Life after being fired hasn't been too bad so far. In fact, the past 5 days were some of the most fun I can remember (since SF).

Thursday, I got the news that I was fired. Won't go into details, except that I feel it was an overreaction to a problem that could have been addressed in a civilized manner. Whatever. Fact is, I was burned out, and even though I definitely would have preferred it be on my terms, it was time to leave. Moving on...

Friday was Mark's birthday, so there was no time to wallow when so much fun was to be had. Mark and I rode our bikes down to the Wash Park Whole Foods for some coffee and lunch before riding to the Chez Artiste to see the new docu, Food, Inc. We both really enjoyed it- I wish films like this were a mandatory part of school curriculum, and that it was in more theaters for people to see. But at least it's out there presenting the facts about the companies behind the food industry, and how well they have veiled their despicable practices. I hope it opens people's eyes to the injustices that Big Food has committed. I am inspired to read labels even more carefully now, and make sure I'm buying local and/or organic food. Like the film stated, everytime we purchase food, we're voting. Companies give the people what they want, not the other way around. If everyone makes more of an effort to buy foods made by ethical companies, our world would change drastically.

Anyway, later that evening, we went to Park Tavern for happy hour before meeting Chris, Star, Brian, Rhonda and Erin at Rockbar, where we proceeded to get hammered on various shots and cheap beer. It was soooo worth the hangover the next day ;)

Saturday was pretty lazy, I think Mark and I left the house only to get some electrolyte-filled beverages and yummy snacks. Then we watched the Rapids game.

Sunday we rode down to The Market for coffee, then hit the library to score a few new reads. They were having a bike workshop in the west courtyard, so we stopped by to see what that was about for a little while. Later, we went on a much-needed grocery run, then spent the evening watching season 5 of Entourage on Netflix.

On Monday we went for a hike in the mountains. The plan was to hike Grays and Torreys, but the 4x4 road leading to the trailhead proved impossible for Mark's Dad's S-10 to handle, so we ended up hiking to Silver Dollar Lake, starting on a trail about 9.5 miles from Georgetown on Guanella Pass.
(Naylor Lake, a private lake just below Silver Dollar)

The weather was gorgeous all day- not too hot, and no rain. Plus, we only saw a few other hikers on the trail. Round-trip, the hike was about 3 hours, including a stop for lunch at the lake.


That evening, we cooked nom noms for din, in the form of Thai coconut curry tofu and called it an early night.

Tuesday we woke up early enough to catch the Blue Plate Special at Watercourse. It was so good, with generous portions of tofu scramble, hash browns, a delicious biscuit, green chile, and coffee...all for 5 bucks! You really can't go wrong with this one, especially if you're out of a job like me! haha. Anyway, Watercourse is one of the little gems in Denver, with amazing veg/vegan food, cool atmosphere, and of course, fantastic art by Ravi Zupa, who just so happened to be eating at the booth across from us, funnily enough. Wish I had one of his pieces up on my wall!

Tuesday night I talked Mark and Chris into riding Loops, something I've wanted to do for a while. Here's is the map of our route, although the three of us took some detours and made a pit stop for beer along the way. Good times!

Thus wraps up my post-fired vacation. Today it has been all work no play for this one. Everybody gotta eat, right?

So I just watched the premiere ep of The Goode Family, on ABC. I thought it was hilarious, and can't wait for more. I think it's great that even though they are making fun of vegan environmentalist hippies (like myself), I wasn't offended at all. The fact that there is a show about this lifestyle means that the concept is interesting to people, and hopefully it will get people thinking. I particularly liked the scene at the church dance. Any show that mocks over-the-top right wing religiosity is fine by me, especially when it is done in a comedic manner.

The vegan closet meat eating dog Che is such a great idea. I don't feed my cat fish-based food anymore because of the overfishing problem, but I still can't deny that my pet is a meat-eating predator. I know there are people that feed their pets vegan diets though, which is ridiculous but also something I've thought about haha.

Another hilarious part was when the mom gets drunk at the end, and is in the back yard hugging the dog and sloppily telling him "you're my friend." Classic!

Anyhoo, I can tell I will love this show, right down to the silly theme song that sounds like a montage from the Lion King.

Okay, I'm really bad about updating this thing...Anyway, I did keep track of what I ate for a week, and although it's not the most amazing thing you can imagine, it got the job done.


Friday dinner: Vegan sloppy joes (tofu and sloppy joe mix), corn, tater tots. It was a simple night. Had a few Mothership Wit beers to wash it down. Did you know the makers of this brew, New Belgium Brewing Co., have been wind-powered since 1999? I didn't until recently. Definitely going to support this company more in the future.

Saturday:

Breakfast: Was in a hurry to get to by brother's house so I could watch my niece, so just a bowl of Peanut Butter Pows and soy milk for breakfast.
Lunch: @ Whole Foods- Tofu spring rolls dipped in peanut sauce, and a veggie eggroll
Snack: Soy lemon yogurt
Dinner: Leftover sloppy joe stuff (okay, so this weekend wasn't the most creative, but I had places to be, yo! ha)

After-bar snack, or the vegan 4th meal: Indian pot pie (from last week), sprinkled with Tapatio (one of many hot sauce appearances sure to come). I took the leftovers from the samosas I failed at making (potatoes, parsley, peas, onions, indian spices) and threw them into whole wheat pie crusts. Topped them with the leftover phyllo dough, sprinkled with cayenne, and baked them. Turned out pretty delicious I think!

Sunday:

Breakfast: Bowl of cereal with ricemilk
Lunch: Sandwich with Yves ham, vegenaise, mustard, roasted red peppers, artichokes, lettuce, and garlic/greek olive hummus.
Dinner: Vegan pizza from City O' City, yum!!

Monday:

Breakfast: Grapefruit
Lunch: Boca chicken patty sandwich
Snack: Pita and hummus

Dinner: Baked potato topped with vegan butter, broccoli, tomatoes, salsa, spicy vegan sour cream

Dessert: Champagne mango

Tuesday:

Breakfast: Leftover vegan pizza from City O' City

Lunch: Spicy Boca chicken sandwich w/bbq sauce, lettuce
Dinner: Finished up the Indian pot pie, salad

Wednesday:

Breakfast: cereal and rice milk
Lunch: spicy boca chicken sandwich with salsa, lettuce, tomato
Dinner: Soba noodles with soy sauce and sri racha

Thursday:

Breakfast: bagel and vegan cream cheese
Lunch: Amy's bean and rice burrito smothered with lettuce, tomato and salsa
Dinner: Good old PB & J

Friday:

Breakfast: Cereal and rice milk
Lunch: Soba noodles with soy sauce
Dinner: Vegan chili- tofu, and my chili recipe: onion, garlic, tomato paste/sauce, tomatoes, garbanzo/black/kidney beans, corn, chili powder, cumin, oregano, salt, pepper, tapatio, sri racha

This started out pretty cool, but as you can probably tell, I forgot to keep track of everything I ate, and was forced to rely on my memory after the fact. My bad.

"WHAT DO YOU EAT?"

Most common question asked by people when they find out I'm vegan. Runner up comments/questions include:

"I could never give up cheese." and

"Where do you get your protein?" Yeah, this used to be number one, but people are starting to hear about something called tofu (this is not my only source of protein, btw).

Thus, I decided to document one week of meals for y'all. Starting Monday. Mysteries will be revealed like you won't believe!! I don't just eat vegetables, people!

This Monday marks 10 years since the Columbine shootings. There has been a lot of activity on NPR news- interviews with teachers that were there that day, as well as parents who lost a child or had a child that was shot and is now in a wheelchair. Touching stories I had never heard.

I was a senior at Conifer High School, and at the time was dating a junior who attended Columbine. In the middle of symphonic band rehearsal I received a phone call in the office from my mom. She told me there were shootings happening at Columbine High School- like, right now, shootings going on. She didn't have any more info for me. Immediately, I left school and flew down the mountain back to Littleton where I lived with my mom and step dad. I paged my boyfriend (no cell phones yet). I paged him again and again. No call. I paged a friend of his that went to school there. No call back. All I could do was wait. Wait and watch the news as bits and pieces of the story were revealed. Two boys, two students at Columbine, came to school carrying semi-automatic weapons and began shooting people. It was chaos. No one knew what the hell happened really, or why. We just had to wait. Eventually the SWAT teams got in and were able to help some students leave the school. Footage of children running in single-file to safety. Kids crying into cameras as they explained what they witnessed.

Finally my boyfriend called. I raced over to his house. His story was frightening. He had barricaded himself, along with a bunch of other students, into a closet in the cafeteria's kitchen. He heard gunshots, he heard the two shooters voices. He held the door as one of the shooters tried to get in, but luckily was unable to. Trapped in a closet for hours. He was lucky to be alive.

The the death tolls started coming in. A teacher was dead. Kids were dead. People my bf knew, close friends were dead or barely hanging on to life. We watched the news all day and into the night. There was nothing else to do. My bf sat in shock, unable to grasp the day's horrors. I didn't know how to help him, except to sit with him, listen when he wanted to talk, watch TV in silence when he didn't. We were all in shock, but we had not seen what he had seen. We had not jumped over the dead bodies of our friends while running out of the school. We had not seen a child begging for his life, only to be shock point blank in the head.

We were just 17 years old. It's hard to believe 10 years have gone by since that tragic day. Listening to the stories on NPR, I still tear up, thinking about how people's lives were stolen from them. And the parents...Darrell Scott's father had to deal with the loss of his daughter, as well as the emotional scarring of his son who was also at school that day. What these families have been through is unimaginable.

I'm sorry, but my niece is the most perfect creature on earth. I just needed to get that out there. :)

http://www.gallup.com/poll/114544/Darwin-Birthday-Believe-Evolution.aspx

Another reason to move to France.

I just need to say, I am not down with the old folks joining facebook and trying to befriend me.

It started with a mother of someone I went to high school with. She comments on my status updates and photos now. And I don't even know her! Next came an invite from my step aunt, and I held off adding her for about a week- a week is all you can really get away with when you are updating everything else, because it's obvious you are ignoring the invite if you wait any longer (can't claim you don't know how to use fb and just overlooked it if you're uploading photos and commenting on friend's status updates). So whatever, I added her because I didn't want to be rude, plus, I never see her so what does it matter? Well, things reached a new level of weird when I got a friend request from my step grandma today (mother of said step aunt). This woman is 75 years old and facebooking! Okay, sounds kinda cute right? WRONG. This woman is uber-religious, an ordained minister who sends me tracts on my birthday with little notes that say, "The Lord put this on my heart for you." The tract says something about how I am going to hell because I had sex before marriage.

How am I supposed to live a normal online life (haha) when I have her looking over my shoulder? Not that I care- I mean, I am who I am and believe what I believe and am perfectly content, but still..I don't want to feel like I am censoring myself just so I don't offend anyone. Don't need to be getting more than just the occasional one of those pamphlet things in my birthday card.

I think this is an issue that will only become more urgent, as more old people figure out how technology works. It's up to us to specifically NOT help them sign up for accounts to these various social networking sites. Don't be an enabler. Do you really want your mom knowing that you're stumbling, slurring, drunk dialing/texting/tweeting wasted at 2am Saturday night? No, those updates are for friends only.

So our trip is coming to an end, and I think that fact is making it hard to motivate myself to do anything. Usually when you know you only have a few days left of a vacation you try to smash as much activity into them as possible. But after 3 months of being in Argentina I kinda just want to go home. I miss it so much. If I could hug the U.S. I would, even given the current state of our economy. Ugh, just thinking about that millionth pizza I just ate makes my stomach churn, my throat burn with the acidity of anticipation. Blech.

Another reason I don't feel like doing anything is because we already spent a month in Buenos Aires, saw all the sights, walked mile after mile down the dog shit-spotted sidewalks. I don't feel the need to do that again.

I know, I sound so retarded. You're probably hating that I have lost perspective on where I am and what I'm doing. I'm just tired, and I miss home.

Maybe if the flickr uploader wasn't being all jankity, I wouldn't have to spend all my time waiting for photos to upload, and could focus some attention on this blog, among other things.

Being at the end of the world isn't as strange as it would seem. Ushuaia reminds me of Breckenridge- just a mountain town full of over-priced shops and cool little restaurants/pubs.

Reading New Moon now, the second in the Twilight series. I managed to find it at the same bookstore in B.A. that didn't have it before. Was so excited I picked up Eclipse too, and am glad I did, because I have nearly finished New Moon. Looking at the author's bio in the back...she attended BYU. Isn't that a Mormon college? Don't Mormon's believe in abstinence? Is this entire series going to be a lesson in abstaining from pre-marital sex???? That would be really fucking annoying. I mean, I know it's young adult, but come on. Bella is 18, and Edward is what, like a thousand? How convenient that physical contact pushes Edward too far towards the temptation of biting Bella. How convenient indeed.

BTW, on a completely unrelated topic, traveling in South America is really hard if you're a woman, due to a lack of clean, toilet paper-and-soap-containing facilities. And bus travel is SOOOOO much worse for we hoverers. There is nothing more disgusting than having to hover over a dirty bus toilet overflowing with piss. One sharp turn could potentially send human waste sloshing out all over you. I would recommend the following things for female travelers:

• Fly if you have the money- you won't miss much in the way of landscape, because you'll be sleeping on the bus anyway
• If flying is absolutely out, bring your own toilet paper, handsoap, hand sanitizer (for when there is no water on the bus), hand wipes, antibacterial wipes (for other things- armrests, door handles, etc.)
• Try to pee at the longer stops (bring the t.p.!). Don't drink too much liquids
• Go on that b.c. pill that keeps Aunt Flo away for months at a time (sorry, it had to be said)

With about 6 and a half weeks left, I can't help but daydream about the day I can return to a vegan lifestyle. The food here is really, really starting to take a toll on my body. I feel less energized, am getting a tiny gut, and waking up with the shakes everyday. Plus, I think I'm fighting off a cold (could blame all this hostel/bus living for that one though). I can't help but assume it's the lack of fresh vegetables in my diet. I miss those big leafy bunches of deliciousness.

On Christmas Eve Mark and I spent the evening with our hostel mates (Freestyle Hostel, Ushuaia), enjoying a buffet of salad (thank God!) and mystery bbq meats, plus all the wine and champagne we could consume. Let's just say we went from our first glass of wine to a crazy dance party disco within a couple of hours, even though it felt like minutes, as there was no happy medium where I told myself I should slow down on the booze. Before I realized it, we were all acting like fools, Aussies, Brits, random Europeans, Asians, and Americans, all mixed together, bonding over 70s and 80s music (with the occasional Madonna or Sean Paul track thrown in). It was chaos, with a very sloppy ending (I'll spare you the details). Let's just say it was the most unique way I've ever spent Christmas Eve.

Looks like my pics are finally almost done loading on flickr...bye for now!

Almost finished with the first book in the Twilight series. I'm totally hooked. But where will I find the second book, Moonlight, when I'm done? Buenos Aires doesn't have a Barnes & Noble, and if it did, the books would be in Spanish. Mark emailed me a list of bookstores that carry English titles, but the selection will be extremely limited. I don't know how long I can wait to begin the second book though! haha.

Stephanie Meyer isn't the best writer, she uses a very basic style, even for young adult. Harry Potter is more complex even. But there is something that keeps me reading. She does capture the human experience through the eyes of a 17-year-old girl very well, and let's be honest, from time to time we all need a reminder of how dramatic, exciting, and irrational life and love were as a teenager. Although I have to admit, I never felt that extremely intense attraction (the kind where you have to leave the room for fear of what you might do if you stay and continue to interact with that person of interest) until I was a bit older. Young love was intense, yes, but not as developed as Bella's love for Edward. Or maybe it was and I just don't remember?? Wow I feel old now :P

Anyway, I highly recommend Twilight, especially if you enjoyed Harry Potter or Abarat. You will begin to fantasize about meeting and falling for a hot vampire of your own. *sigh* lol

Hiya folks...now that i'm in South America, not sure how devoted i will be to maintaining 2 blogs (plus flickr, plus facebook, twitter, etc.) Please refer to the Adventures in South America blog for more updates and stuff. xo