A few weeks ago, I took a bus down to Carbondale to spend the weekend with my husband.  Carbondale is a small town in southern Illinois, but it’s a college town so there are actually a few things for vegans to get excited about!  My hometown (which I am grudgingly living in for now) is five times as big and has not even half the options.  The health food store here is small, and has the driest, saddest vegan baked good ever.  The eating out options are fine, but there isn’t any place specifically for vegetarians.

I was only in Carbondale for 38 hours, but I managed to stuff myself pretty hardcore.

The first place we went to was Longbranch Coffee House, a vegetarian cafe.  Unfortunately they don’t have a website or menu online (and our table was too small for me to get pictures with my portrait lens), but I do remember that the number of options that were already vegan or could be made vegan were a little slim.  But i’m a creature of habit anyway, so even if they have one thing that I like that I can eat, i’m happy.  I had a veggie calzone (no vegan cheese, just cheeseless), and the dough was to die for.  So, so good.  I checked out the bakery case at the front and if any of the items were vegan, they weren’t marked as such.

The health food store was just down the block, so we went in there.  A quick glance over the bulk section revealed no nooch or gluten – the two things that I can’t get from regular grocery stores that I consider absolute musts.  The only vegan cheese was Veganrella, which I didn’t even know still existed because most stores stick to Follow Your Heart or have moved onto Teese and other newer products.  Then I looked at the deli case to see if they had any vegan items.  They had tofu salad made with Vegenaise…and HONEY.  I have this habit about loudly bitching about fucking hippies and their need to put honey in fucking everything, and Brian saw the label before I did and started giggling.  I didn’t see much else in the way of vegan items.  On the way out, the woman behind the counter offered me some local cheese.

I don’t anticipate going there very much.

Then we got to go to the Co-Op.  The clouds parted and the angels sang.  It was amazing.  Not only did they have everything I expected, but they had more!  Chocolate covered ginger, vegan sandwiches and wraps, a daily vegan pizza special (that day was olive, and I hate olives so I passed), and more importantly CAKE.  Often times when i’m feeling down, or bleeding and murderous, I often complain that I can’t just get a single piece of cake.  I have to make a whole cake or batch of cupcakes (which I can halfsies, but still) myself.

Since I wasn’t staying long I only got the essentials.  You know, chocolate and sugar.  And a sandwich (called John Lennon) for the bus trip home.  Chocolate cake, a mini-carrot cake, chocolate covered ginger, carob energy bites, and my sandwich (baked tofu, peanut butter, and roasted peppers).  The chocolate cake was a smallish portion, but it was a little over $1 so that’s okay.  I went back before my bus ride to get another piece and they were all sold out (b00).  So I got two pre-packaged cake donuts instead.

After the sugar coma that ensued, I was happy when I found out Lent was coming up, and I decided to do the low-sugar, gluten free thing I did last year.  But come Easter, I am all over that place again.

The only bad experience was the indian buffet.  Brian was all excited to take me, and it turned out to be a total bust.  They only had eight or nine trays, and like an idiot I plopped rice down on my plate without looking at the other food first.  I’m naive and have had good luck with indian food so I just assumed it would be safe, if only for one or two dishes.  They had one bean dish that had meat in it, more meaty things, and then things that clearly had dairy in them.  I ended up with plain rice, spicy cabbage that was too hot for me to even eat, and plain salad.  I ate as much as I could while trying not to cry, and it was $9!  And seriously, what kind of indian place has meat in the chickpea dish?

But overall, it was a pleasant experience and I would really like to sell our house so I can move there already!  Mostly so I can see this handsome dude all the time:

Hey dudes!  I’m dipping my toes back into blogging, after a very hectic last couple of weeks with moving.  The good news is that i’m no longer in Tennessee, the bad news is that the lack of selling our house means that while my husband is starting school, the animals and myself are mooching room and board off of my father-in-law (staying in Tennessee was not an option).  Two people, five dogs, four cats, one house.  Luckily, Chester is the only boy dog and they’re all either too old or too shy to be dicks, so everyone is settling in nicely (though the cats took a little longer to adjust).  Including my farts.

The very first dinner I made for myself here was based on the fact that I wanted buttery, noochy pasta, chickpeas, and broccoli all at once.  After the past few days of living off of take out and gas station snacks, it was a welcome change of pace.  But unless you’re trying to offend everyone around you, I don’t recommend this combination.  Eating this almost got me thrown out of a moving vehicle, and the fart in question happened before I even got in the car. It was like I had found the magical combination to quickly generate the rankest farts ever.  It certainly wasn’t just the beans, I ate chana masala for three meals in a row and i’ve barely made a toot.

So there you have it, the secret to becoming a walking chemical weapon.

P.S.  Didn’t you miss my insightful posts?

Reflection post ala last year.

Um.  It was a long year?

Okay, maybe not so much reflecting. Brian came home at the beginning of November and he’s had to work very little so i’ve been spending a lot of time with him.  Obviously.  I went to see Joan Jett and Huey Lewis in August, that was pretty amazing.  Bonny got her eye removed in July.  I went to the only wedding where i’m ever going to get a vegan meal (but that’s okay, because I don’t anticipate going to a lot of weddings).  Other than that everything is pretty much a blur.  Oh, except my dog summer.  I had two foster dogs for a few months, so I had four dogs and three cats up in this piece.  I tried keeping them outside as much as I could, but it was mostly too hot, plus I got lazy, plus they were digging holes under the fence and one time Bonny got out with them and I nearly shat myself.  So most of my summer involved me waking up at six am to let dogs out, then taking a blanket to the couch, while they jumped all over me for awhile, and then falling back asleep with all four dogs on me if I laid right.

I miss them lots and it hurts to look at pictures of them.

Pushing Daisies got cancelled, causing my faith in humanity to shrivel up and die a little more.  If Fox can keep Dollhouse on the air for a little bit, it might come back.

I did not drink soda for the entire year.  I also got my hair matched to my roots and didn’t dye it any funky colors for the whole year so I wouldn’t have to bleach it annd chop it off.  I drank a Dr. Pepper on New Years Eve, which was delicious.  I woke up today feeling horrible.  My next soda will be another Dr. Pepper in 364 days.  I’m going to get my hair lightened soon.  I was born blonde and I will die blonde, dammit.

And then I bought a lot of music.  A LOT.  I got a zune and stopped buying cds because I already have a crazy dvd collection, and digital music is almost half the price of a tangible cd.  Also, Amazon MP3 has daily deals and weekly specials where you gets albums for five bucks and under.  It’s a sick addiction, I actually have a folder of bookmarked albums to buy because if I bought all of the ones I wanted we would be eating buttered noodles and wonder bread for dinner.  I’d have to send Bonny out front to sell lemonade (it’s really just her peeing in a cup, shhhh).

It took me forever to make that little music collage!  I also made you a mixtape of individual songs that I listened to a lot this year.  You should listen to it and admire the amazing artwork that I made with google images and photoshop.

In conclusion, 2008 was a year of nothing much except music.  2009 will hopefully be more interesting and deployment free.