Day in the life...

I have a theory. Well I have heaps of theories about heaps of stuff but today I will tell you about a theory I came up with yesterday when I was scoffing down a burger and chips with 'da boyz' (Doug and N). You know how people often have dinner parties, BBQs, picnics, go out for dinner etc? Well that's always when people find out we are vegan and they say "shit! What do you eat? Don't you miss cheese?..." and I never know what to say because I can never think of a way of explaining how awesome food is when you're vegan. Being vegan opens up a whole new world of flavours blah blah blah. But they can't seem to see past the cheese. 

Here's where my theory kicks in. People (when I say people I mean omnivores) only see vegan life from the unfortunate perspective of missing out on stuff, but I think this is because they only ever see us when we are at these awkward social functions where we are trying to get by on whatever is on offer. For example, when we go to a BBQ (if we are silly enough not to bring our own food) we are left with white bread with sauce, green salad and maybe a dry, over-cooked vegie burger. So I don't blame 'people' for thinking we must eat really bland food, because compared to their plates piled up with creamy potato salad, sausages, steaks, cheeses, bread with butter etc, our plates look pretty sad. I can handle missing out on good food on these occasions because I know when I get home I get to eat awesome shit. 

So the point of this post is to show you what we ate yesterday. One day in our life...

Breakfast - FRONCH (vegan french toast) with fruit, 'cream', and maple syrup 

Lunch - Burger with fried onion and mushroom, salad and mayo. Plus three spiced chips.

Cous cous with vegies and chick peas. AND a chick'n snitzel.

Note: I forgot to take a photo of our actual dinner last night but we had this dinner a couple of weeks ago so whatevs. Last night we had vol au vents with a bean and avocado salad. Oh and Dougy had a pretty shit food day yesterday because we forgot to buy his kangaroo meat, he had dry food and a really small bone. Poor love. But, he's not vegan so he misses out. 

Why I hate the Melbourne Cup

1. Extreme animal cruelty disguised as extreme animal admiration (the horses don't care who wins, they just don't wanna be shot for losing)
2. Another nationalistic day for bogans to celebrate, I'm sure there will be lots of Australian flag tatoos on lots of flabby white arms again. It doesn't even have to be Australia day any more.
3. Really rich people tossing away lots of coin just so they can drink lots of champagne, wear designer clothes, pull feathers out of birds to adorn their stupid heads, strip cows of their skin to adorn their stupid feet, all in a hopeless attempt forget how empty they feel when they go to bed at night. Oh look here are some now.
4. Total glorification of gambling and binge drinking.
5. The worst thing, the main reason I avoid leaving the house on cup day, is the way no one seems to understand how anyone could possibly hate the Melbourne Cup! Oh the indignation, the confused looks, the "oh just lighten up, the horses love to race" shit we cop on cup day. Sorry for thinking.

How do your jeans relate to my PhD project?

So I survived the cotton conference. My PhD project is funded by the Cotton CRC which means I have to go and present my work at cotton CRC conferences. I was worried. This is what your average cotton farmer looks like. I thought that my work was meandering off into some territory that I wasn't sure the Cotton growers of NSW would appreciate (ie. I kind of want them to stop clearing Coolibah woodlands). I was planning on maybe making my work a little more acceptable by, well, fibbing. Then I just threw caution to the wind and busted out my data with no apologies. To my surprise, people loved it. Granted, I used cutesy cartoons and made lots of jokes so it was impossible for anyone to hate me. But they didn't just not hate me, they didn't just tolerate me, they really wanted to marry me and my data. So I suppose I have to admit that I was wrong about the cotton CRC. Turns out, they do encourage independent research.

Another thing I was dreading was conference food. Being vegan is hard at conferences. They think all we eat is salad and fruit. Here's some news, I basically hate salad and fruit. Unless the fruit is berries or unless the salad has some beans and avocado in it. So going to a conference in a rural town where everyone eats meat all of the time, I assumed it would be green salad and oranges for me. I WAS WRONG. There was heaps of good food for me. Stir fries in a box for lunch. Tofu and mushrooms and roast potato and pumpkin and vegie sausages and vegie burgers. They had it all. No yucky vegetable stacks. So, it was no Green gourmet vegan yum cha, but it was pretty good.

Okay, so I WAS WRONG. First about the vampire craze, and now THIS! Have I been wrong about anything else? Maybe Jesus did rise from the dead. Nah. 

Ok, so I finally understand the vampire thing

I really really tried not to get sucked in to the vampire obsession that kids these days have embraced. I generally don't trust kids these days. I also generally don't like fantasy/sci-fi stuff. For example, Avatar (what a pile of shit). But then a series of good friends, who I do trust and who have impeccable taste, were pushing the whole TrueBlood/Dollhouse thing. Dollhouse was first. Now TrueBlood.. 

We (N and I and Doug) were feeling a little bit hungover yesterday so N went and hired TrueBlood and we watched 5 episodes, drank Coke and ate waaaaay too many potato gems. It was total heaven. So now I'm hooked. Which is good because watching actual tv with ads sucks so we like to have a series to watch on dvd when we wanna chill. We think it's ok to be hooked on TrueBlood because it has the same quirky backwater town mixed up in weird creepy shit vibe that Twin Peaks had, and we love Twin Peaks. Have you watched Twin Peaks? You should. 

This doesn't mean I'll be rushing out to see all the other vampire movies. I love true blood in spite of the vampires, ok. But oh, no, actually I do love the vampires, but I really don't wanna go too mainstream. (that was a total TrueBlood reference). Ok, maybe I'm still a little hung-over. Bye.

This is what doug looks like when he's watching TrueBlood

Phrases that Doug understands

Breakfast

Roll over

No

Leave it

Okay

Wait

Slow down

Ut ut ut ut ta ta ut ut ta 

Hop up

OUT!

Come inside

Wanna treat

Do you wanna go for a walk?

(but he never hears the last word because he's already started a celebratory lap around the house and yard)

 Drop

Lay down

Into bed

Shake

Hop on the green chair

Come back

Wanna go see Belvie?

Where's your ball?

My fave things on the world wide web...

Awesome dresses and clothing:

http://www.modcloth.com/store/ModCloth/Womens/Dresses

http://www.poshgirlvintage.com/

http://www.sproutwatches.com/sprout_intro.asp

http://www.herbivoreclothing.com/

Best Vegan food and vegan stuff:

http://littlehouseofveggies.blogspot.com/

http://veganyumyum.com/

http://www.happycow.net/ 

http://vegandad.blogspot.com/

http://www.animalsaustralia.org/

Best pod-casts to listen to on long car trips:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/

Food rut

Last night we went shopping for food at the stupid-market, WITH NO LIST. You know when you find yourself thinking, 'I'm so over food', well my friend, that's when you're in a FOOD RUT. Get the hell out of it. Do what everyone tells you never to do, go to the supermarket with no list and just wander the isles. This is how we rolled last night and we came up with some brilliant ideas. Here are a few:

1. Veggie Burgers with potato gems (oh so naughty)

2. Satay veg and rice (N's fave)

3. Pizza with whatevs on it (because N is the pizza KING and he loves to freestyle)

4. Black bean and coconut soup

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, we hadn't eaten in ages when we went shopping, another shopping faux pas. That explains how trashy our ideas were. The moral of the story is, we had no list and no one got hurt! Now we have a cupboard and fridge full of random foods and there is no limit to the crazy shit we'll come up with. 

Oh and Dougy got out of his food rut yesterday as well. He got through the hole in our fence and ate Tina's (older lady dog friend) dinner. His belly is so massive and he keeps farting.

Who is Doug?

Doug is my best friend in the whole world. I tell him all kinds of crazy shit and he doens't even care, he doesn't judge, he just lays there on his back peacing out to the dulcet tones of my voice. He pretty much loves the crap out of me. I wouldn't say he's my dog, I don't own him, we just live together and I feed him and take him for runs in the morn'.

Doug is really good looking too. He has friends and lovers all over the world, in weird, backwater countries like Estonia, Czech Republic, Canada, and Mexico. He's never been overseas though and I don't know that he wants to. 

Dougy, like me, has a dodgey past. We picked him up from the North Melbourne Lost Dogs Home back in 2007. We think he must have escaped from his previous family's yard because we happen to know he's pretty good at climbing, digging, jumping and squirming.

So, enough about Doug; this blog is supposed to be about all the crazy shit that I tell Doug. For example, I think a lot about tree dynamics and plant ecology (because I'm supposed to be writing a thesis on that stuff), vegan food and cooking, animal enslavement, childhood obesity, music, politics, dresses, hair styles, and sometimes I watch TV and try not to think.

I suppose you want to see the big D...here's a little pic for you to drool over.