rinalia

Amici's vegan pizza is to DIE for. I heart it a lot. It's all the greasy, cheezy goodness one could ask for in a pizza. Fact.

So, if you're in the bay area and anywhere near any of their locations, get their vegan soy cheese pizza (regular crust is vegan; gluten free crust is not).

There is one 10 minutes from my house, which makes me the luckiest pizza lover alive!

I love this rooster, like a lot. He's finally starting to get a bit more feisty with the other roosters (he was a total wimp when he arrived). He still lets me pick him up and tote him around, which makes him my #1 Rooster Man.

Dragged polyphonicvegan and co to the Japanese Tea Garden in SF on Sunday. Yeah, it's a big tourist trap, but I don't mind so much when I'm taking pictures. L tolerated my crankiness with grace and poise, good job! Seriously, I was really cranky. I'm PMSing is my excuse. We went to Golden Buddha and ate nummy vegan happy food.

Anyway, here are a few photos:


It's a vintage reflection. You can see the color version here.

( HAPPY SHINY STUFF )

You can see a few more at my flickr of doom.

I filled out a survey about pet loss. The "pet" was supposed to have died in the past year. I fudged it a lot - because my last pet died seven years ago, but I can conjure up those feelings in a nanosecond. I can feel them now like I felt them the day my parents called me, telling me Juju had died in my dad's arms. There's this special place of happy anguish in my heart just for Juju.

Juju was the first "real" dog - she wasn't my first ME dog (that's Mina), but she was the first dog to be with me through junior high and high school and most of college. She let me cry in her fur, she tolerated regular trips to the dreaded dog park, she even put up with obnoxious foster kittens and puppies, and she expected nothing more than food, butt skritches and a warm bed. Physically, she shared one of Mina's best features - a pretty brown patch over one eye (her only eye, to boot). Other than that, she was a fluffy eskie mix with a curly tail and the generous ability to tolerate the moodiness of a clinically depressed teenager.

Don't tell Mina, but one of the biggest reason I adopted her was because she received the Juju seal of approval. Juju didn't like too many dogs, though she tolerated them with a grace befitting a queen. She wasn't thrilled by Mina, but both Mina and Juju respected each other. One night, I woke up to find both dogs curled up side by side, something Juju would NEVER allow another dog to do. I knew then that Mina was The One. It would be only a few weeks later that Juju's fragile heart would give out, leaving only a cold little body to cry on.

For weeks after Juju died, every time I visited my parents' home, I thought I could hear her. Sometimes, the bed would shake a little, reminscent of Juju doing her three circles before plopping down for a snooze. I would catch glimpses of her lying in the corner, a flash of her white fur, and then poof! gone. My mom did too. I don't know if it was just the grief talking, but I like to think that Juju's energy spent a bit of time with us before moving on to other things.

Her heart was never her best friend; she had a serious heart murmur from the day we adopted her (she was six). A few months before her death, the vet told us the bad news - she had congestive heart failure and we should limit her exercise. A lover of running free, we couldn't deny Juju the chance to play in the field, romp in the grass...you know, be a dog. We hastened her death so that she could be happy. The weekend before her death (she died on a Monday), she enjoyed the most glorious romp through her favorite park. She lived it up, got a bit lost (couldn't hear us calling for her), and ran through the fields like a puppy. It was her last big hurrah, and I wouldn't change a thing. She wouldn't, either, I'm sure.

Thinking about Juju, though, gets me thinking about Mina. She's ten. Not young, not really middle age, but not quite old. I haven't talked about it much, but I'm in the process of saving up money for a whole host of procedures that she needs to have. She needs radiographs for a shoulder problem the vets can't figure out; a removal of a *hopefully* benign cyst, and a canine tooth extraction. She has a thyroid problem, possible stone problems and borderline kidney problems. And all those things make me panicky and afraid of her eventual death, which I have told her is definitely at least another 10 years away (she agrees). Thinking about it makes me hyperventilate.

Anyway, I miss Juju, seven years later. She was not a troublemaker like Mina. She wasn't afraid of dogs like Celeste. She minded better than both my current dogs. She had one ginormous eye that saw the world for what it was - a place for sniffing, pissing, meeting friends, ignoring enemies, and having a grand old time running through weeds and flowers. Juju was the quintessential Good Dog. And I still miss her.

And later in the ruling, they said: “Equal protection under the Iowa Constitution is essentially a direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike. Since territorial times, Iowa has given meaning to this constitutional provision, striking blows to slavery and segregation, and recognizing women’s rights. The court found the issue of same-sex marriage comes to it with the same importance as the landmark cases of the past.”

They being the Iowa Supreme Court, which just ruled that Iowa's same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional. Darn straight.

Opponents of same-sex marriage criticized the ruling.

“The decision made by the Iowa Supreme Court today to allow gay marriage in Iowa is disappointing on many levels," State Senator Paul McKinley, the Republican leader, said in a statement on The Des Moines Register’s Web site. "I believe marriage should only be between one man and one woman and I am confident the majority of Iowans want traditional marriage to be legally recognized in this state."

Emphasis my own. Having a belief can be wonderful, but it can also be limiting and cruel. Marriage is a personal and spiritual decision made between two people. It should not be a decision made by the state of Iowa or its voters. The majority has gotten it wrong many times.

Those who oppose gay marriage seem to act on petty, faulty beliefs that engender fear, promote exclusion, and do nothing to further religious or spiritual compassion. 

Beside that, I have always found the reaction to legislation by gay marriage opponents to be both interesting and a bit schizophrenic. Try to create a law that is all-inclusive, that says marriage is a personal choice best left up to the folks doing the marrying and not the state and BAM!! hell breaks loose, and the gay marriage opponents are all up in a tizzy about "the nanny state". But try to amend a state's fucking constitution to promote an agenda based on exclusion and discrimination, well then Big Brother is now the best friend of homophobic america. 

Anyway, good ruling.

In case you care. And you do.

8. Graceling - Kristin Cashore (3/1/2009) - read it b/c wirenth said it was good. And it was.

9. Feast of Fools - Rachel Caine (3/2/2009) - another vampire series, but one that I actually enjoyed. Take that, PC Cast!

10. Chosen - PC Cast (3/6/09) - noooo! i am NOT chosen. i am running for the hills, because this series takes a downward spiral into blehness.

11. The Lathe of Heaven - Ursule l Guin (3/8/09) - oh ursula le guin, how i love thee. i could count the ways, but i won't. instead, i'll just read all your books. this is another excellent le guin novel.

12. I am the Messenger - Markus Zusak - (3/8/09) - FACT: This book rocks. 'Nuff said.

13. Frostbite - Rachelle Mead (3/14/09) - i thought this vampire series would help me pass the time, but i'm realizing that it just isn't my cup of tea. there was one crazy, awesome scene towards the end (where the main character goes CRAAAZY) but that was all that really held my attention. the next book? i couldn't even read the first few pages. it went back to the library.

14. Divining Women - Kaye Gibbons (3/14/09) - if you haven't read ellen foster, do so. divining women is just as powerful, though i think ellen foster is better written and more provocative (for me). the novel is set during world war i and the flu pandemic. it's about a woman struggling to help her uncle's wife, a beautiful, but verbally abused, woman. it's about hope and courage amidst suffering and death. i felt it was a bit rushed, but gibbon's beautiful prose more than makes up for that. she has a truly wonderful way with words.

15. Achingly Alice - Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (3/15/09) - continuing my reading of the alice series. egad, i love these books. they remind me of beverly cleary's ramona quimby books.

16. Thirteen Reasons Why - Jay Asher (3/17/09) - not sure how i feel about this one; it was a decent read (plot wise). premise is interesting; girl commits suicide and mails out 13 tapes detailing the 13 people who affected her decision to kill herself. each person has to mail the tapes on to the next person. not sure if i agree with much of the results, but the concept was still enough to keep my attention.

17. Alice on the Outside - Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (3/22/09)
18. The Grooming of Alice - Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (3/24/09)
19. Alice Alone - Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (3/28/09)

20. Shadowed Summer - Saundra Mitchell (3/30/09) - silly ya book about a girl who makes contact with a ghost, revealing secrets of the past. to be honest, couldn't quite grasp the whole plotline, even more so when the ending is revealed (it just doesn't make sense to me). easy read, finished it in a couple hours.

Tulip is the angriest looking hen I've ever known.

No, she's not growling at me. She's eating grass. In fact, I could have shown you the whole sequence of events.

Stage 1: Celeste goes out into my parents backyard when we visit.
Stage 2: Celeste furtively glances around.
Stage 3: Noticing no one is paying any attention, Celeste immediately digs in and eats grass.
Stage 4: Celeste gets her picture taken while eating grass, is not amused by the process.
Stage 5: Celeste gets up, looking VERY concerned about life and also the rumblings of her stomach.
Stage 6: Celeste throws up all the grass she just ate.
Stage 7: Moving away from her human, she goes off into the corner.
Stage 8: And begins to eat grass again.

Any thoughts on this: Celeste and Mina both eat grass at my place and NEVER have problems. No vomit, no upset tummies, nothing. The grass at my place is probably native grass that bears little resemblance to the grass people usually have. But when they go to my parents house, man their grass just irks their systems. Both throw up every time they visit after eating the grass. I don't get it.

You will thank me for not showing the photos of her vomiting; no one really wants to see that stuff.