Ghosts of School Days and Holidays Past

 The holidays are upon us yet again, and this year is bittersweet. My son will turn 18 at the end of this school year right before he graduates, and this will be the last holidays with him as a 'child'. While I have not attended a big holiday family thing since he was a baby, we've always had a quiet holiday at home. Being divorced from his biofather meant that we only got to spend every other Yule morning with him, but we always have something special when he comes home the 26th.

 An old high school bud from Facebook posted about how his mother would get him up in the mornings to go to school. It occurred to me that I did not have this experience growing up. My mother returned to the workforce five years before I was born, so I don't remember a time when she was home, except on the rare holiday vacations. My wake up to go to school from the time I started at 6 was a phone call, because mother was already at work by the time I had to get up. So at age 6, I was left alone to get myself ready, feed myself, and walk to school, which meant crossing the major road though town, old Sheppard Road. My mother also neglected to do things like teach me how to bath and care for myself, how to dress properly, things like that, so my schoolmates had a field day with me, I was the target growing up for every bully in school. Add on top of that being an Aspie with zero support or understanding and being chubby in the days of Twiggy, I never had a chance.

 When I was little, my brother was in the Navy, and the times he came home were the best. One vivid memory I have was waking up right before dawn on the 24th to the smell of coffee, getting up and going into the kitchen to see my brother and his wife making coffee and sorting through their luggage. My maternal grandparents were still alive, and if you have never had a holiday with an old world European family, you have missed out.

 As I got older, holiday gatherings got bigger. My siblings married, had children, single friends started straggling in as well. One year we had 4 or 5 families, and various singles as well, there were so many people and so much food, it is a good thing my sister lives in a huge house, we would have all never fit anywhere else. While these gatherings were fun, they were a huge stress for me, and unfortunately, no one understood about Aspies or any kind of social anxiety, people like me were just considered weird.

 After we moved to Austin, we went back a few times until our son was born, and after he was old enough to understand what the holiday was all about (Presents!) we did not travel with him on the actual day. So that was the start of the smaller holiday gatherings with friends. The ex was very social, me, still not so much. After he and I divorced, and I remarried, my holidays became much smaller and more manageable, just us and a few close friends. And even thought I have to do all the cooking, I have to say I look forward to the holidays much more now, but I am glad I do have the memories of the huge family gatherings. My son had both, the ex has huge holidays with all the surviving family and we have the smaller quiet holidays were no one gets out of sweats and there is no schedule. As this year will be the last, we will enjoy it, and look forward to moving into the next stage of our life, without underage children to worry about. The Wheel turns, and life goes on.

Fat fat fatty fat fat!

 I was reading a blog this morning about a young woman who has dieted most of her life since puberty. It broke my heart when I read about her coming to the realization that she will never be 'a slender perky blonde'. A comment from her sister made me even more sad, and reminded me of the abuses I suffered because my half Italian/half German mother wanted to be Twiggy, and a fat child made her look bad.

 When I was 9 the diets began, and I was forced to share them. Weight Watchers during the fish and liver years, the banana-and-water diet, the cabbage soup diet, you name it, if it was out in the 70's, my mother forced it on me. When diets didn't work, she started trying to starve me which caused me to steal and hide food, and at 12 she took me to a doctor who gave me speed and vitamin injections. When an incompetent nurse put a shot into the nerve cluster in my lower back, it caused me such pain for weeks that I hysterically refused to go any more. Probably a good thing on my part, otherwise I probably would have stroked out from all the speed by the time I was 13. Being born with hypoglycemia, I was sick and miserable most of the time. It didn't help matters that a good friend of my mother was a tall thin woman who had tall thin blonde girls. The one who was my age was held up to me all through my youth as the epitome of ideal feminine beauty, she was thin, blonde and a cheerleader. This girl and her friends were allowed by the parents to bully and abuse me in the hope I would be fat shamed into becoming like her. After being beaten up by some of them, I stopped socializing pretty much at all, preferring my pets and books to having to deal with those little brat bastards. Their mantra all through elementary and jr high was the old standard, "Fatty Fatty 2 by 4, can't get through the bathroom door."

 Entering high school, I saw others beginning to date. As we were in a small town, my sister told me "Never date a boy from your school, if you sleep with them, you'll be called a slut, and even if you don't, he'll still tell all his friends you did." So I didn't date until I started driving, and through a friend met his cousin, a blond blue eyed Aryan boy from a 'good' family (Meaning they had money.) who lived in a larger community a few miles away. When I brought him home the first time, my mother turned to me and said "I don't know how you got such a good looking boyfriend, you're so fat!" Let me point out at this point, I was not fat, only about 20 pounds overweight. Lovely thing to say to your 16 yr old daughter.

 As I got older and entered college, the abuse didn't end there. Like many abused children, I had a perverse need to please my parents and spent way too much time trying to make them proud of me or even love me. I was an unwanted child to begin with, and such a huge disappointment. When I married at 19, I picked an abusive man, so it continued. I spent most of my young adulthood being told how I was lucky to have such a 'good man'. When I was 30, I finally cut off most of my family. I had moved to Austin, and found a community of like-minded people who didn't give a damn what I looked like, what I wore, what my hair looked like, what gods I worshiped, or anything else. I began to heal with help from friends who had been though similar abusive relationships.

 When the Internet when online, I began to meet more and more people who had similar experiences. In the early 2000's the Fat-O-Sphere came into being, and HAES, Health At Every Size. The bullshit BMI has taken a toll on even more people, causing them to harm or even kill themselves in search of the Myth of Thin. BMI was a formula written by an astrophysicist to measure the mass of planetary bodies in space. Not sure what idiot decided to could be applied to humans, and does not take into account that muscle weighs more than fat, making most athletes 'obese'.  I got rid of my abusive ex, and met a wonderful caring man online who later became my husband.

 I have since learned that I do matter, I'm not a failure, or any of the things my parents or the other kids used to call me. It was a long hard road. I do slip up sometimes and slide into that way of thinking, and have to remind myself that those people, like the blonde cheerleader and her fucked up friends, don't matter to me or my sense of self-worth. I am a happy person now with a satisfying social life and great friends, a fabulous career as a baker, a wonderful husband, and a son who could not make me any prouder. He too has had to overcome abuse from his biological father and severely mentally ill step siblings, but we have worked through it, and he is a happy well adjusted teenager fixing to graduate high school and head off to college. For those still living in the hell that is fat phobia and fat shaming, take hope, you are not alone.

Land, having it, sharing it, using it

 Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows I am a hippie at heart. I was born in the 60's, and mostly raised by my older siblings, since I was an unwanted pregnancy at the end of fertility. I went to places with my  much older beatnik and hippie siblings that most small children probably should not have been exposed to.  As I got older, and my siblings "grew up", I still stuck to wanting a more commune/rural existence. After getting married and being brainwashed that I was being 'childish', and should grow up and become an adult, I went to college, got a job in my field, and started down the long road to misery and depression.

 After getting rid of the husband and others who turned me into this unhappy person, I began to reexamine my life. I knew I wanted to return to a more rural community based lifestyle, but now due to joint custody and other considerations, I am stuck in the big city of Austin, right smack dab in the middle. (It was the north end when I moved here.) As I got older, my health issues began to catch up with me, and living out in the country became problematic. What to do, what to do?

 During this time, I started reading about urban agriculture, and how Cuba used urban agriculture to turn their food crisis around after the collapse of the Soviet Union (The main source of their daily food supplies.) left them without even basic foodstuffs. One family in California have even managed to produce thousands of pounds of food on their standard city lot, as well as brewing their own biofuel. They have an entire family however, working the small urban homestead.

 Owning a house in town on a standard city lot, I have tried with mixed success to raise a portion of our own food. My physical condition limits me, and I need some young strong backs to do the work. What I would like to do it build a tiny off grid house/yurt/tipi (Another interest of mine.) in the back for someone to live in while they work the 'citystead' full time. (Leaning heavily towards tipi on a foundation or deck.) In exchange for living space, the person(s) would help tend garden and small livestock, do handyman work around the place, and take a share of the food produced that they could consume or sell/barter. Any takers?

 

Let's get down, get Funky!

 Last week while ripping off and nibbling bits of warm sourdough she had just purchased from my basket, the Funkytonk Famer's Market manager lady asked me "So why aren't you selling here?" All the reasons ran through my head at that moment; I'm not ready, I can't make enough stuff to satisfy a large group, I can't do that much outlay at one time, etc. My answer? "I don't know, so why don't I?" She said just bring a table and set up, so I am this coming Saturday. Because I want my items to be fresh and not day old, I will be getting up 1 a.m.-ish on Saturday morning, to make the 9 a.m. opening time with fresh warm out of the oven goodies. The only thing I do beforehand is candy, so toffee will be made later this week.
 Come on down on Saturdays, pick up some fresh bread or brownies, and support local business. The veggies are great, there's lots of cool people to talk to, and there is also usually a flea market set up as well.

Long busy summer!

 I really suck at this blogging thing. I think of all kinds of cool things I could write about, rants about world issues, that kind of stuff, oh look, a squirrel! Having two small businesses, a child in his senior year, and the rest of life seems to take away any time I might have to write. With the new year fast approaching, I'll try to be better about it. (Hey, at least I remembered my password this time!)

 I do have to admit that Facebook takes up WAY too much of my time, like a lot of people. Why actually sit down and work out long and involved thoughts, when you can whip something off in short 2-3 line comments. (I don't use Twitter, but I hear the same thing about it.) As an Aspie, I love being able to interact with other people, yet still have the ability to keep my distance if things get too involved. That is one of my major faults, I get way too involved with others, to the point it affects my own life. It is a very difficult skill, to be able to be 'friends', yet not let someone else's life overwhelm your own. Add on top of that the Aspie thing, and there is a situation for disaster in the making if there ever was one.

 With discovering Etsy, I finally found a place to sell the various artsy stuff that I like to do in my non-existent free time. I'm restructuring my week to do the bakery half the week, and artsy stuff half the week. It has put a serious crimp in what little social life I have, which feeds back into the Facebook issue. I wish one or the other would take off, and I could concentrate on one, but so far things are not turning out that way. I'm considering returning to personal chef work to bring in some extra income.

 Another new thing that is totally wiping out my time is the CSA box we started getting 2 weeks ago. After shopping at the farmer's market for a while, we decided due to several factors that a dietary shift was in order. We had been succumbing to eating out as grocery costs climbed, and I got busier. With the drought and the demise of the flock, we had pretty much given up our daydream of growing enough food to feed us, plus some to sell. Enter the CSA.

 I had wanted to join a CSA from the first time I heard about them. Moving from a rural community with fresh food available year round to the big city was a huge shock. The quality of our food dropped off big time, and we fell into the eating out trap. When I cooked, I missed those flavors of truly fresh food. When the economy crashed and factory farm food became nearly expensive as organic locally grown, I started really checking out the local CSAs. Shelling out $300+ at one time was a bit scary though, so when  I saw that Johnson's Backyard Garden had a short term CSA box, I was willing to give it a try. I figured if it sucked, I was out $150, and 4 weeks worth of time. If the box worked out, then we would have no excuse and every reason for eating better.

 The first box came, and it had a ton of great veggies. However, the problem with this ton of fresh veggies is getting them dealt with before they go bad. Cooking from total scratch takes up a good half of my day, like it used to back in the homesteading days. I do have to say that the food is great, and we are all going to feel much better. We've already started losing weight, which had crept up during the eating out times. And combined with the organic meats we are getting, the meals are better than anything I've had eating out, and I've eaten out in some pretty swank places.

 All those things combined have pretty much sucked away any time I had to write down the random thoughts flitting around inside my head, and I've been missing it, so I will squeeze in some time to dash off things as I think of them. (I hope!) I foresee lots more coffee in my future!

A Life Apart

 This weekend was good, work on Friday and Saturday, and a bit of rest on Sunday. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing old friends, and newer friends, and the little ones. Watching little girls meet a bouncy little dog who loves children is always fun. I have more work lined up for next weekend as well, which is always a good thing.

 Working alone gives me much time to think about things. As both an Aspie and a Shaman, I am pretty much set apart from society as a whole. As an Aspie, it is hard for me to go into places with large groups of people, and interacting with new people is a HUGE strain. Since my filters are not the best, I do tend to say things that non-Aspies find anywhere from a bit 'off' to downright disturbing. It goes both ways as well, I can not deal with people who are too far left or right, while I support things in both camps, I'll never be all in with either. If I go out to an event, especially a scheduled event, it is something I REALLY want to do. Some of you know what a huge deal it was for me to go to the Steampunk gatherings. One thing that helped with that is it is held in my neighborhood, so I didn't have to drive any distance. Having someone I was supposed to meet helped as well, altho that poses its own anxiety issues.

 When I meet someone, I have an internal list of good and bad points. As I get to know them, I add things to each list. If the good points outweigh or balance the bad ones, that's good, but when the bad point side is longer, or there is something on my bad point side that I cannot deal with/agree with, then they have to go. It is simply a matter of non-compatibility. Sometimes this takes a long time, years in some cases. In the past, I would try to hang on to a bad match simply because I was lonely, and I had been told that I was 'supposed' to. As I grew older, I realized that it was horribly bad for me to try to hang on to relationships that made me upset on a regular basis. I learned to not get too involved with other people, to not get drawn into their BS and drama. Unfortunately other people don't, and tend to get attached, and I really do not want to hurt their feelings, I simply do not want to hang out with them any more. I don't want a big blow up, I just want to ease away, and if I run into them in public, I would like to be cordial and polite, and not have to avoid somewhere because they might be there and it would cause emotional turmoil I do not have the energy to deal with.

 On the religious side, I am set apart even more. Most Pagans, especially Wiccans, tend to be garrulous, extremely social, and very cliquish. Shamans, by our nature, tend to be solitary. We would rather be the only practitioner in any given group, unlike other Pagans who prefer to all be involved. Most Shamans only take students when there is dire need, and we would rather not be bothered with it at all. Shamans also attract people who span the range of 'not quite balanced' all the way to 'bat-shit crazy'. Shamans are grounded, and those who are not are drawn to us like moths to flame, maybe because they feel that we can help them. In some cases, we can. In most however, we are drawn into their maelstrom of drama, and extricating oneself is extremely painful for all parties involved.

 Being very different from most of the rest of society makes it extremely hard to find people that can understand and deal with the differences. Even some of my own siblings can't grasp it. This makes for a lonely existence. But I have learned that there are worse things than being lonely. I am lucky that I found a mate who not only understands, but loves me unconditionally, and knows that this is simply a part of who I am, and not something 'wrong' with me. That is a very rare thing, in any universe.

No saints here

 Being Pagan and a smidge Irish through my father's side, I had this awesome angry rant about how St. Patrick wasn't a saint, and how he did horrible things to the Irish Pagans, yada yada. (Can ya tell I'm not a fan of the day?)

 

 Then I read this article, which decided me that I really didn't have time for all that, lots to do today! So I'm going to let Claire from Pagancentric to explain how the majority of Pagans feel about this holiday.

 

 So I'm off to dig in the dirt and plant more of my spring garden.

 

 

Sláinte!

Blog Monday and Iggnernt people

 Good morning Monday! Yes, yes, I know, I have been really slacking and not writing like I should, but sometimes life gets in the way. We have spent the last 2 weeks building a wood fired hot tub, more on that in a detailed post. 

 More and more in the news are the reports coming in that Monsanto's GMO crops are actually the crap we thought them to be 20 years ago when they first started hawking them. I will not shed a single tear when they are gone, and we will hopefully be able to repair the horrible damage they are wrecking on the environment. The latest bee kill has been tied directly to the pesticide producing crops. These idiots have ignored the fact that BEES and other pollinators are insects as well.

 The GMO crops after 10 years not only have not produced better yields, in many cases they are worse, because the GMO plants use all their energy producing pesticide or herbicide, and not enough in actual production of an edible part. Now that they have been exposed for the money grubbing fraud corporation that they truly are, I find it hard to believe that some people still think GMO crops are a good idea. These people are what's known as "willfully ignorant". They refuse to believe that scientific long term studies actually show the true state of things.

 These are the same type of people that thought Agent Orange and Thalidomide were a good idea. They have no fucking clue what kind of long term (I'm talking generations) genetic damage exposure to these man-made monstrosities are going to cause. We have seen a massive rise in cancers and other diseases since the Industrial Revolution, due to toxins being poured into the water supply, or in some cases, directly onto the ground. They do not dissipate harmlessly, they are consumed by the microscopic creatures, and then the toxins move up the food chain, until they come back full circle to humans. Not that any of this will make the slightest impact on the nay-sayers, when confronted by actual research, they tend to stick their fingers in their ears and scream at the top of their lungs. One of my favorite and most used sayings is "Too often I find myself trying to describe the stars to blind men. I also occasionally play the lyre for deaf people." This describes these people to a T. After decades of trying to educate these iggnernt asshats, I have finally given up, and can only hope that they all die off quickly from their love of GMO and proccessed foods.

 I did make the mistake this morning of trying to educate a couple of them, and I can only imagine that they will have some bullshit to spout off. On Facebook, I have blocked several of these people, and cut even more off my friends list. I have limited time and energy, and none to waste any longer on these people. They are welcome to their opinion, but not on my social media. Likewise, you post a comment here that offends me, its gone, and no whining. You done landed on Mr. Gilmore's property now!

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.