to the most important one of all, Oakmont Bakery:

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

This place was extensive. Just cases and cases of pies, donuts, truffles, macarons, cupcakes, chocolate-dipped everything, cake pops, cinnamon buns–you name it. And all of it was astoundingly cheap. When the cashier charged me less than $6 for my mini peanut butter pie, lemon French macaron, buckeye, and black and white cookie (covered with icing on both sides!), I told her she must have mischarged me. But no.

Our diabetes satiated, we drove back to Cassie’s house to let the kids entertain us for a couple of hours. I find children really intimidating and, you know, generally annoying, but hers are both friendly and angelic, quick to smile for the camera and slow to pee on the carpet.

Claire tried on all of her costumes for us:

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

Luca played with everything and everyone in the house:

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

and Mae proved that no picture can adequately capture her cuteness (but I sure tried):

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

They were the

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

most adorable

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

family ever:

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

Even while this was happening:

Pittsburgh with Tracey and Cassie

Cassie did such a great job of tour guiding us that I left feeling like Pittsburgh is place not just for headsick sports fans but for real people who like amazing views, dirt roads just miles from downtown, and lots and lots of baked goods.

Thanks for the awesome time, Cassie! And get ready for our next visit, because I accidentally threw out my macaron and peanut butter pie on the way home with our Burger King trash and the wrapper for the cookie dough we ate that morning on the way to see you (what?), and you know that will not stand.

Love is Patient. Love is Kind. Love Does Not Steal Your Robot Cookie.

Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, everyone's married but katie, travels
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After a bazillion years of dating, my former co-worker, Eric, and his girlfriend, Christine, finally decided to stop living together in sin and started planning their wedding in her hometown of Miami. She whispered the date to me one night at my office dinner club and asked if I could come, and I said I probably couldn’t swing a plane ticket for the wedding and Thanksgiving in Ohio in the same month. And then I of course bought the ticket to Miami, like, the next day. My roommate/landlord/co-worker/friend, Jack, was also representing the not-Eric’s-friend-from-college contingent, so we flew down one night a couple of weeks ago after work for a whirlwind weekend filled with not wearing sandals, one of the best weddings ever, and so many stolen robot cookies.

Jack and I had just the morning and afternoon before the wedding to explore Miami, so naturally we didn’t leave our hotel until noon, and then it took $40 and a ridiculous amount of time to get from our hotel to South Beach, ten miles away. That was the weird thing about Miami: everything looks super-close on the map but never actually is. Since we’re used to walking everywhere in NYC, we thought it’d be no problem to walk across the bridge to South Beach, and then Google told us it would take three hours. So we ended up taking taxis everywhere, which was a different experience in that you call independent companies to come pick you up instead of just walking out your front door and hailing one of a thousand passing cabs, and some guy shows up in what might be his personal car with a backseat full of fast food wrappers. In a way, it’s cool, because you can’t call yellow cabs here and are sometimes left waiting for ten minutes at the side of the road on Saturday nights or when it rains, but in another way, I like the big divider that separates me from my cab driver here and makes him seem more like someone I’ve hired to do my bidding and less like my dad driving me home from the mall in his ’92 Toyota Camry or whatever.

Anyway, once we got to South Beach, we beelined for this restaurant Jack had picked out on Yelp. You know, despite the fact that I have an acclaimed palate and have been professionally critiquing food for the past three years. (Just kidding.) But seriously, I had bookmarked three or four restaurants that had four and five stars and would serve us an authentic Cuban sandwich, but Jack felt like he needed brunch. Brunch. In South Beach. But it was fine (three donuts and no more, if I was reviewing it for donuts4dinner.com), and then we had the rest of the afternoon to walk along the boardwalk separating the beach from the fancy hotels that seem to be having boozy pool parties all day long.

Eric and Christine's Miami Wedding

Eric and Christine's Miami Wedding

The beach was cuh-RAZY beautiful and totally put our beloved Hamptons to shame, but of course we were idiot Northerners wearing jeans and sneakers and absolutely no sunblock, so I basically ran out onto the beach to take these shots and then ran back in under the shade of the palm trees. We passed all sorts of adorable restaurants blowing mist from fans onto patios full of people sipping giant frozen drinks and then caught a taxi back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding. And by “get ready”, I mean “put some pretty clothes on over our sweat”.

Eric and Christine's Miami Wedding
Jack looking swank

The wedding took place at a hotel on a tiny island surrounded by palm trees

Eric and Christine's Miami Wedding

with a great view of the mainland

Eric and Christine's Miami Wedding

and was casual enough that we could talk to the groom on the hotel’s generous veranda beforehand but formal enough that we were not allowed to wear flip-flops, the wedding website proclaimed. We were served champagne before Christine walked down the aisle in order to make the ceremony bearable, but it was short and sweet and needed no such bribery.

Eric and Christine's Miami Wedding
this guy with all of the shoulder would NOT get out of my picture

Eric and Christine's Miami Wedding

Eric and Christine's Miami Wedding

I do notice that I totally Photoshopped this picture below way more yellow than the picture above, but I’m still stinging from the fact that Eric and Christine didn’t hire me as their totally-unpaid-wedding-photographer, so I’m not going to fix it.

Eric and Christine's Miami Wedding

This isn’t the kiss picture, but I just love how happy both Eric and the minister look. She thought Eric and Christine were destined for a long and happy marriage because they were both so attentive at their pre-wedding meetings with her, but little did she know that they’re just a couple of do-gooding nerds who were programmed to pay attention in school.

Eric and Christine's Miami Wedding

I can’t tell if Eric is pumping his fist and saying, “MARRIED! YUSS!” or if he’s thumb-pointing to himself and saying, “Who’s married? THIS GUY!”, but I like it either way.

Eric and Christine's Miami Wedding

Are those . . . blue flip-flops . . . peeking out from under Christine’s dress? DESPITE HER SPECIFICALLY TELLING ME I COULDN’T WEAR FLIP-FLOPS?

Eric and Christine's Miami Wedding

The table settings included diskettes with our names on them (but nothing actually stored in the memory–Jack asked)

Eric and Christine's Miami Wedding

and robot cookies that Jack requested to eat repeatedly throughout the evening and that I told him not to eat over and over. Well, at one point, we left the table, and when we came back, my cookie was gone. And then, after a billion years of dancing, we went outside to cool off in the less-cool-than-inside outdoors, and when we returned, Jack’s cookie was also gone. AND I KNOW WHO DID IT.

So tell your middle brother we hope he enjoyed the cookies, Eric, because he is dead to us now.

(j/k, j/k)

Eric and Christine's Miami Wedding

The reception started off with Eric and Christine’s first dance and ended with some robot cake

Eric and Christine's Miami Wedding

but in the middle was one of the most awesomely-planned weddings ever. They had a live band that legitimately did not suck, and right after Eric and Christine’s first dance, the band brought us all to the floor to dance. And then they sent us back to our tables to eat our crabcakes while Christine and her dad danced and Eric and his mom danced. And then they brought us all back out to dance. And then they sent us back to our tables to eat our salads while Christine’s dad gave this incredibly involved speech about how wonderful every single member of his family, including himself, is. (And I only say that a little bit mockingly, because I would want my dad to give the same speech at my wedding.) And then the band brought us back out again.

It went on like this until 11 p.m., when the band’s time was up. By this time, they had played “Livin’ on a Prayer”, “Don’t Stop Believin'” (can you believe both of those songs have dropped Gs?), and my very favourite ironic song of the moment, Enrique Iglesias’s “I Like It“. And we danced to every single one of them. With very little alcohol needed.

And then the next day we went to Christine’s parents’ house and ate all of their bagels to make up for not getting any robot cookies. We win.

Congratulations, Eric and Christine! We love you and promise to actually buy you a wedding gift someday!

Deep-Fried Everything

Filed under creepy boyfriend obsession, travels
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Kamran and I went to the Orange County Fair this summer while visiting his parents. Not only did he win me an Angry Bird at the one and only game we attempted

OC Fair

but he also filled me full of things like deep-fried Kool-Aid and deep-fried chicken on a jelly donut.

I figure even those of you who actively hate my food blog might like that.