vegan chai

getting serious about boots

okay, so not only am i returning the tall boots of doom (you can see why in the comments on that entry), but i've also decided not to keep the "jeans boots" i bought in the same order. my husband said that they look like snow boots--that is to say, kinda flat-footed and loafery and not that cute--and i'm prone to agree with him on that. so, they're both headed back, because for those prices, i'd better LOVE them. sigh. mooshoes probably won't be too happy with me, but i'm a pretty good customer so hopefully they'll get over it.

river selkie reminded me that zappos exists (hee), and i hadn't even really messed around with them, to be honest. i've bought shoes from them before (they're awesome!), but i never knew (until yesterday) that their vegetarian category is woefully incomplete. in other words, there are lots of shoes on their site that belong in the vegetarian category, but aren't filed as such. i had no idea! this was an exciting development in my life, although it led to quite a long project of weeding through all of the womens knee-high boots to scan for style, price, and then materials. eventually i got down to a list of 20 pairs that were under $150, and decided to sleep on it. a little while ago, i cut that list in half and now i'm looking at 10 pairs. a few of them are pull-on, and one of them zips up the back, and i'm not sure about my opinion about those things (i typically think of the inside-zip as the standard tall boot thing). a couple of them are also fabric rather than pleather, and i'm not sure what i think about that either. some of them have a skinny dressy heel; others more of a chunky heel. here's where i'm at presently:

AK anne klein react (fabric)
bandolino ozzy (pretty high heel)
chinese laundry faith (these are the highest heel on the list)
franco sarto clock (pull-on)
life stride susan (these are settling toward the bottom of my list)
moda spana mandy (fabric)
naturalizer elite (pull-on; these are also toward the bottom of my list)
naturalizer leisure
rieker 72954 (pull-on)
sam & libby pisces (back-zip)

of course i'm being obnoxious and considering scenarios where i buy one pair in "black, dressy heel" and one pair in "black, more casual heel" and one pair in brown and call it a day.  heh.

what's my deal?

i am finishing up Day Two of being amazingly, spectacularly unproductive. i don't know what my problem is, but today, like yesterday, i've just sat around getting nothing done. i'm driving myself bonkers. my accomplishments today are as follows:

1. sleep 30 extra minutes because i was soooo tired
2. get ready but (of course) get to school 30 minutes later than planned
3. meet with advisee who is really struggling in an attempt to scare him straight (40 min or so)
4. dork around for an hour while waiting for next meeting; eat pb&j
5. meet with another advisee to talk about a few of her projects (2 hrs)
6.  write lists, read intarweb stuff, eat a snack, talk on phone, look things up, repeat (6.5 hrs)

argh! two days of this is making me really irritated with myself. and believe me, i have PLENTY i could (and should) be doing. pllllllenty. so on that note, i guess i'd better go do something. anything.

carriage horses

i've been meaning to write about this for awhile, since last december(!) actually, but i kept putting it off. the longer i waited, the more opportunities i had to cross paths with carriage horses (or read sad stories about them), so my hypothetical post just kept getting longer and longer. anyhow, the time has come, so here we go:

carriage horses make me terribly sad. whenever i see one, i always try to make eye contact and i alwaysy say, "i'm so sorry." i know that's probably incredibly silly, but it helps me feel like i am forging a tiny connection with them, like perhaps i can send my empathy directly to them by making that gesture. although i live in a large city, we don't have a ton of carriage horses, but they do exist and i do see them from time to time.

last year, a shopping center near my home was converted from a standard mall to more of a "shopping village" kind of deal. basically they updated and prettified the existing mall, then built a ton more buildings around it, creating an open-air shopping center with its own little system of roads inside. the new shopping center opened just in time for the holiday shopping rush last year, and it's only about 10 minutes from our house, so we decided to go check it out on opening weekend while working on our christmas shopping. as we started strolling through the charming new streets, i realized that they were giving complimentary carriage rides around the mall. i think they felt that it blended nicely with their "old world" vision of what they had built, but it just made me sick to my stomach. there were pedestrians everywhere, there were TONS of cars full of drivers who had no friggin' CLUE what they were doing (since it was a brand-new complex, everyone was constantly lost, confused, or staring at things while driving), and here were these poor horses smack in the middle of it all, just to give shoppers some old-world ambiance. it made me really angry, and i said my share of "i'm so sorrys" to horses that evening. the shopping center kept that up for a few weeks, then stopped. i meant to write a letter to express my disapproval, but never ended up doing it. i'm kind of lame that way.

this past summer, i was driving home from somewhere or other, and i passed a church that is just a few blocks from my house. it's a big church, and on many many saturdays, you'll see wedding festivities as you drive by. this particular saturday was no different, except that there were three--count 'em, three--horse-drawn carriages parked out front. you know, so that the bride could have her fairytale cinderella wedding. argh! i rarely do this kind of thing, but i happened to have my camera with me, so i pulled over and took stealth pictures. i don't really know what i was trying to accomplish; i guess i just wanted to document my crankiness or something. anyhow, again, i was just really upset that because we have so romanticized the idea of riding around in a horse-drawn carriage, these poor kiddos have to live these crappy lives.

about a month ago, i took a train to chicago, and as i was leaving town (very near our train station), before i had buried my nose in a book, i realized that i was looking at a bunch of horses outside my window. i did a double-take, tried to figure out where the heck i was and what those horses were doing there, and then it was too late. i made a mental note to pay close attention when i came back home, and that time i was able to figure it out--it's where our city's carriage horses live. it's a small building next to a small dirty yard, and it's in a totally urban area. it's no place for horses, is what i'm saying. i took a picture that day, but it turned out horribly, so i tried again when we went back to chicago a couple of weekends ago. here are the shots that turned out. swanky, no?

while we were in chicago, we took one evening and walked the magnificent mile. it was a friday night, so the tourists, holiday shoppers, and bar-hoppers were out in full force. at one point we were getting close to the ghirardelli store (which i was excited about because they sell vegan non-pareils), and i started to make a beeline until i noticed that there was a little area off to my left, filled with carriages. sure enough, we were evidently in the heart of chicago's "come take a carriage ride" area, because there were bunches of horses standing around waiting to take people for a ride. ARGH. i did my whole "i'm so sorry" thing each time i got close enough to talk to a horse, and i basically bitched and moaned about it to my husband while he patiently waited for me to finish venting.

so, in the past year i've had several close encounters with the carriage horse industry, and i don't even live in a town that is big on them.

of course, in the meantime, new york city has been dealing with lots of bad publicity due to the horrible and tragic accidents that have recently resulted in the deaths of carriage horses. they have also been dealing with reports that their horses are not treated particularly well. i recently learned that there is a new documentary focusing on the NYC carriage horses, and i'm totally thrilled. i hope tons and tons of people watch it. the film is called blinders, and you can watch the trailer here.
 

tall boots of doom

okay, so i love me some tall boots. boots + tights + skirts in the winter are awesome. i have a pair that i bought from payless a couple of winters ago, but i kind of don't really like them. they were cheap cheap cheap, but the longer i have them, the more i think they're not really "me." but they're the only tall boots i have, so i keep wearing them.

i decided to buy a new pair of nice tall boots, and i had my eye on the novacas aurora at mooshoes. i thought they'd be nice because they have a little heel but not too much (so, cute with skirts but not uncomfortable), and they have simple detailing (so, cute but not frilly or weird). i waited for the mooshoes email to come 'round with the discount, and the moment i received it i ordered the boots. (i also ordered these, because i'd like to replace the boots i typically wear with jeans. more on those later.)

once those were ordered, i decided i should gear up for my exciting new boots by purchasing some new tights. thanks to my dear sweet mishka, i fell into the rabbit hole that is sock dreams and i bookmarked eleventy billion different tights, knee highs, and whatnots--so many that i got overwhelmed and had to save the project for another day--but eventually settled on three new pairs. my tights arrived before thanksgiving, but my boots didn't get here until yesterday.

when my husband announced the arrival of the UPS truck yesterday morning, i squeeed and dropped everything and ran downstairs to try on my new boots. (i'll spare you the details of what i was or wasn't wearing at the time.)  the tall boots were at the bottom of the package and i clawed at the box to get them out. i jammed my leg into one of the boots and went to zip them up, and alas! they went almost all the way up, but the last half-inch was Not Happening. grrrr. i squeezed the boots together, made my calf hold its breath, and yanked it up. i was able to get it zipped, but it totally felt like the top edge of the boot was strangling my leg. i have no idea what's wrong; if the boots are too short or my legs are too short or if it's just that i have VERY MUSCULAR CALVES (it's probably that one), but i'm sooooo bummed. i threw the boot back in the box and pouted my way back upstairs.

today, bound and determined to wear a pair of new tights, i put on a black dress, my old boots that i don't like, and these sexy little numbers (in black). the new tights are distracting me from the fact that i hate my old boots, but that's probably temporary.

any recommendations on how to quickly un-fat my calves would be greatly appreciated.

my other wintry problem

as much as i go on and on (and on) about dressy winter coats that are vegany in nature... i have another winter accessory problem: mittens. i much prefer mittens to gloves, because my fingers stay warmer (except for the poor thumb. if only there were thumbless mittens!), and i'll admit that finding vegan mittens really isn't all that tough, but my problem is that i have specific desires, mitten-wise:

1. they should be warm, but not crazy-bulky. the kind i always used to buy were cotton/acrylic, but they were lined with thinsulate, so they were warm but relatively compact. in other words, they were easy to fold in half and jam into my pockets.

2. they should have a non-slip palm or something similar. i always call them "driving mittens," but that's probably not the right name. anyhow, the idea is that i want some gription for driving, walking dogs, and so forth.

i realized several years ago that the mittens i always bought had suede palms. boo! it was one of those things i hadn't thought about until it suddenly dawned on me, and ever since i've been looking for good replacements. and unfortunately, it seems as though my options are: (a) thin/flimsy knit mittens in cotton/acrylic, without much lining... (b) crazy-silly "boxing mittens" that are probably for snowboarding but are much more puffy than i want... or (c) nothing.

i have one pair of flimsy mittens (with slippery palms) that i bought last spring to go with my new faux-shearling coat. i'm not crazy about them at all, but i keep them because they're better than nothing.

i also have one pair of ridiculous columbia mittens that are pretty warm, and they have a non-slip palm, but i honestly feel like i'm wearing boxing gloves when i have them on. they're massive when i put them in my pockets, and i have a hard time actually using my hands for anything when i'm wearing them. (and they're children's size, so they're as small as i can comfortably go.)

i still have two pair of the old suede-palm mittens, but i hate wearing them for obvious reasons. one pair is used for dog walking, because i need the gription and i need the agility... and the other pair is in the pockets of my cashmere coat. sigh.

dear vegan universe, please create a beautiful vegan j.crew-type dress coat, and please create wonderful vegan driving mittens, and line them both with thinsulate. thank you muchly.

weirdest breakfast evah

this morning my husband and i went out to breakfast, and i was all geared up for pancakes, but then i saw that their soup today was indian potato, which sounded awesome. after confirming that it was vegan, i went ahead and ordered it. and then the pancakes. heh.

the soup was spicy and hearty and wonderful, and then i crammed three pancakes into mah tummy on top of it. i'm such a soup dork; i have a really hard time passing it up if it looks like a good flavor... but this is definitely the first time i've ever ordered soup + breakfast.

my day basically went downhill from there: since brunch, all i've had to eat is several handfuls of chocolate non-pareils. oh wait! that's not true; i also had a thing of key lime yogurt. anyhow, with any luck my husband will be home soon, and he'll put a well-planned meal in front of my face.

thanksgiving again

last night my husband and i had leftover stuffing & mashed potatoes for dinner (which was super-awesome), and today we had a "real" thanksgiving all over again with my dad & stepmom's side of the family. everything was vegan except for the turkey, the stuffing (we brought our own as usual), and the green bean casserole (no big loss; i wouldn't have eaten that anyway). there was even--get this--a butter dish out, with earth balance instead of butter. seriously.

awkward moment of the day: my step-grandmother explaining to my (vegetarian) three-year-old niece, with wonder in her voice, that "we" would be having TURKEY today, did you see it in the oven? well let's go see it, you have to see it! UGH. poor little confused kitten went into the kitchen with her, then came skipping back into the family room to give me a hug. when i picked her up, she said her standard diet catchphrase, "we don't eat meat!" and i said, "that is absolutely right, sweetie!"

i learned that she later adapted this catchphrase to, "i don't eat meat, but i DO eat cupcakes!" hee.

fur-free friday

last year, i was unable to go to our city's fur-free friday demo because i had bronchitis. boo! so, i had to wait until this year to attend my first fur-free friday event. ours is usually held outside a fur store on the northwest side of town, which (coincidentally) is about two blocks away from where i lived throughout middle school. i remember moving to that house, when i was about 10 years old, and being totally bummed out that we drove past a fur store all the time. bleah. little did i know that in 23 years' time, i'd be protesting in front of the store. hee.

everything went pretty well; the weather was quite chilly, but we had about 25 people show up, including about 5 little kids (always fun). there were signs aplenty, and we could choose from text only, or nice pictures, or graphic pictures. i chose a nice sign (seen above) because i'm cuddly like that. we stood on the corner of the fur store, and also on the three other corners since we were on a relatively busy street--we hoped to get more of an audience that way.

it wasn't a high foot-traffic area, but we did see a whole bunch of cars slow down as they went past, so they could get a good look at our signs. we also got several supportive honks, waves, and thumbs up signs, which are always my favorite things about doing a demo. it's nice to know there are more people "out there" who support the animals. a couple of different guys flipped us off and/or heckled us out of their windows as they went by, but the supportive drivers far outnumbered the mean ones.

i think the most interesting part of the day was when i was standing across the street (well, kitty-corner) from the fur store, with two other people, and a woman's voice yelled, "excuse me!" from behind us somewhere. it turned out that she was the owner of a small shop i'd never noticed before, and she was angry with us because she said we were "scaring" her customers and "ruining" her business. i was completely flabbergasted, because seriously, there was nothing scary or intimidating going on. we were just a bunch of quiet people holding some signs and waving at the cars who waved at us. the woman was totally pissed, and we kept assuring her that her customers had nothing to be afraid of, and she kept cycling between realizing that we were normal friendly people who were talking in a calm reasonable fashion, and then riling herself back up to get pissed at us again. it was really quite weird. at one point she asked the guy next to me if he was wearing leather shoes (sigh), and when she was told, "no, they're pleather, fake leather," she asked, "huh?" about 5 times before she finally got it. her parting shot was, and i quote, "why don't you all get a job, like me?" i couldn't believe it; we actually got "are those leather shoes?" and "get a job!" all in one interaction! i've read about those comments a million times before, but never actually heard them in person. i felt like i should be playing protest bingo or something.

anyhow, i stuck around for about 90 minutes, and then my toes got too cold and i headed home. there were a few people still around when i left, but i think it was pretty close to quittin' time. with any luck, it helped raise some awareness. go fur-free!

stealth thanksgiving

so, today i went to my "mother's side thanksgiving" (we always have two celebrations: my mom's family on the day itself, and my dad & stepmom's family on the saturday following). you may remember from last year that it's not my favorite dinner. this year, my gram has been dealing with some rather intense health issues, so her brother offered to handle the turkey and the stuffing, and my mom offered to handle everything else. my mom's brother lives upstairs from my grandparents (it's a duplex), so i sorta kinda offered to supervise the mashed potatoes and the peas and corn. those are the three things i always have to pull aside and fix for myself before they get tons of butter and/or milk added to them, so i thought that if i was sly, maybe this year i'd be able to get away with making them all vegan.

so, we brought our own vegetarian stuffing (made by my husband), and when everyone started bustling in my grandparents' kitchen, my husband and i went upstairs to commandeer my uncle's kitchen. we made our vegetarian gravy, made the peas and corn, and started cooking the potatoes. we also popped our stuffing in the oven to start reheating. we brushed off a couple of offers for help, and Operation: Replace Butter With Earth Balance went into full effect. i am happy to announce that the mashed potatoes and veggies were totally vegan at this year's dinner, and no one was any the wiser. everyone ate the vegan stuff, i felt less like a teevy-dinner weirdo, and my dinner was yum.

still not my favorite thing in the world, but better than years past.

p.s. my mom gets an honorable mention for VERY sweetly picking up three different desserty/snacky-type items specifically for me, so that i could eat candy and chocolate with everyone else.

hugs for bill maher

earlier today, stegan alerted me to the post bill maher made last night on the huffington post, and i have to say, i'm totally delighted by the whole thing. i know we're not supposed to buy into "celebrity endorsements" and all that, but honestly, i love the idea that someone famous will get a bunch of people to read about a topic so horrific that they usually turn away. in his post, not only does he make crystal clear arguments against animal agribusiness, but he also includes links to two different slaughterhouse investigations, meet your meat, and a site with great vegan recipe ideas. he covers the angles of cruelty, environment, and health. he points out hypocrisy without being condescending. basically i just love him today.

of course, the reader comments are craziness, filled with the typical sniping and tired fallacious arguments, so skip those if you want to keep your blood pressure down. as for me, i will just be thankful for the number of people who were newly-exposed to the idea that thanksgiving really truly sucks for turkeys.

vegan winter coats

my blog has been getting a mess of hits lately with regard to wintry weather and the veganity of coats, so i decided maybe i should do another post. so far google has been leading people to this entry from a year ago, and sometimes to these entries from spring. the sad truth of the matter is, i still haven't solved my "dressy winter coat" problem, so i'm still accepting suggestions.

i saw a ridiculous amount of adorable dressy coats in chicago over the weekend, but i am positive that they were all wool and/or cashmere in nature. boo!

right now i'm hemming and hawing about this long primaloft number from merrell. i've never really been a quilted coat person (and my husband is Really not a fan), but this comes the closest to meeting my criteria: must be warm for nasty winters, must be long-ish for dressy occasions, must have some semblance of shape and/or cuteness. one of my very good friends just bought this coat (she had been looking for a non-down quilted coat, so i sent her the link) and she said she really likes it, and it's incredibly warm. so, i'm considering it, but i'd really really like to have one of those cute long fitted numbers that you can find all over the place at j.crew (for example).

i wish i could sew.

pumpkin spice silk

okay, i think i've strung you along for long enough. i've now had three small glasses of the pumpkin spice silk, and the verdict is: i like it! i'm not blown away--it's not like The Pumpkin Beverage That Changed My Life (that honor might go to the pumpkin spice shake i had at the chicago diner a few nights ago)--but it's tasty and i think i prefer it to nog.

i have some left, so i think i'm going to use it instead of the regular silk to make my chai in the morning. mmm, snuggly autumn chai.

sorry, everyone

i have no idea what's going on, but typepad seems to be republishing my oooold blog entries in some fashion. a bunch of two-year-old posts showed up on the VegBlogs feed a couple of days ago, and my own google reader had like 89 "new" posts from me when i checked a little while ago. they're old old old, but maybe new to you! ha. anyway, sorry if they're cluttering up your reader (if you subscribe to me). i'm not sure what on earth would be making it do that.

in other news, i'm home from chicago. today, as promised, we went to blind faith cafe in evanston, and i had the best tofu scramble EVAR. it involved tofu (duh), onions, avocado, red potatoes, a little handful of sprouts, and broccoli (i asked for no mushrooms, so they surprised me with a different ingredient instead). they also brought me a little stack of tortillas and a bowl of delicious salsa, so i made little soft tacos out of most of it, then ate the rest with a fork. it was amazing.

i'm here, i'm here!

oh em gee i'm freaking out because i don't want to miss my deadline. i am SUCH a dork. more in a moment.

edited to add: WHEW. i feel so much better now. a mere 15 minutes ago, i was at a hotel about 8 blocks away, chatting with friends, and trying to extract ourselves so i could get back here to meet the NaBloPoMo deadline. my husband and i speed-walked all the way back, hustled through the crazy obstacle course of a lobby, got on an elevator with two other people who wanted to get off on two other floors before ours, and hurried down the hall to get to our room. once here, we had to start up the laptop, let it finish some updates (argh), re-up our internet charges (sigh), and then log in to typepad and go crazy trying to post before midnight. i would imagine i'm not the only participant with a story/entry like this. hee.

the random sentence

earlier this week, stegan tagged me for a meme. i'm terribly bad at getting my memes done, so i have a few piled up around here. i'll start with stegan's, since it's the most recent and it's super-easy. the basic gig is that you go to page 161 of the book you are currently reading, and transcribe the fifth sentence. i am currently reading four books (five, if you count the textbook i'm teaching out of right now!), but lucky for you, i only have three of them with me in chicago. i checked page 161 of skinny bitch, and it was a page of menus, so that's boring. i also checked page 161 of my textbook, and it's the middle of a weird example, so nevermind.

so, the lucky winner of my random sentence meme is the esteemed gary francione, from introduction to animal rights: your child or the dog?

Although we may be justified in or excused for preferring the human over the nonhuman in a situation of true emergency or conflict, this does not mean that we should not choose the animal in some circumtances.

there you have it!

my own table

today i ended up at karyn's cooked again. twice. hee! they were both kind of by accident, but i wasn't complaining. the food is tasty, and the restaurant is about a mile and a half from our hotel, so it's a nice walk besides.

i met a friend for lunch, and we decided to try an indian restaurant at first. when we got there, we looked at the lunch buffet and decided to order off the menu instead (better vegan options). unfortunately, they didn't let us order off the menu (is it just us, or is that weird? i've never had that happen before), so we said thanks but no thanks, and decided to head inland to karyn's. i ordered the burger, she had the "steak" sandwich, and then we shared some big ol' cookies for dessert.

tonight, my husband and i wandered up michigan avenue and then over to rush street, and eventually settled on a place called big bowl, which serves chinese and thai dishes, and it seemed relatively vegan-friendly. the wait, however, was about 45 minutes, and we decided not to stick around. we briefly considered chipotle, but then decided to walk to karyn's. they ended up seating me at the same table as before, and my lunch server was still working. heh. this time i had a bowl of the potato soup (which comes with a piece of cornbread), and a side of mac & cheese. my husband had the jerk tofu sandwich.

long story short: mah belly is full, and my legs are tired. yay!

let's try this again

okay, i think the coast is clear and i'm free to post safely. whew!

so, earlier, i was trying to tell you about what i've been eating. last night we went out to karyn's cooked, and it was really tasty. the restaurant is very pretty inside--it's cozy and inviting. we sat at a tall table near the back, so we had a great view of everyone else's food. hee! i get so excited when i get to go to a vegan (or super-vegan-friendly) restaurant, because there's SO much i can choose from. i honestly didn't know what i wanted to eat for the longest time; i just couldn't decide. we ordered guacamole for the table, and to be honest i was a little underwhelmed. we got a small scoop of guacamole, and then the rest of the enormous plate was covered with raw carrots, raw broccoli, pico de gallo, two dipping sauces, and a handful of tortilla chips. i don't know about you, but when i order something called "guacamole," i want a big ol' thing of guacamole and a basket of chips. for the four of us to split that order, none of us really got much guac, is what i'm saying. kinda lame.

the rest of dinner, however, was pretty awesome. i ordered the green enchiladas (one of last night's specials), which were filled with garlic mashed potatoes (crazy? or crazy like a fox!) and smothered in tomatillo sauce, and served with sides of fancy rice and refried black beans. YUM. i scraped my plate clean. my husband got the lasagna (which was good, although he found the sauce rather salty), and our dinner companions (both omnis, but both extremely good sports) got the falafel and the veggie wrap. after dinner, my husband and i split a piece of banana cake, upon the recommendation of two different servers, and it was also very good. i was sooo full afterward, it was ridiculous. i would definitely go back.

tonight, we headed to the chicago diner with two of our good friends (both vegetarians, super-vegan-friendly), which i was totally excited about because i've been wanting to go there for ages. we had to wait a little bit to get seated, but we ended up in one of their cute wooden booths, so that was fun. once again i was in total options-overload, because i wanted to eat everything. i've heard great things about so many items on their menu, i couldn't decide. we ordered some nachos for the table, and they were really really good. we snarfed them up right quick. as for dinner entrees: two of us ordered the roasted red pepper ravioli (with steamed veggies and garlic bread on the side), one of us ordered the ruben (with mac & cheese on the side), and one of us ordered the philly cheezesteak (with mashed potatoes & gravy on the side). i had the ravioli, and i also tried the mac & cheese and the mashed taters. every single thing was delicious. seriously. i was in heaven.

of course, when the dessert menus came out, we all wanted to have some, even though we were totally full. our friends split a piece of pumpkin spice cake with chocolate ganache (delicious), my husband had the carrot cake (delicious, and i don't even really like carrot cake), and i had a pumpkin spice shake (Oh Em GEE it was sooooooooooooo good). my shake was made with pumpkin spice ice cream (chicago soydairy temptation), and the inside of the glass was drizzled with chocolate before they filled it up. sinful. i wish i could drink one every day, no joke. i heart the chicago diner.

in sum: i have had two REALLY good dinners over the past two days. i hope to keep the streak alive!

you have got to be kidding me

okay, i have to leave now, but just go read this entry from exactly a year ago.

it effing happened to me AGAIN. grrrrr. more later.

off to dinner

okie doke, i'm out of town now, and i'm heading out to dinner at karyn's cooked, a very vegan-friendly restaurant... or so i'm told! i've never been there before. anyhow, we're going with friends and i have no idea when we'll be back in our room, so i decided to be on the safe side and post before we left.[NaBloPoMo dork]

i will report back later!

polar bears

i heart polar bears. longtime readers might remember this post from last february, which made me sick to look at. even remembering that picture gives me a tummyache, for reals. anyhow, my husband forwarded a link to me today, and i thought it was nifty so i'm passing it along to you! i haven't had a lot of time to delve too deeply, but what i saw was kind of cool. feast your eyes on polar bears international! they have a couple of different "bear trackers" on the site, and they also have a polar bear cam that is on during certain hours of the day (otherwise you get highlights, i think). there seems to be a wealth of information to be had, but like i said, i haven't had time to dig in very much. feel free to let me know if i'm accidentally promoting an evil empire or sumpin'.

mission successful!

okay, today was crazy because i had like 14 things to do, and i got them all done! well, mostly. one of them required a pinch-hit from the husband, and one of them fell through but that wasn't my fault. anyway, i mentioned yesterday that i was on the hunt for several things, so here i am to report back.

after the humane society but before my haircut, i ran to target in order to look for the coat, as well as pick up a new laundry basket (i'm pretty sure the one we've been using is one that i got from my mom when i moved out of her house. in 1995.) and a new desk lamp (i've spent too long hating mine. more on that in a moment). i found the coat (hooray!) and tried it on. it's cute, and it's long-ish and dressy, which is great. unfortunately, it didn't fit me well. boo! oh well, at least i tried. and thanks again to vivaciousvegan for bringing it to my attention in the first place!

after my haircut, i went on a crazy vegan shopping spree and bought a ridiculous amount of stuff. mostly junk food. i also got 6 cartons of the condensed soymilk (which i think is the equivalent of maybe 3 or 4 cans of eaglebrand), so i'm incredibly psyched to test that out. unfortunately, it's going to have to wait until next week sometime, because i'm leaving the day after tomorrow for a conference. that's right, for the second year in a row, i'm taking NaBloPoMo on the road! w00t!

so okay, besides the condensed soymilk, i also bought a sweet & sara peanut butter s'more treat, some dry roasted edamame, 12 (yes, 12) mini-peanut butter cups from sjaak's, a giant handful of teriyaki jerky (bleah. for my sister.), a packet of chocolate mousse (supposedly "just add water," but i'm tempted to "just add soymilk" instead... hope i don't ruin it), a jumbo shaker of parma and a small bottle of flavored parma (who knew they had flavors?), something new called krinkle sticks, and something that is basically caramel pudding. these are the things i can remember off the top of my head. basically, i'm set on junk food for quite awhile.

on the way home, i stopped at whole foods to pick up the pumpkin spice silk. DENIED. i got cranky, turned on my heel, and walked out. i drove from there to the little market nearby (it's half-delicious restaurant, half-market), because my husband said that the thought he'd seen some there. DENIED. almost out of options at this point, i headed to the teensy tiny baby co-op sort of close to our home, and they had it!! i was shocked, and i made a big show to the co-op dude about how this was like the 4th or 5th place we'd looked, and hooray they were the only ones to stock it! i think he was part-excited, and part-irritated with me for trying a million other places before coming to his co-op. heh, i suck.

so then i came home and unloaded my enormous amount of vegan gluttony, and headed upstairs to assemble my new lamp. my old desk lamp (i think i bought it when i was in grad school, but i honestly can't remember right now) was one of those long lanky things, with the counter-balance dealie so you can make it taller or shorter, or angle it like you're interrogating someone. it has a wee halogen bulb, which isn't the most friendly light, and it also burns very hot, which can get annoying. so i've been wanting a new desk lamp for like, oh i don't know, three years? and today i decided i would buy one.

things i love about my new lamp: it has a simple silver base and a clean white lampshade. i have a 60 watt reveal bulb in there right now, and it gives off a much more pleasant light than the old one did. it looks pretty on my desk. the mood in the room is completely different. yay!

things that are already bugging the crap out of me about my new lamp: it has a pull chain instead of a flip-switch, and the amount of force needed to pull the chain is such that it almost knocks the entire lamp over. which is patently ridiculous, and you'd think a massive design flaw. so, i'll keep it there for a couple of days and see if i figure out a system. otherwise, back to the store it goes!

tonight i hope to try the pumpkin silk. the amount of build-up i've been giving this whole thing is kind of crazy, hey?

the search is on

thus far, pumpkin spice silk has eluded me... or, more specifically (and truthfully), it has eluded my husband. heh. but tomorrow i will venture out myself! i promise!

and not only will i head to whole foods (and beyond, if necessary) in search of the wily seasonal flavor, but i also vow to visit target in order to test-drive the winter coat vivaciousvegan found (mentioned in the comments on this entry). i meant to go on friday, but time got tight and i decided to put it off until tomorrow, when i will have less of a schedule to adhere to.

and not only THAT, but i will hopefully also pick up some cartons of the brand-newly-available condensed soymilk tomorrow, which i'm beyond excited about, because one of my very favorite pregan desserts was made with eagle brand condensed milk, which means i haven't eaten those suckers in three years.[/run-on]

so hopefully tomorrow i will have lots to crow about. yay!

on feeling misunderstood

it occurred to me recently that i've been feeling "out of the loop" lately. i had noticed it in a few distinct situations, but until it was pointed out to me, i didn't realize that it had kind of become a theme. i think i'm feeling kind of (or maybe even very) lonely these days, but i hadn't completely realized it, if that makes sense.

some of this began with grad school. i felt like my family didn't totally "get" what i was dealing with, and didn't fully comprehend my stress levels, especially as i moved from master's to doctoral work. of course when i started my doctorate, i also moved many states away from them, which probably exacerbated their "don't get it" problem, since they weren't as intricately involved in my day-to-day life. but since i had a nice network of grad school friends, that helped, because obviously we were all going through the same thing.

unfortunately, the crappiest thing about getting your phd is that at the end of it you have to get a job, which generally means that all of the extremely tight friendships you just forged over the past several years get split up, and everyone moves all over the country. i was "lucky" in that my husband and i magically got jobs back in my hometown (that really almost never happens), so i got to jump back into my at-home network... but i still had to deal with losing basically every one of my best friends. some of them were still in austin, finishing up, while others moved to california, north carolina, virginia, and others later moved to places like pennsylvania, ohio, and connecticut. several of those people have since moved to entirely different places. (over the summer, i got to see one of my closest friends from my phd program, and i hadn't seen her in almost four years.) it sucks.

because now you're in this new stressful situation (grad school is over but the even-crappier tenure track has begun), and the people who most "get it" are scattered all over the place and totally stressed out themselves. i felt like i had my whole support system ripped away from me, and i hated it. i was back with my family and my friends from home, but again i felt like people didn't really grasp what my life was like. i think that our flexible schedules and somewhat idyllic-sounding career obscure the fact that we're like the proverbial ducks, paddling for our lives just beneath the surface. for the past seven years my entire existence has been devoted to the fact that i have a huge hurdle to jump over, and if i don't, i'm fired. and probably have to move away. bleah.

and i know i shouldn't whine and be all, But People Just Don't UnderSTAND, because the other part of my problem is that i kind of hate talking about it, so this is at least partially my own fault. when i try to explain to my friends or my family about how stressed i am, i feel like i'm whining and carrying on and dominating the conversation, and that makes me really uncomfortable, so a lot of times i just keep it to myself. so i guess this is a bit of a vicious cycle and all that.

so anyway what i'm saying is that this whole "feeling misunderstood" and "being lonely" thing is a long time in the making. but then three years ago, i went vegan, and added a new layer to the story. because now on top of feeling weirdly isolated from my friends and family based on all the stuff i just said above, i had taken what probably seemed like a huge step "away" from them by going vegan. and as almost everyone reading this blog probably knows, you go through this phase of just being outraged at all of the cruelty you see, wherever you look, and it feels overwhelming sometimes. and we all come up with our own ways of dealing with that, but inevitably some of that crankiness finds its way into our interactions with our non-vegan friends and family--not directed AT them, necessarily, but leaking out in our conversations. and then we feel weird and awkward, and wonder if we should have said that, and vow to keep our traps shut next time, and blah blah blah. or maybe i shouldn't project--maybe this isn't everyone's experience, but it has definitely been mine.

so over the past three years, i have felt extremely self-reflective and probably over-analytical about my interactions with the non-vegans in my life (of which there are many). i'm constantly hemming and hawing over what to say and how to say it, or when to just let things go. i joined vegan message boards (and started this blog) not only in an attempt to find community (therefore feeling less weird/isolated) but also to have a place to vent so that i wouldn't irritate the crap out of my friends and family--so i wouldn't be That Vegan.

i'm not sure that i've done a good enough job of that. my mother has told me (and i've blogged about this before) that my family is uncomfortable talking about things in front of me; that i make family dinners awkward. i have had the distinct feeling that i have "said too much" sometimes in conversations or emails with friends. i think i get on my husband's nerves sometimes. and the grand irony of it all is that i try SO hard to dial it back when i'm talking to non-vegans--i am SO cognizant of how my strong opinions are kind of "outside the norm" and i make such a conscious effort to take it from an 11 down to about a 3... but like i said, i have the feeling sometimes that i'm not doing a good enough job of that.

and then i swing over to, well why should i? why should i feel so much pressure to not be myself? because isn't that precisely my problem? that i feel misunderstood and lonely? and aren't i just contributing to that by keeping things inside and not talking about what i'm going through and what's important to me?

but then, if i share TOO much am i not in danger of driving people away? i think i am. which is why i typically err on the side of caution, i guess.

i also wonder if i'm making too much of this. i am probably far from the only person who feels like no one really gets them, and/or truly likes them for who they are. i would imagine that's part of the struggle of being individuals--we're all different, so we all feel alienated or isolated in some way. but it's been a huge issue for me lately, and as i said at the beginning of this post, i didn't realize it was a theme in my life until it was pointed out to me. and now i'm not entirely sure what to do about it. i feel isolated or "detached" from nearly everyone in my life, but often for completely different reasons. it sucks, though, because i love all of those people and i want nothing more than close, snuggly, warm relationships with all of them.

anyhow, i'm sorry for "breaking character" a bit. i've been thinking about all of this for the past week or so, and i know it's kind of personal and heavy and weird, but i felt like if i wrote it all down, it might help me get a little more perspective on things.

fancy brows

since i'm doing spa night tonight, i decided to round out my day of pampering by going to get my eyebrows threaded this afternoon. i've only had it done twice before (once last year sometime, and once over the summer), but the whole thing just fascinates me for some reason. the fact that they do it all with just a long piece of string is kind of amazing to me. i also get a kick out of the fact that they have to hold the thread with their teeth.

it used to be that there was only one woman in our entire metropolitan area who did it, but i recently found a guy who does it just a mile or two away from my house. he's very nice and, hilariously, he thinks i have just fantastic eyebrows (hee!!), so i think i'm going to get it done more regularly. i am one of those people who is really meticulous about her eyebrows--i tweeze every day--so this is a nice shortcut/headstart.

not a lot of veganism in this post, i'm afraid, but i have to run out the door so that's what you're getting!

spa night

tomorrow night, i will be going to "spa night" with a group of my high school girlfriends. one of them works at the salon, and basically we'll get to go there after-hours and get pampered while also hanging out, eating, and drinking. yay! we got to pick which services we wanted, so i chose a pedicure (always my favorite), a massage (this will be my only my second massage ever), and a facial (this will be my first). this week has been crazy-super-stressful, so i'm really looking forward to it.

usually at these spa nights, the salon supplies all of the food and drinks... but i got the heads up that we can bring in vegan dips and whatnot, too. my friend who works at the salon volunteered to make stuff, which was extremely sweet of her, but i figure i've got stuff kicking around my house (or on my grocery list) already, so i'll take care of it myself. tomorrow, when i go to the store to buy some pumpkin spice soymilk (heh), i'll also be picking up some hummus and other fixin's for dips. i'm going to try to keep it very simple, but we'll just see what i come up with. any tried and true super-easy dips to recommend?

snuggly autumn soymilk

i just (literally moments ago) learned that silk has a new seasonal flavor on the market: pumpkin spice. has anyone seen this already? or better yet, tried it? i found this review online, which makes it sound pretty tasty... and one of my VRF pals just called it liquid crack. i have a relatively newfound love of pumpkin (helped in large part by isa), so i'm pretty excited about this  development. i'm already "in" for the night, but i'm almost tempted to wander out into the grocery wilderness anyway.

the pigeon update

i'm very sorry to report that my sweet pigeon is no longer with us. i spoke to the humane society this morning, and they said her wing was severely fractured, and there just wasn't a whole lot they could do for her. she was euthanized.

thank you all for your comments and support on my previous post. i know that several of you had ideas about whether euthanasia would be necessary, and right now i don't have the heart to google around and do the research, because i feel too sad about this poor bird. for right now i'm going to have to take my wildlife rehabber at his word, and maybe later i'll look into it.

right now i'll just focus on how, if she had to die, it was much better to die in a quiet, safe, painless way than to get run over by a car, or starve to death in the cold. *sniff*

the pigeon rescue

today i volunteered at the humane society, as i do every monday. i called my husband as i was pulling out of their parking lot, headed home, and not two minutes later i was saying to him, "oh my god, oh no, pigeon in the middle of the street, why, why is she just standing there, oh no, this isn't good, have to call you back."

she was standing right smack in the middle of one of our city's busiest streets, and we were moving toward rush hour. she could walk, but i couldn't tell if she could fly. there wasn't anyplace to pull over right where she was, so i had to drive past her a little bit and swerve into a parking lot for CUSTOMERS ONLY, which i simply ignored and figured it'd be fine. as i parked the car i noticed that she had hustled over to the tiny median, and was safe for the time being. i saw her flap her wings, but she didn't seem able to actually fly. poor baby.

i jumped out of my car, thanked my lucky stars that i had one of those collapsible cardboard animal carriers in the trunk, and quickly set about trying to figure out how to turn this flat piece of cardboard into a secure box. as soon as i accomplished that, i ran out to try to catch her on the median.

unfortunately, as you might imagine, she didn't think i was too cool. she had just spent who knows how long being terrified and avoiding cars zooming at her, and now there was a scary person walking right up to her with a box. i was hoping to get close enough to simply pick her up, but she was having none of that, and unfortunately she hopped off the median and right back into traffic. i weighed my options... take it slow and risk getting both of us hit? try to "scare her" more so i could shoo her out of traffic and on to the much quieter side street? i was terrified that i was going to give her a heart attack while trying to help her.

as i was about to step into the street to try once again to pick her up, i noticed that there were a few cars coming. i stayed on the median with my box, and i motioned to the oncoming traffic that they should slow down, and i pointed at the pigeon. the first driver to reach me appeared to be a complete and total assclown, because not only did s/he not slow down, but s/he maintained speed AND drove right at the poor bird. it was almost as if s/he were trying to hit the pigeon. the poor girl's face was millimeters from the car's tires, i swear to all that is true, and i saw her pitch forward from the force and then desperately flap her wings to keep herself from toppling face-first into the rear tires. it was one of the scariest things i had ever seen in my life, and i felt totally helpless, and then once it was over and i realized she didn't get run over, i was PISSED off. i totally screamed at the car like a crazy person. the next car, however, had a much nicer driver, who both slowed down and gave the pigeon a wide berth. whew.

after that drama, i proceeded into the street and continued to shoo the bird toward the side street, a curb, and a large patch of grass. once we were both safely off of the busy street, i felt a lot better. she was still not too interested in letting me get close, though. she stayed just a step ahead of me at all times, and once when i got too close she flapped her wings and got a little bit of lift to shove herself a bit further ahead. her right wing was definitely injured, but it was hard to say how badly.

eventually i got close enough to wrangle the box up over her head and in front of her, which freaked her out momentarily, but then she just hopped right in. hooray! i righted the box, peered in at her and said really nice things in what i hoped were soothing tones, and then i closed the carrier and took her back to my car. i think my heart was going a mile a minute; i was shaking and everything.

the good news is that i was so close to the humane society, and she didn't have to be scared for long. she was obviously baffled by being inside of a box and inside of a car (i could hear her flap for balance when we would start moving, or turn), but she handled it pretty well. i brought her inside, and got her checked into our wildlife rehab, and now all i can do is wait. the people who checked her in said that some wing breaks are pretty serious, and they just won't heal right, so in those cases the bird has to be put to sleep. but other breaks are "no big deal," and can heal very well, so in those cases they just get bandaged up and taken care of until it's all better and they can be released.

after i first brought her in, they let her relax and warm up for a little while, and they gave her something for the pain, and then she was supposed to have a full exam this evening. i will likely get an update tomorrow, so i will post again when i have more news. please keep your fingers crossed!

sometimes people are really nice

last weekend i went to chicago for a small conference. basically, i'm on the editorial board for a new textbook, so 12 of the reviewers (me included) went to chicago to talk to the author and three reps from the publishing company. we spent part of friday and all of saturday and sunday together. it was actually a pretty good time; there was networking and great teaching ideas being thrown around, and the group seemed to get along quite well.

anyway, part of the weekend involved the publisher reps being ridiculously generous. they put us all up in a nice hotel downtown, and they threw food at us every few hours, no kidding. free breakfast in the hotel restaurant each morning, gigantic delivery of "mid-morning snacks" with coffee, tea, juice, soda, and so forth. a couple of hours after that, a new delivery of lunch, with a spread that could have easily fed twice the amount of people that were there. on saturday night, we were treated to a really swanky dinner at blackbird.

when i learned that we'd be going to a fancy dinner (about a month or so ahead of time), i talked to one of the publisher reps and told her that i'm vegan. i made it really easy for her; told her i had friends in chicago and could "opt out" of the dinner if it was too tough (which was the truth). but in return, she was ridiculously sweet and told me that i would not go without; that she knew the chef and she would make sure there was something fabulous for me. so then i decided i'd better tell her about how i hate mushrooms and eggplant (since those seem to be the go-to items when chefs try to feed vegans), and she assured me it would be no problem.

well, that tiny email interaction seemed to magically turn this wonderful woman into my vegan fairy godmother. at every single instance where food happened (read: often), she walked me through which things were vegan and which things to avoid. she always made sure there was plenty for me to eat, and she always checked with me afterward to make sure i was okay. i felt like a princess. she also told me on friday that she had met with the chef at blackbird that day, and she had seen the menu he'd prepared for me, and she thought it looked so delicious that she was planning to order all of it herself. hee.

when we arrived at the restaurant on saturday night, we were guided to our private room upstairs and everyone was given champagne to toast ourselves. again i was "the weirdo" because i don't drink, but as soon as she realized this, my sweet vegan fairy godmother hustled over behind the bar to make sure someone brought me sparkling cider. so cute! eventually we made our way to the table, where we had custom menus at each plate. they were going to be serving us four courses, each one with a wine (and for me: more sparkling cider!). for every course you could choose between two things--one was vegan, one was not. they weren't labeled that way, so most people had absolutely no idea (except for me and my fairy godmother). i thought that was a nice touch, and it seemed to pay off--for three of the four courses, i'd say about half the table ordered the vegan option. awesome.

so like i said, this was a fancy place, and they started the meal off with an amuse-bouche, which i had never heard of in my life, but basically it's a darling little morsel of flavors that are meant to meld well and excite your palate, as it were. they put one down in front of each of us, and then started to explain what it was before we dug in. as the server started by saying, "the amuse-bouche includes a scallop," i went all, "ew" in my head, but then realized mine looked different from everyone else's. yay! as soon as he was done explaining to the table what they had--like, literally, the nanosecond he was finished--he hustled over to my chair to discreetly explain mine to me. it was basically a little mousse of parsnips accompanied by shredded pomelo with almonds, and i think there was something else but i was a jerk and didn't write it down and now that was a week ago. oh wait! i might remember... maybe mint? anyway, it was gone in two or three bites (i was being dainty) and it was very good.

for the formal courses, i can tell you exactly what i had, because i totally brought the menu home, oh yes i did. here you go!

first
white sesame seed soup with fennel, candied black olives, and red grapes

this soup was delicious, and i hate olives so that's really saying something. it was very creamy and really yummy for a crisp fall evening.

second
warm salad of braised chestnuts, pea tendrils, and sassafras caramel

i think this was my favorite course. i'm pretty sure the salad also had warm apples in it. this seriously tasted like dessert, and i mean that with total affection. i would have eaten a mammoth bowl of this salad and been perfectly happy, although of course i'm glad i got to eat all the other stuff too!

third
smoked lentils with quince puree, spaghetti squash, and chinese broccoli

i am not usually a fan of the "smoked" flavor, but when eaten with the quince puree it was an interesting combination of tastes. i adore spaghetti squash, so that was pretty exciting, and i'd never had chinese broccoli before. verdict: yum.

fourth
green apple sorbet with local apples, juniper, and cilantro

this was really interesting. lots of different flavors in here, and definitely the swankiest "ice cream" i've ever had.

all in all, it was a wonderful meal and i felt totally spoiled. i was so happy to have a fairy godmother. she was just the best. also, just speaking in generalities... this is the second time i've "had to" go to a really nice restaurant, and contacted the chef ahead of time (the first time i had to go to a french restauarant--heavy on the butter and cream and meat--and i was terrified i wouldn't be able to order anything and i'd look like a weirdo to my dinner companions), and both times it has worked out tremendously. so never underestimate the generosity of a good chef! i think they enjoy the challenge of coming up with something new--it's kind of like their own private episode of iron chef.

RIP roberti

very late last night, right before i went to bed, i learned that roberti steer died yesterday. this news made me extremely sad, because i had the good fortune of spending time with roberti about a year ago, when my husband and i visited the california farm sanctuary. he was the most enormous steer i had ever stood next to, and yet he was gentle and kind. my husband took a picture of me standing with him, and i have a huge goofy smile on my face. in the past year, i have shared that photo with countless friends, family members, and colleauges. when i look at the picture, it's like a shortcut to all of the happy memories of that day. so when i read sarah's post last night, my heart broke. poor, sweet roberti. and poor everyone who ever met and loved him.