Well, dear readers, Sugarless March has been harder than ever. I thought "third time's the charm," but that's not the case. I've not lived up to my manifesto. All of last week I was so-darn-tired. I mean, near-tears pleading-for-a-pillow-and-a-blanket-in-the-middle-of-the-day-tired. Our fridge is now stuffed with wilting greens and remnants of take-out. Sigh.
I think I'm starting to feel revived, but I have been feeling sorry for myself. No sweets? No chocolate? Isn't it enough that I gave up caffeine a few years ago? Well, all of last week, I drank a cup of green or black tea in the morning. Seems my body wants (needs?) one or the other: sweets or caffeine.
It was no problem giving up animal products (alas, I still eat eggs on occasion and feel guilty about it every time). It was joyful giving up animal products. My palate and life expanded into something better, more diverse, more exciting and adventurous. Eliminate caffeine and sweets, and well, it all feels so, so...Puritan.
Plus, since last year's birthday, I've been learning the hard lesson of "acceptance." I'm sure there will be more posts about this eventually, but let's just say I'm having a bit of a mid-life crisis but am loathe to admit it. The things I've been dissatisfied with or have tried to change in myself have come back to bite me--really hard--in the ass. More on that later.
Anyway, this sweet-and-sugar fast forces me to see myself a little more honestly. I'm sooo all-or-nothing perfectionista! That should be my roller derby name. Not "Coma Splice" but "Perfectionista!" Things are either perfect, as in: just the way Trista wants them and nearly living up to what she'd imagined, or they're not, as in: total failure why bother trying?
I've noticed this even in teaching. My instinct as a teacher is to encourage everyone and push them to achieve more than they expect for themselves. (Except when I meet another perfectionist. Then I hear myself saying, through gritted teeth trying to be convincing, "It's just one essay. Just get it done. It's one small part of your academic career.") However, privately, I get frustrated by students who don't attend class every day, on time, prepared, and participating. I hear a voice in my head, maybe the devil on one of my shoulders, saying, "Either you're here or you're not. You're learning or you're not. Either commit to this class and give it your all or get out."
I would never, NEVER say this aloud nor let it influence any interaction with a student. However, Sugarless March has made me notice this habit of thought because it's so all-or-nothing. Sure, it's BEST if someone attends every day, prepared and ready to participate. But, say someone shows up to class, hasn't done any of the work, and half-listens. There's a gray area there, a big, huge, wide gray area that I ignore. S/he could still be learning something. In fact, s/he might learn something that lasts a life time. Ten years from now they might remember something a classmate said that day or even something I said. The private voice in my head would have tossed them out of class, and maybe we would have missed learning something s/he would have said in class discussion. This same voice wants to toss out sweet-free March.
So, once again, I'm learning that there is value in trying. I mean, I love Yoda's: do or do not, there is no try. But, well, dear Jedi, you're wrong. You were an awesome Muppet and Jim Henson creation who ate some really gross food, but you were wrong about this "do or do not." I mean... in the "I'm trying" stage of life, it kind of sucks, but there's a lot to learn. There's a lot of potential. The outcome is unknown. Is there any value to a month of no sweets? I don't have any medical or nutritional reason to refrain from sweets, but obviously, it's hard for me to do, so maybe there's something here for me I'd have found no other way.
We'll see....
March 18, 2012
March 11, 2012
Sweet Service at The Nines
I attended an awards ceremony with my husband this weekend. It was held at a fancy hotel downtown, The Nines. We got off on the wrong floor, and while waiting for the elevator to return, I noticed some of the art: super-thin shimmering red wire crocheted into the shape of an elegant dress, framed and lighted perfectly, like some impossible costume from a dark fairy tale.
After we got to the right floor and finished the silent auction part of the night, we found our dinner table. Little labels tucked into the back of our name tags announced, "Vegetarian." We put them on our plates. As some of you know, "vegetarian" often gets translated as "We're-so-sorry-you-can't-eat-meat-that-we're-smothering-this-in-cream-and-cheese." Nothing wrong with that, unless you're vegan. How to ask about this politely? I don't want to be a demanding customer. I don't want to trouble the chef or the server, and I'm grateful when a place has a standard hummus plate or spinach salad (hold the feta).
Servers in sharp black and white uniforms buzzed through the packed dining hall, but our server seemed particularly attentive. He came around with a tiny notepad and pencil, leaning in discretely and confirming with each person at our table, "You want the chicken?" and then making a note. When he got to me, he said, "Vegetarian?" "Yes," I said, "but do you have...could you..." I stumbled over whether or not to use the word "vegan." We're in downtown Portland for heaven's sake, but I worry about sounding pretentious. He leaned closer to hear me over the loud din of the room. "Do you have anything without dairy? Anything vegan?" Almost apologetically, he said, "Yes, but it's risotto with quinoa and wild mushrooms." Wow! That will do!
Gratefully, I ate my frighteningly-creamy risotto. How do you make vegan risotto? Normally I scoff when I read flowery food literature that describes layers of texture and nuances of flavor, but the crunch of the quinoa against the smoothness of the pasta and the peppery and sweet flavors made this simple dish elegant. The problem is, I could have eaten two more bowls quite contentedly.
When dessert came around, I was ready to say "no thank you." It is never vegan, and it's usually already placed on the table before we sit down, woven into the center piece, so mine always gets wasted because everyone else at the table is too polite to eat two desserts in public. Feigning contentment, I said, "I'm okay, thank you" when our server placed a rectangular plate in front of me. The white plate framed a cylinder of rich mouse covered in dark, shiny chocolate sauce, a rolled cigarette of dark chocolate, and two dollops of ice cream. It looked heavenly.
The woman next to me did not have hers yet and started to take mine when she managed to hear me say "no thank you." Our server, however, perfect etiquette like someone trained to orchestrate high tea in London, whisked my plate away as if it might have offended me and continued in his orderly direction, which meant the woman next to me would be served last. I could tell she was a chocolate lover like me and exercised discipline while waiting for her plate.
When everyone at our talbe was halfway through their dessert, our server came back and asked me, "If I could find some fresh fruit, would you eat that for dessert?"
Wow. I couldn't believe it. He did not need to do this. Servers don't get tips at these banquets. The event was nearly over. Why go to the trouble of finding me dessert? Why go the extra mile?
"I'd love some," I said, "but you don't need to go to any trouble." His manner of acceptancing my answer made me think he was a little relieved to get back to cleaning up coffee cups. Nevertheless, a short while later, he appeared again, this time with an oval boat-like dish. "It's coconut-milk-tapioca pudding that we make in house with mango sorbet."
"Thank you so much," I said, "This was really sweet of you." Truly, I did not expect this sort of special attention, but I was grateful.
I took a bite of the tapioca, and I swear, it was like that scene in Ratatouille when he sees colors and images as the different tastes mingle in his mouth creating a Fantasia-like scene. I've never had a taste experience like this. The pudding was creamy but fine, not thick. The tapioca beads were different shapes like each one had been handmade, and they were soft, nothing like the hard balls that you get in bubble tea. The sweet coconut had a tiny swirl of something a little tart and almost bitter laced in it, like dark chocolate, but the dish was pearly white.
I took a second bite and said to my husband, knowing he would think my breath smelled like shampoo because he does not like coconut, "This is sooooo good!" He nodded, focused on the acceptance speech.
It was during that second bite that I realized---I'm eating sugar! the server had said he might find "fresh fruit," so when he gave me the dish, I dove right in and did not even pause.
Was it because of the week without sweets that this tasted so spectacular? The high-end hotel chef and her/his handmade tapioca? Or the graciousness of our server?
I risked interrupting the speech one more time to whisper to my husband, "I just realized this is sugar."
"It's okay," he said. He'd had his own mindless moment with a turkey sandwich earlier that week.
I ate the dish slowly, savoring every bite. This is something I used to aspire to, but now I make fun of food writers and their slow savoring. I embrace my preference for a big meal and indulgence. Why close my eyes and notice every moment of a square of chocolate melting when I can enjoy the snap of biting chunks of the bar off and chomping away?
The small portion, my hungry stomach, the delicacy of the dish--as unfathomable as the wire crocheted dresses--and the graciousness of our server made me hold each bite dear.
When the event ended, I found our server. "Thank you so much for the vegan dessert. You didn't have to go to all that trouble, but it was delicious." He and his co-worker stood in a doorway waiting for us to clear out. "It was the gluten-free dessert, but it happened to also be vegan," he said. His coworker smiled and nodded. "We got to eat some and were joking that we'd like it in a bucket." "Me too!" I exclaimed and thanked him again.
Exactly--a bucket of that pudding would be heaven. I've heard people say this before, and it always sounded gross to me, but now I think I understand: I want to swim in that tapioca pudding! Give me a small pool of it. If we ate something this soft, silky, and sweet now and then, humans would be kinder animals.
So--I may have broken my sweet-free fast again but it doesn't feel like it because the original goals of Sweetless/Meatless March were still met: try new foods, stop taking food for granted, remember to savor, eat together and be grateful.
I will not be surprised if it's this tapioca pudding I request sixty-some years from now on my deathbed. What a perfect dish to usher one into the cloudy ether.
After we got to the right floor and finished the silent auction part of the night, we found our dinner table. Little labels tucked into the back of our name tags announced, "Vegetarian." We put them on our plates. As some of you know, "vegetarian" often gets translated as "We're-so-sorry-you-can't-eat-meat-that-we're-smothering-this-in-cream-and-cheese." Nothing wrong with that, unless you're vegan. How to ask about this politely? I don't want to be a demanding customer. I don't want to trouble the chef or the server, and I'm grateful when a place has a standard hummus plate or spinach salad (hold the feta).
Servers in sharp black and white uniforms buzzed through the packed dining hall, but our server seemed particularly attentive. He came around with a tiny notepad and pencil, leaning in discretely and confirming with each person at our table, "You want the chicken?" and then making a note. When he got to me, he said, "Vegetarian?" "Yes," I said, "but do you have...could you..." I stumbled over whether or not to use the word "vegan." We're in downtown Portland for heaven's sake, but I worry about sounding pretentious. He leaned closer to hear me over the loud din of the room. "Do you have anything without dairy? Anything vegan?" Almost apologetically, he said, "Yes, but it's risotto with quinoa and wild mushrooms." Wow! That will do!
Gratefully, I ate my frighteningly-creamy risotto. How do you make vegan risotto? Normally I scoff when I read flowery food literature that describes layers of texture and nuances of flavor, but the crunch of the quinoa against the smoothness of the pasta and the peppery and sweet flavors made this simple dish elegant. The problem is, I could have eaten two more bowls quite contentedly.
When dessert came around, I was ready to say "no thank you." It is never vegan, and it's usually already placed on the table before we sit down, woven into the center piece, so mine always gets wasted because everyone else at the table is too polite to eat two desserts in public. Feigning contentment, I said, "I'm okay, thank you" when our server placed a rectangular plate in front of me. The white plate framed a cylinder of rich mouse covered in dark, shiny chocolate sauce, a rolled cigarette of dark chocolate, and two dollops of ice cream. It looked heavenly.
The woman next to me did not have hers yet and started to take mine when she managed to hear me say "no thank you." Our server, however, perfect etiquette like someone trained to orchestrate high tea in London, whisked my plate away as if it might have offended me and continued in his orderly direction, which meant the woman next to me would be served last. I could tell she was a chocolate lover like me and exercised discipline while waiting for her plate.
When everyone at our talbe was halfway through their dessert, our server came back and asked me, "If I could find some fresh fruit, would you eat that for dessert?"
Wow. I couldn't believe it. He did not need to do this. Servers don't get tips at these banquets. The event was nearly over. Why go to the trouble of finding me dessert? Why go the extra mile?
"I'd love some," I said, "but you don't need to go to any trouble." His manner of acceptancing my answer made me think he was a little relieved to get back to cleaning up coffee cups. Nevertheless, a short while later, he appeared again, this time with an oval boat-like dish. "It's coconut-milk-tapioca pudding that we make in house with mango sorbet."
"Thank you so much," I said, "This was really sweet of you." Truly, I did not expect this sort of special attention, but I was grateful.
I took a bite of the tapioca, and I swear, it was like that scene in Ratatouille when he sees colors and images as the different tastes mingle in his mouth creating a Fantasia-like scene. I've never had a taste experience like this. The pudding was creamy but fine, not thick. The tapioca beads were different shapes like each one had been handmade, and they were soft, nothing like the hard balls that you get in bubble tea. The sweet coconut had a tiny swirl of something a little tart and almost bitter laced in it, like dark chocolate, but the dish was pearly white.
I took a second bite and said to my husband, knowing he would think my breath smelled like shampoo because he does not like coconut, "This is sooooo good!" He nodded, focused on the acceptance speech.
It was during that second bite that I realized---I'm eating sugar! the server had said he might find "fresh fruit," so when he gave me the dish, I dove right in and did not even pause.
Was it because of the week without sweets that this tasted so spectacular? The high-end hotel chef and her/his handmade tapioca? Or the graciousness of our server?
I risked interrupting the speech one more time to whisper to my husband, "I just realized this is sugar."
"It's okay," he said. He'd had his own mindless moment with a turkey sandwich earlier that week.
I ate the dish slowly, savoring every bite. This is something I used to aspire to, but now I make fun of food writers and their slow savoring. I embrace my preference for a big meal and indulgence. Why close my eyes and notice every moment of a square of chocolate melting when I can enjoy the snap of biting chunks of the bar off and chomping away?
The small portion, my hungry stomach, the delicacy of the dish--as unfathomable as the wire crocheted dresses--and the graciousness of our server made me hold each bite dear.
When the event ended, I found our server. "Thank you so much for the vegan dessert. You didn't have to go to all that trouble, but it was delicious." He and his co-worker stood in a doorway waiting for us to clear out. "It was the gluten-free dessert, but it happened to also be vegan," he said. His coworker smiled and nodded. "We got to eat some and were joking that we'd like it in a bucket." "Me too!" I exclaimed and thanked him again.
Exactly--a bucket of that pudding would be heaven. I've heard people say this before, and it always sounded gross to me, but now I think I understand: I want to swim in that tapioca pudding! Give me a small pool of it. If we ate something this soft, silky, and sweet now and then, humans would be kinder animals.
So--I may have broken my sweet-free fast again but it doesn't feel like it because the original goals of Sweetless/Meatless March were still met: try new foods, stop taking food for granted, remember to savor, eat together and be grateful.
I will not be surprised if it's this tapioca pudding I request sixty-some years from now on my deathbed. What a perfect dish to usher one into the cloudy ether.
March 7, 2012
Accepting Sweet Defeat
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| Vegan Coffee Cake my husband made a couple of years ago. Notice the sugary topping. Mmmmm..... |
No offense to J, but I was glad to hear it. I was even more glad when we had a chance to talk about it. Instead of viewing his wine consumption as total failure and starting over, adding three days to the length of his fast like I did, he said he's glad we both failed. He pointed out that we're human, something I often try to overcome, thinking my vegan diet and yoga will help me evade aging and death. He said, "It doesn't matter. If I only fail that one day, I'll still have 39 days without wine. Still a success and healthy to take a break!"
What? Really? Is that true?
When I first became vegan, I wrote a woeful 'zine issue about accidentally, maybe eating chicken bits in some Thai food. I never knew if it was chicken or not, but I completely freaked out, feeling like my months of vegan power had been robbed by those bites of maybe, possibly, chicken. Like Kryptonite. I'd been tainted and felt I had to start over. I'd have to start being vegan again in the morning. The previous months were canceled out by that meal that might have had chicken in it.
My friend pointed out that my all-or-nothing attitude is fine at times, a "test of will." However, wisely, a lot like my husband might do, he added that if I fail, I don't have to completely go off the wagon for the rest of the month.
That's the beauty of my all-or-nothing attitude. Say I fail one more time, I could just call it quits and start eating sweets again.
For example--When I first started teaching, a few students who showed up to class but rarely did any work mystified me. By chance, I assigned an essay topic that got some of the class writing about the learning process. One student wrote about failure. She explained that some students prefer not to try, not to do any of the work. That way, they can brush off an "F" and tell their family and friends, "Oh, that class? I didn't even do the work." It leaves the door open to suggest that if they HAD bothered to do the work, they would have passed. More importantly, it's easier and safer to say they CHOSE not to try, they CHOSE to fail, rather than admit they put effort into a class, cared about their work, tried to do their best, opened their heart and mind, and failed anyway. ---That's a lot more painful than pretending that you never cared in the first place.
I guess I'd rather say I failed at Sugarless March and joke it off while I nibble on my vegan chocolate chip cookie than keep slogging through this gray area where I FEEL the fact of being human: I have to face my cravings, my weaknesses, assess my goals and values compared to my physical needs and wishes. I have to constantly choose to try, even if I'm not winning.
That's it: I have to choose to try even when I'm not winning. Ultimately, it's better to try than not, right? Doesn't feel that way, but I believe it's true. I think this year's Sugarless/Meatless March lesson is about acceptance.
Today is my fourth sweetless day. We'll see.... Thanks for all of the comments and support. I'm learning a lot, and it's only a few days into March!
March 3, 2012
Sweet Failure
I've failed.
Day one of Sugarless March, fine. Day two, I visited my parents. We were rather overjoyed to see each other for a number of reasons (not the least of which was seeing that my mom is healing from a heinous dog bite), and my mom made us vegan cheese cake from David Gabbe's cookbook. She'd forgotten about sugarless March. Was I really supposed to turn down homemade vegan cheesecake made to celebrate our visit together? I couldn't. It felt worse than slightly bending my sugarless rules.
Okay, fine. Then, Saturday hit. I wanted green tea and soy creamer. I shouldn't have the green tea because I quit caffeine a few years ago, but in the last two weeks, I've let green tea sneak into my life just so I can get through the day. The thing is, I drink green tea with soy creamer. Fine. I was careful to buy the plain creamer, not the vanilla. I read the ingredients. Sort of. My husband puts on the teapot then calls from the kitchen, "Your creamer has cane sugar in it." No! Yes! Cane sugar. Third ingredient.
This isn't even the worst of it. While contemplating whether or not to allow the soy creamer into my diet, I started craving coffee. De-caf of course. Just mention the word "coffee," and I feel nostalgic and cozy. I still had half of a large stack of student papers to grade--on a Saturday--and I wanted some comfort.
My husband and I both texted my best friend for advice. Soy creamer or no? De-caf coffee after dinner, or no? Finally, we decided on de-caf and allowing the soy creamer. That was the tipping point. Why do Sugarless March at all if I'm going to cheat? Why go through the agony of no chocolate if I'm going to allow soy creamer?
Just before arriving at--gasp--Starbucks (didn't even bring our own cups...I mean, if I'm going to go against my ethics, I guess I'm going to go all the way), I decide: "I'm getting a de-caf, soy mocha. I'll start Sugarless March tomorrow."
Seriously? Yes. Here's the proof. Mine is on the right:
I failed. Or, maybe not. I mean, I barely even started Sugarless March. Maybe it's better to say I haven't begun yet. I'm getting a late start. My sugar fast begins tomorrow, March 4 and ends April 4. It's an all-or-nothing commitment.
As I sipped my mocha and graded the last of my students' papers, I found some insight about my sugar fast.
E.C. wrote, "Despite the importance of food for our survival, we also need to feel a sense of goodness within ourselves and that feeling can outweigh our desire for food."
This is easy for me to say with the taste of chocolate still lingering on my tongue, but: I begin again tomorrow not only for the challenge, the goal of asserting some control and direction in my life, and to support my husband's meatless March, but to feel that sense of goodness within myself. For pride or discipline to outweigh desire for sweets.
A.M. wrote, "With fasting, you starve in order to feed your spirit. It makes sense. it's a give and take relationship between your physical body and the non-tangible elements inside you. In learning what to give up, you gain something out of it--you gain conscious spirit."
I'm not starving. I'm not really fasting. I'm just eliminating sweet foods that I turn to for comfort, reward, and pick-me-up. In removing this security blanket, I hope to gain "conscious spirit," awareness made more acute by being freed from the distraction of wanting sweets.
Wish me luck. I'm embarrassed that this is so hard.
Day one of Sugarless March, fine. Day two, I visited my parents. We were rather overjoyed to see each other for a number of reasons (not the least of which was seeing that my mom is healing from a heinous dog bite), and my mom made us vegan cheese cake from David Gabbe's cookbook. She'd forgotten about sugarless March. Was I really supposed to turn down homemade vegan cheesecake made to celebrate our visit together? I couldn't. It felt worse than slightly bending my sugarless rules.
Okay, fine. Then, Saturday hit. I wanted green tea and soy creamer. I shouldn't have the green tea because I quit caffeine a few years ago, but in the last two weeks, I've let green tea sneak into my life just so I can get through the day. The thing is, I drink green tea with soy creamer. Fine. I was careful to buy the plain creamer, not the vanilla. I read the ingredients. Sort of. My husband puts on the teapot then calls from the kitchen, "Your creamer has cane sugar in it." No! Yes! Cane sugar. Third ingredient.
This isn't even the worst of it. While contemplating whether or not to allow the soy creamer into my diet, I started craving coffee. De-caf of course. Just mention the word "coffee," and I feel nostalgic and cozy. I still had half of a large stack of student papers to grade--on a Saturday--and I wanted some comfort.
My husband and I both texted my best friend for advice. Soy creamer or no? De-caf coffee after dinner, or no? Finally, we decided on de-caf and allowing the soy creamer. That was the tipping point. Why do Sugarless March at all if I'm going to cheat? Why go through the agony of no chocolate if I'm going to allow soy creamer?
Just before arriving at--gasp--Starbucks (didn't even bring our own cups...I mean, if I'm going to go against my ethics, I guess I'm going to go all the way), I decide: "I'm getting a de-caf, soy mocha. I'll start Sugarless March tomorrow."
Seriously? Yes. Here's the proof. Mine is on the right:
I failed. Or, maybe not. I mean, I barely even started Sugarless March. Maybe it's better to say I haven't begun yet. I'm getting a late start. My sugar fast begins tomorrow, March 4 and ends April 4. It's an all-or-nothing commitment.
As I sipped my mocha and graded the last of my students' papers, I found some insight about my sugar fast.
E.C. wrote, "Despite the importance of food for our survival, we also need to feel a sense of goodness within ourselves and that feeling can outweigh our desire for food."
This is easy for me to say with the taste of chocolate still lingering on my tongue, but: I begin again tomorrow not only for the challenge, the goal of asserting some control and direction in my life, and to support my husband's meatless March, but to feel that sense of goodness within myself. For pride or discipline to outweigh desire for sweets.
A.M. wrote, "With fasting, you starve in order to feed your spirit. It makes sense. it's a give and take relationship between your physical body and the non-tangible elements inside you. In learning what to give up, you gain something out of it--you gain conscious spirit."
I'm not starving. I'm not really fasting. I'm just eliminating sweet foods that I turn to for comfort, reward, and pick-me-up. In removing this security blanket, I hope to gain "conscious spirit," awareness made more acute by being freed from the distraction of wanting sweets.
Wish me luck. I'm embarrassed that this is so hard.
March 1, 2012
Meatless March, A Sour Month
Many, many years ago, my husband and I created "Meatless March." I wanted to be vegetarian again, but he feared life without chicken. Rather than trying to go cold turkey (ha!), our friend Kim suggested we go meatless for one month every year. That was in February, so we tried it the next month and stayed committed to it ever since.
"But wait," you say, "Aren't you vegan?" Well, yes.
Even though I've been meatless and animal-free for at least six or seven years now, my husband continued to practice Meatless March on his own. A few years ago, he pointed out that it's not as fun when we're not in it together, so he suggested I take on some other challenge. "You should give up sweets," he said.
I totally balked. I mean, within once second of comprehending his suggestion, I was totally defensive and raging on about how I hardly ever ate sweets, never candy, and why would I give up sweets....
Whoa. Obviously, there was something for me here. I'd never reacted this way to cutting meat or dairy. So, reluctantly, I took on the challenge:
No sweets of any kind except fresh or dried fruit or maybe unsweetened juice (for smoothies). That's it. No sugar, no maple syrup, no agave, no brown rice syrup, no artificial sweeteners (never!), no stevia, etc. etc. etc.
The first two Marches were awful. I felt down and negative for the first half of the month, I craved sweets, I longed for sugar like I'd lost part of my soul, and I felt incomplete. All I could think about was how long until the month ended. I was dour. I was sour without any sweets in my life. It was only by the end of week three that I started to feel normal, sort of. Last year it took until the end of the month.
THEREFORE, for THIS Meatless/Sour/Sweet-Free March, I have a mini-manifesto:
So, blog-friends, want to join me? Will you give up sweets, or just sugar, or something else for the month of March? Are you practicing Lent and giving up something already? Will you all post and tell me about your challenges? Or, if you choose not to give up anything, will you please root for me? If this month is anything like the previous three, I'll need some serious cheering.
Stay tuned....This is day one....
(I'm tagging this for VeganMOFOers because I thought you all would relate to the challenge and maybe even want to join me.)
"But wait," you say, "Aren't you vegan?" Well, yes.
Even though I've been meatless and animal-free for at least six or seven years now, my husband continued to practice Meatless March on his own. A few years ago, he pointed out that it's not as fun when we're not in it together, so he suggested I take on some other challenge. "You should give up sweets," he said.
I totally balked. I mean, within once second of comprehending his suggestion, I was totally defensive and raging on about how I hardly ever ate sweets, never candy, and why would I give up sweets....
Whoa. Obviously, there was something for me here. I'd never reacted this way to cutting meat or dairy. So, reluctantly, I took on the challenge:
No sweets of any kind except fresh or dried fruit or maybe unsweetened juice (for smoothies). That's it. No sugar, no maple syrup, no agave, no brown rice syrup, no artificial sweeteners (never!), no stevia, etc. etc. etc.
The first two Marches were awful. I felt down and negative for the first half of the month, I craved sweets, I longed for sugar like I'd lost part of my soul, and I felt incomplete. All I could think about was how long until the month ended. I was dour. I was sour without any sweets in my life. It was only by the end of week three that I started to feel normal, sort of. Last year it took until the end of the month.
THEREFORE, for THIS Meatless/Sour/Sweet-Free March, I have a mini-manifesto:
- This time, March is an opportunity to explore health, palate, and quality of life without sweets,
- To exert determination and focus on life and its unpredictability,
- To assert my will and take charge of the direction of my life because I am totally convinced that the daily decisions we make and actions we take DO determine the quality of our lives now and decades later,
- To practice, once again, some control and direction in life through food and food choices.
- I will post three times a week about this experience and see where sugar-free thoughts take me, letting whatever topics come to mind pour out into the blog, whether they're about food and sugar, or life and death, or love and house cleaning. (These are all topics on my mind at the moment..)
So, blog-friends, want to join me? Will you give up sweets, or just sugar, or something else for the month of March? Are you practicing Lent and giving up something already? Will you all post and tell me about your challenges? Or, if you choose not to give up anything, will you please root for me? If this month is anything like the previous three, I'll need some serious cheering.
Stay tuned....This is day one....
(I'm tagging this for VeganMOFOers because I thought you all would relate to the challenge and maybe even want to join me.)
February 5, 2012
Why I Protest Valentine's Day
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| From "Pouregon.com" |
I started protesting Valentine's Day quietly. On the day many others wore red or pink, brought candy to coworkers, and got misty-eyed over flower deliveries, I wore black. All black. And I kept an eye out for those not receiving flowers, those trying not to succumb to the candy bowls, those sitting alone without fancy dinner reservations hoping the day would end soon. I protested by acting as if it were any other day. If you're a sibling, you know the best way to shut down something annoying is to ignore it. Fight back, and you only give it more energy.
I wear black and protest Valentine's Day because the day puts too much pressure on couples. Love is love, and sometimes, as a couple, you feel gushy, googly-eyed love that you must shout out and use whatever resources you have to convey to your partner just how beautiful and amazing s/he is. Other times, you're in a fowl mood and although you know you love your partner, right now s/he is driving you crazy and you act on love by doing your best to smile, listen, and not say anything too asinine. Then again, there are times when you both say totally asinine things, rage against each other because you know you can, argue and spit nasty things because you know you're safe, you know this person won't leave you, you know you can be yourself around this person--in all your sometimes snotty, greasy-haired, stinky glory.
Say Valentine's Day falls on one of those days, a bad day, a day when all you want to do is eat a bag of chips and watch re-runs of sitcoms. A day when, if you were expected to put on nice clothes, plan a nice evening, and be nice, you'd implode. Why should you have to act as if you feel lovey-dovey when you really feel awful? Do you have to say the gushy "I love you" when really you feel the "Thanks for sticking by me and all my nastiness but I can't stand to be around anyone right now" love you?
Okay, you get the picture. THE DAY forces a certain kind of love to feel and emanate all day, and it's the basest form of love, the shallowest form. It's not bad, but it's not enough. Gushy love lasts as long as the candy tossed around on this day, that candy so sweet it practically stings but leaves you longing for more and never fills you up.
We humans in all our complexity cannot live on cupcakes. Valentine's Day elevates a simplistic love when really, it should be parading anatomical images of the heart--its tight muscle and steady "I got you" beat.
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| Solitary Doug Fir from "Visual V Photos." |
Secondly, Valentine's Day makes singles feel inadequate. Maybe you're one of them? Even my happiest, most accomplished, most independent, beautiful, single friends feel crushed by the day. Who wouldn't? Everyone around you is celebrating (or pretending to celebrate) couples and romantic love, and if you don't have that, well, what are you? You're incomplete. Something's missing. Worse--maybe your coupled life is not one you care to recall. Maybe it was so far from mushy love that you shake from the center of your solar plexus just remembering it. Now, everyone's celebrating something that was a soul-crushing experience for you, and worse, when they walk by you they either ignore you, look at you with disguised pity, or they lavish you with crappy candy as if bestowing you with gifts will somehow distract you from your obvious lack of a mate.
Besides, Valentine's Day is sexist. Not every woman wants a diamond. Many of us know about the slave trade, the violence and suffering behind diamonds, and we don't want anything to do with them. The whole day is a cleaned up, white-washed version of something that is messy, resilient, frighteningly powerful, awe-inspiring, and in short, short supply.
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| From "DeviantArt." |
Notice what else is missing in all the ads, end-aisle displays, and Hallmark movies. Since I turned my back on the day, I don't know for sure, but back when I bothered to notice it, Valentine's Day seemed to be all about white couples with white teeth and good incomes. I don't recall any interracial couples, gay couples, grizzled old gnarled couples, disabled couples, or singles because of course without a mate you just don't have any love in your life, you couldn't possibly join in by celebrating your friendships, your family, your pets and hobbies and music and art.
Well, I'm done giving Valentine's Day my attention. Writing this has been enough. I like that more and more people use the day and the month of February to celebrate heart-health. As I've said before let's give broccoli bouquets. Even so, my new intentional disregard for the day is to wear green, not black. Green is the true opposite of red (see color wheel) and it's a way to commemorate Oregon's birthday, which happened to fall on the 14th, in a year (1859) when, I'm assuming, Cupid was little on people's minds.
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| From "Tiger Color. com" |
So, happy Oregon's Birthday! May you all practice benevolent love, unconditional love, and accepting-thy-neighbor even when her dog poops in your yard love. Now, go hug a Doug Fir or a Chinook Salmon.
January 5, 2012
Vegan Zombies, Harold & Maude, and Marie Curie
Last summer, I shared with you my "mystic" movie picks. This December, we had a long winter break, so I made time to read a little and watch a few films. (If you're a vegan-reader, the vegan one will be obvious by its title; you can skip ahead to the end!)
Harold and Maude
Separately, in the same week, two colleagues of mine, told me that Harold and Maude is their favorite film. I said, "Where the couple gets shot up at the end?" Guess I was thinking of Bonnie and Clyde.
I'd never seen Harold and Maude and only knew it was about a young boy who falls in love with a much older woman and that the film premiered before either of my colleagues or I were born. So, why is this their favorite? The film started out with Harold staging elaborate, gory, fake suicides, and I thought about saving the film for another day.
The scenes in Harold's house with his eccentric mother are lonely, cold, stark, and depressing in a way only 1970s films can be. Is it literally the film material that was used? There's a greenish, cold tone glazed over every scene.
Once Harold meets Maude, an octogenarian anarchist who steals a motorcycle from a police officer (played by Tom Skerrit!) as she liberates a tree from the city and re-plants it in the forest, I started understanding my colleagues' attraction to the film. I assume my colleagues like this film because of Maude; they are both as passionate, open-hearted, political, and exuberant as she is, although not as radical!
My favorite scene was when Harold and Maude are in a field of daisies, Maude's favorite flower. You'd expect this anarchist artist to love something more rare or dark, so Harold points out how the daisies are all the same. There is plenty of immediate evidence to the contrary, Maude says, and shows him how one flower has fewer petals than another. She holds up the one flower and says something like, "The problem is when you are this (she points to the individual flower) but the world treats you like this (she points to the field of seemingly same flowers)." Yes.
Radioactivity: Marie Curie A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss
This book made me deeply admire both Marie Curie and Lauren Redniss. It's an illustrated biography of Marie Curie. Every page is beautiful. The font Redness designed looks like what I'd imagine a careful scientist's handwriting to look like and she uses what sounds like a very complicated printing process to make some pages look radiant, like they've been infused with radon and have the "luminous energy" Curie so admired in her experiments.
Redness splices Curie's life story with the history of the atom bomb and somehow manages to make the whole book inspiring and heartfelt, even though it deals with some tough material. My absolute favorite page is also the most heartbreaking. Redness tells the story of Sadae Kasaoka who survived the bombing of Hiroshima, and then she has Kasaoka design a page to illustrate what it was like to try to save her father whose whole body was burned. It's beautifully painful.
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber
I had the good fortune of taking a class from Diana Abu-Jaber when I was in graduate school. I didn't produce very good work for her, but having known her in person affects the way I read her work. She has since become one of my favorite writers (Arabian Jazz, Crescent, Origin, The Language of Baklava),and when I read her work I tend to think about how she might have gone about writing it. In fact, today, I got so caught up in wondering how she researched her latest book, that I ended up running an extra eight blocks because I wasn't paying attention to where I was going!
Her latest book might be my favorite. I'm not sure. I've read Crescent four times (although the first time I tried to read it I gave up; I don't know why, but the first 30 pages or so confuse me), but Birds of Paradise is sort of the best of Crescent and the best of Origin. It's a mysterious and sort of magical story about a girl who runs away from home at 13 years old. The novel begins when the girl is about to turn 18, and it's told from her point of view as well as the mother's, father's, and older brother's.
The novel takes place in Miami, and the landscape (plants, beach, ocean, animals, mad-crazy building boom) and the people (Haitians, Jewish-Cubans, etc. etc.) absolutely fascinated me. There are some sad, frightening/sickening parts in the novel, but Abu-Jaber never lets anything get too dark or bleak. There's always this feeling of growth in each character, that even when they're about to make bad choices, Abu-Jaber does something in the text that makes you think they are going to somehow recreate themselves. As dark as part of the story is, I am left with bright, vivid, bold splotches of color, sweet scents, and salty breezes in my sensory memory. The characters themselves feel like people I met, like people I stayed with for a long weekend and got to know.
It's a book that's hard to put down because each point of view character has his or her own mystery, and Abu-Jaber understands how to pace a spell-binding story. For that reason, I can't tell you my favorite scene. It's a short, simple flashback from the daughter about her mother, but it explains everything.
The Vegan Revolution...With Zombies by David Agranoff
First of all, so many of my students at the college are into vampire stories and zombies. For at least five years now, students write and talk about zombies a lot, and I have never understood it. I don't get it! Well, I finally read a zombie novel. Why? At Wordstock book festival in the fall, I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt that showed a picture of Portland's vegan mini mall and Food Fight vegan grocery store, but written above the image was: The Vegan Revolution...with Zombies. Huh???
Turns out, a local Portland vegan and writer (fantasy mostly it seems), wrote this book. The library had it, so I checked it out and let it sit on the coffee table for a long time. I didn't know if I really wanted to read it. It wasn't so bad.
The basic premise was interesting: Scientists have created a drug that makes animals incapable of feeling any suffering and pretty much only feel delight no matter how they're raised or slaughtered. So, people rationalize, there's no longer any moral issue around eating meat (which made me think about the test-tube meat that even VegNews Magazine seems to condone). This new meat, of course, is not tested much, just like GMO products, and turns out, eating it turns a person into a zombie, which, according to the one book I've read, are basically slowly rotting human beings who can still walk around and be really gross.
This book made me sort of get the zombie thing. It's a venue for conveying other messages. You read about people eating fast food burgers, looking sicker and sicker, which seems sort of familiar until they eventually turn into zombies.
Unfortunately, the book is filled with aggravating typos, misspellings, and inconsistencies. Nevertheless, there are also hilarious commentaries about Portland's hip crowd, punk crowd, and even some sort of clown posse crowd--basically everyone gets made fun of, especially everyone dawning the mustache trend right now. My favorite hipster turns into the dumbest zombie who keeps banging up against the Food Fight window wearing a t-shirt that says "Bacon is a vegetable." Agranoff gets his point across:
In writing about zombies, the author makes it clear that eating animals is disgusting, that the way we raise animals for food is horrific, and that the whole system is killing us.
A few others if you've managed to read this far:
We finally watched The Hurt Locker, about a bomb squad in Iraq. Its intensity forced me to leave the room a couple of times and made me wonder why I do anything fun at all in my life when there are people out there in the world facing such extreme terror and danger.
We also watched The Blind Side, about the family that adopts a teenage boy who has never had much of a family or home. It inspired both of us but also left me feeling rather helpless about how many people are in the world without a safe place to live.
When my friend who recommended this movie heard we liked it, she said we had to see Hachi. Well...at first, it seemed like a super simple, way-too-sweet movie, and then, well, it was a heart-breaking true story about loyalty and love. Ugh.
It proved a good time to watch The American President, the precursor to our favorite TV show The West Wing, because the president does in the film what I think a lot of us wish current presidential candidates and the president would do more often--be frank, take on a project and see it through re-election/election be damned, and inspire us in the process.
Harold and Maude
Separately, in the same week, two colleagues of mine, told me that Harold and Maude is their favorite film. I said, "Where the couple gets shot up at the end?" Guess I was thinking of Bonnie and Clyde.
I'd never seen Harold and Maude and only knew it was about a young boy who falls in love with a much older woman and that the film premiered before either of my colleagues or I were born. So, why is this their favorite? The film started out with Harold staging elaborate, gory, fake suicides, and I thought about saving the film for another day.
The scenes in Harold's house with his eccentric mother are lonely, cold, stark, and depressing in a way only 1970s films can be. Is it literally the film material that was used? There's a greenish, cold tone glazed over every scene.
Once Harold meets Maude, an octogenarian anarchist who steals a motorcycle from a police officer (played by Tom Skerrit!) as she liberates a tree from the city and re-plants it in the forest, I started understanding my colleagues' attraction to the film. I assume my colleagues like this film because of Maude; they are both as passionate, open-hearted, political, and exuberant as she is, although not as radical!
Radioactivity: Marie Curie A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss
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| A page from Radioactive by Lauren Redniss from "Bomblog." |
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| A page from Radioactive from the post-gazette. |
Redness splices Curie's life story with the history of the atom bomb and somehow manages to make the whole book inspiring and heartfelt, even though it deals with some tough material. My absolute favorite page is also the most heartbreaking. Redness tells the story of Sadae Kasaoka who survived the bombing of Hiroshima, and then she has Kasaoka design a page to illustrate what it was like to try to save her father whose whole body was burned. It's beautifully painful.
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| Sadae Kasaoka's depiction of her father's burned skin from Radioactive posted by theshipthatflew.tumbler.com |
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber
I had the good fortune of taking a class from Diana Abu-Jaber when I was in graduate school. I didn't produce very good work for her, but having known her in person affects the way I read her work. She has since become one of my favorite writers (Arabian Jazz, Crescent, Origin, The Language of Baklava),and when I read her work I tend to think about how she might have gone about writing it. In fact, today, I got so caught up in wondering how she researched her latest book, that I ended up running an extra eight blocks because I wasn't paying attention to where I was going!
 |
| Diana Abu-Jaber. I like this image because it shows her teacher-side. |
Her latest book might be my favorite. I'm not sure. I've read Crescent four times (although the first time I tried to read it I gave up; I don't know why, but the first 30 pages or so confuse me), but Birds of Paradise is sort of the best of Crescent and the best of Origin. It's a mysterious and sort of magical story about a girl who runs away from home at 13 years old. The novel begins when the girl is about to turn 18, and it's told from her point of view as well as the mother's, father's, and older brother's.
The novel takes place in Miami, and the landscape (plants, beach, ocean, animals, mad-crazy building boom) and the people (Haitians, Jewish-Cubans, etc. etc.) absolutely fascinated me. There are some sad, frightening/sickening parts in the novel, but Abu-Jaber never lets anything get too dark or bleak. There's always this feeling of growth in each character, that even when they're about to make bad choices, Abu-Jaber does something in the text that makes you think they are going to somehow recreate themselves. As dark as part of the story is, I am left with bright, vivid, bold splotches of color, sweet scents, and salty breezes in my sensory memory. The characters themselves feel like people I met, like people I stayed with for a long weekend and got to know.
It's a book that's hard to put down because each point of view character has his or her own mystery, and Abu-Jaber understands how to pace a spell-binding story. For that reason, I can't tell you my favorite scene. It's a short, simple flashback from the daughter about her mother, but it explains everything.
The Vegan Revolution...With Zombies by David Agranoff
First of all, so many of my students at the college are into vampire stories and zombies. For at least five years now, students write and talk about zombies a lot, and I have never understood it. I don't get it! Well, I finally read a zombie novel. Why? At Wordstock book festival in the fall, I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt that showed a picture of Portland's vegan mini mall and Food Fight vegan grocery store, but written above the image was: The Vegan Revolution...with Zombies. Huh???
Turns out, a local Portland vegan and writer (fantasy mostly it seems), wrote this book. The library had it, so I checked it out and let it sit on the coffee table for a long time. I didn't know if I really wanted to read it. It wasn't so bad.
The basic premise was interesting: Scientists have created a drug that makes animals incapable of feeling any suffering and pretty much only feel delight no matter how they're raised or slaughtered. So, people rationalize, there's no longer any moral issue around eating meat (which made me think about the test-tube meat that even VegNews Magazine seems to condone). This new meat, of course, is not tested much, just like GMO products, and turns out, eating it turns a person into a zombie, which, according to the one book I've read, are basically slowly rotting human beings who can still walk around and be really gross.
This book made me sort of get the zombie thing. It's a venue for conveying other messages. You read about people eating fast food burgers, looking sicker and sicker, which seems sort of familiar until they eventually turn into zombies.
Unfortunately, the book is filled with aggravating typos, misspellings, and inconsistencies. Nevertheless, there are also hilarious commentaries about Portland's hip crowd, punk crowd, and even some sort of clown posse crowd--basically everyone gets made fun of, especially everyone dawning the mustache trend right now. My favorite hipster turns into the dumbest zombie who keeps banging up against the Food Fight window wearing a t-shirt that says "Bacon is a vegetable." Agranoff gets his point across:
In writing about zombies, the author makes it clear that eating animals is disgusting, that the way we raise animals for food is horrific, and that the whole system is killing us.
A few others if you've managed to read this far:
We finally watched The Hurt Locker, about a bomb squad in Iraq. Its intensity forced me to leave the room a couple of times and made me wonder why I do anything fun at all in my life when there are people out there in the world facing such extreme terror and danger.
We also watched The Blind Side, about the family that adopts a teenage boy who has never had much of a family or home. It inspired both of us but also left me feeling rather helpless about how many people are in the world without a safe place to live.
When my friend who recommended this movie heard we liked it, she said we had to see Hachi. Well...at first, it seemed like a super simple, way-too-sweet movie, and then, well, it was a heart-breaking true story about loyalty and love. Ugh.
It proved a good time to watch The American President, the precursor to our favorite TV show The West Wing, because the president does in the film what I think a lot of us wish current presidential candidates and the president would do more often--be frank, take on a project and see it through re-election/election be damned, and inspire us in the process.
December 27, 2011
Tofurky T-Shirt Contest: sticking my neck out.
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| Nikki McClure's "Invest." |
One of my favorite artists, Nikki McClure, had a retrospective art exhibit at the Oregon Craft Museum this fall. While reading about the exhibit, I learned that McClure and I are about the same age and have dedicated the same number of years to our careers, 15 years to art for her, 15 years to teaching for me.
I wondered: what if I spent the next fifteen years working on my art? Where would I be in fifteen years?
I don't know about you, but I am great at daydreaming about these things. Working up vivid images of my designs, my art studio, this second career I'll have in fifteen years. However, when I actually take a step in that direction, actually try to draw something, I am so discouraged by the distance between reality and my daydream, that I not only give up, but chastise myself for my childish, unrealistic dreaming. In short, I feel like an utter fool and totally embarrassed.
Nevertheless, in my inspired moments, I confess these dreams to my husband, who never judges or laughs or points out the unlikeliness of my ambitions and imaginings. Instead, days after I've forgotten my musings, he comes to me with an idea: emails me a publisher he thinks might like my writing, tells me about a class, or, most recently, tells me about a drawing contest.
Yep, a drawing contest.
Because he believed in me so earnestly, because I had a little vacation time coming up, I committed to it. I told him I'd do it. And at first, it was fun. We sat at the bar of Barista, he sipping a latte, me sipping a dark hot chocolate and sketching ideas and slogans on squares of paper too tiny to ridicule, easy to hide from the swanky gal sitting next to me, and so inconsequential, I managed not to criticize my daydreams.
When I returned to those squares and tried to expand one into something larger, something you wouldn't have to squint at to see, it was like looking at my face in one of those hotel mirrors that magnify. You go from a perfectly normal person to something lizard-like, all scales, hairs, and enormous pores. You're embarrassed you've ever gone out in public, ever. My little drawing suffered the same scrutiny. Larger, it looked amateur and silly, not something an adult aspiring to be an "artist" would draw.
Well, a little more collaboration with my husband, some supportive advice and help from my parents (both artists who had to turn to things like "secretary" and "sales associate" to make a living but never lost their talents for easy, confident sketches of faces, buildings, and landscapes), I managed to keep the critical voice to a muffled muttering. "This is so stupid, and it's so embarrassing that you're doing this" got drowned out by their voices saying professionally, "I think you need to limit the details in this section; it's too heavy on this side." Or, "What if you shift the line this way a little and center this here?"
The result? Well, I sent it to the company many of you know and love: Turtle Island Foods who produce Tofurky products. They posted it on their Facebook page with the other entrants. In a burst of pride, I re-posted it to my Facebook page. Five seconds later, I felt like such an idiot. How embarrassing that I pretend to be an adult and professional in the real world, then let this silly daydream escape into the public.
I get this when I send writing out for publication. Even before it's rejected, pretty much as soon as it's emailed, I suffer what I call "the backlash." It's a severe (and usually brief) painful awareness that you just stuck your neck out and yes, your head could really be lopped off, and wouldn't it have been safer and easier to keep your head down and your silly ambitions to yourself?
Well, thanks to my small family of Facebook friends for writing encouraging notes and even "liking" my design on the Tofurky page, I gained enough confidence to write this post.
Why?
I wanted to share my drawing. To stick my neck out once again. To say, I feel totally stupid, but I'm doing it anyway. Because I know when I read blogs like this, I feel a lot less alone and more emboldened to believe in my private self, the one with all the crazy daydreams. Here it is:
Also, because I learned a few things. I learned that I have a lot of hard work ahead if I really want to become an "artist." And, just like writing, getting started is really painful because the reality never comes close to the vision.
I also learned that I love collaborating. As a teacher, I have awesome colleagues who talk passionately about our work, but ultimately, it's lonely being a teacher. You're the only one in the class. It was so energizing to sketch a few lines and then turn to husband or parent and say, "What do you think about this?" and get an honest answer and brainstorm some ideas. I learned that I crave collaboration, at least in art, maybe in writing and teaching too.
Finally, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who visit my blog and who care about little efforts like this. It's really nice to know you're out there.
December 6, 2011
Confession...Surrender...Excuses
I am caught up in finals and cannot pull my mind away from grading. Alas. I drafted a story for you about cell phones, but it seems bland. Then I thought I'd write about The Muppets but I need more time. So...I'm typing this lame excuse. I won't blame it on computer problems, car trouble, chaotic life forces working against me...truth is, I really gotta go read some stacks of essays. A stack from last week, a stack from yesterday, another stack arrives today, one more tomorrow...
I'll see you next week!
I'll see you next week!
November 29, 2011
Coming Soon...
Did you all have a good Thanksgiving? Our long weekend was a little too good--I'm having a hard time getting back into my routine. I want to keep eating vegan pumpkin pie for breakfast and sleeping in! Nevertheless, I have a few posts brewing...
Maybe some thoughts about our Thanksgiving vegan pumpkin pie taste test.
Definitely some thoughts about the new Muppet Movie... I'll add a "part two" to my earlier post about the Muppets. I was excited about the new movie because I like Jason Segel, and I thought he might be able to do it right unlike the movies made after Jim Henson's death. However, I was nervous about meeting a new muppet. We saw the film on opening night, and.... Well, I'll tell you all about that soon.
Finally, after many months of trying to avoid it, I got a new phone, a smart phone, the new iPhone. Ugh. It makes me mad that we're expected to upgrade our phones every couple of years because parts of those phones are mined from non-renewable resources, and then so many end up in the garbage instead of re-used or recycled. I held onto my last phone for five years, I think. You can imagine then how different an iPhone is. I never had a "data plan" before because there was no data. Well...to my surprise, this phone is transforming my life in ways I never expected, welcome ways, at least so far. It's only been a couple of weeks.
So... one of these stories will get posted soon. First, I need to focus on work. Students are wrapping up this week. Finals are next week. Although a few folks have dropped out in the last week, and a few have disappeared, and a few more are hanging by a thread, I have to say, the vast majority of my students in all four classes are not only passing but doing quite well. I have to remember that as I stress out about the ones disappearing. I think I do more worrying than they do!
My on-campus composition students have a final essay due next week, and I was fretting about their ability to really master the final learning outcomes. After yesterday's class, when they read their "elevator pitch" (thesis statement) aloud, I am now impressed. Phew!
Yesterday's literature students gave engaging, energized, and even emotional presentations about libraries, bookstores, and the role of reading in our lives.
I'm hoping to be entering lots of As, Bs, and Cs next week for fall grades.
Oh, also, this weekend is my mom's and my art sale! That means cleaning the house, making good food, and getting ready to show our friends the arts/crafts we made all year: earrings made from my drawings, cards, calendars, a coloring book, my mom's handmade books, monoprints, re-purposed Altoid tins...You may see a blog about this too!
Thanks for staying tuned!
Maybe some thoughts about our Thanksgiving vegan pumpkin pie taste test.
Definitely some thoughts about the new Muppet Movie... I'll add a "part two" to my earlier post about the Muppets. I was excited about the new movie because I like Jason Segel, and I thought he might be able to do it right unlike the movies made after Jim Henson's death. However, I was nervous about meeting a new muppet. We saw the film on opening night, and.... Well, I'll tell you all about that soon.
Finally, after many months of trying to avoid it, I got a new phone, a smart phone, the new iPhone. Ugh. It makes me mad that we're expected to upgrade our phones every couple of years because parts of those phones are mined from non-renewable resources, and then so many end up in the garbage instead of re-used or recycled. I held onto my last phone for five years, I think. You can imagine then how different an iPhone is. I never had a "data plan" before because there was no data. Well...to my surprise, this phone is transforming my life in ways I never expected, welcome ways, at least so far. It's only been a couple of weeks.
So... one of these stories will get posted soon. First, I need to focus on work. Students are wrapping up this week. Finals are next week. Although a few folks have dropped out in the last week, and a few have disappeared, and a few more are hanging by a thread, I have to say, the vast majority of my students in all four classes are not only passing but doing quite well. I have to remember that as I stress out about the ones disappearing. I think I do more worrying than they do!
My on-campus composition students have a final essay due next week, and I was fretting about their ability to really master the final learning outcomes. After yesterday's class, when they read their "elevator pitch" (thesis statement) aloud, I am now impressed. Phew!
Yesterday's literature students gave engaging, energized, and even emotional presentations about libraries, bookstores, and the role of reading in our lives.
I'm hoping to be entering lots of As, Bs, and Cs next week for fall grades.
Oh, also, this weekend is my mom's and my art sale! That means cleaning the house, making good food, and getting ready to show our friends the arts/crafts we made all year: earrings made from my drawings, cards, calendars, a coloring book, my mom's handmade books, monoprints, re-purposed Altoid tins...You may see a blog about this too!
Thanks for staying tuned!
November 21, 2011
Thanksgiving & Tibetan Bells
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| Order this cute coloring book from Thora Thinks. |
I wasn't surprised.
This summer, I visited my friends' farm. They raise animals for meat, so it may seem like a weird place for a veganish person to visit, but I like my friends, I admire the way they run their farm, and I wanted to see it for myself. My visit confirmed what I already believed: if people are going to eat animals, they should be buying from farms like Cerigioli.
After meeting some chickens and two rabbits in the barn, I met the turkeys. At the time, Jann said they were "fifth graders," not yet adolescents but not babies either. They roamed a large fenced in area outside with a small shed for cover. When we walked up to a corner of their yard, most of them jogged over. "Their necks flush when they're curious," Jann said. You know the tan, mostly unfeathered neck and head of a turkey? They're always portrayed as deep red. Well, they're tan until something interests them, then they blush, unabashedly expressing their interest. I looked at the crowd of young turkeys gathered at my feet, eyeing me sweetly, and felt flattered by their unanimously pink necks.
But what struck me deeply, what made these creatures my favorites on the farm, even more than the deep blue bunnies, the intellectual pigs, or even Marilyn Monroe, the blonde chicken that insisted on roosting in my friend's laundry room, was the sound these turkeys made.
No gobble-gobble here. They pinged back and forth like Tibetan bells, like rain falling sporadically into different pales of water mimicking piano keys, lovely and sweet and the most calming sound I think I've ever heard. If I'd been able to record it, I would listen to that sound during any moment of stress. It was as beautiful as the turkeys' large round deep blue eyes blinking at me coyly.
Shortly after this, when we were on the other side of the property, I heard a deep, gravelly moan that echoed across the nearby hills. It gave me chills and made me glad I don't believe in werewolves. "What is that?" I asked Jann.
"Rickie." She said. "He lost his two companions this morning."
Rickie is the male sheep. Two young males had been penned with him, but they'd been slaughtered that morning. Jann warned me because I might see their pelts drying on the fence.
"Does he know..." I started to ask, but Jann interrupted, "Oh, yes, he knows, and he's mad." I added, "I mean, I know he knows they're gone, but does he know they've been..." "Yes," Jann said firmly.
That explained the depth of sound in is call out to the world. When I heard it again, we were closer to his pen which shares a line of fence with the turkeys.
I looked over.
There was Rickie, tall, muscular, bulky and manly, standing at the corner of his pen closest to the turkeys, making his bleating call as he leaned his head down toward the group of turkeys all craning their necks to look up at him. They flushed pink and chimed their bell sounds. They cocked their heads at Rickie who clearly talked to them, aiming his tall gaze down in their direction.
Later, I thought one of Jann's big white dogs was walking up to me, but when I turned, I found Rickie wandering outside of his pen, siding up to me, then leaning into my hip and looking up into my eyes with his rectangular pupils. I rubbed his head and told him he would feel better soon.
Oddly, the pelts of his companions hung on a fence just behind him. I think he and I both knew these were no longer his friends, just remnants. It's life on the farm, and he seemed to be done with his grieving.
As I drove home, I felt like I'd made dozens of close friends. It was later that I realized most of these friends I met would eventually be someone's dinner. Still, it's not like the entire world is going to be vegan, and again, for those who eat animals, this is how they should be raised: each one named, known, and genuinely loved by their farmers. Each one given natural space to roam and natural food to eat. Each one given companions, sometimes their own species like the blue rabbits snuggled together, and sometimes a different species like Rickie and his turkey neighbors.
The farm is a beautiful place. The two humans who live there work extremely hard and sleep very little, but the feel of the place is like a perpetual family reunion--crazy Marilyn in the laundry room, piglet aunties devouring the all the sweets, uncle Rickie wandering around chumming with everyone, and all the aunty and lady cousin chickens gathered on the porch gossiping and clucking commentary on everyone, hushing their voices and turning their heads in unison when a subject of their gossip walks by
If you decide to go turkey-free for Thanksgiving, let me know. We'll raise a toast of sparkling cider in your honor before we devour our Field Roast, mashed potatoes, roasted root vegetables, steamed collard greens, and pumpkin pie!
Happy Thanksgiving!
November 14, 2011
Vegan Willy Wonka Shop
You know how in Harry Potter they use Sirius Black's house as a hideout and the house unfolds from within a length of row houses? There are twelve stoops and front doors, and then two start to slide apart and reveal a thirteenth home. Well, that happened to me this weekend.
Walking around the city with good friends on Sunday, we ended up window shopping along a funky street lined with art studios, galleries, pubs, cafes, restaurants, and the occasional shoe store. Not long before we planned to head back home, my husband paused. "Hey, Tris," and pointed to a door with a familiar-looking name and logo on it: Back to Eden Bakery and Boutique.
Okay---it shows up vertical in my file, but not here...can't fix it...sorry....
I felt like I'd seen the label before. We went inside a narrow, lean little shop with tall bar stools a couple of tables, chalkboards listing candy prices, and displays of tarts and sweet breads. It felt old fashioned, like an old soda fountain shop. Harry Potter meets Willy Wonka.
"Most of it's vegan," my husband says to me. "Really?" My eyes mist a little, and the guy at the counter asks if he can get us anything. "Is everything vegan?" I ask. Everything he tells me, and adds that much of it is gluten-free too. "When did you open?" I ask enthusiastically. "We've been here two years."
Huh??? I visit this street nearly every weekend. How could I have missed this? Clearly, I didn't know the magic code for seeing this store front. Walked right by it like any plain, old Muggle. Why today, of all days, does it reveal itself to my husband? Well, at least I won't have to endure two more years of ignorance about this shop.
I stand there dumbly for a while, long enough for our friends to patiently sit down and wait out my dramatic gasping over the fact that it's all vegan and that I didn't know it existed even though I drive and walk past it freqeuently. A woman comes in and orderes something. as if it were the most normal thing in the world. I barely notice her, but she looks at me as I continue to pant, misty-eyed, and clutch the ice cream menu.... Was this her first reaction? Is she a grateful gluten-intolerant? An shake and sundae deprived vegan?
The shop doesn't even bother to print Ice "Cream" or "IceCreem" or anything to suggest it's non-dairy. Instead, they list Specialty Shakes, ten to be exact, from Vanilla Chai to Chocolate Lavender! The next page lists Sundaes. I know! Sundaes!!!!
I've never felt like being vegan was a sacrifice or that I was missing out on anything, and in fact, fewer ice cream binges was good thing for me. However, the list of eleven sundaes with caramel or chocolate sauce blew me away. Such choice. Such freedom. Such old-fashioned tradition to come in for a sundae with hot fudge but no cow.
Unfortunately, the cold weather had soaked into my bones, and although I felt hungry, ice cream simply wouldn't do. Instead, I ordered a cashew cream tart, which was good but very rich, and my husband got banana bread.
The cashier, not seeming at all surprised by my dramatic reaction to his store, said kindly that the tea shop next door overshadows his shop. The tea shop next door--I'd visited many times and always wished they had something good to eat, never realizing a vegan mecca sat four steps away.
The bakery and tea shop share a slim alley. The cashier told us we could walk down the alley and in back we'd see the bakery. "Big windows," he said, "you can see through. They're back there baking right now."
He seemed to appreciate my enthusiasm, and by matching it, he made it seem like I'd find vegan house elves freed from Hogwarts back there. We walked down the alley and paused at the impressive bakery. This boutique must sell to grocers or other bakeries. I know I've seen this label elsewhere and the kitchen is big enough to produce twenty times what that little storefront could ever sell.
I'll be back. Soon. For now, I'm contemplating my sundae options: the one with ginger cream cookies, the one with granola, or the one with fruity bears and Dandies marshmallows.
Walking around the city with good friends on Sunday, we ended up window shopping along a funky street lined with art studios, galleries, pubs, cafes, restaurants, and the occasional shoe store. Not long before we planned to head back home, my husband paused. "Hey, Tris," and pointed to a door with a familiar-looking name and logo on it: Back to Eden Bakery and Boutique.
Okay---it shows up vertical in my file, but not here...can't fix it...sorry....
I felt like I'd seen the label before. We went inside a narrow, lean little shop with tall bar stools a couple of tables, chalkboards listing candy prices, and displays of tarts and sweet breads. It felt old fashioned, like an old soda fountain shop. Harry Potter meets Willy Wonka.
"Most of it's vegan," my husband says to me. "Really?" My eyes mist a little, and the guy at the counter asks if he can get us anything. "Is everything vegan?" I ask. Everything he tells me, and adds that much of it is gluten-free too. "When did you open?" I ask enthusiastically. "We've been here two years."
Huh??? I visit this street nearly every weekend. How could I have missed this? Clearly, I didn't know the magic code for seeing this store front. Walked right by it like any plain, old Muggle. Why today, of all days, does it reveal itself to my husband? Well, at least I won't have to endure two more years of ignorance about this shop.
I stand there dumbly for a while, long enough for our friends to patiently sit down and wait out my dramatic gasping over the fact that it's all vegan and that I didn't know it existed even though I drive and walk past it freqeuently. A woman comes in and orderes something. as if it were the most normal thing in the world. I barely notice her, but she looks at me as I continue to pant, misty-eyed, and clutch the ice cream menu.... Was this her first reaction? Is she a grateful gluten-intolerant? An shake and sundae deprived vegan?
The shop doesn't even bother to print Ice "Cream" or "IceCreem" or anything to suggest it's non-dairy. Instead, they list Specialty Shakes, ten to be exact, from Vanilla Chai to Chocolate Lavender! The next page lists Sundaes. I know! Sundaes!!!!
I've never felt like being vegan was a sacrifice or that I was missing out on anything, and in fact, fewer ice cream binges was good thing for me. However, the list of eleven sundaes with caramel or chocolate sauce blew me away. Such choice. Such freedom. Such old-fashioned tradition to come in for a sundae with hot fudge but no cow.
Unfortunately, the cold weather had soaked into my bones, and although I felt hungry, ice cream simply wouldn't do. Instead, I ordered a cashew cream tart, which was good but very rich, and my husband got banana bread.
The cashier, not seeming at all surprised by my dramatic reaction to his store, said kindly that the tea shop next door overshadows his shop. The tea shop next door--I'd visited many times and always wished they had something good to eat, never realizing a vegan mecca sat four steps away.
The bakery and tea shop share a slim alley. The cashier told us we could walk down the alley and in back we'd see the bakery. "Big windows," he said, "you can see through. They're back there baking right now."
He seemed to appreciate my enthusiasm, and by matching it, he made it seem like I'd find vegan house elves freed from Hogwarts back there. We walked down the alley and paused at the impressive bakery. This boutique must sell to grocers or other bakeries. I know I've seen this label elsewhere and the kitchen is big enough to produce twenty times what that little storefront could ever sell.
I'll be back. Soon. For now, I'm contemplating my sundae options: the one with ginger cream cookies, the one with granola, or the one with fruity bears and Dandies marshmallows.
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