Hump Day Inspiration

Ugh... Its Wednesday. We know, your life is pretty hard and if you are in the North Atlantic US then it's probably getting pretty cold and you are thinking your life is pretty hard and we sympathize. But look on the bright side, at least you aren't...

.....These smokin' hot dudes ex-GIRLfriends.

Okay, okay so maybe we were just looking for a reason to post this video because we think it may be one of the most amazing things to ever grace this fair "interweb" of ours but, upon (too) many viewings our joy, laughter and concentration of learning all these dance moves, gave way to the feeling of "God, how much would you NOT want to be one of these guys ex-girlfriends?".

Holly has a special fondness for the one in the powder blue shorts, there's no telling what those hips would be capable of besides dancing to campy music. I myself have matching Oakley Frogskins with Mr. Orange Shorts, we would have been such a cute matchy-eyewear couple!

Not only are all of these guys super hot, patriotic, great dancers, and obviously the life of the party but you can be sure that you will never EVER get back together with them. At least you knew he meant it when he said, "It's not you, it's me".

So enjoy this splendor of Fire Island! The only thing missing here is stilettos, but "I guess they didnt get the memo".

College vs. Adulthood: A Study in the Changing of Seasons

Fall has begun!

 The signs are eminent: the air is crisp, the leaves are changing colors, the water at Brighton is even less inviting, Michelle Obama has even stopped going sleeveless, mostly. Fall sweaters are real sweaters, as opposed to “summer sweaters” which are just really hairy guys at the beach. And the episode of last nights Gossip Girl made dorm life seem much more glamourous than we remember. My sister keeps drunk dialing me from tailgating parties claiming she is the "beanbag champ of Nebraska". Paige’s brother is now a resident of his college’s “Lacrosse House” and God only knows how much wholesome fun is being had there.

Even more than raking leaves or lusting over Ashley Olsen’s cashmere collection, Fall reminds us of the beginning of the school year. Sigh. If you are like Paige or myself then you are feeling jealous of all the young (but not too young) ladies and um, gentlemen who are having the time of their lives getting an “education” in just about everything from Geology to tonsil hockey. 

 While we are pretending to learn to balance our bar tabs in relation to our measly paychecks and are taking a wild stab at dressing "business casual", our younger counterparts are doing their first kegstands and have legit reasons to stop cute guys asking which way to Anatomy 101.

We miss giving marshallows (see photo) and bottles of cheap tequila as acceptable hostess gifts. We miss getting decked out to "study" on a Sunday night at the library (ten points if you spot a basketball player at the library, 20 if he's not Facebooking).

 I miss jumping around in spandex with pom poms at basketball games, and displaying my "cheer tools"  in my dorm windowsill letting passerbys know that a someone who's got spirit, yea yea's got spirit(!) sleeps within. 

Paige misses stacking her classes between the hours of noon and 4pm to ensure optimum time for morning surfing and afternoon drinking. She does not, to be sure, miss her "Freshman 15" or her ill-advised, Mary Kate Olsen-inspired bout of brown hair.

However...

Here are a few reasons why right now is "like college, but better":

1. The only time you see girls in leggings and Uggs in on Canal Street where they belong, not absolutely everywhere.  

2. Parties usually have more to drink than keg beer and "Jungle Juice" (however, please note that this is exactly what we serve at our parties).

3. Men, not boys

4. Absolutely no guilt while watching countless hours of reality television (you "earned" this, and its not like you have a test tomorrow)

5. That whole "homework" thing got real old real fast

6. Finding out that you think your friends who dated in high-school who stuck it out through college is actually sort of sweet, not pathetic.

7. Dating someone over thirty is totally acceptable, not totally creepy  

8. You aren't sitting in classrooms all day with irresonsible make-out sluts and therefore the chances of getting swine flu go way down 

9. Wearing heels anywhere and anytime doesn't make you a snob

10. Having a crush on a coworker or your boss is way more scandalous and exciting than having a crush on a TA or your professor.

Sometimes we will say, "remember college?" which is usually followed with a slew of embarassing stories, and tales memorable boyfriends, and forgetable outfits. We have no doubt that in few years we will say, "remember when we all lived together in Brookyn?" which will be followed by tales of making nice with neighborly Puerto Ricans, pregaming for dates, and Paige's highwaisted velvet hot shorts. 

American Comedian George Gobel said, "College is a place to keep warn between high school and early marriage." We agree with the warm part as we went to school in South Carolina, but is there anything hotter then four girls pre-gaming while wearing negliges on a Saturday night toasting to "the best is yet to come"? We think not.

Here's a picture of us well into adulthood. 

Hump Day Inspiration

And so begins our first weekly Wednesday segment where we fill our faithful readers with inspiration to get over the hump in the week, feel better about their lives and coast on towards the weekend.

Now, we know it's Wednesday and you may be miserable at your desk at your "job" like us but at least you arent..... Leighton Meister having to present with Blake Lively at the Emmy's last weekend.

Off-screen rivalry between pretty young thangs that co star on TV shows is as age-old as Tory Spelling and Shannon Dougherty. And our beloved Gossip Girls are no exception, the media loves to report on how much Leighton and Blake hate eachother and one can only imagine why. I mean, Leighton has to watch her co-star make out with her real-life boyfriend on screen every week (the cast is undoubtedly incestuous). But after the awards this past Sunday, our hearts really go out to Ms. Meister (who was born to an incarcerated mother, no less).

Imagine getting all dolled up in a flowing, angelic, uber expensive gown (with unfortunate shoulder pads, but whatever...) and spending hours and your hair and make up only to show up and have to present with THIS creature.

Even with a vile, Laura Croft fishtale 'do cascading down her bare back, blake would still be able to upstage a naked Leighton. With giant, perfect, gravity-defying boobs and endless legs BOTH on display in this blinding Versace number Blake makes Leighton look like a meek, pale little elf with creepy make-up drowing in a dowdy frock with mosquito bite boobs.

You may have a hard time genuinely feeling bad for Leighton. And yes, she may be richer, more powerful and more beautiful than we may ever hope to be, and she may get to kiss and roll around with ed westwick and get PAID for it, but at least you will probably never have to stand next to Blake Lively in front of dozens of millions of people and act like you like it.

Okay now, get back to work!

MEAT BAG

"I still have a piece of that chicken stuck in my teeth..."

We should start this post by letting you know that we will eat almost ANYTHING. The other night I came home from a dinner of Bhan Mi's ($3 Vietnamese sandwiches that have my mother convinced I will die from swine flu.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bánh_mì) ....

... and Holly was treating herself to a sumptuous dinner of smashed-up Goldfish crackers covered in salad dressing. I know, we'll eat anything, well almost. 

We found these in our cabinet the other day and are still have no idea how they were FDA approved...  or what they were doing in our cabinet. 

That right people, thats bagged meat. It doesn't even need to be refrigerated! Thats where we draw the line. 

A roommate who will remain nameless tried it though, and coming from the girl who regularly eats Chef Boyardee Ravioli straight from the can at room temperature it was "too much like dog food". So we tossed it. 

No matter how FDP we are, we have standards people... And with that I shall go order myself a $4.50 "Pastrami Nightmare" from Purity restaurant. 

Dispatches from the Russian Hamptons

Zdravstvujte, friends!

And for you idiots who don’t know what “Zdravstvujte” means, it translates to “hello” in Russian. Look! You learned a lesson! Now, when moving from our perspective home states of Delaware and Minnesota our parents told us they wanted us to make sure we took advantage of all the cultural goodies the city had to offer, the museums, the live music, the ethnic foods, the politics and of course the 50 cent vodka shots on the boardwalk in Brighton Beach. And boy, have we sure done at least one of those! Don’t bother guessing.

When an outsider thinks of Brooklyn they may naively picture Biggie Smalls, crack rock and concealed weapons. When an uninformed Manhattanite thinks of Brooklyn they tend to conjure up loathsome images of spoiled hipsters on fixed-gears or hippie moms drinking Kombucha al fresco with a brood ofchildren with creative haircuts and baby Snuggies. But I can assure you all there is so much more Brooklyn has to offer, like eastern European men in neon thongs.

7 miles by way of bicycle, there is a land called Brighton Beach, also known as the last stop on the Q train and home-base for Russian immigrants, so this is obviously where we spend the sunniest of Saturdays. I hatched my plan on a Wednesday asking Holly and Kristy to join me on a leisurely bike ride to the beach, knowing that people rarely turn-down this opportunity. At 10am sharp on that Saturday we slapped-on bikinis and hopped on bikes and I, proceeded to lead my Midwestern girlfriends down a.... er, cultural path as we pedaled through the projects, to streets lined with brownstones, to streets lined with giant, gaudy mansions, all the way to the ocean, marked by towering high rises. My bike, naturally, became injured 4 miles into the 7 mile ride and started making a banging noise that seemed to scream “strange men, please come up to me and try to help me with my bike!” but I would not be deterred and the payoff was sweet, Mr. Softee sweet.

We sampled the modern Brooklyn fare, Mr. Softee ($2.50 per person) just tastes better when you eat it on the city street in a bikini. Then, on the beach we flagged down the man pulling a cart and hocking flavored ice ($2 per person). I had to spit mine out because it tasted like soap... but probably not because it was clean.

After we had enough sun exposure, fruit flavored ice, dips in the “ocean”, and eye-fulls of scantily-clad European-tounged men, we took to the boardwalk.

I remember the New Jersey boardwalks of my childhood having offerings of ski-ball and fudge samples, Brighton Beach is different. On Brighton Beach hoards of big-haired and hoop-earinged folks roam from vendor to vendor sampling summer dishes like borsht, dried fish and of course, vodka.

Not feeling quite as culturally adept, we waited on line for hot dogs ($1.50 each) and French fries ($2), and topped off our eating excursion with the decidedly less-risky grilled corn on the cob ($2 each).

Finally, feeling like we had really accomplished the cultural dreams our parents had in mind for us, we climbed the Q train platform, faulty bike over my shoulder and rode the rails back to our own little Americanized corner of Brooklyn. But we have vodka there too.

Totals Spent: $10 per person

Fashion Night Out meets FDP

I always think its genius when stores have complimentary booze to get sippy on while shopping, or for one's significant other/husband/boyfriend/dad/"benefactor" to sip on while some lucky girl just tries on clothes until the credit card holder has had enough free booze to shell out for just about anything. I have never been in this situation, but have always thought it made so much sense. The fashion and beauty retailers of NYC knew what they were doing when theycame up with Fashion Night Out, a night of free booze, spendy fall fashion, and mingling models to start off New York Fashion Week. This had my and Paige's name written all over it in large, all caps, bold lettering.
We started discussing (emailing while we were at our "jobs") about what we would wear, where we would go, and which celebs we wanted to see the most. Justin Timberlake at Saks? Blake Lively at Macy's? Of course the Olsen's tending bar at Bergdorf's took the cake.
We started the night at Tiffany's to support our roommate and start the night off with an entourage of six aptly dressed young ladies. While the idea of Fashion Night Out is to inspire spending, we were not to be fooled by retailers and decided the night was more about getting freebies and acting ridiculous as the harshest critics were boozy gay men. We got Absolute peartinis at Barney's, where the bar was tough to locate, but an inquisitive trip to the third floor proved there were free cocktails. Then we had Hurricane sake at Diesel (which inspired a double-dog-dare to put men's Diesel underwear on my head, trying on every pair of Diesel sunglasses we wouldn't wear unless we were paid in Benjamin's, and a conversation about Paige's Diesel mini backpack from her childhood). Then to Saks where we elbowed teenyboppers ascending clothing racks to get a glimpse of Justin Timberlake that may not have actually even have been there. Tricky no? After Justin's no-show we headed downtown where, unsurprisingly, the champagne had been drunk and we were on our own to find some nightcaps.
We settled on a little place where Paige recently had some"bad, translucent prosciutto"...could ANYTHING be worse than raw, clear meat? As our girlfriends ordered chocolate and key-lime pie martinis, Paige and I went one-for-one doing something crazier than taking another shot at Italian ham: ordering the Greektini, made with tomato and cucumber vodka and topped with a Feta-stuffed olive. About thirty minutes after ordering our drinks (our waiter confused "chocolate martini" with "chardonnay", which could only be topped by the time Paige mixed up Spain and Brazil on a map) we got our Greektinis, saw that we actually had murky cheese martinis, regretted our decision, drank them, drank our girlfriends because theirs were "too strong", and called it a night.
We dream of the day we can actually buy something at Fashion Night Out, actually see Justin Timberlake, and be smart enough not to order booze that comes with a lump of cheese in it. Until then, we will discount shop, bash Jessica Biel, and drink cheesetinis.

"I dare you to put those Diesel man panties on your head. Do it"

Justine Timberlake was supposedly in the bridal room at Saks. People, us included, are pictured here taking pictures of...glass.

Cheesetini anyone?

Deisel sunglasses that we spotted from across the bar because there were definitely no straight men to spot.