Baked Ziti c/o Luigi's Pizza Fresca

On Saturday I went to work early, as the parents were in town and we had plans for quite the dinner. That said, I did get hungry, as did two other coworkers in the office, so we ordered lunch from Luigi's Pizza Fresca. I went for the oh-so-healthy baked ziti option...the leftovers of which made a nice dinner or two. The dragon was all 'yo cc, you're doing work on the weekend, I've seen you every day for, like, three weeks, what's that about?' and I was all 'dragon, you are an inanimate object and cannot be speaking to me and saying yo,' and the dragon, well, he told me to 'shut your mouth or stuff it with ziti,' and that's exactly what I did.
The thing I like about this ziti, on the whole, is that they mix the ricotta with the sauce and the mozzarella cheese stays gooey longer.
You just wait and see what I ate next, you won't be able to believe the extremes! Your brain will explode! Not really.

Goodbye Cake, Shots, Dress Up and Pass the Zul

On Friday we had our last day with S. in the office, and as the office is wont to do, we marked the occasion with cake. S. will, actually, still be a part of the team, just remotely. But I do hope that Pittsburgh is a great new place for her. Considering the fact that she's going to get to live with her bf, I'm going to say it probably will be. The cake was from Whole Foods, and quite rich.
After my day of work I returned home for a breather. Seriously, I know that there are plenty of people in the world who work harder than me, but this unrelenting work does make my brain, once not concentrating on the task at hand, go a little funny. That being said, when two shiny, tinted, hybrid Explorers pulled up on my block, I knew somebody important was inside. So, when I saw a guy who looked a lot like the Mayor of Philadelphia (Nutter) and his wife and daughter get out of said car I assumed I was just imagining things for only a second before running inside and googling his name. I found photographs of his family and confirmed the truth of my eyes. Then I came back out and took a photograph of the car, blurrily, as proof. Our upstairs neighbor confirmed that it was, in fact, Nutter. I consider this a celebrity sighting.
Once I regrouped, I headed out to the Kite and Key for drinks with S. and her bf, Ak and A2 were there as well, and another of S.'s friends. I had a Dogfish Punkin Head. More people came, we chatted. S. will be living in Mr. Rogers' neighborhood, for real. And her walls may or may not be beige. More people came, two of S.'s friends (whose names I sadly do not remember, though their occupations I do--a filmmaker/editor, a third grade teacher and a law student) and L. joined the group. I was totally zonked, but the beer rallied my sprits so when L. asked about the possibility of having a shot before heading off, I thought that was a good idea. This story does not end in disaster.
Shots in hand, baseball on tv.
In the end we returned to the deck, which, let's face it, is where I'd like to spend all of my time, so that was great. I took a few photographs of L. pursuing Zul, but this is what it looked like when she got him. It's not really summer, so many needed layers, L. I gave this sweater (which I have owned since I was 13, I don't ever want to part with it).
To A2 I gave a vest that was given to me by my aunt.
I thought this was hilarious, so I lunged and pointed.
Hats and scarves also came out. J. and J. came later and I gave them scarves and dip. And Zul. got picked up again.
I really have a lot of scarves and hats and sweatshirts (Ak borrowed a sweatshirt that I got when visiting L.'s Brooklyn apartment during a blizzard six or so years ago) and whatnot. The night wrapped up with some backwards beer tossing, to different levels of success. It was a nice change of pace from the majority of my days and nights, even if it meant I stayed up too late.

The Dragon Eats Back

So, my work life has picked up speed and made it so that my life feels as if it is all work, all the time, which is not entirely true, but it's pretty much true. I think everyone in the office is working both days of the weekend, and 10-12 hour days during the week. And this has been going on for two weeks, and will probably last at least one more, if not two. It can get to you a little. One way that our boss men hope to boost morale is through free lunches and, if you're still in the office at 7, free dinners. The lunches started last Monday, I believe. Here is a partial recap:

Our first day we ordered from last year's trusty King of Tandoor. I ordered the Motor Ponir (homemade cheese fried and cooked with green peas Punjab style). The dragon took a post on the garlic naan and kept an eye on a runaway cheese chunk.
The next day we ordered from Luigi's Pizza Fresca. I asked if anyone wanted to split a salad, but no one did, so I just ordered a full rugula salad anyways. So, why even mention asking about the splitting? No idea.
I also ordered their veal parmesan hoagie. It was disappointing. Mainly due to the meat, which shouldn't have been surprising, but I thought I'd give it a shot. I think an eggplant parm would have been the better call. The dragon was crushed under the weights of my sandwich expecations.
Then there was Greek from Zorbas. I ordered the gyros platter, not realizing how much I prefer it in a sandwich. It was still delicious, but I love the lettuce, tomato, tzatziki, gyro meat, pita combo much more.
Waves of meat.
The next day it was from Mugshot's. I had their goat cheese/spinach/pesto sandwich and a side salad.

Then we were back to Indian. This time I ordered the lamb achari, which had plenty of lemon pickle kick to it, in addition to tender lamb.

Muchly Needed Breakfast Sandwich c/o Morning Glory Diner

After our photo time L. and I sat outside for a bit more, drinking the drink and shooting the shit. Then I insisted on showing her an episode of the Mighty Boosh. Now, I wish I had prepared and had netflixed (it's a verb) the first season's disk, but all I had was the third. What could I do but at least give it a shot, if out of order. I have, by the bye, become majorly converted to finding the Mighty Boosh, and the two men and the team that makes it, just wonderful. Not many things truly make me just laugh. Anyways, the point is that L. and I stayed up pretty late, and the next day I had quite the headache. L., too, was not at 100%. Breakfasat was in order and I wanted to go somewhere new. So I consulted The Girl Who Eats Everything blog. She doesn't live in Philly but whenever she posts her visits to the city, I realize how much more eating and exploring could be done. So, I took a look around her Philly posts and liked the look of the Morning Glory Diner. That place is busy. L. and I arrived a little before 11 and didn't get seated until 11:45-noonish. I was drawn to the egg sandwich, and ordered it. Honestly, I could have done with a little more egg, but the sausage was great and the foccacia would nice too.
It was worth the wait to try a new place, and the sandwich really did hit the spot. But, if it were cold outside? That wait would not have been so great. The space is pretty small, and they have as many seats as there is room, so the wait can be steady. I bet they probably do have more traffic in the summers than the winters? It was strange, they had all these tables and chairs for those waiting to sit around and on, but it seemed like maybe the smarter idea would be to let people eat at the tables? Maybe they didn't have the waitstaff.
At first we discussed having breakfast and then having pho, but the problem was we were way too full for that, and L. had to get back to the city to play kickball and I had to go to work, so, in the end, we walked around Italian Market for a bit (one of the fish mongers had 2 dozen blue crabs for $10), then we drove around south philly for a little bit. I saw a few more streets, thus filling in just a little bit of the map of Philly in my brain (which is a lot of blank space, really).

Fat Cat Catty Cat

Makes me feel a little better about Zul, though not much.

Rack of Lamb with Rosemary/Parsley Pesto and Snackies

Last Saturday L. came to down. I was prepared for her arrival with a bottle of Vouvray, my spicy hummus-y chipotle cilantro dip, and truffle cheese.

I also prepared a pesto for a rack of lamb, and had let said pesto and lamb sit in a plastic bag, marinating, for a good number of hours.
Later in the night, after the white wine was done and we moved on to red, the lamb was cooked.
I managed to make it rare, but not dangerously so...and delicious. Really, really delicious.
L. and Zul had a posing moment.
Then L. put some of the excellent blueberry juice she brought into some beer, and it was one of the most curious and fascinating things I have ever seen.
Note the ring that girl's got going on...those there are some diamonds and emeralds with something I have decided is called filigree. Sparkly, sparkly, sparkly. It was a wonderful night. We looked through my extensive collection of photographs from college, finding gems of L. and Fat T. from our freshmen year, and generally remembering some of the good times. We also talked wedding details, since I get to be a bridesmaid. So far it seems that the nuptials of L. and Fat T. will be on an island, and we will need to get boats to ferry us over. My challenge will be to look cute as a bridesmaid while still carrying a camera around to take photographs of everything.

Burgers and Cacti

Forever ago S. asked me whether or not I would eat a burger if he fired up the grill and made them. I said yes, indeed, I would. So S. got the necessary things together, invited a few more of his buddies and grilled us up some tasty burgers.
It was delicious.
One of the other cacti that S. brought flowered whatever week this was. Last week? Week before maybe? I have lost all sense of time.

Dancing Like a Painted Whore, Brought to you by Medusa Lounge

Last Saturday A. suggested we go dancing at Medusa Lounge, they were having an attempted 'dressed up' night in the space. So I borrowed one of A.'s shirts and had a vision for whorrific makeup and went with it.
It was a silver sequined shirt. A silver belt may also have been involved. The make up was green around the eyes, and red red around the mouth. The expression was crazy.
Same hair and makeup, with another dose of the crazy eyes. That right eyeball is up to something.
I did dance. The music was not pop popular, and hardly recognized any of it and didn't really love, love it, but danceable...as far as my dancing abilites go.

North Bowl League Party: Hole in One Comes in Third!

Last Wednesday Ak and A. and I met up at North Bowl Lanes for our league's awards party. There was really awful food, I took photographs of it, but, really, it isn't worth showing. There were also hula hoopers, a lot of them. And, in one corner of the upstairs space, you could get your Tarot cards read...kind of. She told me to pick three cards out of the pile and then she proceeded to, without really looking at or considering the cards, tell me that I'd be married by 29, that I'd maybe only have one child, that I shouldn't be surprised if I get pregnant at any time, I also wasn't going to win the lottery. That what I did for my job and what my education was wouldn't necessarily synch, but that I would be okay with this. She seemed to tell a lot of women that they'd be married within two years of their current age. Hmmm.


These were representatives from the winning team in our league...they were good, F., the girl on the left, was a consistent striker and another one of their teammates could do that magical thing where it looked like the ball was going into the gutter and then it would curve and strike.
Their trophy had a little more flair.
We were part of the Sunday league, which consisted of four teams. We came in third, and won a trophy and some cashola. The money and the trophy were kind of a surprise. There was a lot of shock.

At one point I felt an itch in one of my boots, and I wondered what it might be.
Turned out to be a pile of money!
The money was so great we thought we should show it around the space a little more.
I found that when confronted with a crisp $50, I have an unsatiable need to pretend to eat it.
At one point money fell from the ceiling!

Chicken Thoughts

I continue to flirt with the idea of a chicken tattoo. This is very low on my financial expenditure list, so it probably won't happen. But maybe. It seems I'm particularly drawn to black and white chickens with a splash of red somewhere. I imagine it on my right shoulder, not huge and not a profiled head shot...but with some sort of strong graphic movement of some kind. I like this guy's art, it seems he specializes in chickens. I bought a print of the painting below at an arts fair last fall and have it hanging in my room. This is a bit of a gloomy chicken.
Chickens don't mean much to me, symbolically. I mean, there is the universally acknowledged connotation of the word, in which chicken is synonymous with coward. I don't really think of myself as a coward, I'd certainly prefer it if the rest of the world didn't view me as one. But I wouldn't describe myself as brave either. Perhaps it would be a chicken, and below it would say, ce ci n'est pas un poulet, wouldn't that be hilarious.
I'd want the image to have a dignity to it, not so much a homeliness or domestic feeling. An epic chicken on my shoulder, where I couldn't see it unless I had a specfic mirror set up. Which, then, makes one wonder why have it at all?
I think I'd like it more realistic than not. I think. But maybe not.




Also, it's my dad's birthday this very day, happy birthday to him.