vegan chai

reliving my youth

when i was little, i got to see a parade that involved a whole bunch of the happy days cast. it was awesome. i remember that it was crowded, and that the cars were going so slow that i was able to approach a few of them and shake hands. i got to touch scott baio, and that pretty much made my year at the time. (i won't bother getting into my feelings about him now.)

today i got the opportunity to relive a bit of that parade, because a bunch of the happy days cast were in town again, plus cindy williams and penny marshall (and garry marshall to boot). whee! i'll spare you the hilarious details, but let's just say that instead of a parade, they should have called it a motorcade. or perhaps a "line of cars driving down wisconsin avenue rather quickly." holy cow, i want to poke each of those drivers in the eye, it was so redonk. but! i won't dwell on that. instead i'll just be excited that i saw the adorable henry winkler, smiling from ear to ear, waving like the sweetest man on earth. plus tom bosley, marion ross, erin moran, donnie most, penny marshall, cindy williams, anson williams, and yay yay yay! everyone was so cute and smiley and wavey. 

stoopid drivers of the stoopid cars. i hope they all had fun at the baseball game they were en route to. hmph. stay tuned for my SUPER awesome pictures on flickr. 

state of the animals

as of last wednesday, maia has been with us for 12 weeks. as of this thursday, it will officially be 3 months. in some ways it seems like it couldn't be that long already, and in other ways it seems like it's been longer. you know how that goes.

things are going pretty well, all things considered. my husband and i were talking about how there are a few things that frustrate us ("maia's issues"), but that compared to LOTS of dogs she is incredibly easy, and we count our blessings for that. one day i'll get into more detail, but for now i'll focus on the inter-species relations.

avery, almost since day one, has been doing quite well. he isn't really afraid of her at all; he stands his ground and gives her a WTF look sometimes; scoots out of her reach other times. he approaches her readily, and she is very curious about him. i'd characterize their relationship as "peacefully coexisting, rather tolerant, respectful of boundaries." avery lets maia get away with face-to-face curiosity and sometimes face-to-butt curiosity, and if/when he decides he's had enough, she leaves him alone. 

finley, contrary to expectations, has been more reluctant to make friends with maia. i think this is partially my fault, because early on we had a "chasing" incident (it was likely just overly-excited following, but i didn't want to take my chances and finley was scared) and i yelled "HEY HEY!" and scared all three of us. maia immediately turned around and slunk out of the room, stealing looks backward all the way, and finley ran under the bed, and i apologized to everyone, and after that maia never "chased" finley again. sigh. anyhow, i think they both have some residual nerves from that, and as a result finley "yells" at maia quite often, and maia is REALLY respectful of finley's personal bubble. finley's meow is tiny and hoarse, so his yelling is quite humorous, and maia has actually gotten "stranded" in a room or on a landing because finley is blocking the way, and she won't push her luck. so, although i'd like them to get past this, i know it has to be baby steps and they're doing pretty well. she is extremely gentle around him--when she's lying down, he will approach her to sniff, and she just sits very still and lets him go for it. (she does the same for avery.)

i sometimes think the best indicator of how respectful she's been is the fact that in all this time, she's never been swatted once. yay maia!

i feel very comfortable leaving them alone in a room together if i need to leave briefly--to change the laundry, or take a shower, for instance. maia usually just stays wherever she is, and she has even learned to basically ignore kitties running through the room past her nose. whew! for awhile she would jump up and run when she heard avery's bellowing meow from another room, which stressed us out terribly, but she has totally cut that out as well. she's pretty perceptive and sensitive, so i think (generally speaking) that she understands what we'd like and what we don't like when it comes to the kitties.

maia is no longer crated at night, and that's been true for a couple of weeks now. we confine her to the upstairs with us (baby gate leaning against the top of the stairs so the kitties can get around but she can't), and she mostly goes from her office bed to her crate to the cool hardwood floor at the foot of the bed. she's been very very good, and i'm happy to give her nighttime freedom. the kitties feel free to come and go throughout the night, which makes me extremely happy too.

we still have the "safe room" set up for the boys, and that's where they're fed. we may keep that up forever; who knows... maia is intoxicated by the smell of cat food. it's nice to give them a spot where they know she can't go, too, plus it's a good way to confine tiny cat toys, which maia sometimes tries to eat (once, successfully). i guess we'll see. i moved the satellite litterbox out of that room earlier tonight, so please keep your fingers crossed that we'll have no problems on that front. finley's been using the regular ones about 50% of the time nowadays anyway, but avery is lazy and had been sticking to the upstairs one 90% of the time. *hopes really hard for no litterbox problems*

all in all, i think we've made good progress on the inter-species front, which is undoubtedly good for my own general well-being. good lord, i was SUCH a basket case for awhile there. sheesh.

the new yogurt

yesterday it was the new coconut milk ice cream; today i tried the new so delicious coconut milk yogurt. my husband bought two flavors: strawberry banana (my tried and true favorite), and passionate mango, which just has a great name. i tried the strawberry banana today, and it was quite good. it tasted like the beach. you can definitely taste the coconut milk, so it's kind of like "tropical strawberry banana," but it is very good. it's also rather sweet, like dessert. all in all: yum.

the new ice cream

okay, i know i joked that it would be forever before i got around to trying the new so delicious coconut milk ice cream, but amazingly enough, i tried it today. my husband was at the co-op and he called me to list the flavors they had in stock (all of them!), and i asked him to grab a pint of the cookie dough. it's very good! i tasted the coconut for sure in the first bite, but after that it faded quite a bit. i would definitely recommend giving it a try if you're into that sort of thing... i'm very curious about the chocolate flavor now, so that will probably be next on my list.

crepes! from a cart!

today i had lunch from a street vendor--beautiful handmade crepes, no less. the whole deal was very exciting, let me tell you. i received an email a few weeks ago alerting me to a street cart that offered vegan (and non-vegan) crepes, and the email just gave a wednesday location. i resolved to pick a wednesday and seek it out, but before i could, i was wondering downtown the other day and saw chalk signs that told me the cart would be right outside my dad's office on fridays. woo hoo! 

so today the husband and i took maia to meet her grandpa (heh) for lunch downtown. she is a very cosmopolitan dog, you know. anyhoot, the crepe guy is awesome (even gave me a heads up to skip the nutella when he learned i was vegan), and it was fun to watch him spread the crepe batter into a lovely thin circle on his griddle. i ordered a strawberry-banana crepe, and it was delicious. i'm definitely going to spread the word in town, and seek him out again. totally worth it!

rearranging furniture

when i was a kid, i used to rearrange my bedroom about three or four times per year. i LOVED figuring out new ways to position all of my furniture. once i grew up and had my own apartment, i totally stopped doing that, except for the random "let's angle this chair over here and see if we like it" whim. 

i miss rearranging stuff!

so, i've decided to rearrange my office at school. i've come to the conclusion that the only thing i use one of my desks (an enormous L-shaped desk, no less) for is to put things in the five drawers, and to stack shit all over it. seriously. i've been in this office for eight years, and i don't think i have ever sat at that desk to do work. not ever. hence, it's taking up too much room and i'd like to get rid of it. surely i can find a more efficient way to store the crap, and get that space back, right? maybe remove the massive desk and bring in one extra file cabinet, or bookshelf, instead? 

i've been jokingly threatening to put a cot in my office for several years, until it hit me about a month ago that it would be way smarter to bring in a futon. that way it masquerades as seating for students, but i can kick back and take a nap on it too. no one will be the wiser! awesome! so, desk out; one file cabinet and one futon in. sounds good, right?

i also managed to score a super-fantastic chair that just showed up in the hallway one day. it's probably from the 1960s or 1970s, with a wooden frame and tweed upholstery, and i just love the shape of it. it's pretty comfortable, too. i want it to be the new "student chair," because mine is super-lame and this one is way retro and i kind of love it. my only concern is the 40-year-old upholstery. there's got to be some grossness up in there, right? what's my best bet on cleaning something that can't be rinsed?

i shouldn't be getting too ahead of myself, though, because first i need to edit my stuff like there's no tomorrow. eight years is a long time when it comes to accumulating papers, and i'm a pro. i have to go through everything, organize it, and figure out the best way to store it. (and hopefully, shred and/or recycle a great deal of it.) i made a big dent a few weeks ago, but then stalled. i need to get back at it so i can get to the fun part of rearranging. 

auntie at the zoo

i found myself in the slightly awkward position today of "having to" buy animal products. at the zoo. i was a pinch-hitter for my sister (because the baby was totally sick, and especially after last week's stressful babysitting event, she didn't want to leave me with the babe, heh), and so i took my niece to zoo camp, where she did projects and learned all about giraffes, and we capped off the class with a visit to the giraffe exhibit. because the baby had been sick for the past two days, my older niece hadn't gotten much alone-time with anyone (because when the babe is sick, she wants to be attached to you All The Time, poor sweetie), so my sister told me that if i wanted to stay at the zoo for awhile, i could. 

oddly enough, my older niece seems to equate the zoo with playing on the jungle gym in the children's area, so that's what we spent most of our visit doing... which in some ways was a lot easier than how it could have gone down, i suppose. we did feed the goats (again, in the children's area), and i have to say, that was a pretty positive experience all things considered--most of the goats didn't even really care that much about the food; they were happy to just stand and get loves, and we were happy to oblige. we spent a bunch of time with them.

anyhow, i'll spare you the blah blah about visiting the zoo as a vegan who is also trying to make a nearly-4-year-old happy in a spur-of-the-moment kind of situation, but i'll skip to the part where (because it was spur-of-the-moment) we hadn't packed lunches, and so i had to buy her lunch. she's vegetarian, so she was very concerned about being able to get lunch without meat, but we ended up tracking down a grilled cheese sandwich and some apple juice. she really wanted ice cream, too, which i ended up telling her she could have if she did a good job with her sandwich. i hoped that my ice cream options would include some sort of sorbet, but alas, ice cream only. i got her a "half-single-scoop" of rainbow sherbet and called it a day.

i think this is the first time i've purposely bought animal products in a really long time. i felt bad about it, and i would have definitely bought her vegan stuff if i could have, but there were No Options and i didn't want her to starve and i was trying to be a helpful sister by keeping her entertained for some extra time, blah blah blah blah blah. 

this i vow: next time i shall be more prepared.

*looks around carefully*

holy cow, you guys, i think the day has finally come. i'm pretty sure that i just attended my last summertime academic obligation, and i can consider myself officially on sabbatical. woo hoo! yesterday both of my advisees submitted their theses to the graduate school for august graduation, and this afternoon i attended a proposal meeting for a dissertation that i'm not advising (heh). that means i have NO advisees at the moment, i'm officially done with summer teaching, and by the time faculty meetings start up again, we're completely off the hook for the year. 

of course, i'll still be doing work this year... i'm on a few thesis committees in addition to the aforementioned diss committee, but when you're "just" on the committee it's a much smaller time commitment than being an advisor, so i'm not too worried about those. i have several manuscripts in the air with various grad students and other co-authors, but that's stuff i'm supposed to be working on while on sabbatical. the point is, now i can sit down and chart my own course without worrying about anyone else's schedules, any service or teaching obligations, or anything other than what i feel like doing this week. 

i inadvertently kicked off my sabbatical this afternoon (after the proposal meeting) by spending six hours with my favorite former advisee, who is in town for a couple of weeks from korea. i hadn't seen her in a year, and it was really nice to catch up with her. i've known her for quite awhile now, and we have gotten along extremely well from the get-go (she's more like little-sister age), and i've missed her lots. she'll be around for awhile longer before heading back to korea, so we're going to try to get together again once or twice. yay! 

in other completely wild news, i found a grey hair today. officially my first. i was smoothing my crazy hair after parking the car (windows were open), and i saw a really shiny hair at the top of my head near the back. i was all, could it be? no way, it couldn't... but sure enough, i pulled it out and examined it against my black skirt: shiny silver, and about three inches long. so how long does that mean i've had it? do i blame tenure stress from november - january? or doggie stress from may - july? or just my 34th birthday, which visited me a couple of months ago? unbelievable.

fuzzy temptations

volunteering at the humane society is always interesting, but some days are tougher than others when it comes to resisting adorable faces. today i almost came home with two little orange kitten brothers, and the cutest little pregnant doggie you've ever seen. honestly. maybe i need to live out on a farm somewhere so i can adopt everyone.

sending food back

argh, i hate when i forget to ask important questions and end up having to send food back. this happens most often if i'm at a new place, or especially if i'm at an "old" place that i just haven't visited for awhile. the latter is where i ate tonight. i ordered a plate of fusilli pasta with marinara sauce, and then mentally smacked myself in the forehead when the server brought it to me--there was parmesan cheese dusted aaaaall over everything. i hate feeling like i'm wasting an entire plate of food! and i get so mad at myself for forgetting to ask about things like that. ugh. she was extremely nice about the whole thing, but i felt like a jerk.