vegan chai

ed! begley! jr!

so, i slept for 12 hours and then sat around like a lump today, all in preparation for feeling well enough to go see ed begley jr. speak on campus tonight. i'm proud to say that although i'm not tons better, i still managed to shower and feel human enough to go. yay!

we got there about 30 minutes early, and oddly enough the room was filling mostly around the center aisle, so we were able to snag seats in the second row, just 4 seats off the aisle. awesome. we chatted while we waited for the start time to roll around, and then right before it was supposed to begin, he walked along a giant wall of windows next to the ballroom. i (very predictably) spazzed, smacking my husband's leg to my right AND my friend's leg to my left, all "lookit, lookit, there he is!" and everything. i am SUCH a dork. ed waved. hee.

the talk was really good--he "lectured" for about 45 minutes on environmental ed begley stuff, and then there was a Q&A for at least another 30 minutes. afterward he did a book signing for his new book living like ed, and my husband and i got in line. i was totally nervous--i am seriously so clueless about meeting famous people--but it turned out okay. he is extremely down to earth, and very nice. when i approached the table, honest to god, he stuck out his hand and said, "hi, i'm ed." heh. i introduced myself and we exchanged pleasantries while he signed my book. i asked if he would take a picture with me (he had done so with a bunch of people already, so i figured it was all right to ask), and he very nicely obliged. my husband took our picture, then introduced himself to ed who was totally sweet all over again.

afterward i completely geeked out in the hallway. i'm so psyched.

feeling cruddy

very late on tuesday night (whilst staying up much too late watching teevy) i suddenly realized that i had a scratchy throat. i decided to hope that it was a went-out-to-eat-in-a-large-group-and-talked-and-laughed-too-much kind of scratchy throat, rather than an oh-crap-i'm-getting-sick kind of scratchy throat, and tried to ignore it. unfortunately, when i woke up wednesday morning, it was still there and it didn't let up at all. boo! it is still with me today, along with a vague grossness in the sinus area and a general sense of bleah. because i'm me, i also have gotten not-nearly-enough sleep the past two nights, which i'm sure isn't helping matters.

oh! and i have no idea if this is related or not, but for the past several days i have been super-sensitive to smells. not like a bionic sense of smell, but rather, most smells smell disgusting to me. today i walked through a stairwell that was being mopped and i couldn't stomach the cleaning solution smell; i actually had to hold my breath and think happy thoughts. same with car exhaust, and something else i'm forgetting.

today i had to get up super-early (for me) and then was busy busy busy all day long. when i finally came home at 5.30pm, i was really tempted to take a nap. when i walked upstairs and saw both kitties snuggled on the bed, that sealed the deal. i slept for maybe 60-90 minutes, and i think it helped a little. my throat still sucked, but i felt a little more human.

the most frustrating part is that i know full well i'm not taking super-great care of myself. as i mentioned already, not very good sleeping habits lately, and then there's the fact that i've only had one actual meal today (along with some random unplanned grazing), and my exercise routine is completely kaput. i don't want this to turn into whatever creeping crud has been going around absolutely EVERYWHERE lately, so i'm trying to figure out if there's any way to nip it in the bud at this point. i don't have anything scheduled during the day tomorrow--should i just sleep for 14 hours straight? would that help? is there a magical juice i can drink? should i just make an enormous pot of mac & cheeze and eat myself into a comfort food coma? big decisions.

in happier news, tomorrow night i'm going to see ed! begley! jr! and i am BEYOND excited. if i get to meet him, you can absolutely count on an embarrassing tale of woe this time tomorrow night. i'm a complete moron when i meet famous people.

yet another new look

i changed my template again. i'm the kind of kid who changed her bedroom around every four months growing up, so i can almost never resist when typepad releases new themes. i think this one is purty; hope you like it. then again, i have no idea how many people actually read my posts ON the site (versus in a reader or something), so maybe none of you even know what the blog looks like in the first place. heh.

nutrilicious doughnut holes

i had a nutrilicious doughnut a long time ago (i'd say at least two year ago), and i'll be honest, i don't really remember much about it. i think the idea of a single-serve doughnut seemed sad to me. i got mine from vegan essentials, but i think in my mind, doughnuts are the kind of things you should walk in, pick out of the case, and eat with wild abandon. alas, we don't have a mighty-o here in town, so i haven't been doing much doughnut-eating lately.

but!

i just found out that our local whole foods carries nutrilicious doughnut holes (sold in packs of 12), and i've heard nothing but good things about them. so last night, on my shopping field trip, i grabbed a box of the plain glazed and brought them home. i tried two of them for breakfast this morning (such restraint!) and they were super-delicious. frankly, i'd like to go back downstairs and eat the rest of the box right now. they taste like junk food without tasting overly processed. mmmm. the next time i'm out and about, i'll definitely pick up one or two of the other flavors.

if you're curious, the shopping field trip went really well! we spent about an hour wandering around pointing at things, giving advice, and sharing our favorites (and our not-so-favorites). i think they both found it really helpful. it was totally fun; definitely something i'd do again!

i see you, dartmouth sophomore

i keep getting hits on one of my posts from a facebook profile page... but since i'm not "friends" with the owner of said facebook page, i can't see why i'm being linked to. i have to admit, the curiosity is killing me. for the record, it's linking to my softest kitten in the world entry. speaking of which, he went up for adoption last week, and my heart hurt when his picture disappeared from the page. i really wanted him. boo hoo, poor me.

shopping field trip

tomorrow night i'm taking a couple of trying-to-be-vegans grocery shopping. we were in a small group last week and the idea just blurted out of my mouth, and a plan was born. there will probably be three or four other vegans with me, so it should be a good time. i'm hoping it's a useful way to help them see what's out there, what ingredients to watch out for, share our favorites (and warn them away from things that are gross), all that good stuff. after the shopping trip, we're all going out for yummy vegan dinner. i'm totally stoked.

i honestly think that SO much of getting over the hump (really feeling like you've "gone vegan") is just figuring things out--what to eat, what to substitute, what brands are good... and that can be super overwhelming if you don't even know where to start. i want to be everyone's Vegan Tutor. it just seems like a fun thing to do. wish me luck!

chocopod

i discovered a new chonklit the other day when i was browsing the campus bookstore (of all places)... it's called chocopod, and it's basically a small piece of chocolate that comes in various flavors. the one i picked up, nutmeg (spiced with nutmeg and cardamom), was vegan, so i bought it. i hoped it might remind me of chai. i have no willpower whatsoever when it comes to chocolate, so i ate it right away. it was quite tasty! not cheap by any means, but very yummy.

i'm going to keep my eyes open and look for more flavors... the intarweb hasn't been super-helpful thus far with ingredients, but maybe there are other vegan options in their line (the spicy maya looks potentially promising). here's a review of a bunch of flavors if you're so inclined.

first impressions

a couple of weeks ago, i accidentally left my flash drive in the lecture hall. it's a 4.0gb drive, and it's also got the most current versions (and sometimes the ONLY versions) of nearly everything on my computers right now, so it's not exactly the kind of thing i wanted to lose. i am usually super-careful about stuff like this, but on that particular day i was a little distracted. the keyboard tray had fallen out of the podium(!), so i was trying to get some help putting it back together, and i also had a couple of students come up to talk to me after class. in all of the hubbub i guess i just misplaced my wee little drive. *sniff*

immediately after lecture, i always have a staff meeting with my TAs, which takes anywhere from 60-90 minutes, so i didn't notice that my drive was missing at first. after the meeting, i was back in my office getting ready for another meeting that night, when i suddenly realized i didn't have it. i panicked, then realized it was probably in the lecture hall downstairs. i resolved to grab it on my way out to the evening meeting. once i got downstairs, though, there was a class going on (which i totally didn't expect), so i hemmed and hawed for a moment, wondering if i should just go in anyway, but in the end i decided against it because i was afraid of being disruptive. i went to my meeting across campus, and figured i'd get into the lecture hall afterward.

unfortunately, that meeting went a lot later than i thought it would, and i didn't make it back to my building until after 10.30pm. by that time the night class was over, and whomever is in charge of such things had already come around and locked the room up tight. boo! we were gearing up for a huge winter storm, and i was a little afraid that school would be cancelled the next day, so i was kind of desperate to get in there. i ended up calling campus police, who sent an officer over to let me into the room... except that he couldn't, because his keys wouldn't work. he tried every single key on his comically-enormous keyring, twice, and none of them worked. it was very frustrating (for both of us!), and i decided to put a sign on the doors of the lecture hall (for whomever would open it the next morning) and hope for the best.

the next day they DID end up cancelling school, but i had to go to campus anyway to watch a job talk, and i went to my building afterward to try to get in the room again. my signs had been moved (no idea why), but the doors were still locked. there were no janitors to be found, and the guy that holds the keys to every room in our complex had left for the day, too. i was still totally freaked out because i didn't really know if my flash drive was still in the room (and thus safe for now) or if it had been taken. as my husband and i stood in the hallway debating what to do next, a voice from a nearby office said, "can i help you guys with something?"

the voice belonged to an assistant dean, and after i told him my story, he said, "oh i really feel for you! the same thing happened to me at the end of last semester, and by the time i got back into the lecture hall, my drive had been stolen." i was all, aw crap, and he was all, i know, right?, and then he offered to figure out how to help me. he was super-nice.

we spent about ten minutes with him while he figured out if he could access a set of master keys, and when that proved unsuccessful, he looked up everyone who teaches in that lecture hall and wrote down all of their names and departments for me so that i could follow up with them. he was very sympathetic and friendly. we joked around and he wished me well on my key quest. i committed his name to memory and was all, "that dude was awesome!"

after we got back to my office, my husband suggested calling classroom support (who deals with technology stuff and has keys to all of the mediated classrooms), and i was kind of skeptical since classes were cancelled that day, but we tried and sure enough, there was someone there! within ten minutes he was letting me into the room, and wonder of wonders, my flash drive was there safe and sound. hooray!! as i said at the time, "i have never been so happy to see a little piece of plastic in my entire life."

ever since, i've been meaning to email the cool assistant dean who helped me out, just to tell him about my happy ending and let him know how grateful i was for his help. it's just that i keep forgetting to do it. two weeks went by, and i still hadn't done it, so i wanted to deal with it before it got to the point of being lame for emailing him so late. so the other day, i looked him up in our campus white pages, and got an email address for him. i also got a home department for him--psychology--and realized that i was surprised i hadn't recognized his name in the first place. i know a lot of the names from that department, because they're across the street from us, and my interests overlap with some of their interests, and so i at least recognize a lot of the names even if i don't actually know the people. so out of sheer curiosity, i was all, hey i wonder what mr. supercoolfriendly dude studies! i'ma look him up!, and i went to his faculty page and then his website.

big mistake.

mr. supercoolfriendly totally runs a rat lab, and studies rat brains (as a way of pseudo-studying human brains), and is basically a big ol' animal tester. i don't even know how to describe how i felt when this dawned on me. on one hand, it obviously doesn't change the fact that he was extremely nice and helpful a couple of weeks ago, but on the other hand, it totally gives me a stomach ache and makes me not want to be his friend anymore. sigh. i haven't written that email yet.

i'm a robin ninja now

so today on the way into my building (on campus), i heard a robin tweety-tweeting, and looked up. sure enough, there were about eight of them in a tree nearby. i'm guessing it's the same group (we were about three blocks away from where i saw yesterday's flock), but who knows. a couple of hours later, when leaving the building, i heard a robin way up in a tree across the street. i'm crazy-alert for robin chirps right now; it's hilarious.

winter flock

this afternoon, i was walking across campus when i suddenly noticed a robin in a nearby tree. we've been experiencing crazy amounts of snow (and sub-zero temperatures) lately, and there are snowbanks that resemble rock-solid icebergs all over the place, so the robin definitely surprised me. i pointed him out to the person walking with me, and we stopped to wonder at him a bit. suddenly we noticed that he wasn't alone--there were three other robins in the same snow-covered berry tree. they were flitting around a bit, eating, and as we stood still watching them, we realized that there were a couple more robins in a nearby bush. then one flew over from across the street, and another. i looked across and saw three or four high up in a tree. there were probably at least a dozen robins around us, and you practically could have knocked me over with a feather. honestly, words cannot describe how grotesquely wintry it is right now. freezing cold, icy sidewalks, snow all over everything, the whole deal. a flock of robins with their cute orange tummies was such a shocker!

as we were talking about how crazy it was, i suddenly remembered the other campus robin--the one i heard singing at night, in a snowstorm, on december 4th. i'm willing to bet she's in this little gang, since i heard her only a block or two away from where we saw this bunch today.

this time i decided i should probably hit up the google, because i really didn't know that robins stuck around for winter. i've lived here practically all my life and we always go through the whole hooray! first robin  of spring! ritual. anyhow, the google did not disappoint. it seems that while many robins do fly south in autumn, there are a few who hang out in the snowy areas. evidently robins have crazy-high body temps, and if they find a spot where they can eat oodles of berries, they're all good for the duration. i never knew that!

i'm totally keeping my eyes peeled from now on. i love robins. my only regret is that i didn't have my camera today--i could have gotten some really good shots.

ready for preschool

holy smokes, my blog is three years old today! going to kindergarten next year! as you will see from my inaugural post, i had zero plan when i started this adventure. truth be told, i'm still not entirely sure what my purpose is, but i do enjoy having a place to blurt things out, and i'm glad at least someone is interested in listening. thanks, everyone!

witty rejoinders

why, why, why, WHY do so many omnis feel compelled to: (a) comment on stories about animal cruelty or veg*nism, but then (b) have nothing intelligent to say other than, "mmmmm... meat!" seriously, i've seen this a jillion times (most recently tonight, in the responses to this article) and it drives me bonkers. i have had to train myself to just roll my eyes and move along, but good lord that is an obnoxiously stupid response. why comment at all? what does "mmmm... meat!" accomplish? all it really does is prove the point that you're selfish and lazy and unwilling to think about the more complicated issues of what you're eating and whether it's really a morally defensible thing to do.[/cranky rant]

how people find blogs

i think that blog-tracking is very interesting, mostly because i don't totally understand it and also because there are so many tracking sites out there that it kind of blows my mind. for instance, a month or so ago i wrote a post called indulging my iCrush, and for some crazy reason it ended up on some apple blog tracker and i got like eleventy billion hits that weekend. (for anyone who's wondering... oh my LORD do i ever heart my macbook pro. loooove.)

in other news, i just found out that my post from last night is ranked #4 on greenstomach.com today, which tracks stories and posts about vegetarian food each day. who knew?! not me, that's who.

the only blog tracker that i know i'm on regularly (and i love them for it!) is VegBlogs. they are very sweet to track me, and also i adore their cute little rabbit mascot (scroll to the bottom of that page, if you're unfamiliar). i want him on a t-shirt.

so how did you find me? i know a couple of you know me IRL, and a handful of you know me from VRF, but i get a lot more page views in a day than i get comments, which means There Are Others. hee. i'm guessing that the rest of you just stumbled in from the intarwebs somewhere...? i think thus far, i have mostly found my regular reads via serendipity, but i like the idea that there are people out there organizing these things. it appeals to my dying-to-be-ultra-organized nature.

the price of veganism

sometimes, when it comes to explaining the benefits of veganism, i'm not very good at thinking on my feet while simultaneously remaining causal. i either falter and can't think of the intelligent thing to say, or i know exactly what to say but i end up getting too fired up about it.

the other day i was talking to a lacto-ovo who is near and dear to my heart, and she is extremely vegan-leaning (especially outside of the diet issue), but not vegan. i think she'd really like to get there in theory, but she has thus far figured out lots of reasons not to. i haven't judged her and i haven't pushed her. but the other day, she let me know that she'd finally found a soymilk she could stand, and told me that there hadn't been any cow's milk in the house for several days. we chatted about that and some adjacent topics for awhile, when she suddenly said, "but i just couldn't give up my candy." i said, "are you kidding me? i eat candy constantly! just this afternoon i ate way more candy than i should admit," to which she replied, "yeah, well, you guys have a lot more expendable income than we do."

i didn't even know what to say to that. i really don't see veganism as expensive. am i clueless? i mean in all honesty, i eat lots and lots and lots of the exact same stuff i ate before (i.e., when i was lacto-ovo)... just without the cheese. i mean i guess vegan sour cream might cost more than dairy sour cream, but i've scaled back a lot on my sour cream consumption in general, so maybe i'm not noticing price hikes like i should. but i was kind of baffled and the only thing i could think of to say was, "beans and rice are pretty cheap, dude," and that sounded cranky so instead i allowed whatever interruption had just occurred to create a change in topic.

i'd kind of like to revisit the topic with her, though. does anyone know if there good sources that talk about the money issue, and whether it's "expensive to be vegan" or if that's just a myth?

chocolate cake

i'm having the worst craving for chocolate cake (or chocolate cupcakes--i'm not fussy) right now. the only thing keeping me from baking is the absolute certainty that i would eat it all in one bite. i have this super-easy chocolate cake recipe, and i like to frost it with vegan buttercream frosting (from VCTOTW) and then dot it with chocolate chips. it's cute AND delicious! oh god, i want to make a cake.

*shakes fist in the general direction of superwife*

miscellany

i'm in a weird mood and i'm not sure what to say after last night's emotional (for me) entry, so i am just going to have a palate-cleanser post about random stuff.

i wore my glasses today for the first time in awhile. i wear contacts every day, because i like them SO much better than glasses (no fogging up! no getting grimy! actually having peripheral vision!), but i also adore my glasses because they're cute. hee. so i wore them today, but now i have a little bit of a headache. it's weird, but i feel like i see differently through glasses than through contacts, and that makes my brain confused. i'll go back to my contacts tomorrow.

two days later and i'm still heartbroken that josiah didn't make it into american idol's top 24. i spent a little time this evening discovering several of his original songs on youtube, and i'm serious: i would buy his CD right this instant. someone please sign him. he is the perfect storm of everything i like: endearingly awkward, kind of weird voice, not afraid to do his own thing, talented musician, nifty lyricist. oh josiah, words cannot describe my disappointment. i hope you go back home and stop living in your car. and i hope someone signs you.

i've been watching our humane society's website for the softest kitten in the world, and to my knowledge he hasn't made an appearance yet. with any luck (i'm so selfish!) he'll still be there on monday and i'll get to snuzzle him again.

my blog reader has 27 unread entries right now. i've been working really hard at getting it down to zero--it was in the 100s and 200s recently, pretty regularly, so this is big progress! most of the unread entries are from one blog, so i'm hoping to have a power-reading session sometime soon and get it all under control. yay!

okay, i guess i'm out of random tidbits. maybe tomorrow i'll be more serious and organized. one can only hope.

eight years later

our gorgeous and hilarious cat, kody, turned 7 on february 9, 2000. unbeknownst to us, he had cancer.

over the next week he would stop eating entirely, and an ultrasound on valentine's day gave us the horrible news: his insides were covered in cancer, and there was really nothing we could do. we cried and cried, and waited while they gave him a shot of steroids so he would feel better while we tried to make him as comfortable as possible in his last weeks (or days, or months--they weren't sure). we didn't know what to do with ourselves; we were totally lost.

the steroid shot did a fantastic job and lifted his spirits--we took him home and watched him play for the first time in a long time. we allowed ourselves to hope. we dreaded having to make a decision about ending his life, and we just tried to squeeze as much love in as we could.

that very night, kody made the decision for us. he passed away in the middle of the night at the emergency vet, while we petted him and pleaded with him and cried on his glossy black fur. it was the worst i've ever felt in my life; just an overwhelming sense of total loss. i was confused, i felt robbed, i was terrified. my husband was inconsolable. our baby was gone, only just 7 years old, and his absence was unfair and impossible to deal with. my husband swore we would never adopt another animal, and although i knew different at the time, i definitely understood the sentiment.

valentine's day has never been the same.

six weeks later we met avery at a rural shelter in texas--a one-year old skinny ferret of a cat, completely laid back and mellow and sweet. we fell in love with him instantly and brought him home that day. it felt a little strange, but it also felt right, and he settled in right away. due to some funny coincidences and similarities between them, we have always half-joked that kody uses avery as a channel to communicate with us--that he "lives in avery's ear" and tells him things.

this morning avery was extremely talkative and insistent--which is part of his personality, to be sure, but this morning was different. he twitched his ear in that funny way that he does when we joke that kody is telling him something, and i felt a little pang. this evening when i got home, avery wouldn't leave me alone. he followed me everywhere, purring and standing as close as he could. when i sat on the couch, he smashed himself against me and stared into my eyes, pupils enormous, just purring. eventually finley caught on and joined him. i love my boys so much.

kody, we miss you, baby. happy valentine's day.

new PeTA commercials

yeah, yeah, i know that PeTA is everyone's favorite punching bag, but i have to say, i love this new commercial aimed at raising awareness for shelter dogs. the other two commercials on that page are pretty good, too. all three spots are part of a campaign to promote spaying & neutering our animal companions (or, as they're calling it, "animal birth control").

PeTA has a history of making provocative commercial spots (i guess they're not selling anything, so what are they really? PSAs? anyway.), and several of them stick out in my mind even a few years after i first saw them (online). my big question is: why don't i ever see these spots on television? am i watching the wrong channels? or do most networks just find them too controversial?

weirdness

i just wrote a post and published it, but it's not showing up on my actual blog. it's here in my control panel and everything, it's just not out there for you to see. this hasn't ever happened to me before, so now i'm in the "screw around with everything and just see if it eventually shoves through" phase. hee.

edited to add: two and a half hours later, and here they are! that was strange.

valentines for chained dogs

i'm going to point you toward gary's always-excellent blog today, because he shared some cool links to a fantastic organization and a great project: sending valentines to dogs that live outside on a chain. the valentines are often made by little kiddos, upping the adorable and heart-tugging factor, and i loved reading that several dogs were allowed to move inside after receiving a valentine.

i wasn't aware of this project until this afternoon, and now i'm sad that it's so late and i can't wrangle people into making valentines. i guess there's always next year (or hey, donations to help with postage and whatnot)!

in the meantime, if you know of a dog who lives outside, please jot down his or her address and submit it to dogs deserve better. maybe a valentine will change his or her life. thanks!

softest kitten in the world

today at the humane society i had the pleasure of meeting two adorable kitten neighbors. one of them, in the kennel on the right, is sleek and black and tall. the very tippy-tip of his tail is white; it's awesome. he's still a baby, and he has those tiny snow-white kitten teeth, but his meow is hilariously old-man-like. he has a loud gravelly yell of a meow, and he never gets tired of talking. when i picked him up (FINALLY! he said) he purred and purred and hugged me on either side of my neck. love.

in the kennel to the left, his next door neighbor is a smaller, fluffier white and orange cutie. his meow is sweet and polite, mostly drowned out by his boisterous friend. for whatever reason i was even more strongly drawn to him than i was to the other kiddo, and when i opened his kennel door and reached in, i touched the Softest Kitten in the World, for reals. he feels like a cloud. i lifted him out of his kennel and snuggled him close, and he instantly melted into me, closed his eyes, and started purring. it was like he just said, "okay, be my mom." i can tell you right now that if i lived alone and had no other people or cats to consider, i would have brought that little boy home today. seriously. want want want!

corn & basil chowder, vegan-style

i just finished night two of corn chowder for dinner, and it's deee-licious! my husband veganized a recipe our friends gave us years ago, and it turned out fantastic. because i want to spread the joy, i'm going to share it here. eat up!

vegan corn & basil chowder

2 large potatoes, diced
1 large onion, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
6 cups veggie broth
4 cups corn, fresh or frozen
1/2 tsp thyme, crumbled
1 bay leaf
1 tsp salt
1 cup silk creamer
1/2 cup fresh chopped basil

saute onion and celery in a bit of earth balance or olive oil. add broth, potatoes, corn, thyme, bay leaf, & salt. simmer, covered, approximately 20 minutes or until tender.

discard bay leaf and transfer 2 cups of solid with a slotted spoon to blender. add creamer to blender and puree mixture.

add puree and basil to chowder and heat, stirring occasionally, until heated through. season with salt and pepper, and serve.

professional bull riding

can someone explain to me how bull riding has gone from an obnoxiously disgusting rodeo attraction to a corporate-sponsored festival of cruelty broadcast on major network teevy on a saturday afternoon? ugh. i was channel-surfing today and NBC was showing a 90-minute block of bull riding. it makes me sick to my stomach that this is considered a "sport" (please), not to mention harmless enough to broadcast during the family-friendly hours of a saturday afternoon.

i think this topic hits close to home for me because my dad watches this stuff, and it upsets and confuses me. my dad is one of the reasons i love animals so much. he always loved the outdoors, he adores animals both wild and domestic, and he taught me to appreciate nature at a very young age. when he met my stepmom, he made sure to introduce me to her right away because she had a horse and he knew i'd love to meet him. when they got married, he adopted a horse of his own, and loved that gigantic sweetie pie until he died (too young, from a sad and unexpected illness) a few years ago. they are still nurturing and caring for my stepmom's horse, who is 37 years old(!!), and yet he watches the rodeo on cable. wtf?

about ten years ago, my dad and stepmom came to visit us in texas, and we went to the houston livestock show & rodeo. there was a concert after the rodeo (which i guess is the way it works there), and my parents bought tickets for all of us. my husband and i begged off going to the rodeo portion, and my parents were very understanding, but attended anyway. it bugged me. they have also been incredibly understanding of my veganism--they don't poke fun, they try new recipes, and they have never EVER questioned why i'd want to make such choices. but yet: rodeo. i don't get it! i've sent them a few random things from SHARK over the past couple of years, but they have never mentioned it to me. i'm a coward i guess, because i haven't really broached the subject in person, but it still frustrates me.

anyway, back to major network television and the newfound success of bull riding: ARGH.

sneaky vegan lunch

today my mom and i went to the museum, and afterward she asked if i'd like to do lunch. she's omni (and somewhat clueless about what counts as a "vegan-friendly" restaurant) and she's also kind of picky, as far as food and drink options go. for instance, one of my favorite places doesn't serve "regular" soda, so she can't stand to go there. sigh.

i struggled with ideas for where we should go, and offered up a middle eastern buffet, the aforementioned favorite restaurant (she declined, heh), and noodles & co. she surprised me by being willing to check out the middle eastern buffet. i was happy about that, but also nervous in case she didn't like it. well, i needn't have worried, because she liked everything and went back for seconds on the falafel. but the best part was that i forgot until we surveyed the spread that the entire buffet is vegetarian, and nearly all of it is vegan. so the unexpected fun was that my mom had a totally vegan lunch. yay!

mocha surprise

you may recall that i'm currently working my way through three pounds of chocolate lentils. i have decided that the mint ones are my favorite, so for snacking purposes i'm saving them for last. several times over the past week, i've pulled out the giant bag of plain lentils and randomly snacked on them (probably much longer than i should, but that's beside the point). a few minutes ago, i noticed a different color in my handful of candy... it was more tan than orange. immediately my gut instinct was, "uh oh," but i'm an idiot so i ate it anyway. sure enough, it was a coffee lentil. barf.

i hate coffee (well the smell is great, but the taste is yuck), and i can taste it a mile away. you know those people who are always, "oh well it SAYS mocha but it doesn't taste like coffee to me at all," or "seriously, you won't be able to taste it!"... those people are wrong. i can always taste it. bleah. and yet i'm stupid enough to think, uh-oh, coffee lentil, and then put it in my mouth anyway. i had to drink a big swig of water and eat another handful of chocolate (oh, the horror! hee) to get rid of the taste.

mmmmm, soup

am i the only one addicted to amy's soups? especially the low-fat ones? i love the low-fat black bean, the low-fat split pea, and the low-fat vegetable barley. i also love the chili. i adore soup, but my husband isn't crazy about it so i haven't made it from scratch all that much (although i've had really good luck when i've tried!)... a giant mug of amy's makes me happy when i don't feel like having a sandwich for lunch. today it snowed a million billion inches, so i decided it was a soup day. and now you all get to hear about it!

product placement annoyance

every week on the biggest loser: couples, they do some kind of random-ass product placement. one week it amounted to a trainer telling everyone at the table how awesome extra sugar-free gum is, as she passed around the most enormous basket of gum you ever did see. i roll my eyes every time, because it's 20 seconds of stupid that you know they just have to pretend to enjoy, when really they're sitting there feeling awkward and silly, acting Super Interested In Gum (or instant oatmeal, or whatever. you get the point). i've never watched the biggest loser before this couples season, so i have no idea if they've always done this, or if it's special this year. anyway, it's dumb but i usually forget about it two minutes later.

welp, tonight's episode irritated me a lot more than usual, because tonight's product placement was milk. blah blah blah milk is SO healthy for you, you should drink three glasses a day for optimum health and weight loss, yadda yadda. argh. it really rubbed me the wrong way, yet it also drives home the idea that milk is a product (and is aggressively marketed to us) just like gum or instant oatmeal. i realize that most people have no idea that the dairy marketing campaigns suck so tremendously hard, but i do, so i'm easily frustrated.

anyhow, this little episode of crankiness reminded me that i've been meaning to share this column, written by greg lawson, for awhile now.

Truth or Dairy? by Greg Lawson

The dairy industry has convinced most of us that we need cow's milk and that we put our health at risk if we don't consume at least three glasses a day. Years ago, dairy promoters used the pitch lines "Everyone Needs Milk," and "Milk, It Does a Body Good." When challenged for the proof behind those ads, they couldn't dispute the fact that approximately 95 percent of Asian Americans, 74 percent of Native Americans, 70 percent of African Americans, 53 percent of Mexican Americans, and 15 percent of Caucasians are lactose intolerant. So they don't use those slogans anymore.

In major studies, dairy consumption has been linked to asthma, colic and ear infections in children and in studies of adults to cardiovascular disease, diabetes and several forms of hormonal cancers including prostate, breast and ovarian cancers. Does it sound like milk does a body good?

Most people believe the industry promoted myth "Milk Builds Strong Bones." Since it isn't true, the dairy dealers can't put it quite so simply anymore. Their current ads read "Calcium Builds Strong Bones, Milk Has Calcium," implying the conclusion that "milk builds strong bones." The logic of that argument is similar to saying "Humans Need Selenium, Dirt Has Selenium," and thus the conclusion "humans need to be eating dirt."

The Harvard Nurses’ Health Study, which followed more than 72,000 women for 18 years, found that the women who consumed the most milk had the most bone fractures. Similarly, Dr. T. Colin Campbell's China Study, one of the most comprehensive studies ever undertaken on diet and disease, found that the countries with the most dairy consumption had the highest rates of osteoporosis.

Animal protein, such as is in milk, makes the human body more acidic and calcium is leached from the bones to neutralize the pH. Plant sources of calcium, such as leafy greens, broccoli and sesame seeds are actually better sources of calcium than cow's milk and more easily absorbed. Studies have found that exercise and vitamin D are more important considerations for bone health than calcium intake.

The latest multi-million dollar campaign from the dairy industry featured the claim that milk helps a person lose weight. The “Milk Your Diet. Lose Weight” and “3-A-Day. Burn More Fat, Lose Weight” promotions have been running for the last several years. People have been eager to believe that a substance designed to help a baby calf gain a thousand pounds in a few months will somehow be the magic diet aid they are looking for.

"Recent studies have shown..." is the way these ads begin. Those recent studies were three small studies on groups of thirty people which lasted only a few weeks. The dairy industry paid over 2 million dollars to Michael Zemel, Ph.D., a professor of nutrition at the University of Tennessee, to find those results. Independent research has found that the consumption of dairy products either has little or no effect on weight loss or actually increases body weight.

In May of 2007 the Federal Trade Commission ruled that the dairy industry was using false and misleading advertising in its campaign which suggests milk causes weight loss. The National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board and the National Dairy Promotion and Research Board agreed to discontinue all advertising and other marketing activities involving weight-loss claims pending further research into the issue.

The dairy industry has "complied" with the FTC ruling by making slight changes to their "Milk Your Diet" campaign. Instead of saying "3 glasses of lowfat or fat free milk a day can help you lose weight," they now say in their televised ads and on their promotional webpages "Studies suggest the nutrients in 3 glasses of lowfat or fat free milk a day can help maintain a healthy weight."

Got Truth?

take that!, biggest loser product placement dudes.

hummus update

for what it's worth, i'm not super-crazy about the whole foods hummus. i mean, it's fine and all, but it doesn't hold a candle to my favorite. i know that this is probably on par with hummus sacrilege, but i tOtally love that athenos stuff. specifically, i love the athenos roasted red pepper flavor. it's awesome, awesome, awesome. i love it so much that we routinely buy the "party tub." i mean, i like hummus in general, and i'm not actually very picky about it, but i think i love the athenos roasted red pepper so much that any other roasted red pepper is going to be held to a very high standard.

i feel a little exposed, like i just admitted that i vastly prefer grease 2 to grease. which i SO TOTALLY DO.

squirrel on a mission

this morning i got in my car, and noticed a squirrel walking in the street. i saw him in my side mirror, so he was somewhere behind me. i love watching squirrels walk (as opposed to that cute pouncy/hoppy thing they do) so i watched him for a bit, but i was also a little concerned because he was carefully picking his way through some snowy tire tracks in the road. i wasn't sure why he was going so slowly; i was trying to look at each of his little feet to make sure he wasn't injured. eventually i couldn't see him anymore in the mirror, and my worry got the best of me, so i got back out of my car to get a better look.

once i stepped out of the car, i couldn't find him. we've had a lot of snow recently, so i was pretty sure he was just behind a pile somewhere, and i craned my neck around. eventually, poof!, there he was. he was on the sidewalk now, still walking very carefully. i thought he might be favoring his right front paw, but to be honest i wasn't totally certain of that. he walked directly into a little fenced-off area containing two or three restaurant dumpsters, and disappeared for a moment. a few seconds later he reappeared, with a HUGE piece of bread in his mouth. hee!

he started going back exactly the way he had come, deliberately marching back across the street, and then suddenly had a little spring in his step. as soon as he made it to the other curb, he shimmied all the way up the tree, sat in a high branch, and started nibbling on the bread. convinced that he was indeed okay, i got back in my car and started to leave. i paused underneath the tree to watch him through my moonroof for a minute, though. what a cutie!

more naked vaygun, please

i love the naked vaygun podcast so much that when i realized i was re-listening to an episode i had already heard in its entirety, i kept listening anyway. where are the new episodes, josh and isa? i miss you! i need to laugh!