quasi in r.e.m.

Cat shaped hole

2008-12-28T21:00:00.000-08:00

I buried my kitty today.

My beautiful green-eyed, gray-furred kitty now plays in the ceiling cat butterfly fields. I sent her off wrapped in a cozy towel, on top of a bed of flowers along with a container of kitty treats and another of catnip.

She was probably 14ish. You never really know with a shelter cat. Her kidneys failed quickly, she was really only sick for 3 days or so. She spent the last day of fall out in the garden enjoying the grass and the blue sky.

Bye kitty. I miss you.

The Wedding Phoenix part 2

2008-10-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

Can you imagine trying to find a wedding venue for a 100 guests that would permit amplified music and an outside caterer in a beautiful outdoor setting with only 6 days notice?

It's easier when you have a very public, lock-tight sob-story and when 70 of your closest friends are calling in favors and dialing phone numbers on your behalf. Still. Nothing was working out and everyone was getting quite anxious. Friends and family were streaming in from across the country and across the pond. The pressure to find a new location and continue with preparations was reaching a fevered pitch.

Thursday morning, I got a twitter from the groom. Angel Island was back on! Unfortunately, parts of the island were still smoldering and access to the island would be extremely limited. There would be no opportunity to schlep cumbersome items to the wedding site on Friday. This meant canceling the rented tent pavilions, and the second generator. There would be no dance floor, no fairy lights. It would not be possible to transform government grade bathrooms into clean and luxurious powder rooms equipped with full length mirrors and actual soap. The ceremony would have to be conducted in the same area as the reception, so there wouldn't be an opportunity to have a crew set up the picnic while the guests attended the ceremony.

There's an old saying about the best laid plans...

The Wedding Phoenix part 1

2008-10-20T16:57:00.000-07:00

Nothing could quench the sobs of my friend Jess, as she watched her wedding venue disappear under billowing clouds of smoke.

You see, late in the evening on Sunday October 12 a careless camper let a spark get loose near the campgrounds on Angel Island, the 740 acre state park in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Tinder-dry brush ignited quickly and soon fully half the island was engulfed in shooting gouts of flame.

Heroic firefighters evacuated campers and the island's few residents. Their efforts contained the fire quickly and kept it from spreading beyond the south side of the island. Thankfully, none of the historic buildings were harmed; the remnants of the immigration station and military buildings will continue to educate the public about the days of Chinese exclusion and the rarely told Pacific story of the US civil war. Still, the California Department of Parks closed the island indefinitely. My friends were scheduled to be married there the following weekend.

The bride and groom chose Angel Island for their wedding site months ago. For their ceremony they planned an elaborate Edwardian picnic in keeping with their English heritage and the history of the island. With the fire closure, cinders and ash replaced visions of lawn games and wicker baskets loaded with china, glassware and silver cutlery.

Hooked on 538

2008-10-05T13:36:00.000-07:00

My friend Chris won't stop twittering about the latest aggregation of election polls over at FiveThirtyEight.com. If you're at all interested in statistical wonkery, you should check it out, there are new posts every day.

Meanwhile, I've been meaning to post this very interesting article from the BBC news. Imagine there were a tie vote at the electoral college...

The Unit Rule give the USA its first female president

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

2008-10-02T09:56:00.000-07:00

This is the name of a giant music festival that will be held in San Francisco this weekend. It features bluegrass, country, blues, and other folky sounds. The weather will be lovely, and all of the music is free. I think I might go.

Some of you readers probably just snorted your beverage through your nose. My disdain for all music "folk" is barely contained. But... Friday afternoon Robert Plant & Alison Krauss will be performing. Ms. Krauss captured my eardrums with her lyric rendition of Down to the River to Pray on the O Brother, where art thou? soundtrack. Plus, it should be entertaining to hear her paired with Mr. Plant. As long as they don't sing Immigrant Song.

The crowds will be intense, so I doubt I'll stay for a long time. Though it might be worth it, just to check out MC Hammer or Nick Lowe.

Wanna see the whole schedule?

http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/

Epic Cooking continues

2008-09-28T14:55:00.000-07:00

Cirque de cuisine continued today.

TheRoommate had some apples that were starting to go soft on him. I think a soft, yet tasty, apple is still great when baked in a pie.

It's been about a year since my last pie endeavor. No surprise then that I screwed up the first batch of pie crust. The flour was far drier than expected, and I overworked the dough trying to get enough moisture in. I generally season both crusts and pie fillings, so in addition to the small amount of sugar that I put into dessert crust, I also added lemon zest and a dash or two of nutmeg. Equal measures of allspice, nutmeg and cardamom went in to the apples along with a touch of sugar, a spritz of lemon and dots of butter. I often prefer allspice to cloves; they have a similar flavor, but it's less assertive. It's always a coin toss on whether to use cinnamon. It is so commonly used in desserts, but it's such a great spice. Thankfully cardamom provides a delightful alternative.

Today's pastry recipe was sponsored by Jacque & Julia cooking at home. Finally! A pie dough recipe that doesn't make way too much. I had just enough for a bottom crust and a lattice top.

Since I was already making dough, it made sense to make a half batch of savory pastry fortified with poultry-seasoning. I've been hankering for truly homemade chicken or turkey pot pie ...

While the pie was baking I peeked into the fridge to see what I could use up. There was some corn and black beans lurking from my last taco salad, so I decided to make some more red onion, corn & black bean salsa. Alas, the beans had fermented and I had to pitch the entire batch.

A couple of pork sirloin roasts have been waiting their turn. Rather than trying to stuff and patiently wait for a roast, I sliced one into medallions. The round slices were roughly 3/4 of an inch thick. I dredged them in the beaten egg left over from the pie crust and then breaded them in panko breadcrumbs spiked with salt and pepper and a mixture of celery seed, thyme, and oregano. I panfried these using a small amount of corn oil. The result was a surprisingly light dish somewhat like a cross between wiener schnitzel and chicken fried steak.

The sun hasn't set yet, and I still feel like making a few more things. What those might be I'm not yet sure, although it may involve cherry tomatoes and yellow squash.

Red Pepper Crack

2008-09-28T00:13:00.000-07:00

The chiles on the pepper plants are really going gangbusters. Last week, put a pound of them in a bag with some fresh tomatoes and then forgot all about the whole thing. I found that bag today. Happily, it was full of amazingly BRIGHT RED peppers, and a couple of tomatoes somewhat past their prime.

Since these peppers have been a profound disappointment in the spicy realm (they were supposed to be the famed green chiles of my native land), I decided they'd shine best roasted. And then I decided that since they mostly taste like your average red bell pepper they should be used in my all time favorite red bell pepper recipe.

Of the 83 cookbooks on the dedicated shelf, one of the biggest is the 1996 CIA New Professional Chef. Despite its huge size, I use exactly one recipe from it. That recipe however, is a doozy. Tucked beneath a script for vegetarian crepes is a list of ingredients and a few simple instructions for roasted red bell pepper coulis sauce. In it chopped shallots are softened in dry white wine until syrupy while red peppers roast under the broiler. Once the peppers are slipped from their crackling black skins, they join the shallots and are bound together with a few other choice ingredients. A rustic chef serves this as is, but I like to whirl it through the blender to create a lighter sauce. Honestly, I could eat it like soup.

As luck would have it, a few of the peppers are packing some heat. I tested the sauce for balance and to my delight experienced a slow burn roar through the sweet, smoky aftertaste.

It will take an extreme act of willpower not to harvest all the other peppers and use them just for sauce, no matter how addictive.

On my mind

2008-09-17T23:03:00.001-07:00

There's been a lot going on over the past month. Here's a glimpse at what I've been up to.

Portrait of the Lawyer as a Young Artiste:
After the Bar exam my right brain rebelled against too much structure and I immediately undertook two super secret art projects for the annual Burning Man large-scale art festival cum rave. My first project was to create and execute the exterior design for a small museum. The museum director wanted a collapseable structure that would resemble a log cabin. I was lucky enough to be able to collaborate with a professional set designer, and with her advice and plenty of independent research I pulled off a highly representative design that worked really well.

The second project was a fire art project initially conceived by TheRoommate. The core concept was a small scale effigy. We built small man-shaped statues (nothing in size or shape like the Big Man) that would hold their shape while on fire. Some looked like the gingerbread man, and some looked like South Pacific tikis. They're extraordinarily evocative and beautiful flaming sculpture.

Garden Rant
While I was gone, I'd asked the wife of one of my oldest friends to water for me, every other day or so. She expressed no reservations, and I felt comfortable that my garden was in good hands. On returning home, I discovered that her notions of watering missed the mark. My dahlias were nothing but scorched sticks. My bush beans were a mass of withered leaves and woody pods. My barrel of New Mexico chiles were wilted to the stem. Only 2 of 6 cucumber vines survived. Given that this woman has numerous houseplants, all thriving, I'm forced to consider that this may have been deliberate, and I don't understand why.

Meanwhile, we've had terrible squirrel deprivations. The little bastards have attacked the sweet corn and the seedless sunflowers. They got every ear, and nearly every flower. TheRoommate set up some HaveAHeart traps. The traps are empty. I think he should set the coyote traps.

Garden Gloat
Meanwhile, the tomatoes are finally starting to come in. They are red, ripe, juicy, and unfortunately cracked due to the above watering fiasco. I committed three quarts of unripe globes to Fried Green Tomatoes at a surprise party for a dear friend from the Carolinas. Our 4 Crimson Carmello plants are producing abundantly. The cherry tomatoes which didn't get transplanted in time are trying to play catch up.

Come to supper

2008-09-17T23:03:00.000-07:00

Apparently I am the right kind of dinner guest.

You can invite me at the last minute, even when you, yourself don't entirely know what it is that you're to be fixing.

You can shove a cast iron griddle at me when the food isn't cooking right. I'll know what the problem is, and how to correct it. As I'm doing that, you can point me to the plate that has the overflow, and I'll cook that up as well, because if you're going to cook some of it, you may as well cook it all. And yes, I have no problem gripping those squishy, slimy raw chicken breasts and reducing them to a manageable size for your pan. This is because I am an unrepentant carnivore.

You can tell me what you had in mind for dinner. I'll ask pantry questions and come up with a healthier, lower-fat alternative that uses what you have on hand. I'll hop right on it. We'll work in tandem in the kitchen, and before long, I'll set the table and we'll hustle out the hot food.

Afterwards, I'll wash the dishes.

I will also respond to a more timely invitation, dress up, apply make up, arrive on time, and bring flowers.

Two wheel paradise

2008-08-13T00:17:00.000-07:00

Prior to taking on Squiggle duty I'd swapped my car for a bike and was either walking or riding to everyplace I needed to be. Alas Squiggle's home is 35 minutes away by private car, or 3 hours by public transit. I am not willing to sacrifice 5 hours of my time to endure the company of mouth breathing vectors of drug resistant TB, the clinically -and possibly criminally- insane, and other horrors of public transit. So, I've been driving and not biking and it sucks.

This past Sunday was gorgeous and blue and the first chance in a week to get back on my bike. Of course my lady parts had forgotten all about the terrible squishing that must be conditioned, and I forgot to wear a backpack, so I sounded like a tinker or a goatherd as my lock and other items clanked unmusically from my handlebars. Must Install Bike Rack.

It was still wonderful to be out in the fresh air as I pedaled around on my errands. I'm looking forward to more biking after S gets a real nanny.

Squiggle Duty

2008-08-12T23:55:00.000-07:00

My sister's nanny moved out of state on short notice for a family emergency, leaving my sister in the lurch at the end of PA rotations and on the cusp of a move to a new house. So I've been filling in on Squiggle Duty.

Squiggle hit his first birthday two weeks ago. He can open jars of baby food and put caps on pens, but he neither walks nor talks. His utterances seem to revolve around a sound that might be "quack" and a something that sounds like "Baba Yaga," but seems to mean "get me the hell out of this chair harness NOW!" Needless to say, we don't chat much.

Mornings are spent eating oatmeal, reading stories and napping, followed by a lunch with the consistency of library paste, a ride to the park, and some time on the grass practicing walking, playing chase or throwing dirt at the other kids in the sandbox. Followed by reading stories and napping. Rather, he naps, I do dishes, prep food, do laundry, and put away toys. He enjoys it, I find it freaking exhausting.

My nephew is pretty cute for a guy who only has 4 teeth and a long ribbon of drool hanging from his bottom lip. It'll be entertaining to see if he learns to walk before my sister and brother in law get the house all packed up.

a slaker of mates

2008-08-05T22:58:00.000-07:00

He wasn't my closest friend, he wasn't my friend of longest acquaintance. Nevertheless, the Frank-sized hole in my universe is immeasurably huge. Every time I think about it, the tears well up in my eyes until there are too many and then they pour down my cheeks. This makes driving considerably more challenging. You see, my friend Frank died Saturday morning.

I can't imagine how this must be for his wife. He'd just retired. They were starting their golden years (to the extent that people can when they're trying to put as much distance between themselves and the sterotypical "golden years" sponsored by AARP and the makers of Metamucil). They were not going to age gently and fade away. Together they held a fast grip on everything fun and vibrant, and I never saw one without the other nearby. I can't imagine being so utterly partnerless.

Frank was a bear hug, a quick-witted jester, a dapper fellow, a slaker of mates, and so many other things all rolled into a complicated package with a singular laugh, a chin dimple and a glint in his eye so bright it was cheeky.

When I last saw him a couple of months ago, I was thinking how much fun he is, and how glad I am to know him. I was looking forward to seeing him this coming weekend. Instead I'll be attending his memorial.

In case you're wondering what taking the bar is like

2008-08-02T17:59:00.000-07:00

Every morning I got up around dawn, and trucked on down to the Cow Palace. At 8:30 a.m. they read the same monotone set of instructions, and warn that if you even twitch after the "5 minutes remaining" warning, you'll get a disciplinary violation and you may as well abandon your career right then.

Once they call time the fun begins. On the first day, you rip open a booklet of 3 short stories. The stories are tales like the story of Hank and Winifred, their married life in NY followed by retirement in California, and the shennanigans that transpire when Winifred expires from an infected fleabite and her secret will is discovered; or the story of Bradley and Sheila, and Bradley's frustrated attempt to buy a rare Honda Civic from Sheila that ends with him stealing the car.

After each story is a set of questions that asks you to briefly, but completely, detail and explain every single legal right that every person had in relation to the others in the same story, and the strengths, weaknesses and likelihood of getting their way on each issue. Part of the fun is making sure you limit yourself to one hour for each short story, so that your answers aren't lopsided.

Then you get a lunch break which isn't quite long enough for you to escape the excelsior district and forage for actual food. I believe some made do with the onsite hotdog window, while others found nearby fast food. I sat in my car and ate low-fat triscuits and laughing cow cheese wedges in lieu of the salad that composted itself during 3 hours I was inside. The benefit to an automotive picnic is that it gives you time for a 40 minute nap, the downside is you're restricted to food that won't get fugly after 3 hours in your trunk.

Then you go back inside for another rendition of monotone instructions and warnings. This time you get 3 hours to respond to a memo from your fake boss asking you to write some kind of document. It might be a court filing, or just an internal memo back to your fake boss. In either case you have to read some fake judicial opinions, some fake state or federal laws, and client file for a fake client. Then you have to follow the instructions in the memo, sort out all the legal rules from the fake laws and cases, and explain what they mean for the facts in the fake client file. If you finish before the 5 minute warning, you can leave. Otherwise you're stuck there for another 40 minutes while they collect all the tests.

Day 2 is all multiple choice, or as I like to call it, multiple guess.
You also get fingerprinted! (again).

On the second day it's very important not to forget your pencils, and eraser, and a RULER (so that you don't accidentally skip the bubbles at question 3 and incorrectly answer 80% of the following questions).
I did not forget my pencils or my eraser. meh.
This is the only day where the morning and the afternoon are exactly the same. Multiple guess only tests laws that are basically the same in all 50 states, so all the questions are about painting contracts gone wrong, car crashes, and mortgages. There are a few questions about crimes and the US Constitution to keep you awake. When in doubt, choose letter A.

Day 3 is a repeat of Day 1. You get the same instructions and warnings in the same monotone. You get a completely different set of stories to read in the morning, and a completely different task memo to complete in the afternoon.

Then you can send out your "I'm done" tweets, voice mails, and sms messages. If you're not completely exhausted yet, you can join friends for drinks or dinner. However, if you choose this option, you will crash midway through dinner and barely have enough endurance to safely arrive home, where you will wash your hair for the first time in three days and fall asleep on top of the blankets with a towel on your head and your bathrobe twisted all around you.

At least, that was what it was like for me.

Fun Facts about the bar exam

2008-08-02T17:49:00.000-07:00

The exam is something you register for months in advance. This is to remind you it takes time to re-memorize everything that you learned in law school, especially from the first year classes. Because you *did* promptly forget everything about 3 weeks after those final exams. Happily the one company in the test prep business that has a near monopoly makes excellent study materials.

In a best case scenario you cram everything back into your noggin and perfect the delicate art of writing paragraphs containing only buzzwords and the occasional complete sentence. In the real world you study when you can, deal with issues of real life like rent checks, children or reasonable facsimiles thereof, illness, and all those things that will continue to be just as pressing after the exam memories have been obliterated by several liters of quality alcohol.

When the stars align, you get to take the test at your preferred location, which is usually convenient to the closest BART stop near your home. When Global Warming is in effect, you are assigned to a test center that requires either a one hour train commute, or at least one bridge.

A friend graciously allowed me to crash an empty room at his place in San Francisco's Inner Sunset. This was a perfect combination of unfamiliar accommodations that prevented me from sleeping through my pre-dawn alarm clock, and close enough proximity that my alarm really didn't have to wake me up before actual dawn. Although due to the fog, I was never really sure when dawn occurred. I was always first in line at Arizmendi's when it opens at 7:00am.

When it comes to taking the test you're on your own for timekeeping.
You can wear an analog watch, but not a digital one, and never one that beeps. Unfortunately, I can't find the damn receipt to take that shiny Timex back to Target.

If you finish before the 5 minute warning, you can leave. Otherwise, you have have to sit quietly in your chair, and wait, and wait, and wait. If you get up or otherwise twitch, you get issued a disciplinary violation that goes to the State Bar.

No food or drink (even water)can be brought into in the exam room. Mints and gum are not food. Bringing in food gets the same violation as twitching after the 5 minute warning.

You can bring earplugs. Unless you're hard of hearing. In that case, don't need earplugs, but ask the area proctor to repeat all the instructions that were broadcast over the loudspeaker, or at least the ones you didn't hear. You may need earplugs if there is a violent sounding windstorm that shakes the building. Earplugs will not help in the event of an earthquake. I pity the fools down in Chino.

Unlike other state licensing exams, there is no instant pass/fail notification. Instead they wait until the weekend before Thanksgiving to notify you. Applicants get three days to sober up, commit suicide, or flee the country before the general public gets access to the results. Yep. THANKSGIVING that famously low-stress, family gathering event.

I'll let you know how I did after Thanksgiving, unless I've fled the country. ;)

Last tasks

2008-07-28T17:52:00.000-07:00

I'm heading on over to Saint Crisco by the bay. I'll stay at the Chateau St. Jason Hippy Commune & Crashpad for Wayward Bar Examinees.

It's probably too late to start studying, eh? (rimshot)

But of course I have things yet to do:

Scoop out the cat box; buy a new bag of cat food so the Dowager Princess Tasha has something to put into the cat box. Buy 3 days worth of TJ salads, and some luna bars so that I don't have to pay exorbitant prices for crap food

Pop by Target and pick up a large Analog wrist watch. Wash the windows on the car that hasn't been driven in a month. Do a drive by of the test site, figure out how to get there.

Charge cell phone, find bluetooth BORG appendage, withdraw cash.

Pack an overnight bag with:

clean sox, panties and tshirts. And sweaters (the fog is back despite a swelteringly hot Saturday).
bottle of Xanax, to avoid a repeat of last weeks' adventure,
and the prilosec, so I don't throw up.
alarm clock
pillow
whatever I'm forgetting

Must also bring ticket, photo ID, reading glasses, pencils, pens, an eraser, a highlighter or two, cash for the highway-robbery parking fees that will no doubt be charged.

Hopefully that covers it.

Good luck on the bar exam

2008-07-25T10:58:00.000-07:00

This came in the e-mail this morning. From the fine folks at http://www.someecards.com.

The mother of all anxiety attacks

2008-07-23T18:34:00.000-07:00

I have a big 3-day test next week. I'm more than just nervous about it, I'm terrified.

That terror manifested today. Just after a reasonably healthy late breakfast - early lunch my chest clenched up with extremely tight pressure all across my floating ribs. I panted with pain, gasping for breath as I sank to the floor and struggled out of my t-shirt, my bra, and loosened my pants. After about a minute, I stumbled upstairs and lay down on my bed. The pain started to subside and I was able to breathe again. I took a long nap.

6 hours later, I feel fine, although I'll be eating lightly for a little bit. The food was nothing I haven't eaten before, perhaps I wolfed it down too quickly. But I think the performance anxiety is getting to me. I have a few anti-anxiety drugs left over from law school. I think I'll be using them for the next few days.

Basil overload

2008-07-16T20:33:00.000-07:00

The recent heat wave (read: delightful warm, sunny days) kicked my basil plants into overproduction. I'm not ready for them to bolt, so a serious shearing was in order. After a judicious pruning they're back under control, and two giant basil bouquets have been decorating the kitchen for a few days.

Outside of caprese salad, I don't eat much basil. This put me in a quandry, the plants were taking up too much counter space. You see where this is going don't you? Yes, yes it is. But rather than making pesto, I made its Provencal cousin, pistou. (Pistou doesn't include any nuts)

The recipe I used goes much more lightly on the oil than many other recipes I've encountered. I used extra garlic and found the resulting spread to be eerily reminiscent of the pesto served at Carrera's Cafe, the long-gone neighborhood cafe that was my second home in my twenties.

Pistou

3 cups basil leaves, packed
3 large garlic cloves, pressed or finely minced
4-6 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 C grated asiago
1/4 C grated parmesan
1/2 tsp salt

Prep all ingredients first: discard basil stems, press or mince the garlic, grate the cheese and measure the salt and oil, so that everything can move at once.

In a food process bowl sandwich the garlic, cheese and salt in between the basil. Pulse gently until a rough paste forms, then add the oil in a slow stream until the desired consistency is reached.

Yield approx 1 cup

Bureau of Logging and Mining: "Let's Kill the Horses"

2008-07-16T17:13:00.000-07:00

I can barely read the article, it's guaranteed to induce a throbbing forehead vein.

In a nutshell, the BLM has decided that wild mustangs are a nuisance to be eradicated. So they've rounded up half of the wild mustang population and are now proposing to exterminate all the horses.

Do you have any idea how many head of cattle lounge around on BLM land for years at a time? (Lots, the land is leased for cattle grazing). It is difficult to fathom how a few horses can be such a problem, but big lumberous cattle are not.

The Bureau of Land Management is a good example of a captured agency. The purpose of the agency is to maintain the land for the public good. However, private mining, timber and ranching interests have reached a position of power within the agency, such that agency decisions are made in alignment with these special private interests.

Those poor horses don't have a chance. Read the Newsweek article here.

Salads

2008-07-10T19:44:00.000-07:00

MLE's post about salads reminded me that it had been ages since I'd indulged myself with one of my all-time favorite foods: taco salad.

My current taco salad has evolved from the days of pan-fried onions, spices and ground beef; lots of medium cheddar shavings, tomatoes and enough lettuce and tortilla chips to add satisfying crunch tossed in a decent italian dressing.

I had most of the items necessary for an impromptu taco salad: copious romaine, tomatoes, a salsa composed of corn, red onion and black beans marinated with garlic and spices in a tablespoon of vinaigrette, shredded mexican cheese blend and turkey breast sauteed with spice dust. Guacamole or even a few slices of avocado would have been heaven, but I didn't have them or the corn chips. It was still delicious.

Otherwise I've been eating a lot of what I think of as a greek style salad: chopped romaine, cucumber, mint, dill and tomatoes tossed with a few tablespoons of lemon juice and olive oil. Red onion is a great addition. The addition of feta or steamed salmon makes this an entree although I've been eating it as a side dish. Those who like yoghurt could probably combine it with the mint and dill for a nice dressing if you like that creamy style.

The aged olympian

2008-07-08T12:52:00.000-07:00

So Dara Torres went to Nebraska, took some names and kicked some butt. She's on the US Swim team, again, for the 5th time. I think it's beyond fabulous to see a competitive world class athlete of this age. It's not about glorifying perennial youth, is about being fabulous all along the route.

Garden Notes - Dates

2008-07-05T12:01:00.000-07:00

Saturday is fertilizer day, as well as pull the weeds day, check for powdery mildew day, prune a little bit here and there day, and pick anything that didn't get picked during the week day. I wish I had jotted down when certain things have happened in the yard. It's frustrating not to be able to judge process, or to have a baseline for doing things better next year.

Tomatoes:

I do love tomatoes. This year we have crimson carmellos (Renee's Garden) and some sort of cherry, possibly sweet 100s. We started the first batch of seeds in mid March, and a second batch on April 20th. April 10th seems like it would have been the best time. I don't know when I transplanted the tomatoes, but it looks like it was between the middle of May and the middle of June, which seems like the right time to do it. Any time during the week leading up to Memorial Day is probably best. The poor cherry tomatoes are still languishing in the plastic box my organic baby greens from costco came in. It was a great planter for starting seeds, much better than the half gallon milk containers cut lengthwise. I'll use these again.

I just read a good article on pruning tomatoes for best production, Pruning Tomatoes. Clearly I should be snipping more off these plants. I barely pruned at all last year. This may explain why the plants didn't do so well.

Snap Peas:
I cut down half the snap pea vines, the dead ones and the dried out ones that were only producing pods with a single pea. The rest I left to hang out with the Dahlias and the volunteer Catnip plant that I thought was a weed until the distinctive scent from the bruised leaves and stalk clued me in. I'm thinking I may start some peas in pots against the back garage wall. They'll only get about 5 hours of direct sunlight even at the peak of summer. Later I'll move the pots to a different shady area. Because we're on the direct fog path, I want to see if I can grow peas in containers year round. Because they fix nitrogen to the soil part of my plan is to use their soil as replacement soil for the one strip that is sunny enough for tomatoes.

Beans:
I also love green beans. I have 6 plants producing, but it's not as much as I'd like. Next year I should have 9-12 plants, and should also get them into the ground by May 15. The beans are mostly green with purple marks on the pods.

Herbs:
The parsley, marjoram and oregano are still going gangbusters. I am now agressively pruning them and drying the stalks. The lemon thyme and the Danish thyme are both bolting, which is sort of a surprise. That the cilantro and dill are bolting is not a surprise at all. The summer savory is doing well, at the base of the tier far back along the fence. I hope to harvest a few bags worth of pesticide-free, Italian blend dried herbs.

Flowers:
I have BEE city over at my forget-me-nots. Every time I go over there the stalks are humming with bumble bees, honey bees and some sort of tiny bee that is probably either a carpenter bee or a sweat bee. The forget-me-nots are squeezing out a remaindered white carnation that I found on clearance lacking any sort of label. I happened to recognize the foilage, and thus got quite a bargain. The pure white blooms are small, (since I haven't pruned at all), but have the classic spicy sweet scent. I hate to displace the bees and cut the forget-me-nots back, but they're crowding the carnation out. We'll see what happens.

On either side of the forget-me-nots, I have pots with sweet william (another member of the same family carnations belong to), white lobelia, and blue salvia. The salvia has a terrible case of powdery mildew. I may just pull those plants so that the mildew won't transfer to the dahlias.

TheRoomate has planted a fair amount of corn and some sunflowers. He likes the tall seed producing kind. I like the smaller, dark orange kind. This year, we'll have both.

barbecue diaries

2008-07-04T12:01:00.000-07:00

I was out at the Albatross Bar last night, working on a super secret culture jamming program. At some point the topic of alcohol based social bonding was raised. What are the elements? Certainly, late night eating is one of them. Sure enough, we found ourselves ducking into Everette & Jones BBQ at 9:58, 2 minutes before closing.

Quality Barbecue is hard to find. The family owned and operated, brick oven places are few and far between. Everette & Jones provides a typical western US BBQ. Spice rubbed meat is slow-cooked at low heat in a large brick oven. This is a key distinction. Slow cooked meat is barbecue, fast cooked meat is grilled. Needless to say, BBQ doesn't lend itself to the 3-ring binder eateries so common from coast to coast. Meaning, just because Chili's offers baby back ribs, doesn't mean it's good barbecue.

Meanwhile, as today is the 4th of July, my landlady is using an entire city block's worth of carbon credits to get her grill going with lighter fluid. I wish I'd seen her setting up, so that I could close all the windows. The house smells like a toxic waste dump. At least the fumes will evaporate quickly.

Stuff to read

2008-07-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

A friend pointed me to kottke.org today, so that I could read about Dara Torres, the FORTY-ONE year old former gold-medalist who is trying to land a spot on the US women's swim team. 41. How about that? Click her name for an awesome photo. Kottke.org is full of other things you may want to read as well.

If that's not your style, I've also been checking in with Garden Rant of late. Gardeners are funny in a dry, sometimes unintentional sort of way. They also talk about stuff like permaculture, free booze samples and how best to kill snails. (I'm trying to figure out how to make better use of a splendid back yard; and get more of my mostly chemical-free veggies onto the table. If I knew where my camera is, I'd snap a few shots of the forget-me-nots. They are a huge hit with the bees.)

I've been slowly working my way through Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series. The series is similar to the werewolf or vampire mystery series popular of late, featuring a wizard instead. I'm very much enjoying the monster lore, but am finding limited patience for the protagonist, a self-avowed "gentleman" who is reactionary without much charisma to compensate. The dialogue is clunky but has been steadily improving and the plots really are interesting twists on traditional monster stories.

Happy New Year

2008-07-02T15:30:00.000-07:00

July 1 is the start of a fiscal year for lots of government agencies & such. My contract with the non-profit ended yesterday. Wah. Must look for new job now.

Lesson learned

2008-06-25T21:10:00.000-07:00

If you hide behind the door, then jump out while hooting "RAH!" do not be surprised if you get a fat lip for your trouble.

Also, just because someone else does this to you with annoying frequency (and you never get mad), someone else may completely lose their shit and you'll have to leave the house for 90 minutes until things calm down.

Misadventures in soup

2008-06-24T19:49:00.000-07:00

Soup. What could be simpler to make? Easier to enjoy?

Do not be fooled. Soup is nefarious and will catch you unawares.

Misadventures with soup Take I: Siamese cat hair soup*

It was late. I'd had a terrible headache all day, the kind of headache that sends you to bed and banishes cats that invariably want to sit on you to increase, err, ease your pain. But gnawings from within rousted me. "Soup!" demanded the inner powers that be.

I shuffled to the kitchen and pondered the contents of the refrigerator. There was precious little to be of use. Finally I grabbed some hoary carrots and a shriveled plug of ginger. While the coarsely chopped roots bobbed in a cup of broth on the slow carousel-ride-to-nowhere inside the microwave, I peeled the ginger, removed the fuzzy bits, cut it into large pieces and chucked them in with the carrots. While the soup cooked a few minutes more I thinly sliced some green onions.

Finally something smelled yummy. I paused the microwave and checked the bowl. The carrots were tender, the broth smelled sweet and spicy. However the carrot chunks were really big, and I wasn't in much mood to chew.

Into the blender! I scooped all the veggie bits into the blender and added just a small amount of broth to avoid boiling splatter. Slowly I added in the rest of the broth and at the last, the diced green onion. After a brief whirling, a gorgeously orange carrot ginger soup was all ready. A 10 minute dinner! I poured the soup into a big mug and settled into the couch.

The first sip was delicious. And furry. I wasn't really sure how I got cat hair all over my mouth, but I wiped my face and had another drink. Another furry drink. And then I realized I'd done something horribly wrong.

Ginger is delightful when you slice it across the grain. However, cutting an inch and half long chunk into quarters along the center axis is not so bright. Putting those chunks into the blender is even less so. Cutting ginger longitudinally and then blending it ensures that you get an even dispersion of long fibers in whatever you have made. Your soup may be tasty, but you'll get a mouth full of cat hair in every bite.

*(no cats were involved in the making of this soup, the Siamese refers to Thailand, home of gingery soups)

Misadventures with soup Take II: Flor soup

As if the cat hair soup weren't bad enough! Tonights special is Flor soup.

Today was a long, demeaning day at work, followed by a depressing chat with my sister, followed by contemplation of an increasingly hopeless looking future. If this isn't a situation calling for homemade, comforting soup, I don't know what is. The refrigerator has a nice variety of vegetables on their last legs: a handful of withered, pencil-thin asparagus, half a wilting head of lettuce, soft potatoes, a squash that is about to live up to its name. Surely these things would all meld happily to create a beautiful, nutrient-rich, comforting bowl of soup.

And so it was, until I decided that the veggies needed to be pureed so that I'd have soup plus leftover thick stock for other projects.

Blender to the rescue! I scooped in all the veggie bits and added just a small amount of broth to avoid boiling splatter. Slowly I added in the rest of the broth. Then I decided there was too much hot liquid in the blender and I'd better decant some, lest I burn myself and make a mess when I pushed the liquify button. I lifted the glass pitcher to pour off the top and watched the entire contents splatter all over the counter, all over my feet, all over the floor.

If kitchen appliances could vomit, this is what it would look like. The cupboard doors are covered in chunky slime, there are pools of green flecked ooze in my dress shoes. The bottom of the canister is still attached to the blender. There is a pool of soup sitting there in a post-modern tureen.

My socks are sodden and my pant legs are caked in damp vegetable cement. I don't know whether to mop or sweep to the sludge off the floor.

Meanwhile, the pizza kitchen at costco closed an hour ago.

The Rollercoaster Zoo

2008-06-18T18:12:00.000-07:00

While everyone else was feting their fathers, or attending a wedding ceremony, or perhaps undergoing commencement exercises at fine educational institutions everywhere, I had a birthday instead. Usually I make for wine country and have a splendid day with friends in the country. This year I wanted a change of pace.

As I approach middle age wine tasting seems so staid; I thought something more exciting was called for. I settled on rollercoasters and corralled a group of friends who don't have fathers, weren't getting married, and who have already graduated. We had a splendid day at the steel towers.

After a lovely brunch at the Usual Suspects cafe, with err, the Usual Suspects, TheRoommate and I piled into the hydrox of station wagons and headed for the hills. Specifically, we went to Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, CA. The park has an odd history, it started as an oceanarium and wild-animal park, but has since seen a fairly aggressive addition of large scale rollercoasters after it was acquired by Six Flags. Now it's an oceanarium, wild-animal park and amusement park all rolled into one.

We rode all the big coasters. We wandered through the shark exhibit. I did not get a photo taken with the sharks, despite promises of professional courtesy. We wandered through the butterfly forest. We looked at the big cats. I did get a photo taken with the cougars because, well... We would have eaten a delicious homemade picnic, but such things are not allowed in the park, so we ate in the captive audience food-court. We drank gigantic beers (they were out of cups for the smaller size and Would Not Sell the a smaller volume in the bigger cups). Later we ate birthday ice cream, Ben & Jerry's, which somehow got terribly smeared on my face.

Closing time came right as the sun went down and the temperature plummeted.

If you need a suggestion for how to spend your birthday, I highly recommend this one.

The hilarity of email spam

2008-06-18T18:06:00.000-07:00

The address that forwards from my old university account keeps getting emails encouraging me to get a degree for better job mobility.

I find this hilarious.

Phone Karma

2008-06-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

I didn't think it'd come around quite so quickly. Last month, I told the tale of losing my cell phone on BART in 30 seconds or less. This morning, at the top of the escalator, what should I find but a lonesome iPhone. Its SIM card was gone, preventing me from calling any of the last numbers dialed, or seeking info about the owner.

The correct procedure for lost cell phones is to turn them in to the station agent, which is exactly what I did. I hope someone gets their phone back.

Summer silence

2008-06-07T11:32:00.000-07:00

My lappy is badly hosed with a viral infection. This is good and this is bad. It's bad because I am cut off from the world as viewed from the lens of the internet.

It's good because I decided what the hey, I'll study for this July's bar exam.

My days will largely be spent out in the garage, memorizing the rule against perpetuities, the defenses to intentional torts and other stunningly boring aspects of the law.

The tomatoes and bush beans in the garden were stunted before being planted and are failing to thrive. We may have to get some starts. The dahlias from last summer have reappeared, in the middle of the peas. Little knobby rounds are dangling from the cucumber vines. The mint is going gangbusters.

The pinks, salvia and white lobelia make a charming pink, blue and white blast of color to the corner of the garden.

Probably will be a slow summer around here.

My Left Footloose

2008-06-07T11:30:00.000-07:00

My Left Footloose is a movie mashup blog that bangs my funny bone every time. If you like movies, you might like it too.

marry away, folks

2008-05-15T11:26:00.000-07:00

Countering the argument that "the court does not have the right to erase, then recast, the age-old definition of marriage, as virtually all societies have understood it, in order to satisfy its own contemporary notions of equality and justice" [Justice Baxter], California Chief Justice George noted that California has already recognized, in its laws and public policy, that gays and lesbians are entitled to equal treatment in every legal area [except marriage].

Echoing decisions banning miscegenation Justice George wrote:

"Even the most familiar and generally accepted of social policies and traditions often mask an unfairness and inequality that frequently is not recognized or appreciated by those not directly harmed."

In short, a ban on gay marriages in unconstitutional in the state of California.

Now I just hope they don't convince the court to issue a stay until the ballot initiative in November comes up. There is a constitutional amendment that would permanently prohibit gay marriage.

Personally, I think that if marriage has to be a legal construct, then it should be equally available to all couples, and I wish the "traditional meaning" folks would just STFU. 9 times out of 10, the reasons they give for not wanting to permit gay marriage are legally invalid. STFU already!

30 seconds or less

2008-05-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

Thursday night, I dropped my cellphone Pinkie down "the gap" as I boarded BART. A student picked it up, and called people to find the owner. I went a-looking. Meanwhile my roommate got a call and went to get the lost phone from Student. When I was busy looking on the tracks in Ess Eff the station agent called the phone. Student answered and gave the story. I went home. Roommate came home with phone and minus $10 reward. The end.

What recent adventure, hours in the undertaking, can YOU recount in under 30 seconds?

A good vinaigrette

2008-05-09T18:54:00.000-07:00

TheRoommate is out of town. When the cat's away, the mice will play. Here, the mice will cook with mustard, as TheRoommate is quite allergic to that particular substance. Tonight's dinner was some leftover tri-tip and a healthy dinner salad with just the right coating of emulsified red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and dijon mustard.

Unfortunately, tonight is also monkey cage cleaning night. Clearly, monkeys have been jumping on the bed. I don't know how else to explain the utter chaos of tracked dirt, strewn laundry, ridiculously unhygenic bathroom and kitchen floors, etcetera etcetera.

Out in the garden the pea plants have started giving up the gold. I'd much rather be outside planting tomatoes, cucumbers and herbs, but tomorrow is another day. I hope it's just as sunny as today was.

Postage rates going up to 42 cents

2008-05-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

It hasn't been all that long since the last postage increase, so maybe this is a surprise. Starting May 12 you need new stamps.

Meanwhile, I'm completely sad that there is no Douglas Adams stamp at the new rate.

Survey says...

2008-05-07T22:28:00.000-07:00

I love surveys. Oh how I love surveys, well most of them. Not the ones where at the end of the story I am resigned to check the box that states I was unhappy with the answer choices provided to me.

However, my One True Goal is to lay waste to the notion of the emotional consumer. This very evening, I spent a quality few minutes clicking all the answer choices that indicate that laundry products at my house are made based on how the product works, and not on how the product or worse, branding, makes me feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelllll.

I advance the agenda of the practical cat!

Maker Meh

2008-05-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

Everything to everybody was Maker Faire last weekend. I rate it a solid Meh.

My intention had been assiduously avoid the whole darn thing. Although this sounds easy, TheRoommate had two interactive exhibits, and some special friends from Seattle had flown down for a super secret Maker Faire mission.

Unfortunately for TheRoommate, folks he'd tapped for assistance were less helpful than desired. I called to check in on Saturday afternoon and discovered that another pair of hands would be really, really helpful. So I ditched the avoidance plan and headed over. The place was a complete anthill of activity. There was something going on in every direction. So why the Meh rating?

From my perch back in the SteamPunk corral. I realized that I've seen a lot of this art before, the Neverwas Haul, and the World's Largest Mousetrap were our venerable neighbors. Elsewhere, throughout the fair, a similar theme played out: old BurningMan exhibits on display.

Additionally, theRoomate's exhibits were sandwiched between two No-talent stages (although happily far away from the no-talent music stages). The No-talent performance is part of it. Just because someone puts on a spangly dress and gets up on a stage doesn't mean the performance is worthy. I had to endure an awful lot of not-worthy throughout the evening: think the Garbage Bag Fashion Show, The Mentos-Diet Coke Fountains, Caterwaul Carolers and Unsexy Old-Timey Burlesque.

Another fundamental issue is one of cost. A family of four with two elementary school age children would have paid $70 just to get through the gates. The food vendors were charging astronomical rates, and by astronomical, I mean $4 for a small soft serve cone. That puts a day-long outing at over $100 if no one warned them to bring their own snacks and drinks.

Lastly, very few of the exhibits were truly interactive. There was lots to look at, not much to do. Some exhibits had safety perimeters that were so wide, you could not really see the exhibit. Some popular exhibits had perimeters that were so small that folks were crowded 10 deep, but only the first few rows could see what was going on. Some exhibits reminded me a lot of re-tooled science exhibits. Which is to say interesting to look at, to see the way a scientific principle is demonstrated, but on a practical level, fairly useless.

In retrospect, I was glad to have gone. It was a great social outing (all my friends were there), and a nice day to be out in the sun. I finally got to see TheRoommate's artwork out in public. However, I'm really glad I didn't have to pay the gate fee, and that I was only seduced by one lone soft serve cone.

Cocksucker in the courtroom

2008-04-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

To celebrate the news that my last piece of academic work outstanding has received a passing grade, I give you this: Disorder in the court.

Free right on red

2008-04-16T13:52:00.001-07:00

The old woman at the deli counter was bitching to the sandwich maker about the crazy guy out to get her, apparently she'd been in a shouting match out in the parking lot. Abruptly the shouting match began again when the crazy guy, also at the lunch counter, told her that if she wanted to keep making hay about the incident she should go across the street and report the it to the police - call 911 if she could remember the number.

"I get a free right on red" she insisted.

NOT WHEN THERE IS ONCOMING TRAFFIC!

The crazy guy isn't really crazy, he was justifiably, frighteningly angry. You see, "crazy guy" is TheRoommate and he was spitting mad. Minutes earlier we were on our way into San Francisco by way of the deli counter at a small grocery store nearby. We had the green light and were coming through the intersection when a big black Cadillac Eldorado came barreling towards us from the right. Surely the driver would look up and see that there was a car in its path and yield the right - of- way to the traffic.

Nope.

TheRoommate blared his horn, to no effect. Shortly before collision we veered into the left lane, by grace, no one else was in it. As we fishtailed our way across the intersection I looked at the driver of the big black car. She still wasn't looking at us. Not at all. I'm not even sure she heard the horn honking. Had it all happened faster I would not be writing this, I would be strapped to a gurney en route to the trauma hospital.

For some reason, Cadillac Gramma followed us to the grocery store. I hightailed it inside when TheRoommate unloaded on her outside. In truth, his angry outbursts are loud and scary. I always flee.

But for her to insist that she gets the right away when making a right on red is just retarded.

I'm happy to be alive today. Still kind of pissed though.

A book a day

2008-04-16T11:34:00.000-07:00

Over the last 4 days I've read one book per day. Not hard books mind you, pulp mystery, but still a book. My friend Nurse Dana gave me a whole bag full when I was there for the Sunday hair salon that happens every 6 weeks or so.

It feels pretty good to read again. It took me such a long time to get back into reading after law school. I didn't think I'd ever give up reading for fun, and I didn't, but I did give up reading fun books. I have a few more left, enough to last me another week.

I guess I should start requesting things from the library. It's good to do something fun again.

Idli Sambar

2008-04-10T13:45:00.000-07:00

For years I have been reading Monkey wax rhapsodic about her mom's idli sambar. This was a taste sensation that had passed me by, as the local Indian restaurants all tend to serve up northern Indian cuisine.

However, I was finally able to duck into Dosa, an explicitly southern Indian restaurant the other night. They had all manner of tasty looking things on the menu, most of which were vegetarian. But here I had an opportunity to finally try the idli sambar. In a word, yum. My idli (and a vada) came nestled in a bowl of sambar, a stew of tomatoes, lentils, spices and chili peppers the length of my birdy-flipping finger.

Everything was hot enough to give me the sniffles, but not hot enough to send me running for a preemptive Rolaids strike.

Thankfully, I don't get over to that part of San Francisco that often because I think I'd be in there every night until I've tried every last thing on the menu, something my wallet can hardly afford.

But I'm firmly on the idli sambar bus now, even though I'm pretty sure that restuarant idli aren't as good as Monkey's mom's.

Proforma Torch

2008-04-09T14:13:00.001-07:00

Part of me is laughing, part of me is fuming.

They've rerouted the Olympic torch through the middle of the city. The only people getting and eyeful of the continual changing of the relay runners are the press, oncoming traffic, and the phalanxes of armed police.

There are no protesters, because there is no audience.

Why is this funny? Because it's laughable that SF's mayor is more interested in getting the relay through the city than he is in providing the actual relay that people expected. Form over substance -- how typical.

Infuriating though, is the amount of money being spent on police. Those officers are not volunteering their time. This is a very expensive photo op for what is essentially a meaningless gesture. Times are tough all over and it's ridiculous how much money is being spent on crowd control, and participant protection all for a media circus. That money never would have been earmarked for violence dissipation in neighborhoods that are being hit hard by increasing lawlessness.

NB: the passing of the torch was introduced by Adolf Hitler for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin Germany.

Passing the torch

2008-04-09T13:18:00.000-07:00

The scene that greeted my eyes as I came up the Embarcadero BART stairwell was pretty amazing. The very first thing I saw was the back of a black windbreaker heavily emblazoned TSA. Next to it was a black DHS windbreaker. Both contained armed men.

As I walked away from Embarcadero streams of people headed towards me. Some of the folks I saw were:

a Purple-clad ACLU LEGAL OBSERVER with a clipboard and a camera
middle aged white guy in a green baseball hat & matching T-shirt, (no words, but it's for Darfur, China has been a heavy backer of the Sudanese government and Northern Sudanese Islamic groups carring out the genocide against southern Sudanese who are not Muslims, but who are in the way of Sudan's vast oil reserves)
ethnic Chinese of unknown nationality in t-shirts commemorating something about the Olympics, but in non-western script, the shirts all matched, and they were wearing nametags on lanyards.
a latina wearing Got Mercy? on a black hooded sweatshirt, with her girlfriend who is garbed all in black.

There is a very heavy police presence. There were also a lot of black limos over by the Mandarin Oriental hotel. It's also clear, but windy and quite chilly. I can hear the airplanes pulling banners and the chup chup of circling helicopters.

UPDATE: according to the San Francisco Chronicle, the hundreds of Pro-China flag waving, red wearing Chinese people have been bussed in by the Chinese consulate and Pro-China groups. click here for story

Nimble photographers are already getting photos up onto Flickr, here are some links:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockbandit/tags/2008summerolympics/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rudisillart/sets/72157604460867505/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/olympictorchprotest/

Apparently the torch route is to be shortened because the factions of people are clashing, the torch will be brought by boat to the Ferry Building where thousand of observers await.

Priceless

2008-04-06T23:12:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, D&T and I checked out a matinee showing of Audrey Tautou's newest offering: Priceless. The plot is about the absurd shennanigans that transpire when a cote d'azur gold-digger mistakes a luxury hotel barman for a wealthy guest. If you enjoyed Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, then you'll probably enjoy this one as well.

I must confess a certain ennui about this movie for a couple of interraleted reasons. First, Ms. Tautou looks like she's starving to death. Her sternum features prominently in many of the scenes. Her breasts sag like two little hacky sacks off the front of her chest. Not Sexy! Which leads me to the other problem, which is the tedium of the movie plot in which man wants to f*ck pretty woman and then "falls in love with her" despite any redeeming personality traits on her part. Ever so tiresome, thank you very much.

I gave a hummingbird a bath

2008-04-03T10:10:00.000-07:00

The trick is to wear something red in the garden, say a red & navy plaid nightgown circa 1993.

Quietly watering my herbs, young Hummingbird came to check out the new red tower of flower. Then he noticed the rainfall over the whisky barrel of greeneries. He checked out the perimeter of the spray, ducking in and out, and then sat on a wire and fluffed his wings and tail.

Bath complete, he flew off.

I'm pretty sure it was a young male, given size, coloration and curiousity level. Wish I'd been able to get a picture.

Gifts from the Universe

2008-03-31T19:59:00.000-07:00

Unprompted, the Universe gave gifts today including a BART ticket, a purple iPod, a half good apple, and a ridiculously good looking public transit driver.

The BART ticket was laying forlornly on a steam grate. It still had a value of $6.05.

The Purple iPod is for answering a new business survey sent out by someone from who once knew me as MG.

The transit driver looked like a lost Burning Man Ranger, probably Ranger Temple. Ranger Temple's name comes not from patrolling the sacred temple space, but from the curly blonde hair, blue eyes, and dimples. HAH! I'll take that eye candy.

What did the universe bring you today? I know it brought someone a nasty gram for mucking up Intellectual Property assets belonging to my company, but that's another story . . .

Denouement - Wedding

2008-03-30T21:46:00.000-07:00

The Very Important Wedding is over. Unlike the work event, I know exactly how it went off, in a word, beautifully.

Half an hour after leaving the office, I met with the RockStar Officiant at our usual meet-up bar, Vesuvio. Touristy, yes, but the place has history for me, so I go there. The bartender couldn't be bothered to make my extremely simple cocktail, so I quaffed my first (and possibly last) Sex on the Beach. It was a good thing Zipp paid, "thank you, Zipp," because waitstaff who give me attitude get 0% tips.

The Crash
It took over an hour, closer to an hour and a half to get out of San Francisco. I changed shoes and took a walk around the block to clear my head while the rockstar and her attendant took a quick disco nap. Thursday was not just the VIP Work Event, but also bachelor/bachelorette night for the lucky couple. Back at the house, I put my keys away in the freezer and sat on the couch. Leaning my skull against the wall, I realized an executive decision had to be made. I could attend the entirety of the Bachelorette night, or I could try a disco nap of my own with the hope of having enough energy for the following day. Hoping to make the best of it, I opted for the disco nap. Unfortunately, I slept through the alarm and didn't wake until my roommate slammed all the doors in the house at midnight.

Ramp-up take II
With group assistance I was up, packed and ready to leave in under an hour, just as MLE called to say she was coming for the dress. The Rockstar wanted to show her friend the glories of Northern California, so I went with MLE and Dan to help out, and to be present for the hemming of my dress as it had to be measured from the ground up with me in it, wearing intended shoes and foundation garments. We had several stops along the way, including one at Costco where I made sure that everyone ate at least one slice of pizza, not knowing whether any of us would eat again before the rehearsal dinner. Final errands were run, and at long last we were decorating the hall, arranging flowers, and finally, running through the ceremony.

Eventually, we made it down to the town where the rehearsal dinner was to be held, following the mother of the bride for several miles before realizing whose car we were behind. Nice to have the GPS made redundant I always feel. We all enjoyed a lovely dinner before heading back up, and completing even a few more things before bedtime.

The Festivities.
My memories of the big day are slim. The ceremony was sweet, but laced with meaning. The self-drafted vows were as heartfelt and unique as every other aspect of anything Dan and MLE have ever done. The cake was delicious. Alas, the double ramp-up for two highly charged, Very Important Events in the space of one week was more than I could shoulder. The first panic attack came while we were having our pictures taken out along a dock. After lunch, when the speakers were turned up the panic started rolling in on a fast tide. This was not a contingency I had planned for. All I could do was pull a full retreat into the closest bunk. I clawed most of the skin from the palms of my hands. I'm pretty sure the day was everything MLE and Dan had ever wanted, but perhaps others can report on the rest of the day.

Denouement - Work

2008-03-30T20:49:00.000-07:00

The Very Important Work Event is over. Certainly it went off, but how, I am not sure. Some things went seamlessly, others, well there were hitches. At the end of the day on Thursday, I really didn't know what to think. Was it a success? Had we done well? I had no point of reference for judgment.

The Ramp Up
Tuesday night saw me dragging home hours after sunset, straggling through the house trying to prepare for the next few days, while trying to deal with a catastrophic error at the printer's via cellphone. Feed the cat, press my best 2 shirts, find clean socks, decide on the best shoes for the chosen outfit that I could stand in for 10 hours, wash linens for impending house guests, wash clothes for the Very Important Wedding . . .

Wednesday morning I appeared in the office weighted down with an overnight bag. There would be no going home, not that night. We all hit the ground running. Less than 24 hours before the event we were still trying to get collateral pieces to press. A thousand tiny details all needed to be run to the ground. At 5 o'clock members of our Board of Directors began to appear. Despite the flurry of activity and the mountain of tasks that still remained to be finished, we were supposed to be having an Open House to show our new offices off to all and sundry. Pity about the hillocks of torn cardboard packaging and general disorganization. "Greetings Mr. Vice President of Global Corp., how nice to meet you, don't you like our view?" Dinner with the Board was a much needed respite, but it was still work: making nice, facilitating conversations, work.

Around midnight I crawled into bed at the clean, old-fashioned and economically priced Baldwin Hotel. Five hours later the alarm went off. By 6 am we were at the event site, handing over a security list with hundreds of names . . . and so it went. Along the way, I was introduced to state dignitaries, a few legal heroes, and some attorneys I first met a decade ago during my first pass through legal work. Of course I was also on my hands and knees using a dull boxcutter to trim posters the printer hadn't bother to cut to spec . . .

By 4 p.m. we'd moved 3 truckloads of materials back to our office. I checked my email for the last time and went to go meet my houseguests.

At least I'm not stranded

2008-03-24T22:52:00.001-07:00

One of the people employed by my company will be sleeping in San Francisco tonight, and it isn't me.

The private garage closest to our office building, the one where NotMe's car is parked, closes sometime before 9:00pm. After that, you're out of luck until the following day. Because we're getting down to the wire for our event, we've all been pulling some longer hours. I left after a full 10 hour day. Unfortunately, NotMe realized the problem long after there was anything to be done about the problem, thus the unplanned hotel stay.

We all keep toothbrushes in our desk drawers, but maybe I should keep a clean set of knickers and socks as well.

How 5 days all rolled into one - Vernal wrap-up

2008-03-24T08:46:00.000-07:00

The Bermuda Triangle has been acting up again. Days are disappearing without a trace. Thursday, for example. Completely gone. Only the time sheet on the desk at work proves it really happened.

Friday I busted out of work midway through second shift, That means I left the office after 8pm. 3 hours later I was rolling down towards the sea under the brightest full moon I've seen in a while. A small group of folks had rented out a seaside campground for a birthday celebration. Usually spring camping near the beach is an exercise in foggy, icicle-coated shivers. But the weather was incredibly accomodating - it was cold, but not so cold your nose falls off within 15 seconds of exiting the warm car. The moon was sailing high, and was bright enough to read by. AND there were many, many visible stars. Often the marine layer is too thick to see through and the stars are invisible. Bonus.

Despite a snarly start due to accumulated stress, and a few other glitches, it was a really nice evening. I sat up near the bonfire for a while. Someone was tossing magnesium flakes into the fire, it makes for very pretty fire effects. I put the wreath and sage left over from 2007's winter solstice onto the fire. Good bye 2007. Come ye never again.

Saturday was as gorgeous a spring day as you can imagine. I lingered with the campers, attempting to learn to hula hoop (permissible now that I'm in my dotage and beyond all shame). By early afternoon I was feeling restless. We concluded my role in the rites of spring by performing Carmina Burana in the nude, slaughtering a helpless slyph and three dryads, and roasting a spitted tule elk. And cavorting.

Mid-migration home I hit a very snarled Nordstrom Rack, and picked up 2 pair of shoe possibilities for the wedding. MLE called as promised, and I high tailed it home to drape camo netting over the house. Camo netting is great. It looks cool and it's very effective at masking my recent slobbitude. As predicted, they rolled in right around 8pm. We introduced Dan to the local burger chain, purveyor of the half pound of bacon cheese burger. Mmm arterial sclerosis.

The easter bunny did NOT visit my abode on Sunday morning. Which is probably just as well, as no one really needs all that sugar. Racoons would have eaten any eggs in the yard. After a big home cooked breakfast we took a lengthy detour: Easter Closure 2008, wherein we discovered just how many shops observe Easter. This torpedoed many of the engage-ed couple's errand-running plans. However, the world's Largest Long's Drug store was open; it's always an entertaining destination.

I rounded the weekend out with another dress fitting and a dinner party. I'd wanted to have a birthday dinner for MLE. Dan's birthday is next month, so it was birthday dinner for both. Their lovely friends from Oakland were able to join us. Happily I had a few things already on hand. With some dough hoisting assists and getting things from tall shelves help from Dan, and some juicing and muddling help from MLE I served up:

- Meyer lemon mojitos
- marjoram/parmesan and garlic/parsley flat bread

- baby greens with avocado and cold shrimp in a mild vinagrette
- north african spiced wild rice
- panfried turkey cutlets in a cumin ryecracker crust

- apple tart with ice cream

This morning I ran the dishwasher twice. Now it's time to get dressed and run off to work.

Wedding Wednesday

2008-03-19T22:47:00.000-07:00

I had a bridesmaid dress fitting tonight, it'll need a few tucks, as my chestal area seems to be shrinking. I need to find some shoes to go with, but hey -- shoe shopping! Add that to this weekend's schedule.

Actually, that's going to be hard to fit into my schedule. I have negligible free time in the upcoming week, something about work shifting into top gear . . .

I sat down and started backing out my schedule. I've bebegan making a backwards list of everything that needs to occur over the next 10 days. Theoretically this will help me remember items and tasks, and ensure that I don't undercommit time to tasks that require more minutes than I might estimate. I've gotten about as far as the evening of a week from Friday. I still need to back out all of next week.

Meanwhile, there's a stack of laundry by my feet. Tomorrow is another long day.

Ireland's 32

2008-03-17T15:56:00.000-07:00

I looked to see who was wearing the green today as I wandered through the bank towers. Most of the folks sporting emerald tones looked like they had Irish blood to honor. But generally, the green was subdued, relegated to scarves and ties, and the occasional jacket or shirt. I wonder what it's like in neighborhoods where the Sons and Daughters of Ireland are better represented.

Because I'm a good part Irish myself, I made sure to wear some things visibly green, and orange. Today's button-down is striped, my favorite color. Right down the front placard is a double orange stripe with a blue background. To the side in either direction are green and white stripes. There are also rose, yellow and palest cloud-blue stripes, but this shirt is predominantly orange and green - my nod to my mixed bucket of Irish ancestors.

It's 4 o'clock and I'm considering ducking out for a quick Guinness, Harp or Bushmills over ice. I won't be out with the crowds tonight, unless the crowds converge on my favorite middle eastern restaurant where I'll be having dinner with a friend.

I did what I came to do

2008-03-16T21:05:00.001-07:00

I got suckered into a social gathering this weekend. A bunch of lady friends wanted to investigate a yoga retreat. Tucked between vinyards in the misty mountains of Santa Cruz county, the retreat is a lovely destination.

I didn't really want to go, given the probable attendance by a person I find toxicly parasitic. But there were enough other people that I was interested in seeing that the trade-off seemed reasonable. No one had stepped up to wrangle dinner, and there was a food kitty which meant I could cook for the masses without having to pay for every single person's dinner myself.

Surprising no one drama occurred*, driving off most of the people I wanted to connect with. However, the quickly dropping attendance roster meant I could spend the food dollars more lavishly.

Saturday morning I hashed out the evening's menu. We'd have micro greens with dried cherries, almonds, apples, and chevre in a mild vinagrette. The vegetarian/vegan entree was a savory compote of black beans, tri-color bell peppers and red onion in a cumin-chipotle marinade. The carnivore's entree was pan-seared chicken topped with an onion-blueberry reduction. Both were served alongside coriander infused wild rice with sauteed vegetables (another vegan dish). I was still $60 under budget at this point, so I popped for two bakery cakes (a princess cake, and a dark chocolate ganache torte), and three bottles of wine. One of them, a German white from the Rhine valley was every bit as delicious as I'd remembered (minerals & grass with plenty of honey notes).

The flavors are complex but the prepwork was not. I had three people at my beck and call. One diced a small bag of onions and some carrots. Another chopped the dried cherries and the apples. The third juiced a few lemons, toasted the almonds, and heated the vegetable broth for the rice. Working at a leisurely pace we got the 3-course dinner ready in 90 minutes. About what it takes me to make a 3 course dinner for two people working all by myself.

*Pit accomodation-seeking mommies against others who feel the accomodating is a one way street and you get acrimony.

Happy Birthday MLE

2008-03-14T10:28:00.001-07:00

I hope this day is as relaxing and fun as you desire. Contemplate your trip around the sun. Contemplate the number 30. Contemplate joy at being you.

Around the globe, many people are thinking of you, and are thankful they get to share your life.

Time flies when you're really friggen busy

2008-03-13T23:27:00.000-07:00

Hoooo Boy had I forgotten what it's like to have a job with actual tasks, with actual deadlines. That last 3-4 years of working at the software shack were basically spent reading personal email and websurfing. Legacy software just doesn't sell, no matter how you market it.

This new job really keeps me hopping. I love that I don't have an early morning appearance requirement. It pleases me to no end that the boss is right there with me at 8:30 (post meridian as they say in the olde worlde) when we meet for the last brain synchronization exercise of the day before knocking off for some stress-nightmare-laden dreamtime. The other night we had post work cocktails, desperately earned after knocking off at 8:00 pm. (side note: Palio d'Asti, much ballyhooed in the 1990's has slid a l-o-o-n-g way. The food is good, but not great. The loud whooshing sound is the sound of service sucking. I had to give the busboy my water glass, not for water, but for exchange, as someone else's lipstick was already there. Oh yeah, he was 15 minutes late to the table. Also, for the very first time I was treated to the invisible woman treatment. The waiter didn't even wait for the second half of my boss's order before turning to me. I'd heard about this, but never experienced it. This is what we get to look forward to post-menopause, ladies. It is forehead vein throbbingly infuriating.

I'm not sure I'd want to do this long term. It lacks a certain intellectual stimulation that I need to stay interested in completing tasks and making deadlines. There is a certain glamour in planning a conference in a swanky locale with niche celebrities.

One weird synchronicity: my old, OLD employer is a major sponsor. While I lament the passing of my old supervisor, I would never, ever -even if I was starving and about to default on every loan I've ever had- work there again. Not gonna do it. Translation: networking ops are slim.

S'okay. I'm getting paid. I've worn the same pair of denims to work this week and le bosse hasn't said butkis. I've had cocktails once. All & all, not bad, in a worksort of way.

White & Nerdy

2008-03-10T15:07:00.001-07:00

This morning, commuting into SF I had the new iPod (thx D&T!!1!) set to repeat one. Weird Al has brought much pleasure over the years, but never so much as with his take on Chamillionaire's "Ridin' ," White & Nerdy.

Now for your nerdy pleasure: lolcat code.

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!"
KTHXBYE

see lolcode for more.

The power of a kind word

2008-03-06T20:45:00.000-08:00

The Roommate has irons in many fires, and one of those fires was in town last weekend. This fire in particular is the manager of a comedy club in TR's home town and was in our area to check out some talent performing locally.

I caught up with them at a cafe on Monday, just for a quick chat, to say hello. In a somewhat rowdy mood, I was sarcastically slagging The Roommate a bit. At some point, I playfully quipped that Mr. Manager was cuter than The Roommate. Technically, this is not true, but in a certain sense, I did mean it at the time.

Mr. Manager's reaction has stayed with me all week. He flushed just for a moment, and he admitted that it was the first time anyone had ever said that about him. Given that he looks somewhat like a Jewish Keith Richards, with properly English teeth, I believe it was the first time anyone had said that.

I haven't discussed it with the roommate, but I sense that one flippantly flirtatious comment probably made that guy's day.

Such is the power of a kind word.

F*ck (and other blue words out of my mouth today)

2008-02-25T22:13:00.000-08:00

Generally, I am enjoying going to work everyday. The closet still remains a heady challenge, as does the footwear, but I digress. It's nice to have a challenge that involves more than the day's menu.

Today, however, was not a good day. I woke up late, in full throes of lady-day angst with gut-wrenching cramps. I shoehorned my bloated thighs into the most tent-like dress slacks I own and shuffled downstairs. (expletives 1-7)

Roommate was irritated with my sloth, as he was doing me a favor by first taking my Heidi to his mechanic friend's garage to see about replacing the broken cup-holder he'd inadvertently snapped to bits while flailing his hands in anger at the stupid motorcyclist who'd just cut him off (and nearly died for the stupidity of crossing in front of a fast-moving Jetta) last summer, and for then ferrying me to the nearest public transit station. I appreciate the favors, but the favor train runs both ways. He's no princess when HE wakes up late, cranky, ill, and I'm the one hauling his rheumy visage off to the light rail. Feh, I say. (cuss the eighth)

I left the house without my jacket. Ooops. Dammit. (profanity #9)

The walk to work was uneventful, which is how I prefer them. Unfortunately, once at work, I realized I'd missed a phone appointment from last Friday afternoon. (10), and none of the people who need to send me materials for an upcoming conference have done so (11-13).

The kicker, however, occurred as I tried to set right the MS Office installation on my machine. It's not all there, one of the modules didn't properly install. I tried to right that wrong. Instead, I wronged that wrong. (13-74) Utilizing the mishmash of application discs, I managed to install the previous distribution of the software, and watch all my documents level down.(75-83) Then I removed the old version. And then nothing was recognizable. (84-135)

Reader, I cried. Fat, salty tears slid down my cheeks and plopped off the end of my blubbering chin. I'm working for a non-profit. Shoe-string margins! They can't afford my incompentence! Nor can they afford to pay for the reduced productivity as I had to hand-link each and every document to Excel or Word when I wanted to use it. Oh it was terrible, explaining to my boss why a simple announcement took 6 hours to produce. Truly, I felt ashamed. I did feel valient for not pitching the CPU from the 10th floor, but only because the 4 flights up would have been tiresome. Also, I have the only fast computer in the whole outfit.

Finally, an extremely distant ex-bf explained that XP allows system rollbacks to correct cock ups such as this. I took a brief journey by time machine to yesterday afternoon and restored the settings belonging to a lazy Sunday.

I dried my tears, finished the memo, and headed home in the dark breeze, regretting the jacket at home. (136)

This is not to say nice things did not happen today. The sun shone. The last man onto the train traded S.R.O. spots with me, so that I could cling to a handrail bar befitting my height. Roommate picked me up from the Skankville Station, and bought a yuppie foodstamp's worth of groceries at the Joe.

Alas, it still took me an hour+ to engineer one simple pizza. And yes, I grazed the metal rack with my forearm as I was trying to discern whether the oven was 500 or 600 degrees (it was 500). (137) And yes, it still really, friggin hurts. (138)

Also, I have no clean slacks to wear to work tomorrow.
F8ck.

GIVE BLOOD. GIVE BLOOD. Also, GIVE BLOOD

2008-02-16T22:10:00.000-08:00

This is your irregularly scheduled Public Service Announcement.

For a well articulated explanation as to WHY you should give blood (if possible for you to do so) I give you these words from J., my dear friend who has just undergone double abdominal surgery:

Blood -- I lost a lot of it, and fortunately I'm the very popular A+ type. When they tell you you're losing blood - and scarier still, when you watch yourself bleed and bleed with no stop in sight, well, I found it terrifying. (This next part sounds weird, but whatever. It's been a weird month) When you see the nurses come in with the blood unit with the Red Cross logo on it, prep the equipment and literally watch life enter your body, I found it almost spiritual. On every bag was a city and state in the US., with the words 'volunteer donor'. Because those people took the time to donate, I didn't die. Period. I'm going to have to wait a while to begin to donate, but rest assured I will be doing so regularly. If you are able to, please do so. It costs you nothing other than a bit of time and maybe a little nap afterward. Plus I think they give you a donut.

So, if you haven't dropped a pint in a while, maybe it's time to drop by your local blood center . . .

Contract notes

2008-02-09T02:26:00.000-08:00

The new gig is in downtown Saint Crisco. I've never worked in San Francisco before. It's quite exciting. I'm down at the very end of Bank Building Row, the far end of the financial district. Where the banks peter out, North Beach (the Italian neighborhood) and Chinatown begin, albeit intermixed these days.

In fact, I'm working in one of the city's most historic buildings. These days it's dwarfed on all sides, but in its day, I'm sure it was something! The lobby, facade and elevators all retain their period charm, as do the internal stairwells. However, the individual floors of offices are all drywall and fluorescent lighting. It's no different than the set for Office Space. On the up side - due to the building's age, we have windows that open, unlike those poor schmucks over in the TransAmerica building. At any rate, the building has security and I have a badge.

Although I have a very boring job title, something like project manager or program coordinator, for now it's been Jill of All Trades. For the last two days I've been IT Director, trying to figure out how to connect a switch, a hub, and a modem, all without disconnecting the phones and data lines for 17 megaglobal financial institutions while I plug in our DSL. I may recommend that we hire a professional to tackle the connections in the phone closet. I also have to figure out how to make our phone system work with the after-hours voicemail. Yeppers, borrowed $150K to steal a job from some guy in dockers and a blue button down.

I also went on The Great Printed Materials Hunt of 2008, and used the yield to put together eleventy-hundred info packets for a presentation on Monday. So it's also fair to say that I borrowed $150K to rob some Independent Living candidate of a decent engagement.

Things I'm not used to (and not liking) are getting up early, dress shoes, trying to coordinate a professional look, laying out at least $7 for lunch and another $7 for transit.

Somehow I gave away several pairs of dress pants without replacing them. Two pair of black pants and one of navy do not a wardrobe make. Meanwhile all my shoes seem to be as comfortable as concrete-lined cardboard slippers. Insole arch supports didn't help. (I can't even imagine the pain I'd be in if I wore a skirt with hose and the more excruciating of the dress shoes. Why do clothes have to be painful??) Hopefully, issues of immediate debt will subside by my 3rd paycheck, at which point I can get some real shoes. I hope I can find something that doesn't look like orthopedic footwear for the geriatric set.

Hopefully they'll keep me on for a bit. Long enough to get some stylish yet comfortable shoes, I hope.

Who'd you vote for?

2008-02-07T11:47:00.000-08:00

I don't mean that in the strictest sense. I'm a non-disclosed voter, so you can bet that means I don't disclose my vote even after the fact. My state would have permitted me to select one of several partisan ballots had I wished to do so. Who knows, maybe I did!

That said, the only I was in favor of was seeing a retarded term limits amendment go down the drains. I'm horrified that the voters went forward with the indian gaming agreements. Let them keep the money they have, I say. We honkeys, or our grandparent's parents (or the parents of grandparents of people we know, because you know, some of us are more recently immigrated than others) dicked the native peoples around to no end. That said, I don't think the tribes need more slots than Vegas. Really.

Oh well.

Election year will continue to be interesting. Lets just hope we don't end up with president Huckabee. That would go beyond the pale.

When in doubt, duke your lawyer

2008-02-07T11:10:00.000-08:00

This story from Kentucky is not all that unusual. I'm terribly sorry that attorney was beaten by his client. It happens all the time. Did you know that lawyers get stiffed on their bills at least as often as waiters? Perhaps more. I don't know that anyone has done a conclusive study yet.

Before all the lawyer-hating jokes start, consider this: What would life be like if you had to represent yourself when someone robbed you. Except nobody is going to explain everything in the thousands of books lining the shelves at the law library. Also, shooting the robber will only land you in jail. Two wrongs still don't make a right. Retribution isn't okay.

What if you need to get a divorce, but before you can get the papers signed, your spouse starts withdrawing all the funds in the joint bank account and transferring valuable items of property into his/her name only?

What if someone secretly accused you of child molestation. How do you prove your innocence all by yourself?

Most lawyers are here to help. I know lawyers who are in Rotary and Kiwanis (a beneficial service group that works to improve life for children). I know lawyers who give away not just hundreds, but thousands of billable hours a year to help the environment, or old folks, or the disabled. I know a judge who volunteers hours on the suicide hotline. You really want to kill all these folks*

Sure, there are some bad apples, just as there are in any profession. Anyone hate their HR manager? How about their boss's boss?

Please folks, don't hit your lawyer. And don't neglect to pay him/or her later. Some of those fees are costs that your lawyer eats up front. How many of your friends are willing to swallow hundreds of dollars for you and say pay me later?

*I think I'm going to start handing out the full text of the Shakespeare play, so that people can understand the context of that line. Most are surprised to learn that the advocate is a criminal who is hoping to reduce consequences for his shameful ways.

Any good reads?

2008-02-01T16:25:00.001-08:00

I never thought I'd lack for a reading list, but that is exactly my predicament.

I've polished off all of my fantasy reading (thank you Tad Williams for taking half-decades to finish a book). But I don't quite feel like cracking the cover on the 9,000 page biography of Alexander Hamilton just quite yet. Something in between is called for. I seek not-quite-fluff, but nothing that will overly tax my tired noggin. Something you could read in the bathtub . . .

One friend has recommended Animal, Mineral, Vegetable, the non-fiction tome by Barbara Kingsolver about eating naturally for a year. Deluxe: how Luxury lost its Luster has five holds ahead of mine at the lieberry. I need something sooner than April.

Your suggestions for novels go into the comments box, por favor . . .

Confidential to those in the know

2008-01-31T20:40:00.001-08:00

It's done and out of my hands. The fates have me now.

3 new recipes

2008-01-30T22:35:00.000-08:00

Tonight Death and Taxes knocked my socks off with a fantastic chinese 5-spice pork stirfry. I'd brought the pork loin chops down to his place with no specific plans for them. Having tired of an all ice cream and stale tortilla chips diet, I picked up a bag of salad mix for lunch and a bag of raw stir fry vegetables to add crunch to the salad greens.
As he stir-fried away. I convinced him to add a few cups of the stirfry mix to the pork. It was divine.

A couple of weeks ago I suffered a carrot obsession. Usually I loathe the rooty sweetness of a cooked carrot, but I needed something different. I whipped up a batch of spiced carrot soup from Deborah Madison's hefty tome Vegetarian Cooking for everyone. Her recipe included an onion relish I decided I didn't wish to make. So I doubled up on the spices and added some lemon zest and lemon juice to balance it out.

Two days later I cooked up some sliced carrots Tunisian style. Caraway seeds, coriander and a dash of vinegar were an interesting and fresh treatment for this vegetable. They were delicious alongside a spice rubbed tuna steak seared under the broiler.

Happy Cooking, all.

Opportunity knocks thrice

2008-01-26T16:47:00.000-08:00

Apparently I have a part time job, starting Thursday.

Don't want to jinx it too much. It's a short-term contract that ends two days before The Wedding. It will actually compliment my future legal career, albeit the sensible plan B, not the desireable plan A.

Anyhow, for those who knew that I was going to auction Heidi at the end of the month if I didn't find a job, you may all rest quietly. Heidi and I will continue along, joined at the hip as always.

1 dryer, 1 lip balm

2008-01-26T14:43:00.000-08:00

5 ruined shirts.

Damn You! That made me CRY!

2008-01-25T19:53:00.000-08:00

Obviously, Pantalones del Nerd's wedding invitation just arrived.

*sniffle*

Opportunity Update

2008-01-25T19:09:00.000-08:00

Had a 90 minute soft interview with the principal of the start-up. He has an interesting product, it'll be a pretty exciting launch. Unfortunately, what he's looking for is a person who will eventually become the Sales Director. Thus what he's really looking for is someone who can blend tech and sales AND give a 2 year commitment.

I know that I could give a one year commitment, but I don't know if that would really be a good engagement for either party. Oh well, this may just be easy come, easy go.

Product Review: Organic Lemon Echinacea Throat Coat

2008-01-25T12:05:00.000-08:00

Fans of hot beverages generally, and fans of hot beverages for the afflicted take note. Traditional Medicinals has released a new version of their classic elixer Throat Coat tea. I bought a box of the new blend three days ago; here is my review.

To begin, TM advertises that the new variant contains 70% organic materials. I haven't done a good job at incorporating organics into my diet as much as I should, primarily due to cost. However, the tea was priced the same organics or not, which just makes me feel all the better about buying it.

Unfortunately, I did not find this tea was as effective at soothing a raw throat vexed by the caustic secretions brought on by your typical rhinovirus. For that purpose, the original Throat Coat is superior. Key differences are that the Lemon Echinacea TC is less sweet and lacks much of the slippery quality that makes the Original blend so effective. The echinacea is very prominent both in taste and in mouth feel. The tea is slightly puckery with a moderate daisy flavor.

That said... While the tea didn't soothe my throat as much as I had hoped, SOMETHING made my cold improve overnight. I'm very tempted to say think that the echinacea really did boost my beleaguered immune system enough to fight back effectively. I went from fever, chills, body aches and exhaustion to feeling like I really hadn't been all that sick!

Winter colds suck, but this new tea may help you get over the symptoms a little faster. For those who like their tea a little sweeter, or who need to compensate for the throat soothing properties of the original, I find a tablespoon of honey per 12 oz of tea helps a lot. Be sure to follow the steeping instructions as herbs really do need a long sit in order to aquify the botanical elements.

Be well!

Dannenwallie syndrome

2008-01-20T22:02:00.000-08:00

Now I too have the dreaded hacking cough of death. Complete with excessively foul, phlemgy noises emanating from head, nose & gullet.

Hopefully my friend the former Canadian will have managed to obtain the available-over-the-counter cough syrup from Toronna.

Check out the nifty animation

2008-01-18T21:45:00.001-08:00

On a less serious note, check out this funny dutch website:

http://producten.hema.nl/

Opportunity is armed with a two by four

2008-01-18T17:13:00.001-08:00

A strange job opportunity has fallen into my lap. A friend of a friend needs help with his software business, specifically on the sales side. Prior to lawschool, that was exactly my career. I spent seven years hawking extremely nerdy, very niche UNIX software to companies with a certain type of desktop user base.

Lawschool it turns out, was primarily good for turning my brain into swiss cheese. You see, I've managed to block out most of what I learned during that time.

Now I have a reasonably lucrative offer sitting in my lap. The problem? I need a refresher in high-end, high tech sales. I vaguely remember the basics of the sales cycle. Generating leads, following up, sending proposals and quotes. Other stuff, I never really learned how to do, forecasting, qualifying leads soft proposals vs. hard quotes.

Then there are other things like collateral development for the marketing team and finding someone who actually HAS their JD, and admission to the California Bar, to help devise a software licensing agreement.

glub, glub, glub.

Mustard

2008-01-13T22:56:00.000-08:00

Of all the spices, mustard is probably my favorite. A cosmopolitan ingredient, mustard adds spark to cuisines across the world. A squirt of yellow sauce on a hot dog is as American as a zesty mustard-bound vinagrette over greens is French, as a dollop of pale yellow sauce for your dim sum is Chinese. I love mustard for its fresh, perky zip. For years it has occupied a primary place in my kitchen armory.

Imagine my chagrin when, not long after moving in together, my roommate informed me that he is horrifically allergic to my King of Spices (I've seen the damage -- it is horrifying). You see, we mostly follow a traditionally gender-based division of labor at my house. I do most of the housework, my roommate pays many bills I never see. And he buys most of the food. 6 nights a week on average, I turn that food into dinner.

So this mustard thing? It is no overstatement to say it has completely changed the way I cook.

My five different kinds of mustard? Those jars live on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator now.
All of my prepared salad dressings? They too have been banished to the darkest reaches of cold storage.
Spice mixes, such as for tacos or Indian food? They contain mustard, so I don't use them.
Preseasoned items, such as croutons? Mostly I can't use them. Mustard is everywhere. All labels must be scrutinized. Sometimes even that is not enough. Often the last ingredient is spices. And spices is food label subterfuge for mustard or garlic.
Even seemingly innocuous foods can be harmful. I'm looking at you SOUP and at you SNACK chips.

No meal can be prepared, no grocery junket completed without an exhaustive investigation of labels.

This fall passed without a single cup of curried pumpkin soup. So long as the roommate and I shall dine together, there will be no blanched green beans topped with cherry tomatoes in a red wine and shallot vinagrette bound with dijon. No turkey sandwiches will be decorated with a smart smear of cranberry mustard. No spicy potato salad flecked with parsley and bacon bits will soak up the goodness of a southern french dressing. In fact, salads generally have fallen by the wayside. Even when cooking just for me, I tend to forget that I have bottles and bottles of yummy dressing hiding at shin level behind the 7 month old, shrink-wrapped mass of 5 pounds of bacon.

The last cookbook I purchased is a 20 year old tome called Easy East\West Dinners for Family and Friends. Written by Madhur Jaffrey, a native of India who is best known for her Indian cookbooks, the book pulls culinary themes from all over the globe. She too adores mustard. It stars in many of her recipes. You know I can't wait to try them.

There is another fresh, perky flavor that she favors. And this flavor has given me pause for thought. In fact, the more I mull it over, the more I think I may have finally found a workable replacement for mustard.

In short, I think the answer may be ginger. Although it's a rhizome, not a spice, and it won't work in recipes that contain unsoured dairy, it won't necessarily cause chaos in the kitchen either. Ginger meshes well with citrus and plays nicely with garlic. It enhances fish, fowl and vegetables. It's a natural mate for tomato based dishes.

Tonight was the first of the ginger inspired menus. I broiled tuna with a pineapple-honey teriyaki glaze and steamed broccoli tossed with an oil-free citrus-ginger dressing.

Traumatic week for friends

2008-01-09T16:28:00.000-08:00

Last week my friends from the UK, a newly married couple, were clipped from behind and ended up as the stars of the early morning traffic snarl. Their vehicle flipped 3 times just as the morning commute was beginning. Both are rather beaten up, but have no broken bones. One friend lost a good part of her scalp skin, the other seemed to have a mild concussion and a lot of bruises.

It defies all logic that bones were not broken or worse damage sustained.

Meanwhile, another friend, a recent breast cancer survivor drove herself to the ER with chest pains. No heart attack, just a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot, lodged in her lung.

Meanwhile, another friend disclocated her knee and is facing arthroscopic surger just as she wants to change jobs. It's so hard to look like a winner when you stump in on crutches.

Youse out there, take care! Drive alertly and defensively. Wear your seat belt. Cut back on the ciggies. Take a walk. Guard your health, money will not replace it.

The CilMilE year in review meme

2008-01-04T17:53:00.000-08:00

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?
-- Saw the Pacific Northwest: Columbia Gorge,Crater Lake & the cloudy shroud of Mount Ranier.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
-- I’m not sure I made one. I don’t always. I think I made one, and I think I kept it, but I’m not 100% clear on that. 2007 was the year I wasn't 100% clear on just about everything, so perhaps it was just par for the course. The more I think about it, the more I think my resolutions were "lose some tub" and "keep my weekly appointments with my troubleshooters." Both occurred, suggesting that I made and kept the resolutions.

This year may have a theme. That theme might be “getting the shit out of my life,” but maybe something less stinky-sticky is called for.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
-- Two people did have babies. I got a nephew and a goddaughter, and I didn’t have to see a drop of placenta.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
-- Sadly yes. One of my favorite coworkers ever died of a 40-something’s heart attack. I miss him almost every day. What’s that all about? It felt very strange going directly from there to not-there. The missing part is very surreal and saddening.

5. What countries did you visit?
-- Stupidia. Oh actual nations? None recognized by the UN, other than points seen within the US. Maui, was once again, spectacular.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
-- Money and gobs of it, especially money to spend freely on stuff not previously indebted for.

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
-- This was the year of no dates. I rarely marked the transition from month to month, and rarely knew the date or day of the week. But if I have to remember a date, it might be May 21^st.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
-- Getting my PADI certification for SCUBA diving.

9. What was your biggest failure?
-- Not graduating law school on time.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
-- I was sick most of the year.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
-- This wasn’t really a buying stuff kind of year.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
-- DJ Chilloforo has and still does merit celebration for good behavior.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
-- Most often it was someone in a lawsuit in one of my case books. Justice Thomas depresses me every time he opens his mouth and drool slides out.

14. Where did most of your money go?
-- Groceries and gasoline.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
-- Getting my PADI cert and seeing the fishies. It turns out that I have an inexplicably squishy spot for the shy and tender heart of the snowflake moray eel. Who knew?

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
-- Something from the Supermassive Blackhole album by Muse

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:  a) happier or sadder?  b) thinner or fatter?  c) richer or poorer?
-- Happier?, thinner! and poorer, scarily poorer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
-- Nitrous. *Snicker*, a few other less savory things come to mind as well.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
-- Avoiding on-time traffic ticket payment.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
-- Passed out in my mom’s bed after a raucous night of free apple cider, sub-freezing temperatures and billyuns and billyuns of candles smooshed into dirt-filled lunch sacks left on every horizontal surface imaginable.

21. Did you fall in love in 2007?
-- I want to make a really sarcastic comment about some of these questions. Yes! No! Maybe! I dunno! Yes! No!

22. How many one-night stands?
-- None, I think.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
-- My what? I demand this question be deleted. DELETE DELETE DELETE! (my teevee went into the closet last month, it's still in there.)

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
-- Nope. People still suck. I still hate the blitheringly stupid ones I hated last year.

25. What was the best book you read?
--Does the webcomic XKCD count as a book? Burr, by Gore Vidal, a book I'd intended to read since undergrad days was interesting and a perfect companion for my trip to New Jersey.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
-- Philip Glass, The Art of Noise does Claude Debussey

27. What did you want and get?
-- Accomodations for being a fuckup. Inner peace (fer serious!)

28. What did you want and not get?

This list really could go on and on. We’ll leave it at Optimal Employment.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
-- Stardust.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
-- Went for ice cream with 8 noisy friends. We were the “that crowd” in the back room of the dairy. I was thirty-something yet again.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
-- Shiny academic success.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
-- Dirty denim pants.

33. What kept you sane?
--Xanax. And friends.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
-- Britney, Lindsey and Paris for being the shiny examples of what happens when pretty girls are valued solely for surface sans substance.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
-- As always the fastest way to rile me up is with tales from a fucked up legal system.

36. Who did you miss?
-- The most missed award goes to the aforementioned Dead Coworker. The Irish Pilot and Poetess EEK get close seconds.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
-- If by met, you include chatted up on the internet, my best fresh meat is (cue Kevin Bacon) one of my current roommate’s ex-gfs, in Alabama. She’s funny and insightful and self-empowered, bad-ass and funny. Best of all she writes me a private note whenever I tickle her funny bone.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.
-- I learned that you can be goal-oriented without being ambitious and that external validation is something that really makes me hum.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

First traffic tickets of 2008

2008-01-01T22:59:00.000-08:00

I cackled to myself last night, mirthfully snorting at the jackasses speeding throught the yellow at the first major intersection off the freeway.

That intersection has cameras. Operational cameras. Cameras with Very Bright Flashes that light up the night like the Fourth of July everytime the signal changes, nabbing hurried drivers pushing their sense of entitlement through "on the pink."

During the duration of just one cycle of lights, I saw at least 7 lucky individuals who are going to be getting personalized letters from my small town Department of Traffic Moving Violations.

Way to drive safely on national Drive Around Drunk Night.

2 cinderblocks

2007-12-16T17:23:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered what those cinderblocks in my living room are for? Surely you noticed the absence of a 1974 Chevy Nova. The plants, candles and Buddha head all lounge on expensive Scandinavian Shelving, (so the wax drips and water rings contribute to the authenticity of 21st Century living). They aren't a mnemonic device to retrain the owners of stubbed toes to do something, and they aren't an abstract art installation in our home gallery.

What are those bricks for?

Would you believe they're the mounting for an invisible, space-age missile defense system?
No? how about concrete holding cells for miniature hamsters with criminal dispositions?
No? Foundations for trailerpark interior decor?

Ahh the mystery, more tomorrow...

Time to breathe

2007-12-14T16:24:00.000-08:00

Do you take time to breathe? I don't mean the involuntary huffing and puffing associated with shuffling about on this mortal coil. In fact, those engaged in a spate of hyper concentration often forget to breathe. I mean, do you sit quietly, breathe deeply and evenly, take stock, if only for a few minutes?

Some people meditate, others pray. Some people practice yoga, others have a morning or evening constitutional. All of them are a form of taking time to breathe.

A deadline that I've been working on maniacally has shifted back by a month. It's not all the time in the world, but it gives me an opportunity to take time to breathe.

Word of the day

2007-12-13T13:31:00.000-08:00

Hojabi

Check out the rest of the entries. Interesting!

Jiggity-jig nerd style

2007-12-12T18:25:00.000-08:00

No I haven't been rappin' to Weird Al's White N' nerdy, okay, yes I have. But A Great Big Nerd just ended my double decade-long quest for copies of Suo Gan, the haunting welsh tune from a movie you likely never saw (Empire of the Sun 1987). By happy chance, the next song up was Sarah Brightman singing a technoified version of Albinoni's adagio in G minor, maybe one of most heart-rending pieces of music Evah!, and a desert island personal favorite.

A woman cannot live by pop-emo alone.

The weirdest iTunes mix

2007-12-11T17:27:00.000-08:00

Sort by song duration. Try it, you might like it, or it might just be weird.

Mark as read

2007-12-11T13:40:00.001-08:00

Dear Gmail,

Thank you for the lovely tool that lets me select all my unread messages and mark them as read in 3 short clicks. I don't know why folks are on about the stupid Led Zeppelin reunion tour, or why they think sharing the less savory details of food poisoning is good chatter for email lists.

Yours in unread, unattention-grabbing bliss,

QIR

And by cool kids

2007-12-04T14:05:00.000-08:00

I mean the ones who are also listening to what I'm listening to:

+44 (Blink 182 minus vocalist Tom DeLonge)
Angels & Airwaves (Blink 182 vocalist Tom DeLonge plus some other guys)
Jared Leto goes to Mars
Dramarama thanks to Jared
Allison Krauss
Art of Noise honors Claude Debussey
Arctic Monkeys
Avenue D
Sarah Brightman
Cold War Kids
Cesaria Evora
The Flaming Lips
The Get Up Kids
Gotan Project
Jimmy Eat World
JJ Cale
The Killers
Kings of Leon
Lady Sovereign
Ladytron
Metric
Missy Elliot
Muse
My Chemical Romance
Parliament
The Postal Service
The Raconteurs
Rilo Kiley
The Shins
Sigur Ros (Thanks Irish Pilot, for the hot musical tip)
and of course, Weezer, you know -- old school

Who are these bands?

2007-12-03T22:14:00.000-08:00

Whoever these bands are, all the cool kids seem to be listening to them. Me? I've not heard of any of them.

A thorn for every heart
Akon
Alexisonfire
All American rejects
Aly & AJ
Atreyu
Benni Benassi
Blue October
Bowling for soup
Boys like Girls
Brad Paisley
Breaking Benjamin
Carrie Underwood
Chevelle
Chiodos
Cute is what we aim for
Feist
Fergie
Finger 11
From Autumn to ashes
G-Unit
James Blunt
Josh Groban
Maroon 5
Mims
Minus the bear
New Young Pony Club
Plain white ts
Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Scary kids scaring kids
Senses Fail
Sugar cubes
Sugarcult
Yellowcard
Yin Yang Twins

More Babies

2007-11-30T17:10:00.000-08:00

I just got news that after an arduous and extremely delicate pregnancy, my friend has just delivered her twin girls. Fantastic. I am so relieved.

I've been spending a lot of time in kidlandia lately. Yesterday I spent most of the day on Squiggle duty. Tonight I'm off to baby sit for the two daughters of another friend.

I really love Cagey's idea of the weekly baby picture to show how quickly the wee bairn is developing. Since I see Squig one day a week, I think I'm just going to assign myself papparazza duty, and spend a little time of each week at photo session. Yay for digital.

Eating Disorders R' US

2007-11-27T02:51:00.000-08:00

On my quest for following doctors orders, or at least, incorporating healthy choices in my life I've been logging my eating with FitDay's online dietary software. The results seem to be a surprise to no one but me. My roommate accused me of being on a pointless starvation diet. I thought he was being melodramatic. However, I discovered after a week and a half of food tracking that his outburst seems justified. I'm getting 800-1000 calories max, on a daily average. I no longer feel hunger at all, although I know when my blood sugar is low. Food is often uninteresting or often thoroughly repellent. So I googled up starvation eating disorders...

I don't think I'm an anorexic, these being the top symptoms for anorexia:

Obsess about food, weight, and dieting.
Strictly limit their food intake. For example, they may limit themselves to just a few hundred calories a day or refuse to eat certain foods, such as anything with fat or sugar.
Exercise a lot, even when they are sick.
Weigh much less than is healthy or normal.
Are very afraid of gaining weight.
Refuse to stay at a normal weight.
Think they are overweight even when they are very thin.

Even government BMI tables agree that I am a portly piglet, that alone knocks anorexia out of the contenders. But clearly something is wrong. Despite being close to the margin between overweight and obese, I am technically starving.

My ideas on how to fix this are limited. How can you eat when the sight of food makes you want to leave the room? Clearly, I am going to have to relearn how to eat.

*The incongruity of my love for cooking and the repugnancy of food is not lost on me.

Tagged

2007-11-26T23:34:00.001-08:00

For the first time I can recollect, I've been specifically meme-tagged. The task: 8 answers to the following questions

8 passions:

Cooking
Clever, evocative writing
The welfare of my friends
Language: etymology, evolution, indicator of cultural norms
The Law
Travel
Wine
History

8 Things to do before I die

Brush up on the four foreign languages I've learned
Acquire 5 more
Find the personal salvation the hero archetype that rules my personality is craving
Write a will, or perhaps create a trust so that my many commercial creditors are left hanging upon my demise; ensure that my affairs are in order so that no one has to deal with my accumulated crap. (What would people have to contend with if you died next week?)
Stock up on Xanax
See more of the world
Get my knee fixed so that I can go back to being a Mountain Girl, skiing, hiking and climbing my little heart out
Get an IRA account and actually contribute to it

8 Things I often say:

ow!
That's my story and I'm sticking to it
Once I get a job...
$20 bucks an hour
What sounds good for {meal} ?
Lemme call you back in 20 minutes
Who has fat knees?? YOU have fat knees!! (nephew & goddaughter only, everyone else takes offense)
Hmmm. So you say...

8 Books, recently read:

Burr, Gore Vidal
The Miracle of Mindfullness, Thich Nhat Hanh
Baby, Mix me a drink, Lisa Brown
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling
Idoru, William Gibson
Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that type, Doreen Cronin
The Moosewood Cookbook, Mollie Katzen
The lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch

8 Songs of personal importance:

Baby Got Back, Sir Mix-a-lot
Leaving New York, R.E.M.
Don't get me wrong, Pretenders
My Funny Valentine, various artists
Under Pressure, all versions lately My Chemical Romance & The Used
Wonderful World/Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
Brian Wilson, Barenaked Ladies
War on Drugs, Barenaked Ladies

8 qualities sought by me in my friends:

Awareness of the world outside their ego/box of me
Generosity
Ability to tolerate my sense of humor
Desire to see the world
Thoughtfulness
Creativity
Nerdiness
Interesting thinkers

A month without boys

2007-11-25T13:23:00.000-08:00

Much of November has been lonely. The roommate headed out of town first of the month. He'll be back next month.

The Boy has been out of town several times, and has otherwise been busy with teaching some classes, out of town guests, and work. He flies back tonight, but not until very late.

It's been nice to have the house to myself. Nothing but my dishes on the counter, my whiskers on the sink. The Dowager Princess has been free to roam upstairs and down, as she pleases. But the solitude is wearing on me. I need both of my boys to come back and keep me company.

Buy Nothing Day (Black Friday)

2007-11-23T09:14:00.000-08:00

I don't really care all that much about Black Friday or Buy Nothing Day. My family has cut way back on gift giving. The few close friends who will get yule-tide gifts are likely to receive something I saw earlier in the year and thought, "hey, that'd be perfect for So'n'so," and snatched up while the thought was still clear in my head. At any rate, none of the things on mega-sale today at the giant retailers are things I'd be likely to buy; so the deep one-day Black Friday discounts aren't so useful for me. I rate it two mehs.

I'm equally aloof to Buy Nothing Day. Those who observe it are not people who would line up in the black of dawn to stock up on GameBoy cassettes at WalMart in the first place. But even if they were, BND doesn't reduce consumption so much as defer it to another day. As for those who do line up at O'dark Hundred, I doubt they've ever heard of Buy Nothing Day. For some of them, I'm guessing the incentive discounts are making a difference in these leaner times.

That leaves me with an empty symbol, an end sought to be avoided in the first place. 15 mehs.

Granted, the frenzy is unsettling, and reckless spending in the midst of a serious credit crisis is hard to watch. But I'm not convinced the stampeding masses are such mindless sheep led by shiny ads on TeeVee. Yes, I've seen glazed eyes staring out from the face of a woman snatching weird stuff no one could possibly want. But I wonder, is she mindlessly shopping or is she frantically trying to come up with some solution to impossible expectations?

This year I'm gonna bust a new move and point a finger at the professionals. First evil eye goes to the buyer ordering plastic trees for a major drugstore chain. She should be reprimanded. A plastic, purple, pre-lit spruce with pink snow symbolizes NOTHING. Not Yule, not Nature, Not Christmas. There is a certain level beyond which shoddy workmanship and poor materials simply cannot be combined to create a thing of any value. That monstrosity is not decorative, it's just trash with a price tag on it. You'll be remaindering them for months.

Next up, YOU, Mr. Vice President of Workplace Operations, you ought to be ashamed. You heave your lardy ass out of the office at 2pm on Wednesday and don't come back until the following Monday. So why on G-d's green earth do you think it's a good idea to be open from 7am to 9pm on THANKSGIVING DAY??? I'm looking squarely at you KMart; forcing your lowest echelon workers to choose between job and family is just crass.

Lastly, I have words for you, oh advertising/marketing gurus. We all know about the bonus the Director of North American sales for XCorp gets for maximizing every last squeezable cent from the profit margin during the Mid-November to January 3rd cavalcade of indulgences. Last year it was the size of Peru's national debt.

So maybe you could actually do your damn jobs and come up with some clever, innovative advertising campaigns that don't rely on blinky lights, rehashing old XMas teevee specials, or the encouragement to "get a little something for yourself" while you're shopping for others. Also, that year you used It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year for back-to-school? That was brilliant. Now do something new and non-psychosis inducing and earn your frigging paycheck.

Thanksgiving for one

2007-11-22T20:59:00.000-08:00

Sounds like it should suck. It doesn't always. For several years I went on solo backpacking trips over Thanksgiving. You get all the trails to yourself.

This morning I babysat for some friends. The Hubs planned an all day bike trip without leaving his wife an opportunity to do anything for herself at all. Me to the rescue. She got to go to the gym and treat herself for a bit, while her daughters and I played out in the sunshine in some other kid's yard.

After that I treated the whole day like a holiday. I intended to have cos, pomagranate and shaved fennel salad along with steamed broccoli and a 4 oz brick of ground turkey pan-seared, then slow-cooked in compound butter. Unfortunately I only got as far as the turkey and an appetizer of curried zucchini-yoghurt soup.

For the last several hourse I've been using my friend Mona's foolproof cure for the common cold to treat my out of control hay fever. I doubt hot mulled wine really makes a difference, but I definitely feel better, or at least less crappy.

There's a cranberry apple crisp baking in the oven. I doubt I'll eat any tonight, but it sure smells good.

See? That's not a crappy day, and nary a relative in sight.

Have you relayed your thanks?

2007-11-22T00:30:00.001-08:00

A Great Big Nerd had some eloquent thoughts on the nature of our Institutionalized holiday of Family Togetherness. Football commentary aside, I agree with him whole-heartedly.

One group of my friends created a tradition of round-robin Thanksgiving email. We spam each other with highlights from our personal thankfulness lists. It's an opportunity to pause and reflect, to put into words our appreciation for the people, events and things that impacted our lives for the better during the past year.

This year my list included my law school mentor, the internet and friends I've made there, my current roommate, and defender of free information, Richard Stallman (featured recently on xkcd).

Honestly, Stallman probably doesn't care about admiration from unknown quantities. But I do try to tell my friends how much I appreciate them as often as possible without seeming obsequious. If there's someone who can identify your face in a crowd, and that person has made a positive difference in your life this year, maybe you should tell them.

I just emailed my mentor. Who are you going to email?

Freezing tonight

2007-11-22T00:14:00.000-08:00

The mercury is falling. It's a clear night, no wet blanket of fog to trap the city heat. All around the San Francisco bay, temperatures are sinking towards icepoint.

It's 44 degrees outside and 55 degrees inside. The pilot light in our furnace is out. I can't figure out how to get the grate up, nor am I competent to light the darn thing. Water is heating for the hot water bottle. And in a moment. I will dodge into the shower for a full body warming experience before I dive under the covers. Brr.

The Squiggle Report

2007-11-21T23:57:00.000-08:00

I don't have my sister's permission to post my nephew's image on the internet. Rest assured, he is a fine baby. He looks very much like his uncle, my brother. Uncle was a Gerber baby, that is, Gerber used his image for advertising. So you could say that Squiggle looks just like a Gerber baby with complete veracity.

At just a week shy of 4 months, there are teeth starting to push up through the gums, strong neck and arm muscles, and muah hah hah, developing vocal chords. Squig has just figured out that he can make a whole range of sounds, and the ones he's most interested in making are the REALLY HIGH PITCHED squealy ones.

Sister called in a near panic, begging me to come babysit so she could leave the house. Unfortunately for her, I think he was hip to her plan and saved all his squeals for later. For me, he grabbed a bottle of fresh boob juice and promptly passed out 2/3 of the way through. After a nap we trundled out into the fresh air for a couple of hours, most of which he slept right through.

Once back at home on his little play mat, it was time to exercise the new vocal sounds. I of course had to beat feet to another appointment. No squeals for me.

The Yam, she is cooked

2007-11-20T22:46:00.000-08:00

The answer was simple, really. When in doubt, turn to Joy of Cooking. Although I have volumes of JOC dating back to 1944, the books that get the most use are the 1977 and the 1996 editions. The 1977 book has simple, direct, classic recipes. The 1996 book modernized greatly by cutting fat, simplifying technique, and introducing new foods and recipes from non-western cuisines from around the world.

Page 428 contains a recipe that I suspect came from Africa, Sweet Potato and Peanut stew.

Allowing for a few alterations given items I had on hand (eg, no meat in the fridge, hand mixed chili powder), I was wonderfully impressed. The resulting stew of yam, onions, and bell pepper is spicy and well flavored. The peanut butter added a thickness and complexity of flavor I did not anticipate. So did the ounce of bourbon I added at the very end.

This vegan stew is filling and contains a flavor range that would be tasty year round. 3.5 stars.

New shoes

2007-11-19T00:01:00.000-08:00

The boy bought me some new shoes. I'm enthralled. They are neither cute nor sexy, you could call them modern day nurse shoes with their anti microbial soles, and silent tread. Unlike nurse shoes, my new clogs are blue, and will protect my feet from the falling knives and splatters of hot oil that make kitchens such dangerous places to be.

News items enrage the people

2007-11-18T22:20:00.000-08:00

Various people I know are all in a tizzy over two recent news bytes.

The first stems from a recent article over at the Journal of Evolution and Human Behavior. It seems some scientists ran a study which found that children born to mothers with a low ratio of waist circumference to hip circumference scored the highest on cognition tests. The issue is that there are a couple of different ways to spin the article. the actual article abstract is here.

The blurb over at New Scientist paraphrased the findings simply: A low waist-hip ratio (WHR) is a proxy measurment for the amount of Omega-3 fatty acids stored in the mother's body. Children whose mothers had wide hips and a small (a low waist-hip ratio) scored highest on cognition tests, leading the researchers to suggest that fetuses benefit from a rich supply of useful fatty acids from the mother.
The blurb on iTwire, an online Australian IT news magazine describes the findings but adds this bit from the article's abstract: "These findings support the idea that WHR relects the availability of neurodevelopmental resources and thus offer a new explanation of men's preference for low WHR."

Guess which sentence is generating all the controversy? One person I know is incensed that dollars are being spent on research of this type instead of research that improves the lot of the worlds most impoverished citizens. Another person I know is incensed that resources are being spent to come up with scientific explanations that reinforce the notion men prefer low WHR. Yet another friend seems to think that articles like this suggest that human behavior is all hard-wired, making free-will a fraudulent concept, and thus a terrible thing.

Honest exploration of the forces that shape human evolution is a good thing. I don't think human evolution has been well studied, and I don't think we know much at all about how our species has evoloved and is evolving. I am wary of anything that purports to explain that certain races are disposed one way. Low WHR occurs all over the world, but has a larger geographic distribution near the equator. One thing not clear from the abstract is whether the researchers factored for race and ethnicity.

Meanwhile a different bit of research about human behavior in the news has ME up in arms. Today's headlines included news that a recent study attempts to pin child abuse on break-down of the biological family. Apparently, the children at greatest risk are those living in households that lack BOTH biological parents.

The article I read was infuriating. The headline mentioned the lack of both biological parents, but the article chiefly discussed households where only one biological parent was missing.

From a science standpoint, it's not news that in the mammalian kingdom males kill or maim offspring of other males. Yet, the article I read didn't contain any facts or figures about whether it is non-biological males (or females) who are most engaged in actively targeting children for death or injury. Nor did it contain any breakdown of the numbers comparing abuse meted out by biological parents and non-biological adults in abusive households. And there was no discussion about whether the abuse was direct, or simply neglect, nor were there numbers for that.

Lastly, and in my mind, most importantly, the research didn't seem to address a primary factor: abuse reporting trends for the last 20 years. It's likely that, due to the increase in single-parent homes headed by women, more third party observers are reporting abuse in households where one biological parent is missing. However, there is nothing indicating that abuse reporting in homes where both biological parents are present has gotten much better.

What was the point of all that ink, except to take a side swipe at households headed by single mothers?

The foghorn, the yam and the cat

2007-11-18T21:46:00.000-08:00

The moon is shining brightly through my window. This would be less peculiar if there weren't at least two foghorns bleating their sad calls. I was out earlier, and the fog was nearly as thick as the veritable split-pea soup. So why can I see the moon? This I do not know. As long as it keeps oil tankers off the bridge, I guess it's fine.

Meanwhile, The Yam is glaring balefully down from the kitchen window. The Yam is as large as a heart, and is similarly shaped. I do not like yams, Sam I am. I do not like them in a box, with a fox in wooly socks. Tomorrow I will dump the change jar on the floor and see if there are enough shiny silver things to buy a jar of chipotle powder. Then The Yam and I will do battle. I think the particular smoky heat of that chile will subdue The Yam. Then I will have lunch.

Meanwhile, the Dowager Princess has been acting almost kitten-like. I very neatly sorted the last three months of mail into organized stacks on the living room floor. Apparently this was an invitation to run around the room, hunch on a pile, use her feet to scrabble the pages in all directions and then run around again. Repeat with each pile. Attack individual pages on romps around the room.

I do not understand the antics of the cat, nor the antics of the fog.

The day of living healthily

2007-11-17T16:45:00.000-08:00

After yet another night of tag with Mr. Sandman I began this morning by getting up soon after waking. Rather than lounge listlessly, I actually got up, went downstairs, and did a yoga video. Then le boi and I biked across town to a cafe where we had healthy turkey sandwiches on healthy whole wheat bread.

On the return trip we stopped at two grocery stores. Tonight is a warm-up to Thanksgiving. We have turkey breasts ready for roasting. There will be some stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce, a green salad and curried pumpkin soup.

All that biking and whole wheat and fresh air is making me feel granolaishly healthy. I half expect to find alfalfa sprouts springing from my armpits. On the upside, my back feels better for having done the yoga.