This morning I had to sit through the church's annual christmas show that my mom sings in. It's called a Living Christmas Tree. It wouldn't have been so bad, but I spent the whole time sniffling and wiping my nose because I rushed out the door and forgot tissues. My head is still stuffed up, I sneezed about 75 times today, and my face is already drying up. I feel like I'm fighting this weather, and it's a) only been 4 days and b) not even that cold. I'm a sucker. Last night, I went to bed at 6 p.m. (what the hell is my problem?) woke up at 10 p.m., stayed up until 3 a.m. reading My Side of the Mountain (maybe you read that when you were 10 too), and woke up at 9 a.m. My body is so screwed up right now. But back to the day. My dad and I sat through the performance, I saw a few people I used to go to church with (in junior high and high school I was very Christian - hard to believe). They were all kind of surprised to hear I'm applying to grad school, I guess they didn't think I'd amount to much. My mom and I spent the afternoon looking for food for the Christmas feast I'm making them. Went to Trader Joe's first. I wasn't expecting a whole lot, but Trader Joe's is bigger than the store I work at, so I figured they would have everything I needed. First of all, they had almost nothing for vegans. They didn't even have a lot of health food. It was just speciatly food. Second, there were probably 34897 yuppies shopping in this small store for specialty wines and cheeses for their parties. On a side note, I think I might be developing a slight social anxiety thing. I was internally going nuts when we were in the store because I kept bumping into people and I couldn't get enough space just to look around. I had to leave, so we just got in line with the stuff we had, which wasn't much. I asked the girl at the register if there was any other health food stores around, and she said, "Yeah, up by the VA hospital, next to Stater Bros. It's a place called Clark's." "Thanks," I said. So my mom and I found this place called Clark's up by the VA hospital, and was actually across the street from Stater Bros., and was contained in a building that used to be Stater Bros. Hmm. This place was huge, and sadly pretty much empty, but huge! It was probably 2-3 times the size of Natural Food Market and had everything we carry plus more!! I was so excited. My mom looked relieved that I had calmed down. On Christmas Eve, we're going to my Aunt Dee's house, and I'm going to bring a tomato chowder soup, vegan chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and my special Tofutti cream cheese and fudge pie. They won't know what hit 'em. And on Christmas I'm cooking my family the big dinner. I've been vegan for two years and I haven't forced my beliefs on them at all, but I really want to cook for them and have them understand that what I do isn't strange and the food doesn't taste bad and isn't anything like torture. So we bought a small Un-turkey, and I'm going to make mashed potatoes and stuffing. Probably some fresh cooked vegetables. That's all I've got so far. I get really excited when I talk about food. Someday, I want to have some kind of vegetarian/organic food company (but I can't call is Melissa's because someone already got that one). Tomorrow we're going to see Lord of the Rings. I'm so excited, I'm going to buy the tickets tonight. |