buffalo wild wings x2, dino cupcakes, irene, and better-than-restaurant cooking

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hello! still here. not writing much since it's the end of summer and therefore i'm extremely busy, but still here!

a good friend of mine is leaving work at my facility for another one in ohio (same company, different location). i'll definitely miss him when he leaves in two weeks but his new role is amazingly fantastic and he'll do great. there was a going away party for him on friday at BWW (buffalo wild wings) and it was a roaring good time with a crew of coworkers. afterwards, since it was only about 7:30, we decided to go check out the art walk being held in the auburn/lewiston area. i wasn't exactly sure what an art walk entailed...maybe it was just walking down main street and pointing out nice things? or maybe it was a tour of a museum? it turns out that an art walk is actually an event organized by the resident art community where businesses let artists put up their works, then allow people inside the buildings after-hours to see it all. for instance, the inside of the androscoggin bank looked like this:

androscoggin bank for art walk 2011

pretty, right? and what a good way to repurpose a boring building when it isn't being used! in addition to art, art walks are evidently notorious for the copious amount of wine that is served at each location. every time we walked into a building, someone asked me "red or white?"

after about ten locations, i was pretty ready to go home and sleep!  :)

also new since last post: SWATI IS BACK. we've already been outlet shopping in kittery and spent an afternoon baking green dinosaur shaped cupcakes and ruining a perfectly good ganache frosting recipe (my bad... milk semisweet chocolate is not the same as regular semisweet chocolate...lesson learned). we talked about everything under the sun - mostly men and adulthood, because what else is there? - and had a wonderful wonderful wonderful time! she was able to meet greg in a more friendly circumstance than last time, too, which is always nice. hopefully i'll be able to visit her soon after she moves into her new place and have some bostonian adventures too. (psst swati: hint hint.)

**photo of cupcakes will go here**

since irene was supposed to hit the northeast coast sometime between saturday and sunday, swati took off for home around dinnertime. after the excitement of the day i really super didn't want to sit around the house, so i texted my buddy from work and he and i and greg met up at buffalo wild wings for the second time that weekend! bww shows lots of pay-per-view sports and it was ufc 134 - rio that night so of course we wanted to go over and see the bouts for free. my favorite fighter, forrest griffin, lost (as usual...), but the headliner anderson silva completed destroyed yushin okami in the first round. actually, most of the fights didn't last past the first round! there were a ton of fast knockouts and i actually don't think we saw a single decision. for me, that means it was a good night. i hate waiting three rounds just to hear a decision that i don't agree with. if the guy gets pounded and knocked out - he definitely lost. i like that. definite, non-debatable outcomes. that way nobody is annoying and whiny about how so-and-so should have won and the judges ripped them off, etc etc. sports in the olympics with points or times are good; ones with judges are not. think about bobsledding vs. figure skating. or the 200m relay vs. gymnastics. i guess opinions are what makes us human, though, so we might as well keep arguing about them until 1984 ends up happening!

so. other than that...hrm what else happened. i discovered a new hilarious show - misfits - on hulu.com. it's a british sci-fi comedy about this group of deliquent teenagers doing community service who get struck by lighting from a freak storm and get 'powers' (not exactly superpowers, but maybe?). 

misfits!

it's funny in an oddball way, and they swear a lot, and they aren't all exactly 'attractive' in the USA culture's sense, but there is something incredible watchable about it. maybe it's the actors (my favorite is iwan rheon, who plays simon, the lonely nerdy guy) or maybe it's the script or maybe it's just that it's british and their humor is just weird enough to me to be shocking and pee-your-pants hilarious at the same time. their powers aren't even that great...one can go invisible (but isn't any good at being sneaky), one has immortality (but it's never used in any constructive way), one can hear what people think (but only when it's about her), one rewinds time (but not on purpose), one makes people go into a crazy horny frenzy if they touch her (but can't ever turn it off), and another one can teleport (but once again, not on purpose, and usually at the worst possible moments). the next season starts in november but i'm not sure if i will see it then, since it's a british show and i have to wait for hulu to carry it. oh well! reruns until then.


mark came over and cooked dinner since his power went out from irene on sunday and his refrigerator was slowly warming up. he made food that was so good i would have sworn it came from an upscale italian restaurant. it was DELICIOUS. scallops and little shrimps and fettucine and spinach and salad and fresh bread...yumm. then we were going to introduce him to my sweet new obsession of a television show, but my power went out too! so much for that :/

and now, i'm sick and kind of miserable. why am i miserable, you ask? well, because it seems so much like the last few nice days of summer are passing me by while i sit and sniffle and drink orange juice inside the house. i hope, i hope, i hope, i hope that i'm better by the end of the week - labor day weekend should be fun, not full of headcolds and coughs. ew ew ew. also, i just plain HATE being sick. i know nobody really enjoys it but i am a seriously miserable sick person. even my boyfriend doesn't want to come near me because i'm a whiny annoying mess. the solution!? MORE ORANGE JUICE. go go go go.

and with that, i'm outta here. peace, homies.

- L

this weekend and more!

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so this weekend started off with awesomeness and continued to rock from there. i got to see my family, INCLUDING my brother before he went back to college (huzzah!), played cards and was a sore loser (that's nothing new...), went shopping at hobby lobby with my mom for christmas wreaths (!?), went to a housewarming party since some of my high school friends are finally moving out of their parents' houses, and generally got to relax and enjoy time with people i really like.

it was a good weekend but it went by far too quickly. i hate waking up monday morning and realizing that i have to get showered and go to work instead of walking downstairs for a muffin and an hour or so of quiet conversation with my mom. coming home is a little better when there's a kitten waiting for you, though. wayne is totally okay to leave by himself, but he definitely misses the company when the house is deserted.

other than the weekend, there's nothing much else going on. greg and i went to our new favorite hangout - buffalo wild wings! - on sunday night and i ended up winning trivia. i like it when i win  :)  it totally made up for my epic failure at progressive rum on friday night. this coming weekend's plan is to go camping in acadia national park and enjoy some adventures on the coast for a few days. i hope the nasty weather that we've been having isn't an indication of future thunderstorms!! there's nothing more depressing than a camping trip spent huddled in a tent during a downpour. i'm crossing my fingers :/

in other news, swati is back in new england. oh heck yeah. reunion: imminent.


L

wayne minus some of himself.

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wayne had to go in for his neutering today :/

poor little guy had no idea what was going to happen to him. i couldn't feed him for 24 hours prior to his surgery since he was going under anesthetic and i guess the vet didn't want him to throw up. he wasn't even allowed to drink anything the morning of the appointment. i felt really bad that i had to do this to him but it's definitely the best thing... nobody wants an adult male cat that sprays all over the place and constantly tries to get outside. and i know, i know, it's "just a cat", but he's my pet now and i feel bad for hurting him.

wayne and his 'father figure', before the appointment

anyway, greg went with me to the vet's office because i'm a ninny and was freaking out. i thought that we'd just go in and they'd do it real quick right there (how hard can ball-chopping be!?) but as it turns out we had to leave him there almost all day!! the poor little guy wasn't too happy to be separated from his family but hey, i had to go to work. they had to give him a rabies and a distemper shot in addition to taking away half of his man-junk. yikes! they called my cell at about noon to tell me that he'd be ready at 1:00 (when we dropped him off they said 2, so that was a nice surprise!). i finished up the work i had and headed over to get him. he was still all drugged up and groggy and pathetic-looking. i definitely felt like a jerk for putting him through surgery :/  i'm a terrible mom! i was super worried about him and figured he'd be angry and sick and slow and in pain for a while.

but of course, after about an hour at home he perked up and ate a little bit of food and fell asleep on me. now he's playing and making lots of noise and running (more like 'walking quickly'...i think he's a little sore..) around the house. all's well that ends well, i suppose.

wayne - being COMPLETELY OKAY post-op

plus - now there won't be any baby cat-mamas and no kitten support. excellent.

- L

UFC 133: Evans v. Ortiz

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this weekend was full of driving and martial arts and cheesesteaks! that's right folks, greg and i drove down to philadelphia with two of our coworkers to see UFC 133 (that's "ultimate fighting championships" for those not in the know)

the drive down was actually pretty eventful. for some reason my garmin gps took us through the sketchy bronx area of new york... instead of letting us stay on the highway like we should've. it made our trip down take about 8.5 hours instead of 7 and it was definitely not the most fun experience i've ever had. next time, i don't trust the garmin on the way through new york! we left maine at about 6am on friday morning. i'm glad i wasn't driving!!

sketchy, sketchy bronx.

once we got there it was beautiful though! our hotel was only about a mile away from the stadium that the fights would be, so we walked over for weigh-ins on friday night. almost everyone made weight except some welterweight that i don't care about, so that was good! the walk was nice and relaxing after all those hours in the car, too!

the next day i drove into the city and waited for greg and dave (one of the guys from work) to show up at the philadelphia institute of art. we only had one car. hey no problem though, because they were running there from the hotel.

any ideas why?? (other than because they are crazy.) well, because the philadelphia museum of art is home to the famous "Rocky Steps" from the movie, of course! there are even bronze cast footprints at the top for photo ops. it's about a five or six mile run from the hotel and since it was already about 75 degrees at 6:50am, i volunteered to drive them back once they got there. plus, it gave me a great chance to sightsee and peoplewatch for a while! i wandered around the museum area for a while, then checked out a few statues and enjoyed the sunshine for a while. finally, they showed up in all their sweaty glory...of COURSE running all the way up the steps before stopping for photos  :)

rocky steps!

sweaty men at the top

rocky!

rocky II!

then we decided to get showered up and head into the city proper for some window shopping (me) and giant authentic philly cheesesteaks (greg). we went into tiffany's and the underground mall and walked around the shopping district in walnut street for a few hours until deciding that it was time for some cheesesteaks. greg asked a very helpful police officer where he'd recommend going and he gave us directions to a shop called "JR's". WHAT A DELICIOUS RECOMMENDATION. the food was awesome.

cheesesteaks!!

philly shopping district

bleh, the buildings block the sky.

then we had to hurry up and get back to the hotel to change before the fights at 5:45. we totally thought we were going to be late because parking was HORRENDOUS (it was raining so we didn't want to walk the 20 minutes to and from the stadium) but as it turns out, the fights started a little behind schedule! laurenworld strikes again! we had plenty of time to find our seats and get comfortable and even get a souvenir program before any action began. i think there were about 9 events... most of the guys i didn't know very well, but all the ones i was rooting for ended up winning theirs, except matt hamill. there were a LOT of people there - i was suprised that almost the whole stadium was filled!! and mumma: yes, the guy who defeated chuck liddell (rashad 'suga' evans) won the main event against tito ortiz ('the huntington beach bad boy').

ufc 133: main event was evans and ortiz

evans won. but ortiz has all the press?

people!!

another awesome epic weekend. next weekend is new hampshire again, and i get to see my brother!! hooray!! AND: SWATI IS COMING HOME FROM ENGLAND. YESSS!!!

til later.

- L