But, but, but I CAN'T!

 Reading comments on a Facebook friend's page that began with a cartoon about the reason for childhood obesity being that a salad is $5 and a pink slime burger only 97 cents (Not the only reason, but one of the top ones.), I commented that I was a fan of urban agriculture and growing food not lawns. I was kinda blasted by a person from Chicago about the horrible issues and why they couldn't do it for reasons outside of their control. (But that's another post!)

 I was struck by her "But I CAAAAAN'T, and here's why!" It forcefully reminded me of my parents. Any time I expressed a thought, idea or anything that was outside the safe and narrow, I got slammed by my parents, just like this person did. They had every reason why something wouldn't work, instead of trying to find out a way to adapt and make it work. Combined with the daily constant abuse, I beceme too terrified to do or say anything, just daydream. (This ended up becoming severe agoraphobia, which I never had before.) With no support and a constant tearing down, I never realized my deams. I am an awesome natural musician, and never was able to do anything with it. Had I tried to play in a band in Burkburnett Tx, every time one of my parent's friends saw me, I would have gotten a lecture about how I was wasting my life, how I was embarrassing them, and I should become a nurse (Yea, right. I have no nurturing skills at all.) or a teacher. (Tried that later in life, almost killed myself from the depression.) Anything I wanted to do was firmly squashed by my parents and other doomsayers around me.

 I finally escaped and moved to the big city, and met some people who changed my life. I was working at the Texas Museum of Natural History, and one of the other curators, Marty Martin, actually listened to my wild ideas, and instead of slamming them and telling me how stupid I was for even THINKING such things, he was a source of gentle encouragement. It had taken all for me to even move to the big city, and without him, I don't think I would have made it here. With that, I finally began to move out of my self imposed realm of despair. Getting rid of my abusive ex enabled me to move out of the darkness of negativity and into the light of positive thinking for the first time since I was a child.

 While I have a good life now, the Doomies like the FB person sometimes just hit me like a wall. They make me start to get anxious (oh my god, I said something that someone else didn't approve of, I fucked up!), and then angry (WTF, how dare that Mo Ron say that!) and I react badly. PTSD is a mofo. No matter what you say, however many ways you can come up with to work around a problem, the Doomies shoot it down, all the while acting like you are such a stupid idiot for even trying, and you should just quit. My sister pointed out a while back that people like this are not wanting a solution, it is too hard. They would rather sit back and whine about how they couldn't possibly do any of that. We've all done it, but the Doomies make it into an art form. Nothing is ever their fault, it is always some other reason. They are angry and depressed people, and I have to be very careful that I do not return to being "one of those". But it still very hurtful and painful to have to even deal with Doomies, even on Facebook, and they are so wrapped up in their doom and gloom world that they do not see that their own self-hatred and negativity affects not only themselves, but everyone around them. I used to try to help these people, seeing something of myself in them, but I no longer do. It is too much of a drain on me. As one of my favorite sayings from ancient China goes, "I find that I spend too much of my time trying to describe the stars to blind men. I also occasionally play the lyre for deaf people".

The Days Are Just Packed!

 One of the things about the phrase "Never stop learning" is that you always want to try new things. Like my days aren't busy enough!

 The new food antho blog is going well, I will be posting weekly at this point. Several people have asked 'Why weekly? Why not more?" Because these posts take research, and that takes time. And I still have the bakery, a teenager, pets, a house and a husband that all demand attention.

 Next week is W's ARD, and if the ex shows, will be the first time in 2 years I have seen him or spoken to him. Since W is less than 6 months away from no longer being a child in the eyes of the law, much stress and anxiety of having to deal with the ex is gone. At this point, there is nothing he can do to fuck up W's education plan, and in 6 months W can tell him to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut if he so chooses.

 Taxes are done, and refund is on the way! As soon as it gets here, I will be ordering the ofuro heater for the soaking tub. I'm looking forward to having the ofuro up and running again, I have so missed it. The new outdoor living area is coming along nicely, I've started dragging the garden pots inside to start seeds, since I will be growing all my veggies in containers this year due to the drought. I've already got heirloom tomatoes on my vines, and okra. Once we get the gutters up we can start paving the area. Progress is being made.

 Various other projects are getting done as well. The kitchen is actually showing progress, and work is beginning on the bathroom. We've also started looking at adding a bathroom to W's apartment. That'll be awhile, its an expensive project. Unless he wants to bring a girl home when he hits college, he should be able to hold out for a few more years. Unless he hooks up with a Mother Earth News kind of girl, then she'd probably be thrilled he has a composting toilet.

 Been talking to a young man interested in becoming a carpenter, I've been turning him on to tiny houses. If he could start building these he would have a ready made career, not to mention always having a place to live. We're in talks to build one in our backyard, so we would have a guesthouse, not that we ever get many guests, but I bet we would if we had a guesthouse. (Maybe some of the peeps over in NC would come visit, if they had a free place to stay.) One more thing to add to the list!

 Back to work, these ancient foodstuffs aren't going to research themselves!

Looking like the end

 So it looks like the end of an era is coming swiftly to a close. Since I was 16, I knew that I could always return to cooking and the food industry if a job didn't pan out. I did it time and time again, and always enjoyed it. Cooking and food are two of the major passions in my life, and something I not only do well, but love doing it.

 However, my years of doing stupid things like free soloing rock climbing and motorcycles have caught up with me. My body no longer heals like it did when I was younger. A bad twist of the torso before the holidays has laid me up with a hip sprain for weeks, and it will be another month or more before I will be able to walk again without major pain. Weight is also an issue, I was always solid, coming from German and Italian peasant stock on my mother's side of the family. (I have a tintype of my grandmother and her sister as teens, and they are square bodied, I look just like them.) As age and menopause have advanced, weight is now an issue, where it really wasn't so much when I was younger, I had enough muscle mass to compensate for it.

 Anyone who's cooked knows that it is a profession that you spend all of your time on your feet. I have finally moved past denial that I am still in good enough shape to run a bakery. Maybe if I weren't doing it alone, it might have been better. But I am alone, and now I am no longer able to stand for the amount on time I need to. So with a heavy heart, I will be saying goodbye to my pastry chef career. I will still be able to take the occasional order from friends, but I can not do the long hours that it takes any more.

 So what now? I'm pretty limited on what I can do because of the mobility issues, so I suppose I will have to 'fall back' on my college education. I'm thinking about writing. While it is something I've always done, I never really looked into writing professionally. In the pre-Internet days, you had to be rich, well connected, or very very lucky/good to make it as a writer. These days, people are getting book deals and t.v. shows just from their blogging. My neice was just approached by her first agent after she was on a talking head show discussing gun control, which she got asked to be on because of her blogging.

 Something that has always facinated me was anthopology (Which is what I studied in college.), and how food is involved with every aspect of a culture. Every culture celebrates milestone and special events with some sort of food or feasting. Might as well finally put my education to some good use.

Falling off the Wagon?

Just read a post by The Brown Vegan about how she "fell off the wagon"  during December. I found it to be very interesting that she treats her biological makeup as a disease or an addiction.

 I have run into one or two vegans who followed the lifestyle due to actual medical issues (Two actually, both of whom do not make the needed stomach enzymes to digest meat.) The rest seem to be a mishmash of self righteous Prigs and poorly educated Fluffs.

 Let's look at the self-righteous Prigs first. These are the people who scream "Our animal sisters/brothers are not food!" Really? If you look at the evolutionary tree, the Australopithecus Boisei was a species of early human ancestor who evolved to eat woody plant material, much like the modern panda. The Boisei died out because the plant-only diet did not allow for the development of larger brains needed to survive as a species. The Neanderthal, however, embraced not only meat, but large quantities when they found it. With the added protein and fat, they developed much larger and more complex brains, able to cope with changes and adapt. And if you look at the animal population as a whole, the most successful creatures in it are usually the predators.

 And going back to the whole "not for food" issue, how do they explain the relationship of Native peoples who view animals not only as a good source, but as their "sisters and brothers"? Animals were killed for food, and thanked for giving up their life so the People could live. When I've asked this question of the Prigs, I have gotten much angry bile spewed in my direction, but no real answers.

 The Prigs seem to be a sad and depressed group of people. I do not believe that I have met a truly happy Prig vegan, someone who has adopted the lifestyle easily, and has no cravings for animal products. They seem to be obsessive, sad angry people. These are the people who will scream at you in public because you are eating a hamburger, or whip out a copy of Diet For A Small Planet at the restaurant and shove it in your face because you didn't order the veggie plate. (I've had both happen to me.) They spend their entire day thinking about animal products and berating themselves for doing so, justifying their dietary choice as vocally as possible, and figuring out ways to make vegetables turn into meat. Ugh, vital wheat gluten and tempeh.

 Now, don't get me wrong, I cook much veg/vegan foods, and have made some pretty tasty faux meat dishes. (My vegetarian haggis is awesome!) I have also raised my own meat, helped with slaughter and did the butchering. I think part of what is wrong with the angry vegans is that they are treating a biological need as some sort of horrible disease or addiction, and it throws off their entire chi, or well being, or balance, or whatever you want to call it.

 Then there are the Fluff vegans. These people have no real clue about nutrition, medicine or biology. They are the ones who claim that humans have evolved past eating meat, and it is a vile and vulgar practice that is weighing down the species from evolving to its next higher conscience, or some such thing, and keeping us engaged in wars. They claim that meat is poison, and the cause of every single cancer and disease. The ones of this variety of vegan seem to be less angry, more accepting of not eating meat. They usually don't scream at you about ordering a steak, but they do sigh and give you those looks during dinner, and some will try to convince you that giving up animal products is what your body and soul needs, and they are only looking out for your best interests, of course. These hardy souls usually eschew even the thought of fake meat, and tend more towards imaginative cooking of vegetable products. They also tend to be more accepting of non-vegetarians, if not less judgemental.The Enchanted Broccoli Forest is one of the examples of great vegetarian food that isn't trying desperately to become a meat substitute.

 I have no issues with either kind, as long as they are not trying to convert me, or making it impossible to enjoy a meal with them. I think a better solution is to buy humanely raised meat, preferably from a small local producer. This is unfortunately still very expensive, and many people will not be able to. Another option is to cut your portions to the recommended amount, which is around the size of a pack of playing cards, and buy organic humanely raised meat in your local grocery store, if possible.

 There is a third group of vegetarians I don't put in this group are the economic vegetarians. These people are giving up buying meat, because they just flat can't afford it, but are happy to eat meat when it is offered to them for cheap or free. This is actually becoming more common, due to the craptacular economy. Many of these type of vegetarians have also had to start growing as much of their own veg as possible, which is a good thing in that they do get exercise and fresh produce that they know exactly where it came from, and what went into growing it.

 If you want to quit consuming animal products for whatever reason, good for you. I don't need an excuse or explanation, I'm sure your reason seems good to you, and that is really the only thing that matters. However, this does not give you the right to hassle others about their dietary choices.

Full Spiral

 It is interesting how things come around again and again. Look at fashion, I'm now seeing the second round in my lifetime of the 1960's styles. Not quite the same, but very similar. This makes me think time and other things run in a spiral, not a circle. You are at a similar place, but not the exact same place, and never can be again.

 In my early adult life, I was very, very poor. I grew much of my food to be able to eat, had no car and lived in a small town where you pretty much had to drive to get anywhere. Moving to Austin changed both environment, and circumstances. Income went up slowly, then faster, but we spent it as fast as we made it. The ex used much of it to pay for his girlfriend, but I didn't find that out until much later. After I divorced him, I was back to the poverty of the early adult days, starting over at 39.

 I remarried, and S had a lot of debt, but we slogged our way through it and got it paid off. He's got an ok job with insurance and benefits, and they pay for college, so he's finished an associate degree and is looking at a bachelor's. The debt we racked up in the early days trying to survive is finally gone, and we are almost down to nothing but the house payment. Sounds good, right? Well, not so much.

 Thanks to living in the most expensive city in the state, the taxes and insurance have now actually exceeded the house payment. The ex refi-ing the house twice didn't help things. So the house takes up nearly half of our income. Not giving it up however, there is no way we could buy another house in a similar neighborhood for what we owe on this one. And having the house also gives us income in the form of housemates if it comes to that.

 With the Great Recession heading back into full swing after a brief lull, more and more people are turning to the skills lost a couple of generations ago. I learned these skills in my youth, probably one of the last generation to do so, at my grandparents' knees. Being able to sew, crochet, cook and can/preserve/grow/raise my own food has always been a pretty constant source of income for me. With more people losing their jobs, taking pay cuts and bills and expenses continuing to go up, they are learning to do these things for themselves. Great for them, not so much for me.

 Food expenditure is one of the few reoccurring bills that you have much control over. So back to raising my own food. Not sure if we will raise chickens again, altho I do miss the eggs, I don't miss the hassle. Veggies tho, those we will be raising. We've got tomatoes already started, and peppers are next. With the drought heading into its third year, we have decided to grow in containers instead.

 Interesting how it has come around to this again. The world has gone from self sufficiency to total dependency, and is slowly creeping back to self sufficiency. And the more people become less dependant, the more the government is trying to tighten their grip. Self sufficient people scare them, and don't believe their lies like good little sheeple.