toby was the cutest of all springer spaniels! he would shake his butt back and forth when he was excited. he would sit on your lap when you’re trying to read. he would hog the bed. even though i only met toby a few times, at the beautiful farm, i loved him from the very start. what a good doggie.
i love this one. he looks like he’s smiling!
and this one… even though it’s blurry, you can see how hard it would be to share the bed with him and andy. it was cute!
Tobey you’ll be missed. One of the best dogs EVER! I’ll never forget laying on the porch in the afternoon sun after my bike ride with you. Thanks! (My aunt Martha Jane lost her dog Tobey to cancer recently.) A great fun dog. He was a ‘lap dog’!!! Look at that picture, imagine him trying to sit on your lap on a chair!
In other news:
Imagine if every polition had Mr. Kucinich’s views. He’s the man.
A group of redhead ducks stopped by our pond to say hello on Saturday. It was amazing to see them diving underwater for 30-40 seconds and then pop up in a new location. I think they’re pretty rare in this neck of the woods, probably just passing through on their way to the great lakes.
I built another bike, expect pictures soon. I got an Airborne Thunderbird frame for $50. NEW! and built it up with campy centaur/veloce as my road racing bike. Pictures and review soon…
It’s been two weeks since turning vegan and I must say it’s AWESOME. So different then when I tried in college (12 years ago). Supermarkets and health food stores have come a long way, and the internet makes it so amazingly easy to connect to other vegan’s. If you’re in Clintonville, Ohio stop by Pattycake Vegan Bakery, it’s truly some of the best cookies in the world and not just vegan. Their oatmeal cookies are amazing. See ya…
i remember nanan had a collection of owls. little, ceramic owls that she kept in a mirror-backed curio shelf in the living room. now, when i’m thrifting, i tend to look for little 70’s owl trinkets. it’s nostalgic, i guess. and the 70’s color pallettes were the best: orange, brown, yellow, green. could that be why so many diy-crafters my age are making wonderfully cute 70’s owl things?
i love the above owl pillow made by leya williams of curious bird. she makes the cutest bags, too. i’m going to order something. her blog is fun to read and interesting, too. on the site it says that her things can be bought at a store here in columbus, too. i better get with it!
anyway, i definitely think that my love of nature was instilled by nanan and her frantic nature walks with the girl scouts. she could always identify tree species, and i remember her flower garden was really pretty. she was a girl scout leader and camp director, and people called her “mother nature” because she always dragged us 8 year-old girls into the woods to show us leaves and stuff. i’m so grateful for that!
i would have liked to see this guy on one of our nature walks. apparently this person did. stunning! from flickr.
i haven’t gone snowboarding in SO long. as i got older, i didn’t go as much. but now that we live in ohio, well forget it. there’s not a ski resort for hours. it makes big boulder and jack frost look like snowbird, utah. (see above. aaaaaah!) even before the winter olympics, for some strange reason i’ve been wanting to go snowboarding.
thinking of snowbird reminds me of my beastie boys sighting: my mca fiasco. people who know me know this story and have heard it tons of times. but i’m not completely healed from it, and it’s been 13 years. ha!
i was 14, on a snowboarding trip to utah with my dad. we were eating lunch outside. it was a beautiful, sunny day. i saw a guy who looked like mca, wearing camo pants and hangin’ with some people. i kept thinking to myself, gee, he looks like mca. and since he was, oh, 30-40 feet away, i thought he was far enough away for me to completely gawk at him while i ponder the fact that he looks like mca.
so the dude gets up and walks towards my dad and me and throws something away in the trash can next to us. he said something like, “how’s it going?” and i froze up and was silent. my dad answered something like, “good, man.” i was stunned. the guy walked away, and then i freaked out. my dad’s like, what? he couldn’t care less.
so later that day i saw the beastie boys on the cover a magazine at some ski shop. it was in some now-defunct magazine called warp or something like that… and in the article, it said that mca has a house in snowbird. it showed a picture of him riding , wearing camo pants. still mortified to this day.
i have no composure with celebrities. i’m such a dork!
So one of our wonderful State House Rep’s, Republican Ron Hood, introduced a bill to ban gay couples from adopting children or raising foster children. Here’s the article.
And here’s the letter I wrote to him (You should voice your concern also):
I think we can all agree that our society is screwed up and usually the children are the ones losing the most. We, as citizen’s of Ohio, America, and ultimately the world need to embrace all forms of love, whatever way or form that takes shape. By introducing legislation that prevents same sex couples to not adopt and care for children, you are only helping to promote hate, not (as you think) solve the problem.
In a perfect world, two loving people would give birth to a wonderful child and raise beautiful kids. The parents would work and be able to afford the best day care, schools, health care and extra-curricular programs. But, you and I will agree, our society is far from perfect and the reality is far from that picture. One look at our divorce rate, close to 50% shows that this isn’t a perfect world. I could fill this email with statistics about the less then stellar job we as American are doing raising our children. We need help, and if that help comes from people that can truly deliver love to children that need it, then it shouldn’t matter what sexual orientation the help is coming from.
To think that same sex couples will promote a ‘gay agenda’ or put children at “increased risk of physical and emotional problems†is absolutely closed-minded. Mr. Hood have you met a gay couple? Have you met a gay couple that wants to adopt a child? Yes, there are gay couples that are strange, deviant and not fit to be parents, but look through your community of “optimal setting†that you live in. Are ALL of your non-gay constituents fit to adapt children? One look through the sex offenders’ list answers this question.
I wish you could take the time to actually meet some gay couples. I wish you could actually take the time to attend a church service that is frequented by gay couples. I wish you could see the love that any couple could give a child, not just couples that fit in your close minded view of what a good ‘Christian’ should be. Love isn’t bound by sexual orientation, religion, skin, language or any other form of discrimination. I wish you could understand this, but without first hand knowledge of this I’m afraid you will continue to stay a close-minded person.
Please consider taking the time to understand the ramifications of the bill you introduced last week. If you would like to meet some great gay/lesbian couples (including my mother, whose also a pastor and works at Children’s Hospital) give me a call!
Good luck,
Andy Johnson
i saw this photo on post punk kitchen. it’s the best picture. i love kids, and i love vegan cupcakes.
she’s got the “tired eyes” that andy had since he was a little boy. so cute!
i have an addiction to dairy. i love cheese products and milk products, and things that contain milk and cheese. heck, i even like eggs. eggs and cheese are great together. the problem is that this love/addiction is not consistent with my beliefs on animal rights. i oppose animal cruelty in all forms, and dairy does not come from a happy little family of cows on a pastoral farm somewhere. i have to remind myself that probably even the organic dairy stuff isn’t exactly coming from the farm sanctuary.
so with all this in mind, why do i still eat dairy? i’m afraid the only reason is that it tastes good. when i speak to others about vegetarianism, they will often say, “oh yeah, i see what you’re saying… but i looooove steak and i could never give up chicken…mmm-hmmm!” i accept that comment, but i also don’t think it’s a sufficient reason to not be vegetarian.
SO THEREIN LIES THE HYPOCRISY. there is my struggle. show me a piece of cheesecake…queso dip at the mexican restaurant! grilled cheese and P I Z Z A.
last night, we went to whole foods and spent a fortune (of course.) there was a lot of vegan choices. i just cannot believe how much easier it is to be vegan since i was in high school and doing it. but it’s still hard. since andy’s switch to veganism, he has suggested lots of sites for me to look at for inspiration. he also bought some punk rock vegan cookbooks that should be coming any day now. i want to try. (i don’t want to fail, though, if i say i’m going to try.)
this picture is from the cute site that andy found vegan lunchbox.
i am the worst. i do not keep in touch with people. there are plenty of people that i think of often, and i wish i knew what they were up to… and sometimes, they’ve even emailed me, and i haven’t answered them back. i just want to apologize for not keeping in touch. there really isn’t any excuse. i’m just as busy as everyone else is. i seem to try to communicate telepathically…like thinking to myself “oh i have to tell devin that one.” but then i never, indeed “tell devin that one.” i know, it’s stupid! sorry everyone.
i mean, there’s beth-ann in boston, jacky in nyc, heath and kerianne in dc, bethany who knows where but certainly somewhere fabulous, nicole, devin & joe in philly, theresa and christian in bavaria, amy in west chester, there are just so many to name. like theresa said once in an email… it either seems like there’s too much going on, or not enough.
Remember that Shelter song? Oh, that was a good one! Funny. I’m not religious or even believe in organized religion but those Shelter songs still strike a chord with me. I guess the content of the songs is still preaching things I believe in but through organized religion. But then I start to wonder why? Why should I try to not get stuck in the materialistic hype of American culture if it doesn’t matter anyway? Anyway. A tangent, that was…
We went to the Franklin Conservatory last night for the first class of the FREE!!! 2006 Scotts Urban Garden Academy. It was inspiring to listen to all these great programs. People from throughout Columbus growing great yummy vegetables, turning urban blight into beautiful gardens and helping people learn and grow. Awesome. Inspiring. Veggies rule!
I finally got a copy of Wilco’s A ghost is born. So good. They continue to stick their middle finger in the air. Almost every song on the album could be a huge hit if produced and arranged differently, but they won’t compromise. Punk. The first song takes at least 90 seconds to warm up and when was the last time you heard a song over 10 minutes long? But Spiders has one of the greatest guitar riffs I’ve heard, but you have to let it steep for a few minutes before you hear it. Once it kicks in, OUCH! I get goose bumps it’s so good.
I’ve been making my own salad dressing. It’s so easy and the results are far superior then anything you can buy in a bottle. The key is to mix 1 part sugar or vinegar to 3 parts oil. I experimented with an orange/thyme dressing that was light mild and refreshing. Whipped up a soy sauce/ginger/garlic/rice wine vinegar combo that tasted awesome but I doubt Angelique wanted to kiss me afterwards. And finally made a simple lemon/salt/pepper dressing that was also very light but tasty. We went finally made it to the Clintonville co-op and I like it. I was impressed with their selection of organic produce and the prices were great. It was interesting seeing the minor differences that a co-op does compared to the big chains (like lack of a bar code reader).
And finally… the last bit of news from Andy: As of Saturday February 11, 2006 at 7:00am I am vegan. After a few months of debate, soul searching and discussion with the one and only Angelique, I have decided to try my hardest to live vegan. Good luck. I’ll keep you posted.
