liz and the solar boys

that's the name of our future band.  and our album cover.. and the person on the right is actually one of the guys' 16 year old daughter who has about 10x more experience than i do.

what ive been up to [part 1]

wth?  ITS NOVEMBER?  ummm welp my birthday is tomorrow and id like to say ive been busy saving the world and such.  but really, ive been waiting tables and helping with solar installs.  and sleeping a ridiculous amount.  thrilling i know. 

we also do the occasional energy audit in the back woods of maine.  turns out all the equipment fits in the mini coop rather well.

downtown portland

the relative calm before the... lack of a storm.  we were under a severe thunderstorm warning for about 3/4 of the day.  it rained, but the crazy held off.

crabapples

i'd say these are pretty self explanatory.  the miniature park between my office and the parking garage may be fenced off now to keep homeless people from sleeping in it.. but it does still have some gorgeous foliage.

holiday selfies and posed group shots

happy holidays!!  and just in case you thought i only ever stayed home to cook for myself and terrorize my cat with house projects... i do have a job.  and friends.  and we definitely enjoy ourselves at every opportunity.  and no, i dont always look well behaved and polished in every picture. 

food and pretty things

in case you dont follow me on the fb or the ig... here are some pictures of food.

portland farmer's market

peanut butter banana bread

you read right.  banana bread.  with peanut butter.  and look!  chocolate chips and sparkling sugar.  onlysliiiightly out of focus.

playing in a cemetery

not really playing.  weeding, planting flowers, rolling in the grass, having a day off from work to volunteer, and generally enjoying the most gorgeous day weve had all freakin spring

andes mint chip whoopie pies

aka coworker crack.

sushi saturday!

no i lie.  these were made for our friday potluck at work.  but... scheduling and timing and life and all that.

work xmas partay

see?  office sparkles.  i convinced some of the other ladies to wear sequins as well.  holiday style success!

pumpkinhead spice cake

made for a coworker's birthday.  we joke that he turned 60.  grumbly old man.  but in reality ...he's probably mid 40s?  maybe?  he has a 5 year old daughter but that really means he could be anywhere from 20 to 80.  soooo yea.  but pumpkinhead cake. 

amazing.

and spicy.  aside from the usual cloves, cinnamon, and ginger, i added just a tidbit of chipotle powder.  and you can juuuuuust taste a hint of it.  best idea ever.

and frankly, the frosting didnt look that good when i stuffed the cake in my overflowing fridge last night.  i couldnt wait for the cake layers to fully cool cos it was already after 11 and i was exhausted..so it got a little melty on the sides.  fortunately the butter ratio was such that i could scoop the excess frosting up off the cake carrier this morning and smoosh it back onto the sides.  and no one was the wiser.  but now you know.  ...

lady suits

sooooo work clothes.  we had a new guy start in our department this week.  i assume he is younger than i am, only due to the fact that he is still finishing an undergrad degree.  but in all reality i could be totally wrong.  regardless, the 3 days he has been at our office he has worn slacks, a collared shirt, and a skinny tie.  relatively chic for a guy and yet not too much for a "business casual" office.  then again, thankfully, far from pushing the lazy line that most of our guys adapt, ie... wrinkled khaki cargos and a mussed tee. 

but back to the title of the post.  guy clothes are easy.  i have two good friends starting work soon and they are looking for what we have coined "lady suits".  biz casual for our generation does not mean a staid uniform of pencil skirts and collared secretary shirts.  and this is probably the most words ive strung together in paragraph form in months.  and i my first foray into polyvore.  this could potentially be yet another dangerous timesuck.  soooo pictures.

childhood tendencies

not cos i drank wine a lot as a child.  i think its just a good above-the-fold pic.

the job sitch

yes i know sitch isnt a word.  its my abbrev for situation.  and i also want to punch people in the the face that use the word abbrev out loud.  and speak all in abbrevs.  but i digress.  read on.

eeesh.

this lovely was at the grocery store today.  would you pay $2.49 for unidentifiable fish meat?

on a different note, my week shaped up a bit differently than planned.  monday i received an email announcing the zagat event was postponed due to rain.  booooo.  and yes it did rain every day for an entire week straight.  tuesday my interview went pretty well and we met at panera... so i had the new steak and white cheddar panini.  the horseradish spread was a bit of a surprise as i apparently lack reading skills, but it was mostly just unpleasant bitter rather than burning.  and paired with chicken noodle, it was perfect for rainy-day-last-minute-paper writing.  wednesday instead of the food truck event, i worked on paper reading and picked up the roommate at school for a bit of shopping...

whilst browsing the plethora of racks at forever 21, my preset phone date with the potential internship firm approached.  suffice to say... i did a happy dance in the middle of the store for my full-time paid summer internship, with the possibility of working part-time in the fall while finishing my last two classes!  it nearly made up for the fucking B- i got in a class.  thursday and friday went as expected with only some minor panicking about finishing reading honors papers.  they were eventually finished and saturday we trekked in to see apocalyptica!!! 

amazing. 

pictures later.

the secret language of jobs

after being told the following at two restaurants [two days apart..] "ok well, we already have the schedule for this week, but i'll call you when we make the schedule for next week" ...that is not code for "you have a job."  that is a rather convoluted way of saying, "dont call us, we'll call you."  bastards.

but the moral of the story is, when you are expecting a call about waitressing... a professor might just call and offer you a job as a teaching assistant for an undergrad class that is nearly the equivalent of the grad class you really wanted to take but is never offered for lack of students.  or atleast that's how i roll.

no pictures of sewing projects as i am over my 1gig quota...and it takes 24 hours to process new storage space.  booo.

curry club

my new place of employment:

kind of dumpy from the outside.  it doesnt help that the major road along the building frontage is being repaved and widened.  aaand vibrations from construction knocked the sign down.  but blah blah dont judge a book by its cover... plus its a restaurant.  often the "hole in the wall" place has awesome frikkin food.

ganesh and a small chandelier greet you at the door along with this guy

who sits in a row with his buddies.  together they guard the lunch buffet [$10 on weekdays $12 on weekends] which yesterday consisted of:

yellow daal, mushroom masala, channa saag, vege pakora curry

lentil coconut basmati rice [best thing ever]

raj's artfully arranged vege tray

the oft sought chicken tikka masala, and [unpictured] lamb vinadalu, mixed chicken kebab, and chicken pakora-indian fried chicken.

a very ornate pitcher im doomed to knock over some day

and to close, some sparkly barely clothed art.  i do enjoy that shes kneeling in some kind of goblet.  the middle eastern version of a champagne glass hot tub perhaps?

are you my mother?

to preface: I HATE BIRDS. they are disgusting beady eyed rats with wings. they carry disease and poop on everything.

but at work the other day i held a baby bird!

[not my hand]

during the tree-taking-down-process mike [concrete removal foreman] went running to the backhoe operator and made him stop. he was then lifted in the digging scoop into the tree to attempt to find where cheeping was emanating from. much to his dismay the nest could not be found so work continued. as the tree was ripped apart branch by branch roy [concrete pouring foreman] frantically waved his hands for work to pause. wading waist deep into the pile of felled branches, he reached in and popped out a baby bird! we found the mother bird near by flipping out [naturally, as her home and babies had been potentially been destroyed] and stuffed the baby through the fence towards her.

work continued until roy signaled yet another stop, reached into the branches and pulled out yet another baby bird. this one though... bonded with roy in the are you my mother? sense. after escaping back out through the fence no less than 3 times, it finally went squawking back to its mother.

since roy and the concrete guys are from portugal, perhaps the better phrase from the bird would be "você é minha mãe?"

recycling?

nassau county public works makes good [?] use of old street signs

as umm.. part of their drainage system? wtf.

i showed one the guys on the concrete crew this and he was like "holy shit, guys come check this out"

we were all bewildered to say the least. beside the fact that its pretty ghetto..


vegetarian inari! i assumed all inari was vegetarian..since its rice in a tofu pocket.. but the extra veggies made for a more filling snack/breakfast/lunch and it was a nice contrast

sleepy high color contrast kitty

part of a project ive been working on. inspired by this.