Excuse me while I take a break from blogging about vegan recipes and talk about Second Life…

I’m hoping to be back with another recipe in a few days. I’ve been busy the past 2 weeks with Halloween parties and work. I’ve also just recently discovered Second Life. I’m completely fascinated by it and have immersed myself in the whole SL culture the past few days. I’m finding it difficult to pull myself out of it long enough to focus on vegan recipes. I have an addictive personality and when I find something I love I become obsessed. I really can’t afford to let my first life go, so I’m hoping I can snap out of it soon. lol One thing that I was curious about was vegans in Second Life. There are 2 vegan groups with a little over 100 people in them. But I was disappointed to find there were no real landmarks in SL for vegans to meet up. Our presence there is pretty small. I want to create some sort of attraction in SL on the grid for vegans. What that will look like or be is still in the works. I have several ideas running around in my head. A couple ideas… A vegan diner. Something like “My Vegan Diner”. Also have a cake and sweets shop where you can buy virtual vegan cakes to gift to your In-World friends. The virtual cake would come with an actual recipe you can make in RL (real life), as would the virtual food in the diner. A virtual farmer’s market. A virtual vegan 101 cooking school for newbie vegans. A My Vegan Cookbook souvenir shop. We could do some things to draw attention to our favorite causes like animal rights, health and the environment. Anyone have some other ideas? I’d love to hear them. I think for this to work we are going to need the help of other vegan websites to get the word out. If you have a vegan website and want to have your presence there contact me (myvegancookbook@gmail.com) to discuss your ideas. Are any of you there? Please friend me. Be you 1 or 100, geek or prep, black or white, gay or straight, christian, jew or godless…just be vegan or vegan curious, you get the idea. My username in SL is “myvegancookbook Bolissima”. And I look like this… a cross between what I look like in RL and what I WISH I look like. lol If only I had that hairline.

The problems I’m finding with Second Life is that it’s difficult to connect with others. I’m socially awkward and it makes sense that I would be the same way in SL as I am in RL. So I take offense to those who say SL is for people who are socially awkward in RL. There is a real discrimination when it comes to “newbies”. That in itself makes things even harder when you first arrive. Which I really don’t understand. Maybe as I stick around longer I’ll feel the same way. But everyone has to start. I’m also finding that there is a steep learning curve. No surprise that only 1 out of 10 people who join SL stick around. After you’ve run around to all of the major hot spots there, peeked into a few houses and tried to connect with some cool peeps (just as in RL, there aren’t any lol), excitement can wan. In all honesty, right now, SL is a really cool — adult dollhouse. Which hey, I admit it, I like to play with dolls. : ) But I see great potential in this new world. SL is fairly new. New things are always intimidating and scary. But I’m excited by the new and I can’t wait to see how vegans make their mark on this new land.

Speaking of new. I’m excited to see who our new president will be! Happy voting day to my US readers!

Well I started with 20 broccoli plants and now there are 6. I’m the unluckiest gardner in the world. I expected I’d lose a few after transplanting them into larger pots but this takes the cake. Two more things happened to kill them off besides transplanting. First I let them out on a sunny (and windy) day to harden them off. The wind and sun burned them and some of them died. They died from shock. I have to remember to shade them on the first few days of hardening them off. Well, yesterday I had them sunning on the back porch and forgot to bring them in for the night. So a raccoon found them and flung them across the porch. I have a whole family of raccoons in my yard and they are, cute as can be, vandalizing punks. The weather has been so wishy washy I don’t know when I’ll put the broccoli in the garden. In other gardening news I started the seeds for everything I’m planing this year. The planting list this year goes like this: Peppers, Tomatoes, Squash, Watermelon, Sunflowers, Eggplants, Bee Balm, Thyme, Sweet Marjoram, Onions… Every year I have this vision of me picking this huge BOUNTY. I’m in the garden with bushel baskets running over. It never quite turns out the way I envision. But I never give up hope that this will be the year.

It’s not an official blog until you flash your pussy. So here it is! lol My cat Sweety Pie. He is a stray that showed up a few years ago. When he first arrived he was very afraid of me and I could tell he was an abused runaway. Now I’m able to pet him profusely. I think his previous owner must have beat him really bad because he was afraid of every sudden movement you would make. He also has a blood stain in his eye, which was worse when he first showed up. He also seemed and still does seem mentally challenged. He will not get out of the rain and until recently didn’t wash himself with his tongue. I don’t have pets, unless you count the fish in my coy pond. I love animals but I don’t like them in my house. I only take care of strays that show up in my yard and that keeps me pretty busy. I have a problem with Sweety Pie pooping in the garden, which really gets on my nerves. I think I have a way to stop it though. This year I’m putting fake snakes on the edge of the garden beds.

A cute story about SweetyPie. When he first showed up I had another stray cat Bootsy, who has since died (sad story), that sort of helped him learn the ropes I guess. He would talk to Sweety (you know by meowing) and he showed him how to ask for food. Bootsy walked up to me and let out a meow like he always did when he wanted to be fed, as Sweety watched shyly from a few feet away. And after he let out the meow he walked over to Sweety, like, all, that’s how you do it. And Bootsy nodded for him to try it and he did. Except Sweety has a broken voice that doesn’t work well. And it was the sweetest thing. He had my heart at a weak meow.

Speaking of abused animals. My heart was broken last week when I saw the news report about the largest meat recall ever. The footage of those sick animals being tortured like that made me lose my shit. I went to a very dark place. What really made me lose my shit was that the animals that were being tortured were already sick. We all know how it is to be sick with the flu or something. Can you imagine being sprayed with water into your nose while sick with the flu and being forced to stand up?

Newest obsession: Weekend Vampire. Their new CD is the perfect spring soundtrack. Goes great with the whole boat shoe trend.

I’m sure we have all seen the super skinny guys in the newest Calvin Klein ad and the news stories and bloggers are buzzing. It reminds me of the same hoopla over heroin chic in the 1990s. Remember the concerns that it would turn us all into dangerously thin waifs? Well that didn’t happen. Our girth increased instead. America is now 60% overweight and growing larger everyday.

I’ve heard a few explanations about why we are seeing this super skinny trend in fashion and I haven’t heard one that’s gotten it right yet. I believe it’s that super skinny is the new luxury. Think about it, luxury means in essence, rare and hard to obtain. Luxury goods are not the common. As America’s waistlines, or the world’s for that matter, expand, it is a rarity to see super skinny anyone, male or female. So it becomes this exotic rare thing. Almost like gold or diamonds. Luxury is about setting one’s self apart. You’re special when you’re super skinny. That’s why people want to obtain super skinny status for themselves. And yes, through questionable and dangerous means. I believe you will only see the trend increase.

I for one find super skinny — very attractive. Let’s face it, super skinny is refreshing in a world of fat overfed Wal Mart dwellers. A super skinny body is harmonious with that of green and lean living. You’re saving the planet by reserving it’s resources. You’re not a gluttonous oath. It says to the world, I’m in control.

Becoming super skinny has also become the newest selling point for adopting a vegan diet. Shallow as it might be, I’m someone who partly became vegan for the hopes of becoming thinner. Although that wasn’t my sole reason, fear of cancer and heart disease was. It was eating more fruits and vegetables in the beginning of my weight loss adventure that helped take off my first 30 pounds. And then 30 more pounds were taken off after becoming completely vegan. But it wasn’t through vegan alone that I lost all that weight. I still had to exercise and restrict calories.

So what do you think? Do you find super skinny attractive? Does the trend frighten you? Do you secretly long to be one of the new super skinnies?