vegan chai

turkey time of year

it's that time again, peeps! everyone thinking of thanksgiving and saying "gobble gobble" and "happy turkey day" and all that nonsense. meh. last year, we hosted a vegan thanksgiving(!!) at our house (due to a series of coincidences that allowed us to offer), but it looks like this year we'll be back at the grandparental home, with meat. i'm sad. my mom is preparing "only" breast meat, because she "can't handle" an entire bird, but it's really all the same difference. plus, that side of the family also puts sausage in the stuffing. :sad face:

yesterday, i got an email from our adorable tiny neighborhood co-op, and it included the following paragraph:

The co-op's also offering special order pies for the holiday season- we're stepping it up with five kinds this year: Pumpkin, Sweet Potato, Strawberry Coconut Custard, Cranberry Raspberry, Dutch Apple and Chocolate Peanut Butter Cream.  All are vegan and made with organic ingredients- just stop in the cafe and ask about ordering one.  We're also giving members the chance to order local, organic turkeys again- just ask for an order form at the checkout counter.  I've met these turkeys the last couple years, they're well-kept and what you'd picture when you think free range.

the first two sentences made me go "oh! yay!" but then the next two sentences immediately bummed me out.

i guess this means it's time for me to adopt my farm sanctuary turkey.

brushing cat teeth

so, one of our kitties had to have a dental cleaning today. this was my first experience ever with such an ordeal, and it was a little stressful. the kitty in question, finley, had to be anesthetized for the procedure, and i'm a worrywart so of course i cried after we left him at the vet this morning. in happier news, our vet is awesome and she called me as soon as his cleaning was done to let me know that everything went well, and that i could "stop worrying." she knows me.

anyhow, of our three animals, finley is the only one with not-so-great teeth. our other kitty is 4 years older, and his look great! and our greyhound's teeth are awesome (which is atypical for greyhounds) because my husband is a rock star about brushing hers. so... now that finley has had his dental cleaning, we're going to make a much better point of maintaining his dental health. 

our vet recommended using the dental wipes that you can get at pet supply stores, so we're planning to give that a try. does anyone have experience with those? can anyone give recommendations or other input about how to pick a wipe, or how to do the actual brushing? finley is a very docile and sweet boy, but he does "spook" sometimes, and any tips on keeping a cat calm and floppy for cleaning-time would be much appreciated. 

watching the mail once again

my new backpack (that i blabbed about a few days ago) is due to arrive tomorrow, and i also got word that my new blue peacoat from vaute couture is ready to be shipped. woo hoo! i'm going to be like a kid in a candy shop when my loot gets here. i'll probably put on the coat and the backpack together and just walk around the house to see how it all fits. i'm such a nerd about stuff like that.

did anyone else order a fancy-pants coat from vaute couture? my dear friend jen did, and she picked hers up already (she got the peacoat as well, but in ivory). she said that she LOVES it (her emphasis, not mine). yay!

seasonal soymilks are back!

a couple of days ago, my husband surprised me by bringing home some pumpkin silk, a couple of weeks earlier than we found it last year. hooray! snuggly autumn chai, coming right up! he said that the silk nog was also in stock, so start checking around if you're into the seasonal goodness.

of course, this also reminded me of the travesty that awaits this winter: with vitasoy no longer selling their wares in the united states, it appears that we will all have to go without their delicious nectar of peppermint chocolate soymilk. boooooo!! (i know that westsoy or someone makes one as well, but in my opinion the vitasoy was far superior, and will be dearly missed.)

happy world vegan day!

it's world vegan day, everyone! i actually have no idea what that means (is there a party somewhere? do we get presents?), but i'm happy to say it anyway, because i'm happy that it's a 'thing.' whee, vegans!

i've decided to participate in nablopomo again this year, to give me a kickstart. in other words, you'll be seeing a lot more of me this month. lucky you.

the loooong-overdue backpack update

does anyone remember this post? it's been almost a year, and i realized that i never updated. then again, i'm not sure anyone is still reading my blog, so maybe it doesn't matter. har har.

in any case, i decided to bite the bullet and get a backpack. it arrived in early march (right before we went on our vegan cruise that i keep threatening to tell you about), and i've been using it instead of a messenger bag ever since. of course, last spring/summer it wasn't getting much play, since i wasn't exactly going to school that much, but still. this fall it's been coming with me to school several times per week, and it has also gone on a few vacations with me. it was weird adjusting to a backpack; as i whined about last year, i felt a little like i was trying to blend in with the kids, and it made me self-conscious. but pretty much the instant i realized that it was helping my back, i stopped caring about that.

i ended up buying a smart alec from the wonderful and amazing tom bihn company (i heart them so). it's a pretty great bag, and it's kind of insane how much it can hold. there are only two things that i have been disappointed by: (a) it's actually a little too big for me, i think, and (b) the fabric on the backside of the bag irritates some of my clothing. by and large, i've really been enjoying the bag--my back is feeling much better, even when i'm carrying a heavy load, and that was the entire point. but sometimes i feel like i look a bit like a ginormous turtle with it on my back. and there are a few "delicate" shirts that have gotten pilled up from the cordura on the back, which makes me a little sad. now that i know, i just wear clothes that are more durable when i'm having a backpack day. 

anyhow, there had been rumblings all along of a new backpack in development, one that would be a bit smaller and perhaps a bit better fit for my frame. i've been watching tom bihn somewhat obsessively, developing a crush on this impending backpack long before it was ever officially unveiled, and meanwhile buying all sorts of other things from them (or putting them on my birthday wish list, hee). i got us a pair of aeronauts (also for our cruise, but they have since also been on a trip to austin), i got accessories for everything (fancy shoulder straps, a laptop case, a variety of organizer pouches (some clear, some not, one cork!), and a freudian slip), and i got a small cafe bag, which is awesome. oh! and i also got an adorable little organizer wallet, which is tops, because it's super flat but carries a ton. lovery.

you realize that this is all building up to a reveal, right? the new backpack, called the synapse, was finally officially unveiled awhile back, and was made available for pre-order, and it looks really great. one of my favorite details is that they put a gentler fabric on the back of the bag (yay!), and another favorite detail was the fact that the early run would be offered in a bunch of me-friendly colors. i had a really hard time deciding (i was hemming and hawing between indigo, kelly, plum, and navy), but eventually settled on navy because i decided it would look the best with my variety of coats. i'm so weird. i got an email this morning, telling me that UPS has got my new backpack in its clutches, and now i'm all excited. i hope i love love love it! 

tom bihn is an awesome company and i heartily recommend them. the pricing isn't for the faint-of-heart, but the quality and customer service make it worth it, to me. they don't use leather (totally vegan-friendly, love that!) and everything is made in seattle. they have a sweetly loyal customer base, and i totally understand why. they listen to their customers (even when they whine, like me) and they make amazing loot.

winter is coming

i've noticed that in the past few weeks, my blog has been getting crazy amounts of hits on the winter-clothing-themed posts from years past. this happens every year, and i'm always a little surprised at the number of people who are apparently actively seeking vegan winter schtuff. my winter coat posts and my winter boot posts get the most love, for sure. 

anyhow, back in the present, i have winter-apparel news! my super-adorable vaute couture peacoat (in blue!) is evidently very soon-to-be-shipped to me! i'm really excited; i can't wait. and in other news, i never got around to buying those sorel winter boots last year, but that turned out to be (maybe) a good thing, because this season they have a new color combination that i like even better than the rest! i ordered a pair from zappos yesterday (in flint), and they arrived today. i haven't had a chance to open the box yet, so who knows if i'll even like them, but i'll keep you posted.

five years today

well, i did it. i made it to the mythical five-year point. i have no idea why, but five years is a milestone that i've been hoping to get to ever since i celebrated my first vegan anniversary. i think maybe it just sounds more "official" or more "i've been doing this for quite awhile now" or more "standard increments of years." heh, i don't know. i just know that i've been looking forward to getting to five years, and now it's here. yay! (and, because i always like to point out my good company... happy 5 years to ryan at vegblog, too!)

i just went back and read my post from last year, and it made me sad. i had forgotten how crappy that day was. but i had also forgotten the nice little jazz guitar guy, so it was fun to remember that. journaling is your friend sometimes!

i brought treats today, like kids do on their birthday. i have six teaching assistants, and so far in the past two months we've celebrated three of their birthdays, which all happened to fall on our staff meeting days (isn't that wild?). i've been bringing these awesome giant vegan cookies from a restaurant nearby, and they are always well-received. so, today is another staff meeting, and another celebration. i baked the fantabulous pumpkin muffins from vegan with a vengeance and i'm looking forward to tearing into them.

as usual, i had envisioned some sort of to-do for my vegan anniversary, but then didn't actually plan one. i thought about having a little party, or hosting a dinner, or going out to dinner, or something. apparently i still have that problem i was talking about last year. instead i will spend the day at school, teach a class, have a staff meeting, go to yoga, and then maybe attend a screening of fowl play hosted by our vegan outreach group. i'm not sure about that last piece yet; i'm not really the type to watch screenings because they make me cry... but i still want to be supportive because i'm the adivsor for the group. we'll see.

five years ago, i had no idea what i was doing. i just knew that i was going to give veganism a shot. i didn't tell anyone at first, because i was afraid i would screw up, afraid that they wouldn't understand, afraid that i wouldn't be able to explain myself well. i had no idea it was going to be so easy. here's to many more!

the daiya cheese, omg

so tell me, have you tried the daiya cheese? because i have, this week, and it is quite something. i had to wait awhile for it to make its way inland, but it was worth the wait. i picked up a bag of the mozz shreds and a bag of the cheddar shreds, with no particular plans in mind, and my husband got to experimenting a couple of days ago. 

with the mozz shreds, he made a pizza (but of course!), and when he was assembling said pizza, i stole a few teensy schnipsels, and they were really tasty! the pizza turned out very well, although the daiya didn't get gooey/melty like we'd expected (we didn't do the broiler trick, because we didn't realize it would need that). still, it was hot, and delicious, and it stretches! it seems rather salty, which i think is a good thing, because it tastes more like dairy cheese (i.e., old familiar flavors). i ate three pieces of pizza and restrained myself from eating a fourth. yum. definitely looking forward to seeing how the daiya would do in something like a lasagna.

last night, my husband surprised me by making grilled cheese sammies with the cheddar shreds. he made his a ham 'n cheese (the yves slices); i went the traditional plain cheese route. again, i tried not to get my hopes up, but i needn't have worried. when i got my sandwich, i peeked inside at the cheese and it was not only fully melted, but it was stuck to each piece of bread and stretchy in between. eureka! the sandwich was sooooo yum, i said so about 8 times while eating it. delicious. 

they sell the shreds in giant bags, and you can also get huge blocks if you want to do the shredding yourself. i'm hoping daiya takes off like wildfire and we start to see it in "regular" stores soon, a la follow your heart and teese. things are looking up, folks!

i'm back! this time it's for real!

maybe if i write a really peppy title like that, i'll feel compelled to make it come true. whee!

museum of animal perspectives

okay, this is probably one of the cooler things i've seen. apparently there is a guy, named sam easterson, who came up with the idea to facilitate animal empathy by giving us a bird's eye view. voila, the museum of animal perspectives! i have no idea what the camera-rigging situation is, so if anyone does, please enlighten me. i'm going to assume (for now) that it's a relatively harmless process, because the animals all seem pretty chill, but i honestly don't know. 

i think i just lost several hours of productivity (such as it is). these are such nifty little clips! the armadillo makes me homesick for austin, and the bison drinking from the stream makes me smile. i also love the little baby chick running through the barnyard. ooh, and in the wolf chasing garter snake clip, you can hear other wolves howling in the background. so much awesome!

not something you hear every day

i'm training my TAs this week, in anticipation of the semester starting a week from today. i was on sabbatical all last year, so i'm coming back after a break, and only one of my six TAs is someone i've worked with before. one other, i knew as a grad student when she was here for her MA (she has now returned for her PhD), but i've never had her in a class and she's never taught for me. the other four are brand spankin' new to me--either brand new students, or were new last year when i wasn't around anyway. sooo, i kicked off our training with some fun time where we could all get to know each other. they have to do introductions and icebreakers during class on the first day, so i thought we'd do a few ourselves to give them different ideas of what to do (and learn things about each other in the process). this was a lot of fun for all of us, and i think it helped us bond a little bit, so yay.

but things got a little weird toward the end, when i had them pair up and interview each other for one of the activities: i asked them to learn something "unique" about their conversational partner during the course of their conversation, and then report it back to the group when we were finished. hold onto your hats... the very first person who introduced her partner to all of us reported that she was a certified artificial inseminator for cows. sigh. i worked really hard on controlling my face, while the rest of the TAs made light-hearted jokes or mentioned that they thought it was gross. the woman in question grew up on a dairy farm (which her parents still run), and she joked that when she tells her students that she's a farmer they always give her totally blank stares, because she doesn't really "look the part." this, i admit, is true--i had absolutely no idea. (although i never get too surprised by these kinds of tidbits, because of where i live.) anyhow, i sat there distracted for the next few minutes, wondering just how many awkward conversations and/or silences i'd be having over the course of the year. 

later in the day, another TA (who had just minutes earlier described herself as "just so incredibly compassionate") told a story about how on thanksgiving, she smothers the turkey with mayonnaise before cooking it. sigh times two.

my TAs all seem like really nice people and i'm not trying to bag on them, but these were two details i really could have lived without. 

whining into the ether

i think my blog readership has really dwindled, so i feel i can safely whine: my sabbatical is over! i had to go back to school today after a whole year off! *sob*

today was the nefarious First Contract Day, during which we always have a horrible long faculty meeting planned, followed by a new graduate student welcome session thingie, followed by another horrible long faculty meeting the next day. barf. school doesn't even officially start until september 2nd, but we have to get the new semester rubbed in our faces early. what fun! 

and now, because i'm a course director, i get to cap off the week (tuesday afternoon through friday) with TA training. which isn't horrible, i will admit, but it's still kind of crazy for me to suddenly have a normal 40-hour 9-to-5 workweek after a year off... especially when i never work those kinds of days/hours any other week of the year, sabbatical or no.

one of my BIG goals for this year is to learn how to more properly balance work, leisure, family, relationship, and self-care. i'm going to make an explicit point of doing this, come hell or high water. first task is finding and enrolling in a yoga class, preferably one i can attend more than once per week. i might have found one on campus(!) but i have to investigate further to see if it's really something i can enroll in. fingers crossed!

online worlds colliding

i'm going to keep whittling away at that looong list of stuff i said i wanted to post about, way back when (you know, in march). the next thing i had on the list was "online worlds colliding," and honestly i can't totally remember what exactly i wanted to write about, but i remember the gist.

i've been experiencing weird dilemmas lately when it comes to online stuff like discussion boards, my blog, my flickr page, facebook, and twitter. i only have so many usernames, and i hate randomly adding more, but i also hate that having only a couple makes me easy to find if i don't want people to find certain parts of me. dig?

like, for instance, back in the day... i only had two usernames: one that i had on discussion boards like television without pity and vegan represent (and other vegan boards), and one that i used here on the blog. neither one was super well thought out, to be frank, but they were mine so i stuck with them. when i created a flickr page, i decided to use the name of the blog (i.e., vegan chai, not girl least likely to) as my flickr name, which sort of added a third username, even though it's obviously related to one of the other ones. i didn't think anything of this at the time... everyone from my blog would obviously recognize it, and everyone from the vegan discussion board world would also recognize it, so i thought i was actually being pretty clever.

that is, until i realized that i might want to share my flickr page with people who know me from outside of vegan-blog and vegan-discussion-board world. you know, like, my mom. oops. 

more recently, i started dorking around with twitter, and also used my blog as my username. a couple of people that i know from outside the vegan world (e.g., grad school) follow me on twitter, but they're people who already knew about my blog, so it's no biggie.

and wow, facebook is like this crazy minefield of people that i know from a bunch of different parts of my life. i know this isn't at all unique to me, because i've talked about this with a lot of people... it's kind of fun, interesting, and yet disconcerting to have so many different sides of yourself reflected in your friends list, isn't it? on facebook, i'm friends with people i knew in grade school, in middle school, in high school, in undergrad, in my master's program, and in my phd program. i'm friends with colleagues at other universities whom i've met "as a grownup." i actually created my facebook account a pretty long time ago, when i thought it would be "just for school," so i'm also friends with some of my (now former) undergraduate students and (some former and some current) graduate students. AND i'm friends with people in my family (including, for instance, my sister, my mom, my cousin, and my step-grandmother's sister). i'm friends with people my husband went to high school with. i'm friends with vegans i've met through meetup in my town, and i'm friends with vegans from all over the intarwebs that i know online. all of this leads to me thinking through my status updates for far longer than i care to admit; i'm always thinking, "now who will be reading this? what will they think of it? i'd better tone it down... or nevermind, i won't bother." 

because of all of this overlap, i get self-conscious a lot. not only with status updates, but with commenting on other people's stuff, and with what pictures get posted. but most of all, i worry about people "finding me out" that i don't want to... like someone seeing my flickr page and (it wouldn't take a genius) then ending up at my blog. or someone non-vegan (i.e., grad student or family member or whomever) from facebook winding up at vegan represent, reading all my posts about random stuff i wouldn't talk about with them. as a result, i set up all of these bizarre roadmaps in my mind to keep things "separate" and i always think about whom i should be sharing which links with. it's tiring! 

and i'd love to just decide not to give a crap (and i suppose, on one level, i'm trying not to), but it's hard. i really am a pretty transparent person as a general rule (i find it taxing to be otherwise, and i'm lazy/honest that way), so it's frustrating to worry about stuff like this. but in all honesty, i don't really want my grad students to read all of my posts at VRF, and i don't want my mom to read all of my mom-venting entries on this blog (and so on). 

i have no idea what the solution to this little problem is. i'm sure i'm not the only one who deals with this stuff. i guess i could unfriend a bunch of people, or create totally unique usernames for every online thing i do, or just decide to throw caution to the wind and let the fates decide... i don't know. i don't mean for it to sound like i'm hiding anything, or like i'm stalker-worthy for that matter. i just have a general unease when i think of certain people stumbling across certain parts of my life that i thought were only being shared with a certain audience. i'm working on it.

on being a fanatic

recently at a vegan meetup, i came in mid-conversation and someone said, "well, i mean, we're not fanatics, right?" he said it in a somewhat joking tone, but i don't know him well and i had no idea what he was actually referring to... so to be funny, i interjected, "well, i am!" and we all had a chuckle. 

i've been reflecting on this here and there, because it seems like there is always someone "less strict" or "more strict" than you, wherever you go. there is no such thing as The Perfect Vegan and there are all things that we have to decide where we each draw our proverbial line in the sand. feeding our cats a vegan diet, asking about types of sugar being used in restaurants, keeping non-vegan things around our houses from pregan days, dealing with botched orders in restaurants... all of these things can be seen as "grey areas," and we all have to do some thinking about what makes the most sense in a given situation. at this same vegan meetup, for instance, one of the orders arrived at the table with tons of melted cheese (it was inside the chimichanga, so it would have been impossible to scrape off). the person was disappointed and upset (as would i have been), but the woman across from her said, "well, but you'll still eat it anyway, though, right?" i was kind of flabbergasted by that comment (at a vegan meetup of all places), and so was the woman who was planning to send the chimi back, but i was immediately reminded of the "fanatic" comment only 20 minutes prior, and decided that i guess i am a fanatic. 

but then... not really. i personally don't think there is anything strange or out-there about being vegan, about believing that it is wrong to harm animals for our own selfish (and usually mindless) reasons. it bothers me when people accuse me of being "extreme," because i think it's much more "extreme" to (pay someone to) torture and kill an animal rather than to just eat a peanut butter sandwich. anyhow, this entire chain of thought reminded me of a great post that i read a little while ago over at the animal rights change.org blog. my favorite part is this excerpt: 

Animal rights is mainstream. Animal rights, at its heart, is the most unextreme philosophy I can imagine. It is about nonviolence. It is about compassion. It is about not harming and not causing suffering and not killing when we don't have to. That's it. It is really, truly that simple. Indeed, perhaps it is even that simplicity that causes so many to mock the animal rights movement or dismiss it as silly or radical--because if they can marginalize it, they don't have to acknowledge the simplicity of it or truly ask and answer why they don't support it too. 

 ...but if you like that, you should definitely head over and read the whole shebang.

cinnamon pecan marshmallows

so, you may have already heard (numerous times) about one of the newest additions to sweet & sara's product line, the cinnamon pecan marshmallow. when i first saw them at vegan essentials--i'll be honest--i thought, "that looks weird," and i pretty much passed them right by. over the following weeks, however, i kept hearing from all corners of vegandom about how delicious they are--and i mean crazy-ridiculous amounts of praise. don't get me wrong, i really like sweet & sara marshmallows, and i absolutely adore the s'mores treats (peanut butter version ftw!), but i don't know, a cinnamon pecan marshmallow just seemed a little "out there" to me or something. anyhow, after hearing about them for the 47th time, i decided we'd better go ahead and buy a little container of them. we did so on sunday, with a friend, and as each one of us chewed slowly, we all agreed: yes, they're that good. 

if the new dandies are your go-to marshie for campfire roasting, krispie treats, and popping into your mouth by the handful (yes, yes, and yes please), then these cinnamon pecan lovelies are the decadent dessert marshmallow that you use to reward yourself for being good all day. there's room for all marshies, not to worry.

i keep disappearing

i keep meaning to get back in the routine of posting regularly, and things keep cropping up and eating into my online time. lately it's been stuff with my sister and the tour de france. heh. by way of easing myself back in, i'll share an update for those who have been wondering about my sister.

she finished her first big course of chemo and was originally scheduled to have her surgery on june 25th, but then got some weird/troubling test results that ended up pushing her surgery date. something looked funky in her bone marrow, and everyone freaked out that it was more cancer at first, but eventually (after a lot more tests and a lot of really smart people putting their heads together) they decided that it was very very likely NOT cancer, and decided to go ahead with her surgery. that happened a week ago today. she had a double mastectomy, with reconstruction started right away (although it is a process that will take many months to complete). she also had six lymph nodes removed (4 on one side, 2 on the other). her surgery went extremely well, and she came home on friday night. i've been hanging out with her now that her husband is back to work, in case she needs help during the day. the kiddos are rotating among the grandparents for the week, and eventually will come back home with someone "nannying" during the day to help out my sister.

i took her to her post-op appointments on monday (plastic surgeon) and tuesday (cancer surgeon & then oncologist), and everything is looking fantastic! her tumor had shrunk from 3cm to 5mm, and they could barely find it! her pathology from the surgery all came back negative, so she is technically cancer-free now. she will still undergo one more course of chemo (as originally planned), but supposedly it's a walk in the park compared to what she has already done, so hooray for that.

tomorrow she will start physical therapy, and we're hoping that on friday we can even do a little non-doctor-related outing, and go see harry potter. it's so awesome to feel hopeful and excited. my sister is a total stud and i couldn't be more proud of her.

vegan winter coats are on their way!

okay, so if by chance you're a somewhat longtime reader, you'll know that i have whined about vegan winter coats for nearly three years now. in fact, i would wager that the most common google search that brings people to my blog is a search for "vegan winter coats." here is the post that started it all, in november of 2006, and i have continued whining about it yearly since then. last fall, i happened to stumble across a fantastic new fashion house starting up a vegan coat line, vaute couture. they held a design contest (i.e., artists submitted designs, and the vegan masses voted for their favorites), and ever since then they have been working on getting beautiful-yet-warm fabrics all lined up, selecting purty colors, making look books, and basically gearing up to sell these suckers for our very next freezy season. score!

the coats are all gorgeous. there is a really cute peacoat (a warm, vegan, peacoat! for real!), two different 3/4 length dressier coats, and a funky bomono coat with lots of armpit room for those of you who like to wear chunky sweaters. ;) they all come in black, ivory, light grey, and a divine blue that i'm totally in love with... and they also come in a recycled fabric option (black only). everything is vegan, everything is made ethically, and everything is pretty. i think this is what a lot of us have been waiting for, yes? 

and right now, for a few more days, you can pre-order a coat for a discount--in some cases, a very steep discount of 50% off! basically, between now and june 30th--that's on tuesday, everyone!--if you pre-order and make a down payment, vaute couture will match it, up to 50% of the coat's value. so in other words, if you pay half now, you're actually done. seriously, so generous and awesome.

so go over and check out the coats, and while you're at it check out the cute tees as well. i had no idea who leanne was when i first discovered her contest, but based on a few crazy coincidences, i've now had the distinct pleasure of meeting her and spending some time with her. she's a lovely person inside and out, and i wish her nothing but the absolute best with this venture. she's prettying up the vegan winter landscape, one coat at a time!

tempt

dear internet friends,

you must seek out the new tempt hemp-milk ice cream and eat it. you will thank me later. i was at whole foods today, and we were looking at the coconut bliss ice cream (also delicious, but i digress) and a very very nice woman said, "are you looking at non-dairy ice cream?" and i was all, "uh, yes..." and she said, "well i can HIGHLY recommend the tempt, it's delicious." so right then and there i decided to take her word for it and i grabbed a pint of chocolate fudge. by the time we finished shopping and drove home, it was the perfect amount of softened, so i opened it up right away and ate about an inch off the top. it is soooo good! chocolatey and creamy and YUM. seriously, go get some. those nice random vegans never steer you wrong!

xoxo

meetups and so forth

back in march when i listed off a bunch of things i wanted to blog about, "vegan meetup and other similar outings" was on my list. the amusing thing is that now, i can't really remember exactly what i wanted to talk about. oops. i think i might have wanted to share some of my apathy about going to meetups lately. i'm not exactly sure what that's about, but over the past few months i've been kind of meh about the whole thing. part of it is because many of the people i really like and look forward to seeing haven't been going, so, well i guess that's a normal consequence. 

then of course there's the fact that i kind of got stuck with the bill at a recent meetup, which was not the end of the world, but kind of annoying nonetheless. basically a bunch of people put money in a pile and left, and when i stuck around to count it, it didn't add up. boo.

i think i'm also struggling with what i want to get out of going to meetups. originally it was simply to meet other vegans in my town, because i knew exactly zero of them, and i needed a place to feel comfortable, like i fit in, instead of feeling like The Difficult One when i'm at a restaurant with my family or friends. my friend dave helped me kick-start a meetup here (really i just used meetup to publicize some monthly lunches that were already occurring, but still--it really helped us generate awareness of our city's vegan peeps), and it was really cool to learn that there are regular ol' vegans around here. but over time, there has been a little bit of a struggle over the best kind of events to have, and especially over the scheduling of said events. i have just enough control over things to be Highly Visible, but not nearly the control to actually change things, so i end up hearing everyone's frustration and then not really being able to do anything about it. that (coupled with the fact that a lot of my pals have stopped bothering to attend) has taken its toll on my interest over the past six months or so. i think i've shifted from wanting to meet "just anyone" to wanting to hang out with the people i know i get along with--does that sound weird? i don't mean it to sound cliquey, because that's not at all how i feel... it's just... eh, i don't know how to explain this any better. hopefully you get what i'm saying.

i do love meeting new vegans, and i do love how excited people get when they come for the first time and they're realizing We Do Actually Exist (hee). i totally remember being that person, and it's fun to be able to give advice on restaurants or cookbooks or whatever... but also, i'm going to admit that i'm actually kind of a self-conscious person when it comes to small talk with strangers, so sometimes i'd rather just kick back and talk to the three people i know. and then i feel like a schmuck because i might seem standoffish, which i really am not.

i'm rambling. i guess this is what happens when you give yourself a topic and can't remember the details!

in any event, this month i'm dealing with my meetup apathy by hitting the road! a friend and i are road-tripping to another city's meetup (look out chicago, we are descending upon you), so we'll meet a bunch of new people and try some (hopefully) delicious vegan fast food, and i'll even get to hug a few old friends. i think it will be a lot of fun, and energizing. here's hoping we don't get lost on the way there.

skin care

if you're a longtime reader, you may remember this post from november 2006, wherein i bemoan my stupid acne-prone face. i wanted to revive the conversation a bit, because i've tried a couple of new things since then, and i'm still not 100% happy. maybe some of you share my plight and have ideas?

i am so super duper sick of feeling like i'm always working around at least one blemish on my face. it's driving me bonkers. i've had some really bad patches over the past few years, and lately it's been better, but not better enough, if you get my drift. the minute something clears up, something else pops up, and i just want to have a normal 35-year-old face like all of my friends and colleagues. is that so wrong? i used to be able to go out without makeup and not feel like i looked gross. my sister doesn't even wash her face, ever, and she doesn't have to wear makeup. how did i end up on the shallow end of the skin pool? MEH. 

anyhow, i mentioned in that post way back when that i had started using dermamed, which is from canada. i love it because it's so simple--only four ingredients--and it's relatively effective. it's a bit drying, so i switch to a slightly heavier moisturizer than i would otherwise use, and that pretty much takes care of that. i used it for about 13 months or so, and then switched to a different product because my face still wasn't quite as clear as i wanted it to be. in december of 2007 i started using mychelle products, which are lovely because they're all-natural, but they aren't all vegan so it means a bunch of label-reading. anyhow, i settled on several products in their acne/oily line, and i liked them a lot, although they are very expensive, especially if you buy them at whole foods. i eventually found several of my regular items on amazon, which helped save moolah, but still--lots more expensive than one bottle of dermamed, which lasts for a billion months. 

switching to the mychelle stuff added a bunch of steps to my regimen: i went from cleanser & moisturizer to a cleanser, toner, serum, & moisturizer. i also used a mask (which i have done forever, so no net gain there) and a peel from the mychelle line, basically alternating nights. a lot of products and a lot of money, but it seemed to do the job relatively well... but not truly fantastic results or anything. i used mychelle from december 2007 until about a month ago--so, almost a year and a half--when i decided once and for all that i really didn't need to spend all that money to get basically the same results i was getting with the dermamed (i'm stubborn when it comes to this stuff, and i like to give things a few months to work themselves out, and then i get stuck in my rut).

last month, i decided to go back to the dermamed, because i had almost an entire bottle still in my cupboard and i figured what the heck. i went through the same drying routine, but after a few weeks that's under control with the right moisturizer. i'm still incorporating the mychelle mask and peel every other night, because i have them to use up, but i'm not sure if i'll stick with them for the long haul. i'm just really tired of playing this game, and i hate that every time i try something new i have to commit to two months of(even worse) breakouts while waiting to see if it will work. i know that nature's gate has a "kit" for acne and so does aveda (holy spendy!), but i don't know anyone personally who has used either one, and i'm wary of getting involved. heh. 

thanks for letting me whine. if any of you are fellow sufferers, let me know if you've found your magical solution yet. 

the veganity of nail polish

i'm just going to come right out and admit my ignorance: what makes nail polish Not Vegan? is it potential animal testing, depending on the company? or is there an actual ingredient that is animal-based in most nail polish?

i ask because i have a large back-stock of OPI nail polish in my cupboard, and i'm wondering if i should be grossed out by it or not. i've had these bottles almost forever, seriously, because they hold up well and i only use it on my toes and i don't necessarily paint my toes year-round. i know there are a couple of vegan nail polish companies, and i've tried the no miss brand, but honestly i much prefer my OPI stuff. there is really only one shade of no miss that i like (zinnia zephyr or something like that), and while it's quite pretty, i get bored of wearing the same color absolutely all the time. also, i feel like the OPI wears better and longer. 

does anyone know the ins and outs of nail polish? is my OPI stuff okay? are there other vegan nail polish companies out there that i should know about? especially ones that don't only have "fun" colors? i'm kind of a shimmery-taupe kind of gal when it comes to nail polish, so turquoise and fuschia and bright red aren't selling points for me. someone, de-mystify nail polish for those of us who are clueless!

lunch without garbage

so! i'm trying to reduce the amount of ziploc bags we go through, which admittedly isn't tons, but also admittedly could be about zero if we worked at it. whenever i go to campus for any length of time, i bring lunch along with me, and i usually use at least two ziploc bags each time: one for my sandwich, and one for crackers or something (to be dipped in hummus), and/or one for dessert, if it's cookies or something "loose" like that. now, i don't go to school all day very often (especially this past year, being on sabbatical), but still, even going a few times a week adds up to a bunch of garbage. my husband tends not to pack lunches for himself (he just packs them for me! score!), so it's really just me using all these bags.

i decided to buy a few reusable sandwich bags to give them a try. i ordered a pair of these lunchskins from 3 green moms, and i also ordered two snack taxi bags (one in the sandwich size, and one in the snack size). i haven't had a chance to try them out very thoroughly yet, but i'm working on it. my first impressions are pretty good, although i have a couple of general concerns. 

first is the dreaded jelly problem: i can't tell you the number of times i've pulled my pb&j out of my lunch bag and found that some jelly has seeped out of one side. not a ton, but just enough to get on the ziploc and be sticky. i'm not really looking forward to that happening in these new bags, because wiping up jelly everyday is kind of yucky. the couple of times i've used the bags already, i've made Extremely Neat Sandwiches with Very Careful Peanut Butter Boundaries, but let's get real because that's not always going to happen. well, and now that i think about it... sometimes the peanut butter seeps out the side, too, and that's not fun to clean up, either. meh.

second is the freshness issue. as my husband pointed out, velcro flaps don't really mean airtight, so i'm wondering if i'll ever end up with slightly stiff bread or mildly stale cookies. so far, so good, but only time will tell! 

if anyone has had experience with either of these bags, let me know how you like them... or if you have any specific cleaning tips. so far, i think i prefer the snackTaxi bags, because they're more flexible, and therefore easier to quickly turn inside out and back again. then again, the velcro strip is wider on the lunchskins, so maybe i'll notice that they keep things fresher. stay tuned, i guess!

my next project is finding the perfect lunch bag (i.e., the bag to carry all this stuff in). right now i'm using a (free) insulated bag from whole foods--they gave them away when they opened up in our town. i like it okay, but it's designed kind of funky and i've been wondering if i'd like different shapes better. i'm also wondering whether i need insulated or not, since i have a mini-fridge right next to my desk. any recommendations, i'd love to hear them!

have you had the dandies?

i'm sure you've all heard by now that there are new vegan marshmallows on the market. they are called dandies, and they have been brought to us by the very same people who brought us temptation ice cream and teese: chicago soydairy. i know that it's been a little tough for people to get their hands on these little lovelies, but i was SUPER lucky and happened to snag a bag at just the right time. and let me tell you, they are amazing! they taste seriously for realiously exactly like you remember marshmallows from the pregan days. they are soft, chewy, pillowy, a little powdery on the outside, sticky inside, sweet, and delicious. i haven't even made anything with them yet, i've just been eating them out of the bag in stunned (and happy) silence. 

i've already heard many tales (and seen a few blog posts, with pictures... here's one, for example!) of people getting marshmallowy with their dandies, though, and it appears as though they behave beautifully in cocoa, in s'mores, and in krispie treats. hooray! when they become more plentiful again, i'll buy a few bags and start baking and whatnot, but for now i'm happy to pop them as mini-snacks. 

now, if only we could get someone to make the weird hard marshmallows vegan, so i could eat lucky charms and oreo o's again. heh.

anise toothpaste

about a year ago, i started searching for a new toothpaste. my ol' standby (tom's of maine cinnamint) had been retired, and i was kind of heartbroken, and i had to start from scratch. i tried a few that were "just okay" and honestly at this point i can't remember what they were anymore. i know we used JASON orange-cinnamon-mint nutrismile for awhile, and liked it, but after a few tubes i felt like it wasn't really as "fresh" as i like my toothpaste to be, and i didn't always feel squeaky-clean after brushing. i'm sure this is more my own issues than anything to do with the actual toothpaste; it's probably just a preference or something i'm used to or whatever, but i decided to start experimenting again. i believe i tried the cinnamon-mint powersmile, and i honestly can't remember anything about it, so it must have been one of those "just okay" tubes. 

at some point i switched from JASON over to nature's gate, because my co-op was having a huge sale on them, and i picked up a tube of their cool mint gel. it was a blend of spearmint and peppermint, which i thought would be great, but really i thought it was almost overly strong, and decided to try something else when we finished that tube. for reasons completely unknown to me, i decided to give the creme de anise a shot. maybe it was the box's promise of "deliciously fresh breath," or maybe it was the pretty star-shaped anise on the front, i don't know. my grandpa always loved anise candies, and i loved them as a kid because i loved him, so maybe that's what did it. anyhow, i brought the weird toothpaste home half-expecting to hate it, but i actually loved it! my husband was a little more skeptical, but eventually came around (mostly). 

the weirdest part is that i absolutely cannot stand black licorice; i think it's disgusting. i always sort of equated black licorice with anise in my mind, with the weird exception of anise candies (i know this makes literally no sense whatsoever), and i still compartmentalize them in my head. i did some wikipedia-perusing, and apparently there are some similarities/connections among licorice, anise, and fennel... which is another thing i've always hated. so how the heck do i come off loving anise toothpaste but hating black licorice and fennel? it's a mystery.

to make things more complicated, i should share that the entire basis of my fennel-hate is rooted in my mom's penchant for putting whole fennel seeds in lasagna when i was growing up. barf, i hated when i bit into one of those seeds. but! when we were on the vegan cruise last month (right in the midst of my new love affair with anise toothpaste), i had the opportunity to try a bowl of fennel soup. guess what? i really liked it! it tasted kind of like celery to me. this whole thing just keeps getting weirder, i know.

the only thing i can figure is that i'm one of those people who picks up on subtle differences in flavor, so anise = tasty while black licorice = disgusting, and fennel seeds are the devil while fennel soup is actually kind of nice. i can't explain myself, i can just talk up the weird anise toothpaste and tell you it's my new favorite.

bo obama

so, yeah, i'm definitely disappointed at the about-face on the president's decision to accept a dog from a breeder rather than adopt from a shelter. i imagine we all are, to some degree. i think it's kind of been done to death in the media, and honestly i'm not even bothered by that, because i do think it's a big deal. i'm not going to yammer on and on because it would be preaching to the choir, but i did want to share this article, because it's one of the more interesting ones i've read on the matter. i almost came away with the feeling that there was never a true intent to rescue from a shelter, which bums me out. meh.

vitasoy rumor

i just heard from a friend who manages a retail store that vitasoy is going to stop peddling their wares in the US. what the hell, people? peppermint chocolate vitasoy will cease to exist? that is completely unacceptable. i think there is a conspiracy against me.

RIP, peppermint ritter sports

okay, i had worked up a whole desperate ranty piece of work about peppermint ritter sports, but then after doing some more research (i.e., discussion board stalking) i learned that not only am i late to this party, but it looks like it's somewhat final and basically a lost cause. so, i guess i should instead be happy that i had several extra months of ignorant bliss compared to some PRS-lovers, and do my part in spreading the word (but please don't shoot the messenger!).

if you didn't already know from my previous ramblings about peppermint ritter sports, they are one of my very favorite treats in all the land. i had to have a Serious Talk with myself when i went vegan, understanding that i would never again have a PRS bar, and made my peace with it... only to learn that they were in fact vegan, and i could keep eating them forevah! hooray! well, then they suddenly became really impossible to find in the US, which created a bit of a problem for me, but my husband's discovery of online german candy companies and my girlfriends in canada helped a sister out from time to time, and i was still able to have my lovelies. most recently, a friend of mine went to germany, and she brought back ten bars for me. i still have three left, which is pretty good considering they were delivered to me four months ago. i am capable of restraint! who knew?

well anyhow, a couple of weeks ago i was chatting up the good folks at vegan essentials in an effort to see if there was any way they could figure out how to stock PRS bars, and in the process of researching everything together, we stumbled upon a bittersweet revelation: (a) peppermint rittersports are once again available in the US--woohoo!!!, and (b) they now include butterfat--WTeffingF?!? 

apparently, this has been true for awhile now, but i've been living in a bubble, so to speak. i saw them in the store just last week and indeed, they include butterfat on the label now. the bars i have from germany are still clean, and i've heard that there are still some bars in canada that are clean, but it looks like the butterfat versions are snaking their way around the world now, as the old stock sells out. grrrrr. a few people have written to the company, and been given a line of total hoohaw regarding "bloom" and maintaining the integrity of the chocolate. to which i say, give me a break, because the marzipan and dark chocolate ritter sports remain vegan regardless of the possibility of "bloom." so lame.

back when they started becoming super-scarce in the US, the rumor was that there was some kind of weird ingredient that the US didn't allow, so they could be sold all over the place, just not here. i never learned what that ingredient was, but it looks like they took it out and added butterfat in its place. boo on you, ritter sport. you just lost a small but previously-very-loyal fanbase, for no reason whatsoever. 

i'm starting to get extremely frustrated with companies that add non-vegan ingredients to otherwise-vegan products. first hemp organics added beeswax to their tinted lip balms (otherwise known as "my only lipstick," thank you very much), then alba added beeswax to their hawaiian lip balms (otherwise known as "my very favorite lip balm"), and now ritter sport. :angry face:

but, those two experiences taught me something very important: no matter how distraught i am at the time, i always find something suitable as a replacement. so my new mission is going to be tracking down those divine after-dinner mints that i told you about a few months ago. they are really really tasty, plus they're fair trade, which makes me happy. they appear to be just a holiday thing, but maybe if there's demand they'll sell them year-round? (and if that works, you're next, peppermint chocolate vitasoy and pumpkin silk!) ah well, a girl can dream.

thank you

i just wanted to say thanks for all of the sweet comments, both on my last post and privately via email. you guys are awesome, and it means a lot to me. i'm going to try to get back to "normal" posting now, but i appreciate the willingness to listen to me be serious and emotional when i need to be. i'll keep you posted, okay? xoxo

let's get this part out of the way

i'll update you on the sad/scary stuff so we can get it out in the open and move forward, how's that? once i've cleared the air i'll feel more normal about posting silly frivolous things.

so, i mentioned in my last post that i had some family health drama over the past month or so, which coincidentally centered around the time we were about to leave town for ten days, which made things even more frustrating and created a lot of uncertainty and weirdness over vacation. my grandmother, whose health had been failing, really started to go downhill about ten days before we were supposed to leave. she was fighting breast cancer that had spread to her bones, and in the past year or so, it was getting the best of her. this was horrible, because she had actually been fighting breast cancer since 1980(!), when she had her first mastectomy. she had another bout in 1995, which resulted in a second mastectomy, and then a few years ago it spread to her bones. she did pretty well at first, but then after awhile it took its toll, and it was terribly difficult for her (as well as for the rest of us). she was such a fighter, and such an optimist--she never EVER complained and she was always certain that things would work out okay. she was usually right, too. 

the week or two before we were supposed to leave town, her health declined dramatically, and there was a lot of stress over whether to use hospice or a nursing home, and in the end we tried both. my family absolutely insisted that we go on our vacation anyway (saying that even my grandma would insist if she could), so we did, but we were pretty sure that my gram wouldn't survive to see us return. i was able to spend a lot of time with her and say my goodbyes and i love yous, but it was still awful having to leave, knowing that i wouldn't be there with everyone. she passed away the day after we left town, just a few hours before our ship pushed away from the dock. as i said, i was prepared for it to happen, but it still sucked pretty bad. my grandpa is absolutely heartbroken--they had been married for 60 years and were still madly in love. in the end, it was a blessing, but still, so very sad.

and if that weren't enough...

the evening before we left town, my little sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. she called to tell me, and i was a useless pile of crap, because all i could do was sob quietly and listen to her talk. she had found a lump a couple weeks earlier (i knew this already), and had gone through the whole thing with her doctor, and eventually had a mammogram and an ultrasound and a biopsy, and then they called her immediately the next day with the news. she is 31 years old, with two little girls (four and a half, and fourteen months), and a wonderful husband. the word suck doesn't even begin to describe this. anyhow, she also insisted that we keep our vacation plans, because she was going to have two different tests while we were gone and she "wouldn't even know anything" until we got back anyway. so, we went, knowing that she had cancer when the rest of my family (still dealing with my gram's impending death) had no idea. i pretty much had a stomach ache the whole time, when i wasn't secretly crying somewhere.

once we got home we learned more about her diagnosis... she has a pretty aggressive form of breast cancer (she's triple negative, if that means anything to you), but as far as they can tell (after an MRI, CT scan, and bone scan) it hasn't spread anywhere beyond the known mass yet. she started chemo two weeks ago, and will undergo a total of 12 weeks of treatment (four cycles of a three-week treatment) before having surgery this summer. after she recovers from surgery, she will have another 12 weeks of chemo (a different drug than she is getting now) and we will go from there. she is being really awesome and strong, which i believe is really important, and i'm super proud of her. but i'm still totally scared and freaked out when i let myself think about it too much, which i suppose is normal.

she is being tested for the BRCA gene, and depending on her results, my mom and i will get tested too. it's quite likely that she does NOT have it, but she wants to check just in case; it could affect her treatment decisions, and it would potentially have an impact on me, my mom, and my nieces. i went for my mammogram last week (i'd never had one before; i was "too young"), and it came back normal. my mom also went for one, and they have an "area of interest" that they want to do ultrasound on (tomorrow). sigh.

i'm trying really hard to report "just the facts" and not get all overly emo on you guys, since that's not usually what i'm about... but at least this somewhat explains where the eff i've been lately. i've probably rambled too much, so i'll stop. the next post will be more upbeat, i promise.