Beach Season: No Need to Get Bent Out of Shape

It’s that time of year again—the good weather is here, winter is over and the Hamptons is the place to be. It’s oh so boring, isn’t it? It’s the same thing every year, always being the number one summer destination in the world, without question. People flocking to enjoy the best beaches, best restaurants and best, well, of everything.

Ho hum. I guess it’s time to start getting ready,
once more.

The Body

How to prepare for summer in the Hamptons:

Step 1: Get on scale.

Step 2: Panic.

Step 3: Eat a quart of ice cream in shame.

Step 4: Take a nap.

Step 5: Go to the gym.

Bathing suits are also going to be a reality in the Hamptons shortly, and the endless battle of the belly bulge continues. After breaking my collar bone while skiing this winter, I was unable to do any physical activity for six weeks, which translated into my watching reruns of Seinfeld and listening to philosophy books on my iPhone while my fiancé laughed at me for having a “broken wing.”

Lately I’ve returned to the gym with what seems a simple but effective make-up-for-lost-time strategy. Whatever I did before, I’m now doing double. Then I got up this morning, only to repeat steps one through five above.

The Boat

Last week I called about five different boat-bottom painters, and none of them answered, so I started thinking about painting the bottom of my 25 O’Day sailboat myself. I have done it in the past, more paint seems to get on me than on the boat, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to die after having read how toxic boat paint is to the human body. But if I don’t get the boat ready before May, there will be other people enjoying their boats and I’ll still be stuck on land trying to attach the 8-horse-power Mercury engine to the back of the damned thing. And I can’t have that.

The Fashion Battle

I’m completely out of summer clothes. I don’t even have flip-flops anymore. If there’s one thing about getting engaged that can have an unforeseen influence on summer, it’s how suddenly your fiancé decides that every piece of clothing you own looks awful on you. That Billabong shirt I’ve owned since the eighth grade and the Sperry shoes I purchased in 2003 were extremely difficult to throw out. Goodbye, old friends. God speed.

Thankfully, I’ve discovered L.L. Bean. I love L.L. Bean. Everything about the company says to me, “David, you are one of us. You like to sail, you like to hunt, you like to fish, join us, join us….”

The Better Homes & Gardens Thing

House cleaning.  Three words. Oh…God…no.

As for the yard, well, I  don’t have a backyard. But for some reason, every spring I’m the guy who has every single person I’ve ever met asking if I know a cheap and reliable landscaper.

Three more words. “Check Dan’s Papers.”

Read David’s blog about Hamptons life daily at DansHamptons.com.