Date Night

Dan and I had a long-overdue Date Night last Saturday. We went to Bistro Elan in Palo Alto and I had the best foie gras ever, and an amazing orange creme fraiche ice cream with strawberries and sangria. My entree was duck confit, which is one of my favorites, but it was a bit dry, and the risotto bed it laid on was just so-so. Next time I will order two foie gras and two desserts, and skip the entrees!

Our State Senator John Burton wants to outlaw foie gras in California. Ass! I'm a duck/goose lover as much as anyone. I've SEEN the geese line up to be force fed in the French Basque region. For tortured animals, they sure couldn't wait to get that funnel down their throats and get stuffed with grain. They were almost knocking over the woman who was doing it, trying to be the first to get the funnel.

Hell, if dogs could be force fed with funnels and bypass the whole inconveniently slow mouth and throat thing, they'd be lined up for miles.

At least the idiotic law banning Sonoma foie gras won't go into effect for seven years. Well, maybe we can move to France by then.

Oh, and did you know that the *exact* same process happens with obese people, except that no funnel is involved? They eat too much, their liver becomes (gasp) fatty, and once it goes on long enough they end up quite sick and even die. Non alcoholic fatty liver disease is currently the most common liver disease in the US and worldwide (mostly developed countries that sit and eat a lot), affecting an estimated 10-24% of the world’s population.

I don't see any laws that prevent people from getting fat enough to damage their liver. And people do it when they're young and have their whole lives ahead of them, while geese are fed with the funnel only for the last 4 weeks before they're slaughtered. Funny how geese need funnels and human assistance to eat enough to make them sick, while humans just need fast food, junk food, and non-stop food advertising to tempt them into it. Shouldn't those be outlawed? If we won't even allow geese to do it, even if the goose likes it, because it's cruel.... Hmmmm.

You know, a bunch of children have fatty liver disease even, from just plain being too obese. Maybe if we had some kind of national healthcare system, or at least spent some money on having PE and recess and free healthy hot lunches in schools instead of wasting it on corporate giveaways and bombing the hell out of people in faraway lands...oh, don't get me started. And what are parents with fat kids doing anyways? Do you control the food in the house or not? Are you guys exercising together? If not, why?

Well, back to the quotidian. Dan and I were laughing that in the picture above we almost look like an ad, except for the fact that we have our beige seatbelts on, which is sort of photographically uncool, and there is a laundry basket in the back of Dan's car, which is definitely uncool! But hey, we're well groomed, and my hair actually looked sort of good, and I had five whole minutes to put on makeup, and I like that dress and don't wear it nearly enough.

We talked to each other for three whole hours without interruption!

But you know, Julian was soooo cute when we got home. Ashley and her sister came over to babysit, and he was THRILLED with all the female attention. They played outside, took the dog for a walk, watched Baby Einstein, played games, threw the ball, ate a huge amount of dinner, etc. It was like a baby keg party, just off the *hook* yo!

So it was fun to go out, but it was good to come home too.