Bending but Not Breaking

This is a grainery. My OED does not have grainery as a word, but I assure you, that is what it's called! And what is a grainery, you ask? It's where farmers keep grain. Yes, it's that simple. I took this picture the last time I was in southern Alberta. I think it's nifty that this building has tilted due to the extreme winds of the region, and yet it still stands! It's southern Alberta's version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Or inspiration for some gospel song about bending with the wind but not breaking under pressure! Or how a solid foundation will help you withstand the elements. Ah metaphors, how I love them!

Early tomorrow morning I'll return to Chibougamau. I'm looking forward to seeing my friends there and working. However, I've heard that they still have snow and I'm not so keen on that.

Bye for now!
Mr. P
xx

March Vegan Part Deux

Alas! No pic tonight! This little piggy went to yoga, this little piggy came home, this little piggy had tempeh with Ashley, meh, enough of that! It's 11:00 pm on a Tuesday and I've been busy all day, hooray!

First, it appears that I have a fan--just one--but a fan nonetheless! That gives me a warm tingly feeling all over.

So, what has been keeping me so busy? I'm preparing to go back to work next week. I'm looking for other jobs for when my contract ends. I've been fully embracing my new vegan lifestyle. It is actually really fun! I never thought I would think that veganism would be fun. I've taken the sometimes mundane act of eating and turned it into an adventure. Now, I must truly think about my food, and I feel good about what I'm eating. I'll have to be careful not to start feeling TOO good mind you, this article from the Guardian suggests I might become mean in other areas of my life if I get too righteous about my eating habits. (Yes, they seriously did a study on this.) Although, righteous isn't a word I would use to describe myself anyway, unless it's used in a retro 80s kind of way as in "He's a righteous dude!" (and kind of a dork).

So this week I finally wandered over to St. Denis to check out Chi-Ming. It's a vegetarian food and mock meat store. I'll admit, they had less products than I expected, but the man working there (who happened to be the owner) was incredibly nice and we had a long chat about veganism and how to make it work. He's been vegan for 20 years and was very encouraging. I decided to buy a bag of mock chicken made from portobello mushrooms.

Now, let me take a moment for a word on mock meats (while trying not to sound righteous). I generally don't see the purpose in using mock meats. They seem to be the boon of uncreative vegetarians who want to have 'typical' North American meals that are based around a meat dish, just without the meat. Yes, one can be vegetarian by replacing meat with its mock meat imitation, and that is fine, but he or she misses out on so many other great culinary opportunities! A quick look at food from other cultures often offers up so many amazing vegetarian options. I prefer to think outside the 'Western cuisine' box.

Okay, so despite my opinions on mock meat, I decided to try the mock chicken anyways. It was a very interesting experiment. First, I found it a little too salty for my tastes, but the texture was so much like actual chicken that for a moment I had to fight an uneasy feeling. I had a moment of doubt as to what I was actually consuming! Now, the true test will be feeding some to my non-vegetarian friends to see if they can tell the difference. Actually, as an addendum to my mock meat rant, I would like to add that I understand how mock meat could be useful for someone making the transition from eating meat to being vegetarian. As well, it could come in handy if I have a dinner party and invite some of my vegetarian-wary friends. If it looks like meat, and tastes like meat, perhaps they will be able to pretend its meat.

This week I also checked out Aux Vivres restaurant for the first time. I won't write a lot because there are so many reviews on the web. Today I had their vegelox sandwich and it was incredible. (Oh my! Is that considered mock meat as well, even though it was comprised of carrots?) All I can say is veganism makes me feel far from deprived!

On the non-vegan front, I recently read the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. It's a really intense book. To be honest, I thought it would be one of those self-help spirituality for dummies type books that you can read in a weekend and that includes an easy-to-use index:

Identity Crisis---------------------pg. 3
Insecurity and uncertainty----------pg. 9 (or maybe it was 10?)
Dealing with breakups---------------pg. 69
How to know god (or gods)-----------pg 777

But simple it is not! I really appreciate how Tolle emphasizes accepting what is right now and how we can find happiness by realizing how much our egos run our lives and changing that. I've actually started reading the book a second time so that I can really understand its message. This was certainly a timely read because it has helped me deal with accepting a transition that I'm experiencing in my life right now.

Yoga? Veganism? Popular spirituality? Omigod, I'm turning into one of those puppets. Ho-hum, so much for accepting what is! Now, where's that book?

*Sigh*

This little piggy says wee wee wee all the way home (to bed).

ttfn,
xx

P.S. Orange juice is my new best friend.

March Vegan

Ah yes, where is the post for February? I haven't the foggiest idea. Time is just flying by. I'm back in Montreal for a brief sejour before returning up north again. Last week I was in Alberta. That was nice. I was able to visit several people I don't see very often and the weather was warm and lovely. It also gave me a chance to get away from some drama in Montreal and now I feel incredible!

So, for the month of March I decided to join my friend Robyn on her personal challenge to go vegan. I was already vegetarian, and I'd been gravitating towards veganism for some time. I thought, how hard can it be? The answer is that it is much harder than I imagined. I now have to really think about everything that I put in my mouth. I have to read ingredients and many restaurants are simply off limits. When I started I thought that I would miss cheese and yogurt more than anything but in fact, I find that the lack of dairy seems to be giving me a lot of energy. The first few days I was simply craving pastries and doughnuts. Basically, I was craving anything baked and doughy and sweet and fattening and OFF LIMITS! Even chocolate is a no-no. *sniff* Yes, I have cheated a couple of times...okay, maybe more than a couple of times. There was that butter-pecan bar, and that muffin, and that milk chocolate...mmm. But all-in-all, I feel fantastic. I've been making a lot of recipes from a great well-known cookbook called "How it All Vegan" and I don't know what I would do without it. I don't know if this will be a long-term change, but I just feel so damn good that it might have to be.

Since I mentioned sweets, I've posted a pic of myself with the vegan cookies that I baked. The recipe was from the aforementioned cookbook. They were good in a sweet-tooth-craving pinch.

I'll keep you posted darlings!
xx

Happy Very Belated New Year!

Hello my dears!

I decided to visit my little blog here and realized that I haven't even written anything this year. It has now been 2010 for 26 days. I expect that exciting things will happen this year! I will just have to remember to report them on here when they happen. I have a million projects on the go right now and I'm just waiting for some answers to decide the next step in my life. After saying that, I must say that one of my New Year's resolutions was to simplify my life. It may seem that I'm contradicting myself, but I can assure you that I'm aiming to achieve several particular goals/projects that should make things easier.

I'm back in Chibougamau teaching again. It is going good so far. My students are great and I'm teaching English Literature again. I'm even learning a little Cree! The other day during class, I was explaining how we analyze rhyme and meter in poetry. I was giving an example of end rhyme by reading only the last word in a series a lines. Suddenly all the students started laughing...I had inadvertently said something in Cree. Now excuse my crudeness but verbatim they explained that I had said "I am taking a dump." How lucky am I to stumble upon such a classy phrase?

Good night my dears! I hope that 2010 is filled with much love and happiness!

Oh Those Crazy Saturdays!!

Today thus far:
-Wake up from nightmare at 7:00am. Look out the window, see snow, go back to sleep.
-Wake up from another nightmare at 8:30am, remember the snow, go back to sleep.
-Wake up from third nightmare, decide waking life may have more to offer, get up.
-Eat gigantic veggie omelette. mmmm
-Walk to the McDonald's on the edge of town and drink a free coffee while reading Plato's Symposium. Yes, there is something a little disturbing about a puppet in the form of a pig reading Plato at McDonald's of all places...but they have free coffee! (We can't have integrity all the time.)
-Get distracted from book's dialogue on the meaning of love, by boisterous parents and their children going about their daily lives.
-Walk to the other side of town to buy long underwear at Zellers. (Oh Stanfields, me and my meagre piggy limbs love you!)
-Stop at the local library and read magazines. Lots of magazines. Apparently Montreal is corrupt, McGill is the #1 university in the universe, Canadians prefer animal rights over human rights, and Betty and Veronica are still fighting over Archie.
-Stalk people on facebook. Consider deleting my account for the millionth time to relieve some facebook induced anxiety...
-Update all of you on my exciting day!

Kisses darlings!
Mr. P
xx

The Meaning of Being Alone and That Pervy Tell-Tale Heart!

I'm developing a new sense of independence. I have always had it, but something has really clicked in the past few days. I have never considered myself to be a co-dependent puppet, (although I don't work the same without that arm stuck up my backside) but something is changing. This is my fifth day in Chibougamau and I feel like I have been here forever. It is amazing how wherever I happen to be becomes my home for a time. Why get too attached to a particular place? What purpose would that serve? I start thinking and planning and wondering where else in the world I can go now. All I need is myself and that arm that controls me. I should consider myself lucky that I'm a single pig because I don't have to worry about someone else's opinion in deciding my future, where I should go, what I should do. I have endless possibilities and there are so many adventures that await me. My only complaint is that sometimes moments don't seem as special when you have no one to share them with. That said, I'm extra grateful for my friends and the little notes that they have sent me since I came here.

So why have I come up north? I'm teaching an English class. On the first day of class, I had my students read The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, aloud in class. I'm teaching adults, but there is no doubt that we can all be a little immature sometimes. One student was reading when she came to this passage: "Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly--very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep..." (paragraph 3). The student couldn't stop laughing and then the class lost it as well. I will never look at that story the same way again! It certainly becomes less creepy when taken out of context.

A bientot my dears!
xx

Happiness is...a 12 Hour Ride to Chibougamau?

"Chibougamau?" you ask. Indeed. It's on the map if you happen to have one that includes smaller towns in mid to northern Quebec. I arrived yesterday. When I booked my bus ticket I was expecting 8-10 hours. I was wrong. My poor little bum hurts from the 12 hours I spent travelling. So, why am I happy? New adventures! And the last leg of my trip between St. Felicien and Chibougamau was amazing. It was late last night, and very dark outside. The bus was nearly empty and I could only see the black spikes of pine trees along the side of the road. The moon was a bright orange sliver of a crescent and it kept disappearing behind the trees. There are very few buildings along that stretch of highway so the only light was from the bus's headlights. As a result, the stars were bright and plentiful and a couple of them fell and lit up the sky. Eventually, after touching the horizon for most of the journey, the moon disappeared altogether. It was as though the bus had climbed beyond the realm of the moon. I know I'm getting sappy here, but those few moments of witnessing nature made me truly happy.

Stay tuned for more adventures in Chibougamau! So far the people seem to be extremely nice and the weather is much colder than Montreal.

a bientot darlings!
xx