I love these measuring cups. Really, really.

And these Babushka cups. I would so want these if I were a little girl:

They remind me of my little nesting dolls that I’m sure are still somewhere at my parent’s house. One of my good friends when I was in kindergarten was a girl that had recently moved from Russia. Actually it wasn’t Russia, but it was somewhere Russian-controlled at the time. I think. My memory fails me. Ukraine? Anyway, I like nesting dolls.

My patty pan squash plant is rebelling. I knew it would, it grew up so fast and started producing before it was ready. Poor squash.

I have two patty pan squash plants on my balcony. One is smaller but sort of producing. I say sort of because it does have squash on it, but none of them are turning from green to yellow and they come off looking like this inside.

Fail.

They’re not even shaped like pretty patty pans should be. I thought I might be over watering, so I stopped for a few days. Didn’t seem to have an effect. On the underside of the leaves appear to be teeny tiny little black bugs, though they don’t seem to be eating holes in the leaves. I sprayed them with some organic bug spray, but nada happened. Nada. Hmmmm.

The other squash plant that isn’t as sickly as the rebellious one has a little patty pan growing on it finally, and it actually looks patty pan shaped! Here’s hoping that it keeps growing. I’ll baby that thing to death. These squash plants have to earn their keep, they’re taking up a good portion of my precious balcony space.

In other garden news, my lettuce was attacked by this:

I call him Spot.

He’s about an 1/8th of an inch long and reproduces more than bunnies. He is now deceased, but his children keep living on. They have all but killed my lettuce, though it’s sadly well on its way. If anyone has any tips to get rid of Spot’s offspring, be my guest.

I have already tried soapy water, Safer organic bug spray, and manually removing them. No luck. They live on.

Back to the trenches!

P.S. 2 of 3 tomatoes plants have little green tomatoes on them. Hurray!

Found on Etsy in CalicoVintage’s shop.

But I’m pretty sure I’d have to be a real hippie and 7 feet tall. Or a a hippie Southern belle. If I wore this now I would look like a 7 year old girl playing dress up with her mom’s old clothes from the 70s.

This is pretty too.

Found on Etsy in thedabara’s shop.

It’s a little too much like a slip though. If the top edges weren’t scalloped I think it would look more like a real dress.

I really like this bag. Yes it’s made of walrus hide, which is unique in and of itself. If you know me then you know that I really like walruses. You would think that I would be appalled at carrying around such an atrocity, but no. The bag is made, what’s done is done. And I’m pretty sure there is no production line or black market for walrus hide bags so I don’t think that walrus’ will be in danger. I could be wrong though.

Found on Etsy in TopsyDesign’s shop.

Speaking of walruses, this wood sign caught my eye as well. Reminds me of reading Through the Looking Glass when I was young.

Found on Etsy in CountryWorkshop’s store.

They rule fiercely, are hard to please, and have thick dictatorly ‘staches.

Exhibit A:

We flock to restaurants and cupcake shops, tasting their wares and reviewing them without mercy! The peasants read our verdicts and cower before our decisions. The lucky establishments that pass our tests are revered in the kingdom and highly patroned!

So really the Citysearch Dictators are a group (you can join, at least in Seattle!) of people that review businesses on Citysearch. The editor, Chelsea, gives us monthly “assignments” that we can partake in and have the chance to win prizes! Assignments vary from writing a list of restaurants with patios to a review of our favorite restaurant that has Sunday Suppers. Sometimes you can win by having the best, or other times you can win by entering first or just winning in a random selection. I won a $25 gift card to Agua Verde recently to be one of the first 5 to submit the assignment.

We also have monthly gatherings, with a raffle and often free food or cupcakes! The last one I went to was at Cupcake Royale.

At this gathering we happened to get to decorate our own cupcakes and sample some local wine. We were given some great swag, a box with a Cupcake Royale travel cup, a coupon for a free cupcake, a bag of Shepherd’s Grain Flour, and some other neat goodies too.

Here’s a picture of the Sprinkle Bar where we decoratee our cupcakes. We got to choose the frosting! And we got to sample three different kinds of babycakes, oh were they good. I love Cupcake Royale.

In the raffle I won a Sprinkle Party! Me and a few of my friends (6 or so) get to come in and decorate our own cupcakes. Not sure when to use it, but sounds like a cute idea for some get together.

At the first Dictator gathering at Post I won a jar of Bacon Jam from Skillet. Which I shall have you know is very, very, awesome.

It’s a great group, and it helps you to get to know the city better. Quite a few of them are also very active foodies on Twitter, the gatherings are always a hoot with this group. We’d love more dictators, so join and get your ‘stache on!

*I found the photos on the Dictator Facebook Group Page, so kudos to whoever took them!

What happened this weekend anyway? This chilly Monday has completely erased all warm thoughts from the past few days. It’s 60 degrees right now, that’s a 30 degree drop from this weekend. My body is in shock.

So I spent the majority of the weekend outside with Caleb. We went to the Mobile Chowdown on Saturday at Seattle Center. It’s a conglomeration of a bunch of food trucks from Seattle and Portland like the Marination Mobile and Koi Fusion. They are all really, really tasty.

Caleb and I settled on Skillet, it was a choice based on what we know of the food and how long the line was. We wanted to go to Koi Fusion and Maximus/Minimus (they have an awesome pig truck), but the lines were too long and exacerbated by the heat.

It also helps that Skillet is served out of an Airstream. I love Airstreams. My family used to have one. It was a more rare one, the shorter version of Skillet’s.

We had the famous burger and fries from Skillet and a strawberry lemonade.

It was expensive for the portions, but the taste was completely worth it. Oh I can’t even describe it, really excellent all around. Loved the fries as well, and I consider myself an amateur fry connoisseur. They were thin cut, with visible potato skin still clinging on. They were seasoned with coarse sea salt and fresh rosemary. I dream about fries like these.

The rest of the day was spent at Canal St. Coffee, which has a glorious deck overlooking the canal.

There be my handsome husband. Isn’t he handsome?

We opted to sit inside right next to some very large open windows and drink Coca Cola and Hales (which, by the way, are $2 every day all day).

And enjoyed the scenery. I didn’t get a worthy photo of the canal, but I did get some photos of the beautiful foliage from around the cafe.

That evening we had BBQ at my brother-in-law’s place and watched Office Space. It’s amazing how quotable that movie is, and how often you hear it referenced in the workplace. Same with The Office.

Who knows what happened to Sunday. I think I went on a walk, tended to my balcony garden, and cleaned. Oh and I made a version of Bulgogi (Korean BBQ), though without a proper BBQ.

Hopefully the rest of this week heats up a little, because 60 isn’t going to cut it. I’d like next weekend to be just as nice as this one.