Showing posts with label Vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vacation. Show all posts

Monday, August 17, 2009

A FUN Weekend!

We drove up to Grants Pass and rode the riverboat up to Hellgate Canyon.

This is the OK Corral. A beautiful restaurant with all outdoor seating.















There we had a huge brunch. I told the waitress I just wanted a big plate of strawberries and grapes. She was more than happy to bring it to me. Everyone else was munching "down home cooking" and I just packed away a platter of grapes and strawberries. There was champagne and orange juice so I had a couple of mimosas, too. It was heavenly.
Yay!

This is the place card that was at my seat.
















My giant platter of fruit. There was more I ate before the photo was taken















I was told there would be a meal, but nothing vegan to eat so I brought food with me. I was very pleasantly surprised to get treated so very well by the wait staff. I wasn't going to say anything about being vegan, I just asked for the fruit but the man said it to the waitress. She was nice enough to let me know there was a tofu, broccoli, rice bowl but told her I was VERY happy with the fruit. She came back later to ask me if I wanted some eggs with no cheese but I stuck with the fruit.

It was a very nice brunch, great company and I had a lovely time eating grapes with a fork! I took some strawberries with me since I had my cooler and we ate them later on the ride home.

After the very wet ride back to GP on the jet boat, we went to Griffin Park and played in the river.














I stacked some rocks.

And we saw the very same boat that we rode earlier that day. The name of the boat was the Blue Heron.















I had a really nice time. I grew up in GP but I had never been on the riverboat tour before so I'm really glad I had an opportunity to go.
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Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Young Thai Coconut

We went to SF to pick up the boy from his month long stay at his mother's.














I love Golden Gate Park. Hippie Hill Rocks.



Shopping in San Francisco is so much better. We stayed at the boy's mom's apartment in the Tenderloin. Half a block from her place is a Viet Namese market that I used to frequent when I lived in that neighborhood years ago. I don't miss the sirens at 2am or the steaming puddles of human excreta, but I do miss the produce and spice markets. You just can't get this stuff in Kfalls.

Among other things, we got a flat of 9 young Thai coconuts for about $12
















We got a bunch of lychee fruit, about a dollar a pound

















Sesame oil which is for drizzling, not for frying. Vegetarian shrimp which are made from yam flour and are surprisingly shrimp-like. Preserved orange peel which is salty AND sour. Seaweed strips which can be snacked out of the bag, soaked and used like noodles or cut up in stir-fry. These were between 50c and $1.79 each.
















Coconut and banana raw picnic at a rest stop in California.




That's MIL, the boy and the man.








The man is an expert coconut opener.


Vegetarian shrimp, carrots, onion, garlic, sea vegetables (dulse and nori) and rice
















Carrots, seaweed, dandelion leaves, potatoes and rice.














Both of the above "stir-fried" dishes were prepared with vegetable broth in place of the oil.

It's good to be home. I wish I could go once a month to SF for shopping.
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Monday, July 6, 2009

I hope you all had a nice holiday

We went to San Francisco.







Haight St.






The boy is spending the summer with his mother.








More Haight






We will see him again in August. Its going to be very quiet here, I think.

August 2nd we will go down to pick him up and to see a free show at Excelsior park on Jerry Day.

We had a great time. We went camping in Oroville.


This is where we rough it.






























Bagel and seitan grilled over mesquite fire.



















Once we got to San Francisco and got everyone together, we had a barbecue in the park





Sweet potato, onions, small sweet peppers and portobello mushrooms



















In a lettuce leaf.


Here is avocado with tortilla chips. Tortilla chips were my downfall.






I ate pretty high raw while I was there. Next month I will keep track exactly what I eat and of how much I spend on food.




















It was a long drive. I'm glad I wore flip flops.








The man didn't smoke in the car for the whole trip so we stopped at a lot of rest areas. It was a nice trip. No ashes in my eyes. Thank you, Baby.







Shasta with a cloud cap. Sunday afternoon on the way home.
















We drove through a wild fire just outside of Klamath Falls


















And now I am sitting having a smoothie and I'm so happy to be home with my kitty. He's pawing at me so I guess I should go see what he wants.











Smoothie is frozen banana
a plum
4 leaves of rainbow chard
1 granny smith apple
maca
hemp
e3live
chia seeds
flax seeds
If there was anything else in there I don't remember. It was very good.
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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

First entry of our trip to San Francisco From Klamath Falls for the Boy's 9th Birthday

The boy is gone to school and the man off to work and I am here alone. I have a metric assload of laundry to do but I also have a metric assload of photos and videos to process and email and post, etc. Much work ahead but for now...

I managed to stay raw for most of the trip, other than the alcoholic beverages and a couple of nutter butter peanut butter sandwich cookies, which are horrible junk but at least they are vegan. I brought a large amount of bananas, oranges, grapes and raw flaxseed crackers so I had plenty to eat. I didn't go to restaurants except the man took me to Cafe Gratitude. We split the appetizer platter, had a green juice and a shot of E3live, shared an enchilada and a slice of ginger pear cheesecake.

And now a word about the Repaired Kitty Fund. You can click the button over there>>> if you want and donate.

**********************************

Thanks to everyone who has donated to the Kitty Repair Fund. We have raised $880 the last I heard and that is just pretty great if you ask me, but if you can, please give a couple more bucks.


Here is a photo of Repaired Cat and a new friend. Please do go here and read about her progress






















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Back to the story.
I know it's a couple of days late but here is my tribute to 4/20.


We left at the crack of dawn, 7 am. We wanted to get in early and be able to relax.















And now, the terribly coincidental places we stopped in on the way there.


This is the water tower that I keep telling you about that says POT on it. I think this is Dorris, but I'm not positive if that is the of the name of the town.






The town could be named POT for all I know. After all, we are coming up on Weed.







I love the classics.













You know some teenager risked life, limb and freedom to scramble up that rickety old tower and inscribe those three letters. It warms my heart.




Grass Lake.

















There are many beautiful rest stops on the way. Grass Lake is in the perfect location for a last minute bathroom stop before we get into the winding mountain and we have stopped there before.
There are usually a lot of birds there but I didn't see any big cranes.














Goofing off
















Looking like my mother.














And then we went to Weed, California.
Usually we just cruise through Weed and I say, Look, Boy, a TOTEM POLE, and he says COOL! or AWESOME! and we keep going but this time, for 4/20 the man thought it would be a good idea to get a Weed, Ca, commemorative t-shirt.



Something like this









While they were in the store I got this photo of the mountain and the arch and the sunrise.















And that was it for the marijuana themed 4/20 entry. An illegal drug that I NEVER DO and you shouldn't either. Cheers.

I will come back later with more photos and witty commentary. I'm tired and need rest.
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The Philosophy of Animal Rights by Tom Regan


The other animals humans eat, use in science, hunt, trap, and exploit in a variety of ways, have a life of their own that is of importance to them apart from their utility to us. They are not only in the world, they are aware of it. What happens to them matters to them. Each has a life that fares better or worse for the one whose life it is.

That life includes a variety of biological, individual, and social needs. The satisfaction of these needs is a source of pleasure, their frustration or abuse, a source of pain. In these fundamental ways, the nonhuman animals in labs and on farms, for example, are the same as human beings. And so it is that the ethics of our dealings with them, and with one another, must acknowledge the same fundamental moral principles.

At its deepest level, human ethics is based on the independent value of the individual: The moral worth of any one human being is not to be measured by how useful that person is in advancing the interest of other human beings. To treat human beings in ways that do not honor their independent value is to violate that most basic of human rights: the right of each person to be treated with respect.

The philosophy of animal rights demands only that logic be respected. For any argument that plausibly explains the independent value of human beings implies that other animals have this same value, and have it equally. And any argument that plausibly explains the right of humans to be treated with respect, also implies that these other animals have this same right, and have it equally, too.

It is true, therefore, that women do not exist to serve men, blacks to serve whites, the poor to serve the rich, or the weak to serve the strong. The philosophy of animal rights not only accepts these truths, it insists upon and justifies them.

But this philosophy goes further. By insisting upon and justifying the independent value and rights of other animals, it gives scientifically informed and morally impartial reasons for denying that these animals exist to serve us.

Once this truth is acknowledged, it is easy to understand why the philosophy of animal rights is uncompromising in its response to each and every injustice other animals are made to suffer.

It is not larger, cleaner cages that justice demands in the case of animals used in science, for example, but empty cages: not "traditional" animal agriculture, but a complete end to all commerce in the flesh of dead animals; not "more humane" hunting and trapping, but the total eradication of these barbarous practices.

For when an injustice is absolute, one must oppose it absolutely. It was not "reformed" slavery that justice demanded, not "reformed" child labor, not "reformed" subjugation of women. In each of these cases, abolition was the only moral answer. Merely to reform injustice is to prolong injustice.

The philosophy of animal rights demands this same answer - abolition - in response to the unjust exploitation of other animals. It is not the details of unjust exploitation that must be changed. It is the unjust exploitation itself that must be ended, whether on the farm, in the lab, or among the wild, for example. The philosophy of animal rights asks for nothing more, but neither will it be satisfied with anything less.

Haiku Disclaimer

This works for me now
Find your own path and never
Take advice from fools

Insprirational Vegan Quotes

1. Animals that live in the wild kill other animals in order to eat. If I also lived in the wild would it still be inhumane to kill an animal to eat?? What about if I raised chickens in my backyard and cultivated their eggs for my breakfast omelet, is this inhumane?
A: Because animal flesh and products are not needed for human nutrition killing and eating them is inhumane in any circumstances. No kind of slavery is humane no matter how well the slave is treated. You can't respect someone and then exploit her for her eggs/milk/honey.

2. Do animal rights moralists take into consideration the domestication of animals i.e. history of farming, farming as the back bone to the establishment of the first civilizations. There’s not much literature about the reasons animals have become a central part of human life?
A: History is no excuse to continue to exploit non humans. Animals are not needed for human nutrition. That is a myth perpetuated by industries which make money exploiting non human animals.

3. Is domestication against animals rights? If so, does that make having a dog or cat or horse inhumane?
A: At this time there are a lot of domesticated animals that need tending. Most domesticated animals are just that. They would not exist as we know them if not for domestication. Breeding animals for pets or for food is unnecessary and inhumane. Adopt animals, have them spayed or neutered. Give them a comfortable home where they can live out their lives without being exploited. With time the numbers of "non-food" and "food" animals will go down and eventually there will be no more domesticated food animals or pets.

Ethical veganism results in a profound revolution within the individual; a complete rejection of the paradigm of oppression and violence that she has been taught from childhood to accept as the natural order. It changes her life and the lives of those with whom she shares this vision of nonviolence. Ethical veganism is anything but passive; on the contrary, it is the active refusal to cooperate with injustice. ~Gary L. Francione

Merely by ceasing to eat meat
Merely by practicing restraint
We have the power to end a painful industry

We do not have to bear arms to end this evil
We do not have to contribute money
We do not have to sit in jail or go to
meetings or demonstrations or
engage in acts of civil disobedience
Most often, the act of repairing the world,
of healing mortal wounds,
is left to heroes and tzaddikim (holy people)
Saints and people of unusual discipline
But here is an action every mortal can
perform--surely it is not too difficult! ~Roberta Kalechofsky of Jews for Animal Rights

The ten commandments of Mother Earth

1. Thou shall love and honor the Earth for it blesses thy life and governs thy survival.
2. Thou shall keep each day sacred to the Earth and celebrate the turning of its seasons.
3. Thou shall not hold thyself above other living things nor drive them to extinction.
4. Thou shall give thanks for thy food, to the creatures and plants that nourish thee.
5. Thou shall educate thy offspring for multitudes of people are a blessing unto the Earth when we live in harmony.
6. Thou shall not kill, nor waste Earth's riches upon weapons of war.
7. Thou shall not pursue profit at the Earth's expense but strive to restore its damaged majesty.
8. Thou shall not hide from thyself or others the consequences of thy actions upon the Earth.
9. Thou shall not steal from future generations by impoverishing or poisoning the Earth.
10. Thou shall consume material goods in moderation so all may share the Earth's bounty. ~Ernest Callenbach

"This is what passes for "food" in America today: A collection of nutritionally-obliterated, hormonally-enhanced, chemically-adulterated shapes of refined whatever, all hyped up to make them seem like real food when in fact they're just agricultural byproducts devoid of any real nutrition." ~Mike Adams


"I like not eating animals. Animals are our friends and we shouldn't eat them. Animals need us to take care of them and save them. My mom cooks us vegetables and pretend hamburgers and hotdogs and chicken nuggets and they are healthy for you and taste good! I told all my friends 'you should NOT eat animals!' I hit my friend Levi because he was eating a ham sandwich and wouldn't stop. Then mom said that Levi is an animal too and we have to be nice to all animals even if they eat other animals. I said sorry to Levi, but I wish he would not eat animals anymore. I also like not eating animals because my mom says it helps the earth, like recycling." ~Jacob, 6 yrs old


You see, in life, lots of people know what to do, but few people actually do what they know. Knowing is not enough! You must take action.~Anthony Robbins

It only takes a spark ~Daniel Andreas San Diego

Some people are still going to want to eat meat. We do agree though that vegetarianism is a healthier diet. ~David Stroud (of the American Meat Institute)

For that which befalls the sons of men befalls beasts ;
even one thing befall them: as the one dies, so dies the other. They have all one breath; so that a man has no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows that the spirit of man goes upward, and the spirit of the beast goes downward to the earth? ~Ecclesiastes iii., 19, 20, 21.

There is no such thing as cruelty free slaughter or humane killing.
No slave is happy no matter what the owner tells you.
Go Vegan NOW!
Do it for the cows that have their babies taken away again and again for milk production.
Do it for the chickens who are de-beaked for egg production.
Do it for the pigs who have to nurse their babies on concrete floors.
Do it for the millions of humans who don't know any better.
Do it for the planet.
Do it for your health.

Do it because there is NO SUCH THING as humane slaughter.~ Judith Barnes

Auschwitz begins whenever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they're only animals.
~Theodor Adorno

If only I could so live and so serve the world that after me there should never again be birds in cages.
~Isak Dinesen (pen name of Karen Blixen), author (1885-1962)

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
~Anne Frank

If "rights" exist at all— and both feeling and usage indubitably prove that they do exist —they cannot be consistency awarded to men and denied to animals, since the same sense of justice and compassion apply in both cases.
~Henry Salt, 1892

You ask people why they have deer heads on the wall. They always say, Because it's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother's attractive, but I have photographs of her.
~Ellen DeGeneres

A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.
~Leo Tolstoy

Raw foods create living bodies, and cooked foods create dying bodies
~Sabrina Aird, Grass Root co-owner

You say it’s my personal choice, it’s not a personal choice when you’re ruining my planet and you’re eating my friends
~ Dave Warwak

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites, or women created for men.
~ Alice Walker

Thou Shalt Not Kill
~ The Christian Bible

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy; if the world were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I wake up each morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. This makes it very hard to plan the day.
~E. B. White

Don’t want to ruin the oceans? Go vegan.
Don’t like the environmental problems of the soy industry? Go vegan.
Don’t like monoculture? Go vegan.
Don’t like the environmental problems of the petroleum industry? Go vegan.
Don’t like greenhouse gas emission? Go vegan.
Don’t like animal exploitation and cruelty? Go vegan.
Want environmental sustainability? Go vegan.
Want to feed the hungry? Go vegan.
Want to save water? Go vegan.
Want to cut air and water pollution? Go vegan.
Want to slow global warming? Go vegan.
Want to reduce the risk of heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, obesity, and cancer? Go vegan.
There is no absolutely single personal change that the average person can make that has a better impact on the environment than going vegan.
~Dan Cudahy

Honey is not vegan. It is an animal product, it came from the inside of an animal that produced it, not for you to sweeten your tea, but for a baby bee to live and grow on. Using honey or products made with beeswax are not on the vegan menu.

What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

~Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived.

How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds?

It is certainly not lions and wolves that we eat out of self-defense; on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter harmless,tame creatures without stings or teeth to harm us, creatures that, I swear, Nature appears to have produced for the sake of their beauty and grace.

But nothing abashed us, not the flower-like like tinting of the flesh, not the persuasiveness of the harmonious voice, not the cleanliness of their habits or the unusual intelligence that may be found in the poor wretches.

No, for the sake of a little flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life to which they are entitled by birth and being.~Plutarch

I abhor vivisection. It should at least be curbed. Better, it should be abolished. I know of no achievement through vivisection, no scientific discovery, that could not have been obtained without such barbarism and cruelty. The whole thing is evil.~Charles Mayo (founder of the Mayo Clinic)

Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places.~Leonardo Da Vinci

DO NOT BREED OR BUY WHILE SHELTER PETS DIE!