House Concert!!!!
The KraftRs are thrilled to present:
Singer/Songwriter, Soul and Blues Artist Charlie A’Court in a House Concert on August 23rd, 8:00 – 10:00PM, Atlantic time. The good news?
We will be webcasting the show live, so you can watch along with us!!
More information will be posted later at 4squirrels.wordpress.com, as will the link to watch live!!!
photo credit – Charlie’s Facebook page- fan photos
This could quite possibly be one of the Top Ten Dilberts of all time:
It’s kind of sad I’ve had to post it more than once, though.
Well, after two months of no meat – I accidentally slipped today.
My coworker and I went to a new Japanese place right across from campus. She got stir-fry and I had sushi. To start, we decided to split an order of dumplings … and therein lies my fall.
The menu didn’t say “pork” and I failed to ask. I bit into a dumpling and there it was: a mixture of ground pork and seasonings.
*sigh*
I suppose it was bound to happen and it taught me a lesson to always ask if there’s meat in a dish. They were good dumplings and I ate my half (they were already there and I had already eaten some), but they were also the part of the meal that made me feel sick. And they didn’t taste as good as I remembered, so maybe this vegetarianism thing will stick.
So, about two months ago I was at work doing my thing (cataloging, editing and uploading records, etc.) when I got my hands on a book called The Face on Your Plate: the Truth About Food by Jeffrey Masson. I opened it to place the M.O.F. inside (the order form we keep for our records) and happened to read a little bit … which caused me to read a little more … and I wound up checking it out (once it was fully cataloged). From the Introduction:
When I was teaching Sanskrit at the University of Toronto in the 1970s, I came across a phrase that stopped me dead: ashrayaparavrtti - a sudden moment of life-changing insight. Paravrtti is like a somersault, and ashraya is one’s home base, so it means letting go of everything you have always believed or understood for a leap into the unknown. The Christian equivalent is known as the Road to Damascus experience in which Saul (later St. Paul) underwent a conversion on his way to Damascus to slaughter Christians and instead became one.
Many people become vegan in just that way: a sudden moment, a blinding insight, a turning one’s back on conventional wisdom, in this case, conventional diet.
An epiphany.
What I read that day in my cubicle was about the pork industry. It broke my heart to read about how the animals are treated, specifically the mothers and babies. I became a vegetarian that day and didn’t even know it until it came time for dinner and I didn’t want to eat.
It’s not that I stopped believing in eating meat, because I didn’t. I believe the animals were put here for our use and that includes eating them, HOWEVER, I don’t believe that torturing them beforehand is necessary or moral.
So, once the meat that was already purchased and in my fridge was eaten, that was that. No more meat from factory farms for me.
I’ve been eating free-range, cage-free eggs and cheese from small, local farms. I switched to almond milk, too. I’ve discovered how delicious lentils are.
It’s been exceedingly difficult. Restaurants don’t want to be helpful and neither do friends. Nobody understands or cares about my personal reasons. I’ve been sensitive to the fact that most new vegetarians are extremely obnoxious, so I haven’t broadcast it to anyone. I haven’t preached at them or tried to convert them. It’s just something I am doing for me. If anyone notices and asks, I will fill them in, but other than that it’s my business.
I feel pretty good about it so far, but man oh man – I am craving a cheeseburger.
Scorpio
Your first priority is to yourself. So go off on your own and leave everyone behind.
Hmm …
