gablog2

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:14:21 GMT

even though it made me hungry!

What's the last thing you ate?
Organic costco oatmeal and Peet's coffee

What's your favorite cheese?
Mm. Strong Jarlsberg, or sometimes herbed goat cheese.

What's your favorite fish?
Buttery raw salmon

What's your favorite fruit?
Papaya with lime

When, if ever, did you start liking olives?
Teens

When, if ever, did you start liking beer?
Late in college

When, if ever, did you start liking shellfish?
Teens I think; can't remember

What was the best thing your parent/s used to make?
I loved my mom's lemon chicken. And fruit tarts. And carrot cake.

What's the native specialty of your home town?
Fresh organic vegetables, a la Alice Waters. Or maybe Cheeseboard vegetarian pizza.

What's your comfort food?
Fresh french bread with Nutella, dipped in hot earl grey tea.

What's your favorite type of chocolate?
Belgian Del Oro dark chocolate bars.

How do you like your steak?
Medium - pink but not bloody.

How do you like your burger?
Medium, juicy, lots of goodies.

How do you like your eggs?
Over easy, with fresh salsa and spicy hash browns and avocados.

How do you like your potatoes?
mashed with gravy, or roasted with sea salt and rosemary and garlic and chicken drippings.

How do you take your coffee?
Strong, with whole milk or half & half, and a little sugar and sometimes cinnamon.

How do you take your tea?
Earl grey, hot. With chocolate.

What's your favorite mug?
Tall cobalt blue pint glass, or the "Arctic Night" ones from our nautica dishware.

What's your cookie of choice?
Soft chocolate chip straight out of the oven.

What's your ideal breakfast?
Waffles heaped with fruit and a little whip cream, drizzled with maple syrup, and an egg and potatoes on the side. Plus fresh OJ and a mocha. But call it brunch, because I won't be hungry for a while!

What's your ideal sandwich?
A BLTA with fresh toasted sourdough, just-crisped bacon, heirloom tomatoes, and butter lettuce, and avocadoes.

What's your ideal pizza (topping and base)?
Deep dish chicken pesto with cherry tomatoes from Zachary's

What's your ideal pie (sweet or savory)?
Lemon meringue, pumpkin, or apple...I just can't choose one!

What's your ideal salad?
Fresh soft mozzarella, heirloom tomatoes, basil drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Plus avocadoes.

What food do you always like to have in the fridge?
Milk. Fruit yogurt. Eggs. Butter. Beer. Cheese (cheddar or jack for quesadillas, and/or cream cheese for bagels). Lettuce. Cherry tomatoes. Carrots.

What food do you always like to have in the freezer?
chicken breasts. chocolate ice cream. peas, broccoli, green beans.

What food do you always like to have in the cupboard?
Baking basics (flour, sugar, baking soda and powder, salt, brown sugar, chocolate chips). Mac & Cheese. Noodles. Spaghetti sauce. Cream of celery, mushroom, chicken. Black beans.

What spices can you not live without?
Garlic! Onions. Salt, pepper. Rosemary. Oregano. Curry.

What sauces can you not live without?
Spaghetti sauce, pesto.

Where do you buy most of your food?
Increasingly Andronicos for convenience. Whole Foods when Dan shops. Safeway when I shop.

How often do you go food shopping?
Once every two weeks or so for major trips; couple dashes for specific items every week.

What's the most you've spent on a single food item?
Keg beer, if that counts. Or maybe scotch -- again, if that counts. About $175 for either of those. Otherwise probably steak, $50.

What's the most expensive piece of kitchen equipment you own?
If all the knives in the knifeblock are tallied up -- Henckel 4-star.

What's the last piece of equipment you bought for your kitchen?
Umm. Umm. Pyrex glass storage dishes?

What piece of kitchen equipment could you not live without?
Knife block full of sharp knives. Cast iron pan.

How many times a week/month do you cook from raw ingredients?
Probably twice.

What's the last thing you cooked from raw ingredients?
Goat cheese pasta with herbs, cherry tomatoes, and organic zucchini and basil from the garden. If you count the pasta as "raw".

What's your favorite thing to make for yourself?
Buttery or cheesy pasta with herbs and garlic.

What meats have you eaten besides cow, pig, chicken and turkey?
Lamb, mutton, alligator, quail, rabbit, venison.

What's the last time you ate something that had fallen on the floor?
Yesterday, when the kid pulled two bowls FULL of noodles and beans off of the table before I could stop him. I saved the noodles. But the floor's pretty clean these days because I hate the thought of him licking up dust and grime.

What's the last time you ate something you'd picked in the wild?
Blackberries last summer in Downieville, in large quantities. Bay leaves and mushrooms last winter. Huckleberries summer before last.

Place the following cuisines in order of preference (greatest to least):
Indian, Sushi, Mexican, Italian, Thai,French, Chinese

Place the following boozes in order of preference (greatest to least):
whiskey, gin, vodka, rum, tequila (i added a couple)

Place the following flavors in order of preference (greatest to least):
garlic, lime, basil, ginger, aniseed

Place the following fruits in order of preference (greatest to least):
pineapple, cherry, watermelon, orange, apple, banana,,

Bread and spread:
Fresh french and salted butter

What's your fast food restaurant of choice, and what do you usually order?
7-layer burrito at Taco Bell with lotsa fire sauce

What are three of the best dining-out experiences you've had?

Rivoli in Berkeley,
Fraunhoffer Bierkeller in Munich
La Vaudree in Liege.

What's your choice of tipple at the end of a long day?
Gin and tonic with fresh-squeezed lime and cane sugar tonic.

Favorite cookbook/s?
Don't really use any except Joy of Cooking and the internet. But I wouldn't classify either as "favorite."

Got any favorite food blogs?
San Francisco Chronicle food section is the closest thing; sometimes I love their stuff. Sometimes Sunset Magazine is great too.

What's the next thing you'll eat?
Three-salad combo at Oakland Museum.

Heading out to save my baby

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 19:58:29 GMT

I found my old motorcycle jacket, that should provide at least a little protection. But I don't know what I'm going to do with the baby...he still fits into the Baby Bjorn, maybe I can sew armor onto that somehow?
I just KNEW my domestic skills were going to save me in an emergency situation. Thank God for the leather sewing needle attachment.

Weird Zombie f*#$%ers want to tangle with Mama Bear?? Bring it on!

Please help us...

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:49:23 GMT

I don't know what I'm going to do. Dan is at the shop with the baby, and this morning I started hearing all these reports...people dying, some kind of virus, I don't know what's going on. I'm terrified. I tried to call but the cell phone isn't working, I'm getting some kind of recorded error message. The shop's phones are busy, so I tried to get to the car...oh god oh god, it's horrible, these people...they're obviously suffering, I heard moaning from my back seat and saw this:

I have barricaded the door to the house now, and just looked out the front window. It's eerie, there seem to be a lot of them on the street, but they're not talking. They're just sort of staggering around, moaning. I have heard screams from the apartment building across the way...I was worried about the little boy that lives over there, but last time I looked out the window I saw his little beanie on the head of some kind of little monster that was chewing on something disgusting in the alley...

somebody tell me what's going on...a friend just posted that she's heard the virus is being transmitted via Twitter...

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 19:04:08 GMT

The new blog is here.

please head on over; or check out the LJ syndication of it at livejournal/~gablog

-G

and hyperweasel's down again.

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 17:47:26 GMT

So here I am again.

The children next door are chanting in tongues.
I can't make out what they're saying, but it's fucking creepy. It's a little edgier and less harmonic than gregorian chants. More fanatical.

I am sick. I had a fever last night and haven't really been able to eat anything for a couple of days (your vivid imagination knows what happens when I do). The most annoying bit, though, is that when I am vertical I get a pounding headache, and my vision randomly will threaten to go black like I'm passing out. This is not good.

So I'm home.
I'll probably have to go into the office at some point today, or later this weekend, because I do have cases to prep for Tuesday. It is a different thing to have a job where I can't just stay home sick without making arrangements like that.

In other news, a couple of days ago I ran into my very oldest friend, Alexa Prussin. She was coming home and I was going home, and our paths crossed at the BART station. It made me really happy because we haven't had a chance to talk much in the last few years, but she has always been awesome. She works with a clinic run by or affiliated with Planned Parenthood, doing very needed work, a lot of it with young people in really hard situations. She looked exhausted; I imagine the last few weeks, with the reproductive rights battle raging anew in San Francisco, have not been easy. Heck, even in the BART station where we were standing there are a dozen of those "Have we gone too far?" billboards that just drive me up the wall.

These billboards are propaganda by the religious right, intended to target pro-choice and undecided people to convince them to support a legislative or judicial undermining of the Roe v. Wade decision.
(that sentence sucked, i'm sorry, i'm starting to talk like a lawyer in long convoluted sentences, but i'm too tired to figure it out right now)

My main problem is that the billboards intentionally and maliciously misrepresent the holding of Roe v. Wade. They list developmental milestones of an embryo/fetus, and say "you can choose" -- as though there could be a fully developed 9 month fetus that the mother could just abort willy-nilly, on a whim. The billboards don't mention *at all* the requirement that late-stage abortions like that only be allowed to save the life of the mother.

Bugs me.

The kids next door just finished their performance, and there was THUNDEROUS applause from the parents.
Made me happy.

New blog location

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 21:01:16 GMT

Have decided to move the blog to livejournal. Loved using Movable Type, but so it goes -- occasionally, one must make concessions to practicality. Besides, community is good, I like community, and much of my real world community is already here.

Hence.
here I am.

Those cute libertarians

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:54:08 GMT

Ok, this is just charming -- to protest the eminent domain decision (which held that under certain circumstances a government entity may use its power to seize private property in order to transfer it to another, non-public, entity for commercial purposes), New Hampshire libertarians have started a process to have Justice Breyer's vacation home seized and turned into "Constitution park."

the law.com article is here

Upside Down

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:53:13 GMT

Disposition: moody
Soundtrack: nothingness

Maybe this is what's wrong with me: there is always an upside, but I am down.

stuff

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:52:48 GMT

Disposition: Weathered
Soundtrack: TMBG - S-E-X-X-Y

Have been in court all the time, mostly watching, appearing on a few things when there is time for the attorneys to get the files to me and I get "prepped." Have gotten through my lines increasingly without stuttering and feeling foolish, and in one or two cases without co-counsel intervention, although i am still not comfortable speaking for the client on my own (I think this is probably a good sign).
The logistical/practical aspects of spending so much time out of the office are interesting -- I am more reliant on the cell phone, though I am told it would be OK to use the court officer's phone to check messages, maybe I will start doing that once I know these folks better. And e-mail -- of course I'm checking that less, since I am not at my desk 8 hours a day.
Besides, my iBook has died again -- this time in dramatic, screen-distorting, "I'm-having-a-stroke-help-me-mayday-mayday-S.O.S." fashion. And now the monitor won't turn on -- and it's clearly not just a backlight issue this time. Will probably have to go back to the Genius Bar this weekend...unless any of you Apple folks have a better idea for me? I'm hoping it won't cost lots of money, otherwise I may wait and save up for a new laptop, i'm sort of tired of this.

And it's our only DVD player. So no movies. And I have movies I would like to watch. Grump.

Have finally been sleeping, and my body is reacting with confusion. "What's this?" it asks, "We get to let the eyes close when they want to? And the limbs not move? And the brain shut down? We don't need to keep running on adrenaline and rocket fuel?"

The Rusty Hook

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:52:16 GMT

Went down with a couple of the local guys to investigate the ripple. It's dark down there -- this is a pretty deep pond, it turns out. Cold, too. But we didn't really see anything that strange (OK, we actually sort of gave up when we started feeling creeped out by all the shadows and weird plant movements).
On the plus side, though, they took me to the Rusty Hook, a spot on the bank with warm rocks and a bunch of fishing line and, yes, a rusty hook just sort of sitting there. There's some other trash there too, which is why the tadpoles and most of the lady frogs don't hang around there...but on the plus side, more trash means more flies. So we spent a lazy afternoon, croaking and hanging out on the rocks, gorging ourselves on flies and shooting the breeze.

Give a little bit

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:51:31 GMT

Give a little bit
Give a little bit of your love to me
Give a little bit
I'll give a little bit of my love to you
There's so much that we need to share
Send a smile and show you care
I'll give a little bit
I'll give a little bit of my life to you
So give a little bit
Give a little bit of your time to me
See man man with the lonely eyes
Take his hand, you'll be surprised
Give a little bit
Give a little bit of your love to me
I'll give a little bit of my life for you
Now's the time that we need to share
So find yourself, we're on our way back home
Going home
Don't you need to feel at home?
Oh yeah, we gotta sing
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Supertramp - Give A Little Bit Lyrics
Roger Hodgson & Rick Davies
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

hmm

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:50:32 GMT

Disposition: Empty
Soundtrack: The Shins - New Slang

I feel like a lightbulb.

Potential Justice Roberts

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:50:08 GMT

Disposition: Curious, apprehensive
Soundtrack: Neurons firing across the nation

Judge Roberts was a surprising nomination in my view, if only because the media -- the very dedicated media -- didn't seem to have even picked up the scent of his nomination before it occurred. Also, unlike Gonzales, he hasn't held a prominent enough political position to have his name ring bells with people over here on the west coast. I like that he clerked for Friendly (a judge whose opinions I read a bunch in law school, including the "The question is: What is chicken?" case), and a Harvard degree is usually a good thing. Cass Sunstein likes him, I like that. But beyond that...

well, since I don't have my own two cents to offer, I will offer two cents from another progressive person, one who actually knows the guy and has been around this legal block more than I have:

Brad Joondeph

My Cousin Dona

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:49:39 GMT

she is tall, she is pretty
and awfully kind
a magician with pixels
and colors and lines

she's always been awesome
and wears such hip clothes
she's crafty and arty,
she staples and sews

she grouts and she hammers
she paints and crochets
and makes us all laugh
in the silliest ways

today is her birthday
so I write to say
in my own silly format
Hip-hip and hooray!

Sibley in my head

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:48:47 GMT

Disposition: quiet
Soundtrack: Yeah yeah yeahs - Y Control

It has been a couple of days but the evening has not faded and so i will describe it here.

I had never been to Sibley Park, though I practically grew up in its neighbor Tilden. Sibley straddles the Oakland hills, and is (like Tilden) filled with scrub oaks, "golden" fields, and prickly things this time of year. I drove up with a friend, and we walked up to the top of a hill with a tree, to watch the sun set.
And set it did. The fog was strange and amazing that evening -- a thick white layer over the Golden Gate, leaving only the tip of one spire, but then also a hazy layer around the City and over parts of the Bay that gave everything a soft and mirage-like quality. The sun, as it set, shone off of both of these layers and glared brilliantly off of the water, creating an incredibly bright background for the silhouettes of oak and pine trees on the ridge in front of us.
I climbed a tree. I marveled at the labyrinth-like figures meticulously assembled and maintained by hikers with collected stones. I put one foot in front of the other, following their twisting and strange directions. And on the return hike, I startled the legions of bunnies that thought dusk was a good time to come out of the bushes and sit on the path; dozens of tiny bright white tails, bouncing in staccato zigzags ahead of our slowly-walking feet.

Whiplash

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:48:15 GMT

Disposition: Resilient
Soundtrack: Boy Crazy - Cheap Entertainment (finally found out the name of the band!)

The fast pace of lately is changing, due to the abrupt stomping of brakes by the return from a road trip, the departure of Dan and my family and a couple of friends on various trips, missions, and work assignments. I think i can look forward to quiet time on my own, it's just going to feel sudden I think, when I get home tonight and the house is empty and there are no calls or e-mails.

It's OK, though. It's good.

Fantastic road trip with wonderful people to beautiful places, for which I must thank mr. spleen as well as our justification, bride-to-be ensignbenson. The Madonna Inn lives up to its campy reputation; diner breakfasts continue to be awfully wonderful; and few things beat heckling the audiotape voice of Trent Reznor, as it emanates tragically from Volvo speakers, for entertainment.

First appearances in court

gabyraymond@gmail.com — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:47:33 GMT

The past couple of days have been very fast and very, I don't know, heady.

I stated my first appearances in court yesterday, although I didn't actually have to say much of substance; today I will be appearing completely on my own for the first time.
I am mostly terrified.
I have not slept.
At least my eye infection has gone away, and I no longer have the flu.

This weekend there is a road trip down the coast that i am very very much looking forward to. I think when I get home today I will collapse with the overstimulated exhaustion; that means by tomorrow I should have good road tripping energy. Boozez on beaches wif my biaaatches. Or sumping.