what i want to buy

• what: skagen watch
• from: billion dollar babes [sample sale]
• material: stainless steel, mother of pearl
• price: $109 from $295
  

things ive seen

this potentially could encompass everything ...ever. but mostly im focusing on the last week at work.

long island does in fact have squirrels. i thought only stray cats and large marsupials that mostly end up as road kill. oddly enough after i took this not so great picture i almost ran over another squirrel.

a new car! that ive now put 250+ miles on... work is a bummer. really. but at least i have use of the brand new company civic. instead of the ghetto ass old audi that made horrid creaking noises when it turned to the left. it also had 108,000 miles on it...and it wasnt a honda. ie well past the end of its lifespan.

"the best stuff on earth just got better". well i have to say plumagranate while tasting like i have no idea what... [i like the idea of pomegranate flavoring but it really just tastes like red juicy with a little crunch] ..is rather tasty. being diet it is full of chemicals [instead of sugar] but doesnt have the cloying aftertaste of some drinks. its not overly sweet or too flavored like the peach version. and blah blah its probably not made from hand picked sustainable leaves and mixed with the tears of organic puppies... but it was cheap. and unlike vita coco, the $2.59 new craze of hipster brooklyn [now spreading like an infestation], it doesnt taste like someone pissed in a coconut and then stuck a straw in it. which really, to their credit, is how coconut water actually tastes. having had a freshly machete-ed open honduran green coconut, with a straw stuck in it, i can personally verify this.

these creepy motherfuckers are all over suburbia. who ever thought it was a good idea to nail a face to a tree? cos really.. tree momma is creepin on mr toad. he just wants to go for a wild ride and/or not get hit by a lawnmower.

more gardening

tomatoes ..hopefully about to ripen so i can eat them

another batch of snow peas and green beans

my first eggplant and squash

a saute explosion!

side dish for dinner made entirely from the garden [except the kecap manis and sesame oil. those are difficult to grow..]

mini harvest

only a few beans.. i ate the rest before i could manage a picture. and i dont remember but these are some kind of yellow bell i believe. kind of small, but they were too close to the ground for my taste. i dont like produce rotting on the vine.

broccolini! or broccoli raab. idk what the difference is. but its ripe! and one of the stalks should have been picked sooner as its flowering.. but nonetheless it will be tasty sauteed in garlic and oil!

the first of many yellow squash on my gigantic plant

baby eggplant!

all my basil is surviving.. from seed! this is some sort of miracle!

back to black

i wore this for what i thought was my last day of field inspections. several of the guys questioned if i was going out dancing [no], going to the beach after work [no], or if i had dressed up for the trucker that had worn a plaid shirt the day prior [no]. mostly it was 90 degrees and sunny and i was driving the black work car around, and the black leather interior = stupidest idea ever. plus i was tired of wearing jeans, and its only concrete rip-out. im not standing close enough to the back hoe or for it to be dangerous, minus the time i nearly got taken out by a tree the old man was pushing down the street. needless to say, the guys all came running over laughing their asses off. but its not a frikkin hard hat/steel toed boots construction site.

also, wearing purple flipflops i frolicked on [measured] newly stamped concrete covered in 1" of concrete dust. leaving the parking lot after, i realized i had left a trail of dusty duck footprints all the way back to my car.

• tube top: urban outfitters [$5 clearance]
• skirt: pac sun

• dress: old navy
• scarf: unknown
• leggings: target

here is an example of how we remove trees. it turns out the scooper is also an instant hosta remover, effective on hostas of up to 4' in diameter!

sarah's birthday cupcakes!

what could it be? polka dots and... arrows?

umm nope. the absolute most simplistic engineering cupcake ever.

and safety vests.. and orange cones. not weirdo candycorns.

and another shot just to show the powdered sugar does eventually absorb in. so they dont look like crack cupcakes. and the mini stoplights cos i got tired of rolling and smashing little balls of fondant at 1130pm.

dress obsess

friday june 11

• coat: ck
• dress: gap outlet
• scarf: from grammie
• leggings: some store in nz

saturday june 12 [morning brunch]

• dress: gap outlet
• leggings: kohls

saturday june 12 [evening jorts party]

• shirt/tunic/dress: ny&co clearance [$8]
• jorts [jean shorts]: dkny outlet
• shoes: born-dsw

sunday june 13

• sweater: uniqlo
• tank top: h&m
• skirt: street vendor in nz

i successfully survived blackout week! it is quite difficult to not be able to even wear black leggings.. but i did it. now were i unable to wear jeans to the office and required to dress in actual "business casual", this would have been much more of a challenge. fortunately, we run a very casual engineering office and no one actually notices what i wear to work. except the secretary... but she's leaving us for greener pastures and more pay. something which we all aspire to.

cupcake teaser

the ROYG part of the rainbow... in fondant [rhymes with ant not want. jeez jersey.]

result to be posted after i deliver bday cupcakes to sarah!

domo adventure

one day as domo was enjoying his weekly tanning visit he thought, i could really go for some grilled stuff right now

being the ever resourceful little japanese monster, he searched the pantry for edibles

he searched high and low, and even upside down, but alas, all he found was some tabasco and a pineapple

wtf? i cant grill a pineapple?! im a domo! i dont have thumbs much less the height to cut this thing. so he went questing outside. while mighty nice camouflage, overgrown clovers aren't tasty domofood.

domo thought, ooh the garden should have something good for me to char! but it was not to be. the eggplants were just flowering and the snow peas had all been picked.

could i eat the locust tree? he wondered, are there locusts in it?

fortunately, no bugs, but sadly, no food either. so domo went and chewed on the grill handle for awhile, willing food to appear.

eventually he tired and became angry. i want some fucking food exclaimed domo as he surveyed the back yard

no food? damnit. i guess ill get some real sun

so domo laid in the yard chair, absorbing vitamin D and though he had not cooked amazing food, he felt a great sense of accomplishment.

the moral of the story is, fake baking = bad.

pseudo ethnic print

thursday june 10

• sweatshirt: dkny outlet
• navy [not black] tshirt: ck outlet
• skirt: forever 21
• teeny tiny heart necklace: jewelry dump from grammie
  

lolfrankers

lazr cat reduces need 4 mothballz

driving home today i was behind a gold [classy] bmw with the vanity plate [douchey] BARTLEBY. now i assume purely on possession of vanity plate and car color. the car could have been a gift and the driver a lover of great literary works. but my snap judgment already occurred.

anywho. i decided bartleby would be an awesome name for a cat! bartleby james, bee for short. a friend had [against lease/rental policy] a kitten named edward longshanks the third, but upon his welcoming into a new home, his name was changed to eddy. still an acceptable moniker for an adorable personable kitten. in short, names like "fluffers" "mittens" "boots" "simba" "midnight" and worst of all "kitty" just need to die. this animal is a member of your household. and while i do not condone pet cloning, $10,000 surgeries, or feeding your cat premium grade tuna when 2/3 of the world is starving, your cat deserves the dignity of a real name.

especially frank.

when the parents call to ask about the grandcat, i know for a fact they wouldn't care nearly as much if his name was "shadow". he may be of "the tank" origin, or old blue eyes, the classic rock station, or even jason statham in transporter 1-3. but he definitely is deserving of a human name and all of the silly stories we tell about him. and maybe even the cell phone pictures we show. yet... then again, maybe not.

and he's definitely not named after that creepy fucking rabbit in donnie darko.

green-out?

tuesday june 8

• tunic: muji
• tank top: h&m [technically thrifted from the sis]
• wilma flinstone necklace: h&m
• jeans: macys [they fit!]

wednesday june 9

• green dress: body central aka the slut store
• scarf: h&m
• jeggings: uniqlo [dark indigo not black]

i was questioned if i was aiming for the indian/sari look. that is a nice effect..but really i was attempting to camouflage the bulgy part of my dress. aka the stomachal area. and oh yea..the random grease stain on the left side. not on the left front of the dress.. on the left seam, at waist level. no idea what i was doing/cooking/eating/rolling in.

the cupcake corner

sometimes work requires so much of an individual. like driving an hour to count parked cars every half hour, reading a book in a park for the other 20 minutes of that half hour, with a light interspersing of... cupcakes?

well when the client requesting counts owns a cupcake store? its a tough job. but someone has to do it.

mini [slightly overpriced] cupcakes clockwise from top left: lemon coconut, carrot cake, lemon coconut, chocolate raspberry

not pictured: free dozen for the boss including the 3 flavors above, vanilla, chocolate chocolate, banana bread, red velvet, and... bacon. unfortunately kosher rules say no bacon cupcakes [butter] so it went to the other engineer in the office. who it turns out, doesnt like bacon cupcakes. the banana bread cupcake was pretty stellar and chocolate buttercream on top? yes please. the chocolate raspberry however, has raspberry jam [not jelly] in the cake part, which leaves a slightly gritty feel, not unlike eating a cupcake that has been dropped on the beach.

to avoid friday night traffic, i highly recommend the [also highly unkosher] short rib grilled cheese from grand lux, followed by a slice of peanut butter cheesecake.

garden results

AHHH APHIDS!!! WTF. i hate/am terrified of ladybugs for some unknown reason. not only was my previous apartment [2 addresses ago] infested with ladybugs from floor to ceiling in spring, i just have some unnatural fear of them. so to rid my garden of aphids... i used a stick and bashed away at the leaves...and then a medium pressure hose.

and it worked well enough to produce some snow peas! and no i didnt damage the plant. read-careful bashing.

my dill flowered. so i ripped off the pretty sprongy thing and trailed dill scent around the kitchen.

left bed: all plants bought pre-sprouted are thriving and the broccolini planted from seed is doing surprisingly well!

umm i believe this is a self-seeding heirloom tomato. i transplanted it from the corner of my garden where it popped out of nowhere a couple weeks ago.. and even though it seems to be 2 stems it is surviving!

the right bed: remaining daffodils almost ready for unceremonious ripping out and storage, heirloom tomatoes donated by neighbor bob are staked and ready to explode with deliciousness!

tomatoes from seed

cayenne peppers? ... i dont even like them. maybe i can pawn them off on the roommates and coworkers...

my eggplants are still growing!

basil all lined up neatly and not dead yet. give it time.