vegan chai

on being a "flexitarian"

i read this article earlier today, and i rolled my eyes more than a couple of times. i really have a hard time with the "flexitarian" label. in fairness, the subtitle does say right up front that some people say that it's analogous to being "a little bit pregnant," so hooray for that acknowledgement, but there were still several quotes that made me cringe, especially those from dawn johnson blatner. like this one, for example:

"We know that people live longer and live healthier when they eat vegetarian, but it's just too darn hard to do it 100 percent of the time."

i mean, seriously, Come. On. plus, she totally contradicts herself a little bit later when she says:

Think how many Americans regularly eat peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, pasta, bean burritos and cheese pizzas as their main courses, says Blatner. "I do feel like that is a shocking thing, when you think about how much vegetarian food we eat without even trying."

so, um, great source? sigh. oh, she also says later in the article that people might be flexitarians without even realizing it! wow! you mean, people might eat whatever the hell they want, whenever they want, and not even know it? because really, that's all a "flexitarian" really is: someone who eats whatever. yippee.

seven years of bad luck

i broke a mirror today. it happened during my shift at the humane society, because i was rushing due to feeling self-conscious. argh. earlier in my shift i had gotten a big drink of water and then reapplied my lip balm, but there were people trying to get in the doorway i was standing next to, so i hastily dropped my little pouch back in my purse, all quick-style, without even zipping it closed. i never do that. my cute little pouch has only a few things in it, but they are small and important so i like to keep them contained: a lip balm, a tinted lip balm (for when i'm feeling fancy), a small pocket mirror, two flash drives, and a ponytail holder.

anyhow, later in my shift i returned for another drink of water and another shot of lip balm, and when i grabbed my pouch i forgot that i hadn't zipped it, and POW! crap all over the floor. my mirror fell, face up, and shattered the most perfect shattering you've ever seen--straight outward from the center, like a million slices of pizza. and to perfect the image, one perfect isosceles shard popped out and sat on the floor next to the mirror. i was so bummed. i loved that little kitty mirror! and seven years bad luck! ugh. i had to throw the kitty in the trash (*sniff*) and just hope for the best. when i got home, i ordered a new mirror, but since i was in for bad luck anyway, i went with a darker theme and chose the (adorable) raven. 

our first meet & greet

we took maia to a meet & greet at a petsmart today, in support of her greyhound group. there were four people and three dogs reprazentin' and it was an interesting experience. our town had a very busy day today--a big football game and a super-mega-big baseball game, both occurring at the same time as our meet & greet--but there was still a fair amount of foot traffic through the store. most people were really excited to meet the dogs, and the dogs were happy to be petted. 

maia was fantastic; extremely sweet and tolerant of everyone, including the aDORable puppy who stood up on his hind legs to put his front paws all over maia's face. she stood calmly like a champ--i think our cats have trained her well. she was also thoroughly inspected by two 6-month-old dachshund babies, and she just laid very still on the floor and let them sniff and step all over her. what a good girl! she continued her great streak with curious little kids, too--she is so patient and gentle with them, and she frequently wins over kids who are "afraid of dogs." i'm always really impressed with her when she gets into new situations like these and consistently proves herself; she's such a sweetheart. she also asked for belly rubs from many a stranger, and she wore the group's "donation jacket" because she's such an attention hound. she even made some bucks! by the time our two hours were up, she was totally whupped and just wanted to nap. you've just gotta love a lazy greyhound.

feeling detached

i'm in a little bit of a funk lately. i'm not sure exactly what my deal is, but i don't really feel like doing much of anything. i just want to sit around on my own, but then i feel bad about it, like i should be doing more. it's weird. i am feeling especially detached when it comes to activism stuff right now, and i don't know what that's about. all i can say is, i have never been less enthused about the idea of going to a protest. i know i've talked about this before--protests make me kind of nervous in general anyway--but lately i'm just completely meh about the whole thing. i don't know if it's that i feel like i'm not making a difference, or if it's that my philosophy is changing (i.e., what is effective activism, to me?), or if the fact that i'm feeling detached in general is making me less likely to head out and do social stuff like that. or maybe it's something else. all i know is, i had a hard time even deciding to sign up for the farm sanctuary walk this year, and i LOVE farm sanctuary. it's a little disorienting. i'm going to think on this some  more and try to figure out what's going on in my noggin. i'll get back to you if i come up with anything remotely interesting.

walking tomorrow

tomorrow looks like it's going to be a gorgeous day, high of 75 degrees, which should be wonderful for the farm sanctuary walk. yay! i ended up raising "only" 65% of my goal, but my goal was pretty high ($1000), so i'm still very happy about all the money going to the farm. here's hoping we have an awesome turnout and a successful walk! good luck to any of you who are also walking tomorrow!

blending in

last night we went to a greyhound event that was near our house, at a frozen custard stand. it was basically just a chance for people to come socialize with their greys, and maybe grab some dinner/dessert while we congregated in the parking lot. we decided to go because: (a) the location was really close to our house, and (b) we're still really new to the group, and we thought it would be a nice way to meet more people and dogs. i was a little nervous about blending in, because i've seen pictures of previous events like this one, and it seemed like everyone was eating custard and feeding their dogs custard, and i was worried that i would stand out. i've kept my veganism on the down-low from the greyhound group, mostly because i haven't wanted to be the focus of a bunch of what are you feeding maia? questions. well, and also because i haven't wanted to get into the debate about racing stuff. 

anyhow, i was a little nervous, but i decided if i felt too weird i'd just go the french fries or onion rings route, and toss maia a fry instead of sharing custard with her. well, once we got there my fears totally evaporated (as they often do when i work myself up over something in advance). there were over 20 dogs there, with their people, and no one could have cared less about what i was or wasn't eating. heh, i'm such a dork. i ended up just drinking a root beer, and maia made do without eating anything, and we were just fine.

the worst part, though, was toward the end of the evening (we were there for about two hours), when a big red truck with slats in the back drove in. i had a fleeting thought that it looked like an animal transport truck (albeit a small one), when suddenly i heard mooing. it was so sad, standing there in the parking lot of an extremely popular burgers-and-frozen-custard joint, listening to these poor cows stuck in the back of a truck. it made my stomach hurt. the driver of the truck left it running, and then got out, slowly peered through the slats to check on each one, and then went inside to order and eat. at one point maia smelled the cows, so we did a lap around the parking lot so she could figure out where the scent was coming from, and as i got closer to the truck i had to stop myself from going right up to it. mostly, i was afraid of "getting in trouble," but also i was afraid the greyhound people would think i was a weirdo, and i was afraid my husband would get bummed at me if he saw. meh. i know there's nothing i could have really done for those poor cows, anyway, but it just makes me feel so frustrated and powerless when i'm in a situation like that.

allergies again, sort of

i had this big idea to write about something this evening, and then another thing happened that i was going to have to work in somehow, and i thought it might be interesting and all, but my allergies were even worse today and now i'm totally drugged up (boo) and can't even muster the strength to sort out my thoughts. perhaps tomorrow. 

allergies

this summer i developed "seasonal allergies" again after several years of them lying dormant. i never ever had them growing up, but when i moved to austin i developed them eventually, and they got stronger each year until i left. once i moved back home, they stuck around for a couple of years, but then all but totally disappeared several years ago. but this summer, they came back in full force, and i can't figure it out! it's driving me bonkers. i'm so sick of having tickle-nose, you have no idea. is there some sort of mysterious bloom this year that's affecting the whole world, or is it just me?

gelato!

let me tell you what i did this evening. i went to a brand new gelato shop, a few blocks away from my sister's house. she vetted it for me on her debut visit yesterday, and found out that about half of their flavors are vegan(!!!) and then dangled this important fact in front of my face this afternoon. so, of course i followed her home, watched her family eat dinner, and then we all walked to the gelato shop. awesome!

they just opened up last week, but if i have anything to say about it that place will be flooded with vegans from here on out. when we walked in, i was greeted with 24 flavors of gelato, 13 of which (INCLUDING THE CHOCOLATE) were vegan. omg! squeee! other exciting exclamations!! i tried four flavors (chocolate, lime, banana, and watermelon) and they were all extremely creamy and delicious. i ended up with a half-chocolate, half-lime bowl, which was a bit of a risk, but i loved it. yum, yum, yum. if only the shop were in my neighborhood instead of my sister's... i'd be gaining 10 pounds by christmas.

a rumor that i love

i heard yesterday that kurt halsey (whom i adore) has been working with josh et al. over at herbivore (whom i also adore). new art for the art issue? buttons? a t-shirt? whatever it is, i want it already. all of it, sight unseen. i first "found" kurt's work through an issue of herbivore and i've been hooked ever since. lovery love love. i cant' wait!

happiness is a vegan muffin

this morning we took maia to a farmers market about 20 minutes from our house. well, it's 20 minutes away in theory, but today we ran into a massive obstacle not once, but twice, when we tried to drive through the route of some big fun run or summat. in other words: we ended up taking the super-long way there, but we made it eventually.

there were loads of dogs there, and maia got to meet a whole bunch of them. everyone was very nice, and maia had a good time, i think. we were asked several times if she was a whippet or a greyhound, and we overheard a bunch of different kids exclaim, "oooh, look at THAT one!" to their parents. we also heard one kid say, "look at that really skinny one," and another say, "look at that really weird one." hey! anyhow, in addition to meeting a bunch of dogs, she also met a lot of kids and adults, and she ate up the attention, as usual.

but the best part, for me, was being able to wander up to a gigantic table of bakery and order anything i wanted. i was in the mood for a muffin, and today's options were blueberry, cranberry, raspberry, and apple pecan. i ordered the apple pecan without hesitation, and it was delicious. gigantic, moist, lovely sugary top, yum. a vegan muffin as i strolled through a park on a saturday morning. does it get any better?

after we were done perusing the market and wandering the lakeshore, we ran a couple of dog-related errands, and in the process we happened to bump into a greyhound group doing a meet 'n greet at a local store. it wasn't "our" group, which is why it was a surprise, and we got quite a kick out of it. so maia got to hang out with a pile of greyhounds for a little while--such an adventurous day for her! it probably goes without saying that as soon as we got her home, she crashed and slept for 7 hours.

no vegan content whatsoever

i just need to rant about how stupid classmates.com is. i mean, seriously, it's just a ridiculous nightmare. all they want to do is charge everyone in the world so we can learn such tantalizing details as who clicked on our name last week. argh. i always delete my emails from classmates, because they annoy me, and usually they're just random junk-mail-type messages, but a couple of days ago, they told me that someone had tried to get in touch with me. of course, they just said "matthew j.," which is terribly nondescript, and i have like 4 schools listed on my profile, one of which is a university with nearly 30,000 students, so... anyway, i couldn't think of anyone named "matthew j." from high school, and it was driving me bonkers so i even went to get one of my yearbooks and scanned the index. nothing.

yesterday i had a funny thought occur to me, which was: what if it's matthew from elementary school? i had the hugest mondo crazy crush on him, good lord. he was blonde with blue eyes and he was a year ahead of me and i was an ugly duckling and i loved him. hee! i was such a dork! anyway, i giggled at that memory and immediately forgot about it. 

then tonight, for some totally unrelated reason that i can't even remember right now, i ended up clicking on a classmates link (oh! i remember why now! i googled myself. bwah!), and i was already logged in, mysteriously. so i was looking at my own profile page, which is terribly sparse, and i updated my "pets" section to include a dog, and i chose a type of music that i liked, and i posted a picture of myself, and then i started poking around in the other areas of the site. i was constantly bumped to the "great! give us $30 and you can read that stuff!" page, and i was constantly rolling my eyes and hitting the back button. anyscoot, at one point i noticed a tab that said i had messages, and when i clicked on that, sure enough, there was a message in there from the other day, and guess who it was from? matthew from elementary school. HA! of course, i can't read the message, because i haven't given them $30, oh please give me a break. 

i decided to send him a message "back" (even though i hadn't been able to read his), and i told him that i hadn't paid for classmates but that he could email me directly if he wanted to, and i gave him my email address. then, after i sent it, you'll never guess what. i was bumped to the "give us a million dollars" page and it told me that i should give them some money so that matthew can read the message i just sent him. LAME.

so i tried googling him, and all i found was an article that says where he works. i don't think i'll be stalking him there just to have a funny "hey! we went to grade school together! you were surprisingly awesome to me even though i was a huge dork!" conversation, so i guess i'll just wait around and see what happens. if he googles me (now that he knows my new last name) he'll definitely find my email address easy-peasy, so maybe that will happen. in any case: too funny! and classmates.com is annoying.

new recipe

if you have the same sense of humor that i do, then you will laugh and laugh and laugh when you read this. otherwise, if not, perhaps you'll just be surprised that i enjoy such copious amounts of cussing. unless you already know me in person, in which case you won't be surprised at all. heh.

lindy loo, you're awesome for sharing your superfantastic cooking mishap with the world. my tummy hurts from the giggling.

top stories

earlier today on msnbc.com, i was pleasantly surprised to see not one, but two top stories about animal stuff. seriously, top stories, up at the top, under the heading "top stories." yay! one of them was about hurricane ike and all of the animals who have been displaced, which makes me feel like we've come a fair distance from the horrifying experience of hurricane katrina. it's unfortunate that we had to learn that lesson the terrifying and tragic way, but at least it gives me hope that we're moving in the right direction.

the other top story was about yet another undercover operation in the factory farming/animal agribusiness industry, this time at an iowa pig farm. the story is graphic and extremely sad, so be forewarned if you hadn't heard about it already. anyhow, as awful as the story is, i can't help but get excited (for lack of a better word) that an article like that qualifies as a "top story" on one of the biggest national news websites in the country. 

dear america, please read that story even though it sounds scary from the headline, and please take it to heart, and please don't shove it to the back of your mind with false reassurances that it's only that one farm, and besides, the article says now it's all been taken care of... because, no. 

unexpected leather bits

i hate it when i find something cute/fun/neato, and then realize there's a scrap of leather on it somewhere. seriously, that's so annoying. like, let's say i see a really cute messenger bag, and then i suddenly realize that the trim on the zipper pull on the side pocket is leather. which makes the bag approximately 1% not vegan, which makes me approximately 100% unlikely to buy it. So Annoying! 

i was reminded of this occasional annoyance while i was browsing swanky veg earlier, because they posted some eco-jeans from levis. i've always been a gap girl, so i have never actually worn a pair of levis, but i took a peek at the pair in the middle because they seemed pretty cute. when i was looking at the detail shots, i noticed-slash-remembered the rectangular leather patch on the back of the waistband. argh! now, i know that in some cases, those patches aren't actually leather; they're like crazy-strong cardboard or some nonsense. but does anyone know about the eco-jeans from levis? or maybe just about levis in general? is that a leather tag, or just a good facsimile?

{{also, in case you see this, fine writer(s) of swanky veg: i tried to post a question about the leather(?) tag in the comments for that entry, but it kept denying my comment and telling me i "can't do math." last i checked, 8 + 1 = 9, but it told me i was wrong when i said "9" and also when i said "nine" so i don't know what i'm doing wrong. i fail commenting, i guess! i also couldn't email you from your site to tell you about this, because the display of the security image wouldn't show up. ha! i fail at everything. but at least it gave me a blog topic for today, so yay for that!}}

new tofutti cream cheese

okay, yesterday i whined about new cream cheese; today i'll sing some praises. on the same co-op trip when i discovered the FYH cream cheese, i also found some new (well, new to me anyway!) tofutti "cheddar" cream cheese. i grabbed it, and we finally tried some tonight on a bagel. totally yum! and not only that, but i had both cats in my lap at the time, and they both wanted to eat my bagel (and finley almost NEVER wants people food). for reference, if you're interested... it smells kind of like american cheese, and it tastes very creamy--like, well, cream cheese. 

FYH cream cheese

so, vegan gourmet (aka follow your heart, or is it the other way around?) has come out with a new cream cheese. i was really excited about this development, because i adore vegenaise, and FYH is generally our cheese of choice around these parts. i've been keeping an eye out for it, and also the rumored new sour cream, but hadn't seen it anywhere until last week. i stumbled across a container of the cream cheese at our local teensy co-op, of all places, and snatched it up. i'd been meaning to try it in a head-to-head taste test with our usual tofutti, but kept forgetting.

the other night, i had a weird craving for bagels and cream cheese, so i took the FYH cream cheese along with a half-dozen bagels to a get-together with some friends. i also bought some new peanut butter, but i'll save that for another post, because i have much to say. anyscoot, i was more excited about the peanut butter than the cream cheese when it came right down to it, so i didn't try the cream cheese until pretty late at night. i tasted a bit straight-up, and sadly, i wasn't impressed. i put some on a bit of bread, and it was better, but not by very much. i'm bummed. i had very high hopes!

i will give it another try in its properly-refrigerated state, and i will do it in head-to-head taste-test fashion, but if it doesn't do it for me i'm just turning it into dip and sticking with ye olde tried 'n true tofutti. has anyone else tried it (or the new sour cream)? opinions?

the dog store's birthday party

there's a little boutique-y pet supply store kind of near our house that opened about a year ago, and they invited us to their birthday party today. they sell a small amount of kitty-related stuff, but most of it is for the doggies, and it's basically food, treats, toys, clothes (both functional and silly), beds, leashes, collars, and so on and so forth. they pride themselves on being very customer-service-oriented (and they are), and they work hard to help people with any problems their animals might be having (allergies, dietary needs, etc.). they have an in-store greeter dog named cooper, who is a gigantic bernese mountain dog and just the sweetest giant ever. we've taken maia there a couple of times, and not only does she love cooper, but she's always a hit with employees and customers alike. i think people get excited when they meet a greyhound, in a different way than just meeting a "regular" dog... something about the racing and the always-implied "rescue" angle, maybe? i'm not sure. but anyhow, she's always a Big Deal when we go, and she gets quite a kick out of it.

so we got a personal invitation to their one-year birthday party, and we tOtally forgot about it until 30 minutes before the bash was going to end, so we quickly popped into the car and took maia over there. it was very cute; lots of dogs and lots of people and a few kids, plus "doggie cake" and a little bandana-making station (hee!). maia got to meet about 7 new dogs, got reacquainted with cooper (who was completely pooped after the day's festivities), and was fawned over by several people, including one man with a charming deep-south (new orleans?) accent who declared her  "juss gawgeous" several times. she was also hand-fed a lovely morsel of doggie cake by an adorable girl who wanted to introduce maia to her mom when she got picked up. awesome.

all in all, it was a fun trip for maia. we really like getting her "out there" so she can keep learning new things and getting good socialization experience. we don't take her everywhere--far from it--but if it's a dog-friendly place, we're likely to give it a shot. there's a farmers market we've been wanting to go to all summer, and it's supposedly one of those places that everyone takes their dog to, so maybe we'll do that next weekend. fun!

missed the boat

so, somehow or other, signals got crossed and i never found out what time vegan outreach would be on campus today. and then to make matters more challenging, my dear sweet husband let me sleep in today, and i didn't wake up until almost 12.30pm! at that point i checked my email, and learned that a friend had gone to meet VO over her lunch hour, about 30 minutes before. sigh. i feel like a schmuck, but i tried, i honestly did! i just never got an email back telling me when/where to show up. there's always next time, right? and besides, our campus AR group (of which i am faculty advisor) prefers the VO pamphlets to everyone else's, and we'll be placing an order soon... so i guess we could always do this on our own sometime. still, i feel like a butt.

higher learning

today i learned that it's basically illegal (read: against university policy) for me to have a button on my messenger bag promoting my presidential candidate of choice. we got a letter detailing all of the "political activity" that is/not acceptable, and a lot of it i can understand, such as: we're not allowed to solicit campaign funds from our students. okay, fine, duh. but honest to god, we can't have a sign up in our office or a button on our messenger bags. i find this completely and utterly ridiculous. my office (as you know) is covered in messages about animal rights and/or veganism (both inside and out), and i also have safe space magnets and leaflets posted in my office. i sport one of these nifty support love stickers, too. these are all statements about my moral, ethical, and political leanings, and no one is mad at me for it. 

but a button on my messenger bag that shows who i'm voting for? evidently that is going too far. i'm totally exasperated. and i'm keeping my button on my bag, so there.

vegan outreach is coming to town

i've been kind of a protest-hermit lately, and i was even a bit apathetic about doing the farm sanctuary walk this year (although i got over it). i'm not exactly sure what my problem is. perhaps i'm just feeling like hibernating because of the sabbatical? i feel out of place at protests; i've talked about that before, but this feels "bigger" than just that somehow. i don't know.

anyway, i just learned that vegan outreach (please see my sidebar if you're unfamiliar) is coming to my campus on friday, and i have the chance to leaflet with them. i've never leafletted before, but i really like vegan outreach, and i think they have the bestest leaflets around. i'm very tempted to go and help them out, even though i'm nervous.

two chocolate updates

if you're a longtime reader (*waves to all two of you*), you already know that i love me some chocolate. when i first went vegan, i had a horrible habit of constantly buying chocolate bars when i learned they were vegan, as if i were involved in conducting some kind of high-level research on the subject. i still do that sometimes. i can't help it! anyhow, i have two tidbits to share, in case others are interested in such things.

first, last week i tried the boom choco boom ricemilk chocolate bar by enjoy life. i did so with great trepidation, because the only other product i'd tried by enjoy life was their chocolate brownie cookie bite things, and they taste like sand. seriously, full-on, sandy gritty sand. but i'd heard these bars weren't bad, so i went ahead and bought one. it was actually quite good! it's nice to have other "milk" chocolate options, even though i generally prefer dark chocolate--it's a fun change of pace sometimes. one day i'll have to get all of the vegan milk chocolate bars and do a head-to-head tasting. anyhow, give it a shot if you see them in the store; they're pretty good.

second, and more troubling: tropical source has changed their recipe for their chocolate chips. i didn't realize this until after i'd opened the bag and tossed a handful into my mouth, which was an unfortunate method of learning about it. i noticed the difference immediately; they definitely don't taste the same. i wouldn't whine and cry about it, except that they were sooooooo goooooood before. *pouts* when i looked at the bag, i noticed that it now proclaims "NEW Rich Chocolate Taste!" pffft. let's just put it this way: if i wanted to eat ghirardelli chocolate chips, i would have saved myself $2 and bought them in the first place. but i didn't: i wanted to eat the million-dollar tropical source chips of supreme deliciousness. oh well, at least now i know i don't necessarily need to bother. (that's not to say that i don't like the ghirardelli chips; i do, it's just that they taste rather different, and i have had a preference. oh wells.)

spider on a frog on a turtle

you may have seen this already, but in case you haven't, you simply must: someone found a spider clinging to a frog, who in turn was clinging to a turtle, in their pool filter after several days of rain. evidently they were tired, and helped save each other, and they were pretty interested in sticking together. i think it's one of the neatest things i've ever seen, frankly. i just had to share! go here for the picture on flickr, and once there you'll see links to other related information. enjoy!

runaround party

ethiopian food wasn't my only adventure yesterday, no sir! we also went to our second greyhound playdate--the first since we've adopted maia. there were 13 dogs there at one point (some people came late and/or left early, so the number of dogs fluctuated a bit), and it was quite a time. when we arrived there were already quite a few dogs there, and they all descended on maia as soon as we walked in. she was a little intimidated, with her ears snuggled to her head and her tail snuggled to her butt, looking at us as if to say, is this normal? hee, poor girl. but she acclimated quickly and sniffed some butts of her own, and then she was off to the races (so to speak). 

the dogs all started off wearing muzzles, and maia isn't used to wearing hers anymore (they always wear them when they're around other dogs at the track/kennels), so she was less than thrilled with us about that, but she dealt with it. mainly by goosing people really hard in the rear in an attempt to bounce it off. heh.

she was a very good girl, making friends and being silly, and i have to say i was really surprised to see her continually outrunning an entire pack of dogs. she was retired after only two races because she did so poorly, but you never would have known that last night! once people started throwing a squeaker ball, she was beating everyone to it by a half a length. it was wild. eventually, as the dogs settled down, the muzzles came off, and then she REALLY made a point of getting to the ball first. it was hilarious; almost every time we'd watch the pack of dogs run to get the ball, and maia would come up with it. such a goof. so much for our losing-racer-vegan-dog-with-a-heart-murmur! 

we also got to stand around and chat with the other "parents" there, which was nice. we hilariously learned that millie (the dog i was talking about in my last post) has some of maia's same habits, like holding her pee/poo for a billion hours on end if she feels like it. that made me a little less freaked out, which was nice. i also got critiqued on my nail-trimming skadillz and got a good review. whew! there will be another playdate (or runaround party, as my husband called it last night) in december, and i'm sure if maia had her druthers, we wouldn't miss it. 

ethiopian food

after many years of being told that i would love ethiopian food, i finally got to try some today. we had our vegan meetup at a new-ish ethiopian restaurant in town, and about 22 people showed up to partake. i sat at a table of five, and we ordered what basically amounted to a vegan sampler--seven different dishes spooned onto one gigantic piece of injera. only one of the five of us had tried ethiopian food before, so it was definitely an experiment, but i'd call it a success. we all liked it a lot! my favorite things were the stews that involved lentils, split peas, carrots, and/or potatoes. i'm not so much a fan of cabbage, so when i go back i'll probably avoid the cabbage-y stuff. 

i was a bit nervous about trying the injera, because my dear friend anne has a very descriptive (and not necessarily flattering) name for it, but i have to say, it was pretty good! once you get past the unexpected color (grey!) and interesting texture (somewhat spongy), it really kind of seemed like a gigantic rolled-out crumpet. and i like crumpets, so there you have it. and i loooove dipping bread into stews and soups, so ethiopian is pretty much right up my alley. 

i'm very proud of myself, in case you hadn't noticed. i've come SUCH a long way since going vegan--it has made me so much more adventurous when trying new foods, and i'm almost never disappointed. yay!

mac nerdery

okay, i asked around on VRF and haven't gotten any nibbles, so i'm going to expand outward and ask my blogosphere. i know some of you are fellow nerds (mac, academic, or possibly both!) and i thought you might have some advice. in the interest of not trying to paraphrase myself, i'm just going to post the same stuff i did at VRF. here goes!

*****

soooo, i'm trying to decide on bibliographic software, because i'm using pages more than word these days (now that i've switched from PC to mac at work and home). i have been using endnote since 1999 or so, but it doesn't work with pages, so i'm looking for something else that will work with BOTH pages and word, if possible. i like to keep my bases covered.

does anyone have experience with either sente or bookends? i'm doing all APA style stuff, and i never need pubmed so i don't give a fig about all of the "search pubmed with ease!" stuff. 

the only thing that is bumming me out is that i got VERY used to the "cite while you write" feature in endnote, and no one else does that. but once i get over that, i just need to figure out what will work nicest for me. so far i've downloaded a trial of all three (endnote for mac, sente, and bookends), but i haven't gotten to play with them all that much yet. at the moment i THINK i like bookends the best, but i thought i'd ask out loud in case anyone here had some thoughts. 

...also forgot to say that right now you can get bookends for half-price, plus like 8 other programs as a free bonus:

http://www.mupromo.com/

so that's tempting in itself, because i'd also be getting a different word processor (mellel) for free, and some other stuff, like macjournal (and i had just been thinking about getting journaling software). 

so that's kind of an announcement, in case anyone else might be interested in that bundle... and also a question, as in, does anyone have feedback about any of those programs?

the things we do for our grandparents

so today i took my grandma to the oncology center to get blood drawn, because my grandpa was feeling icky and my mom didn't think he should be driving my gram around. fair enough. i headed over to pick her up, and he helped me get her in the car, and i took it from there. aside from it raining Absolutely All Day, everything went off without a hitch. while we were making small talk in the waiting room of the oncology center, my grandma was telling me about getting dinner ready for tonight, and she made an offhand comment along the lines of, "now tonight i have a small beef roast ready, well, if it thaws in time." feeling sad about the idea of my grandparents skipping dinner, i asked her if she ever uses her microwave for thawing. she didn't know you could do that (and, as a million-year vegetarian, i have to say i've never done it myself), and i told her that i was relatively certain that her microwave had a setting for that. she thought that sounded like a pretty good idea, so i told her i'd check it out when i took her home.

(in the meantime, she told me a cute story about one of her friends who had just gotten a microwave for the first time--as a gift--and thought it was ridiculous. my gram was totally funny, talking about how 'old people' have a hard time with new stuff like that. hee!)

when we got back to her house, i wandered over and pointed out the "accuthaw" button on her microwave, and showed her the instructions for how to use it. she was all, "great! let's put it in now!" and i was all, "oh goody," because that meant i suddenly had a big ol' slab of raw meat on a plate in my hands. yay. but my grandma is cute, y'all, so i held my breath and put the plate in the microwave, and helped her with the settings. 

at one point during the defrosting period the microwave beeped at us a few times, so i jumped up to read the display, which told us to "turn over and cover edge." um, okay. my inner dialogue was very much ew ew ew ew ew ew i don't wanna touch it ew ew, but instead i took the plate out of the microwave, walked it across the room to my grandpa, and said, "it says we're supposed to turn it over." heh. so, he took care of it for me and then i walked the plate back over to the microwave. eventually it was all done, and i put it on the counter for them to deal with later. bleah. at least i was a good grandkid, right?

it's farm sanctuary walk time again!

okay, everyone who hearts farm sanctuary: it's time to look for (or start!) a walk in your town. ours will be held in a few weeks, on september 27th, and i think most of them around the country will either be that weekend or the following one. click here for a list of locations that already have a coordinator and are "up and running," so to speak. i've walked for the past three years, so this will be my fourth time participating. the first year i raised $250, then $525, and then $800, so this year i'm going to be bold and aim for $1000. think i can do it? *crosses fingers tightly* looks like i need to start sending emails, chatting up friends, and kissing babies!

first day of school

i promise i'll stop going on about this soon; i know it's boring. but wheeeeee!! i didn't have to go to school today, for the first time in approximately 30 years! my husband has some sort of sabbatical deficiency, so he went to school anyway(!), but not me. in fact, i accepted a spur-of-the-moment invitation for chai at a coffee shop with my friend this evening. it felt really awesome to do that, because my usual self would have been all, oh, no, i'd  better not, i have stuff i'm supposed to get done. liberating, i tell you.

the least labory day ever

for starters, i slept until 2.30pm. i was in a benadryl-coma, because yesterday i had an allergy attack to beat all allergy attacks, and no amount of prescription stuff would help, so before bed i finally took a benadryl. when that still wasn't helping 60-90 minutes later, i took a second one. sometime around 3am i finally realized i could breathe through my nose again. whew! but then today, i slept and slept and slept until it was suddenly "this afternoon" and i was eating breakfast at 3.15pm. crazy! (and this is why i try VERY hard to avoid taking benadryl.)

next, i lazed around in my jammies all day, paying some september bills and reading random stuff online. eventually i retired to the couch and read a chunk of breaking dawn. 

finally, i delighted in the beginning of a new fall season of my beloved teevy, and watched the season premieres of gossip girl and prison break. 

in short, this was the first labor day EVAR that i wasn't stressing about the beginning of the semester. i can't believe school starts tomorrow, and i don't have to go. wheeeeeeeeee!!