Facon

I promise never to use the word "facon" again, but when you've got the words "fake" and "bacon" before you, well, what would YOU do?

It's been a month since I stopped eating meat (except seafood) and I miss bacon. Big time. I gave up meat for moral and health reasons, not because I didn't love the taste of it. Honestly, I love the taste of meat. Barbeque brisket, italian sausage, and bacon, to name a few favorites. So I knew I wasn't going to be one of those vegetarians who replaces meat only with beans and soy (though I do eat more than I used to of both). It was going to be necessary for me to find the best meat imposters out there. I've begun my search and, so far, have three recommendations, whether you're a vegetarian or simply curious about life after meat: Lightlife Grounds, Lightlife Smart Bacon, and MorningStar Farms Bacon Strips.

I've only tried Lightlife (meatless) sausage grounds - in an egg white and vegetable scramble - and it was delicious. Moist, in tact, and sausage-y. The two fake bacons (I told you I wasn't going to use the word again) are very different. The MorningStar Farms Bacon Strips are the smokiest fake bacon I've tried, so if you're really going for that bacon flavor, this one's got it. Lightlife Smart Bacon's strong point is that it miraculously achieves that perfect bacon-y crispiness we all love, so if you're a texture hound, look no further - though it's definitely not so smokey. I should say that the MorningStar Farms Bacon Strips get crispy, too, but not in a quite as authentic way. And you do have to get over the fact that they mildly resemble dog treats. But who's barking, I mean, looking?

Note: MorningStar Farm Bacon Strips are not vegan - they contain egg and dairy products. Lightlife products - as far as I can tell - are vegan.

How to like It by Stephen Dobyns

These are the first days of fall. The wind

at evening smells of roads still to be traveled,

while the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns

is like an unsettled feeling in the blood,

the desire to get in a car and just keep driving.

A man and a dog descend their front steps.

The dog says, Let's go downtown and get crazy drunk.

Let's tip over all the trash cans we can find.

This is how dogs deal with the prospect of change.

But in his sense of the season, the man is struck 

by the oppressiveness of his past, how his memories

which were shifting and fluid have grown more solid 

until it seems he can see remembered faces

caught up among the dark places in the trees.

The dogs says, Let's pick up some girls and just

rip off their clothes. Let's dig holes everywhere.

Above his house, the man notices wisps of cloud

crossing the face of the moon. Like in a movie,

he says to himself, a movie about a person

leaving on a journey. He looks down the street

to the hills outside of town and finds the cut

where the road heads north. He thinks of driving

on that road and the dusty smell of the car

heater, which hasn't been used since last winter.

The dogs says, Let's go down to the diner and sniff

people's legs. Let's stuff ourselves on burgers.

In the man's mind, the road is empty and dark.

Pine trees press down to the edge of the shoulder,

where the eyes of animals, fixed in his headlights,

shine like small cautions against the night.

Sometimes a passing truck makes his whole car shake.

The dog says, Let's go to sleep. let's lie down

by the fire and put our tails over our noses.

But the man wants to drive all night, crossing

one state line after another, and never stop

until the sun creeps into his rearview mirror.

Then he'll pull over and rest awhile before

starting again, and at dusk he'll crest a hill

and there, filling a valley, will be the lights

of a city entirely new to him.

But the dog says, Let's just go back inside.

Let's not do anything tonight. So they

walk back up the sidewalk to the front steps.

How is it possible to want so many things

and still want nothing? The man wants to sleep

and wants to hit his head again and again

against a wall. Why is it all so difficult??

But the dog says, Let's go make a sandwich.

Let's make the tallest sandwich anyone's ever seen.

And that's what they do and that's where the man's

wife finds him, staring into the refrigerator

as if into the place where the answers are kept--

the ones telling why you get up in the morning

and how it is possible to sleep at night,

answers to what comes next and how to like it.

The Post in Which I Prove How Easy It Is to Use Biodegradable Doggie Bags (rocks used for demonstration)

Step One: Insert hand into biodegradable doggie bag (try Bags on Board, which come with their own clip-on containers you can attach to your leash) and pick up unmentionables.

Step Two: Turn biodegradable bag inside-out and tie a knot.

Step Three: Proceed directly to your nearest waste receptacle and dispose now-brimming biodegradable doggie bag.

 

What is Enough?

When I decided (about a month ago) to finally ease into the vegetarian diet I've been contemplating since I was thirteen, my sister-in-law Julie had some very simple, very helpful advice that a friend had passed onto to her. I was expressing my concern about not being vegetarian enough - sure, it's great to give up beef and poultry (I've decided for now to continue to eat seafood and dairy), but what about fish and eggs and milk and cheese? After all, if I'm giving up meat consumption for moral reasons as well as health, isn't veganism even better? I was feeling overwhelmed by all I still wasn't doing. Julie pointed out that making even one change in my diet does make a difference. Doing something 15% is better than 0%. Doing something 40% is better than 15%. As Julie said, this may seem obvious, but it's an important reminder given the absolutely dizzying array of things we are told we should be doing these days (by politicians, advertisements, schools, etc.) to preserve our lives and our planet. How are we ever supposed to keep up? Julie's words reminded me to pace myself. (Thanks, Julie.) Better to begin something as monumental as a new lifestyle with goals that feel attainable and - with time - aim to do even better. 

Speaking of ... PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is sponsoring a "Pledge to Be Veg for 30 Days!" If you'd care to give it a try - for thirty days or forever, for animal-related reasons or not - I'd love your company. PETA's "go veg" website also offers many great tips about transitioning to a vegetarian diet, vegetarian recipes and all the important reasons to think harder about what you eat every day.

Dog Days of Summer

Like many dog-owners, I rely heavily on the versatility and indestructibility of Uber Dog Toy, aka the Kong. My dogs each have their own, though that ownership can reverse itself any time in a single toothy instant. Surely one of the most fun (and let's face it, time-consuming) features of the Kong is its dark and rubbery snack cave - pop a treat in there and your dog will enjoy not only the treat, but the game of getting it out. Kongs even come with their own recipe list - though I have an issue with some of their recipes. They use too much people food (a lot of it, unhealthy), like macaroni and cheese, eggs and yogurt. With a few (healthy and dog-friendly) exceptions - and with total admiration for the hardy souls who make their own pet food from scratch - I believe pets should stick to pet food. With that in mind, try this instead:

IT'S LIKE BUTTA, BABY

Banana

Peanut butter

Dry dog food

Water

Take a handful of dry dog food and place in a bowl of water - just enough water so that the dry food floats a little. Soak for an hour or more - until food is easily mashable and water is almost entirely absorbed by food. Add ripe (or over-ripe) banana and creamy, low-fat peanut butter at your discretion (keeping in mind that peanut butter is fattening to dogs, too!). Mix until it becomes a paste with some chunks in it. (I couldn't bring myself to use the phrase "chunky paste.") Give it to them as is or freeze for several hours first. 

*I highly recommend freezing - especially on a hot summer day and especially if you have to go out for a few hours without your canine companion - as this will provide a great, healthy project. These treats are best given outside or on a kitchen floor that can be easily cleaned. Depending on your dog, they can be a bit messy for rugs! 

**Be sure to feed your dog a bit less at meal time on days when he or she has a food-packed Kong treat - they are almost meals in themselves! 

PUPSICLES:

Low-sodium chicken broth

Water

Duct tape

That's right, I said duct tape

Cover hole on smaller end of Kong with a patch of duct tape. Holding Kong duct-taped-end-down, pour chicken broth-water mixture (whatever ratio you'd like) in through the bigger hole, then freeze. Be sure and remove duct tape before serving!

I also use the above recipe (minus the duct tape) for ice licks on hot summer days. Instead of using the Kong, pour chicken broth and water mixture into a tupperware container instead. Then freeze.

You can also make a peanut butter and water ice lick, though you might want to heat the peanut butter first so that it will more easily mix with the water. Then freeze.

Petcast

This is one of my favorite new discoveries: Weather.com now has a personal Petcast page. You can plug in a few details about your favorite furry friends and find out what his or her comfort level will be in the coming days - chances of precipitation, best time of day to walk, mosquito level, and more. Unfortunately, they only offer petcasts for dogs and cats. So, until Weather.com adds more animal options to its petcast, those of you with chinchillas and newts will just have to do it the old-fashioned way: open the curtains and look. 

Eggs All Over the Place

I swore I'd never have a blog. But the animals (and my dad) made me do it. Let me tell you how.

It all started with eggs all over the place. My dad knew he wanted to be an architect when he was thirteen years old - at least, it seems that way to me. When my dad was thirteen, he painted a picture for art class called, "Eggs All Over the Place." The main feature of the painting is a white house with a wrap-around porch and a stout red chimney rising from the center of the roof. The house, surrounded by a great lawn with people in different positions all over it, sits against a light-blue sky, which is broken up only by the dozens of florescent colored eggs falling from a passing flock of birds. The eggs add an electrifying quirkiness - something along the lines of the frog scene in "Magnolia," albeit less biblical. The dreamy anyworld of the child's mind is unmissable. But the picture is a stand-out even without the eggs. It's the proportional, orderly house that wows, especially considering a thirteen-year-old drew it.

Even in high school I could appreciate the significance of that picture. At sixteen, I didn't have a clue what I wanted to be when I grew up. But when I imagine my thirteen-year-old dad polishing off that last shingle and thinking to himself, this is what I want to do, I imagine him meaning it. After all, he's been a practicing architect now for thirty-five years. Not that I think this makes what he does any better than what anybody else does. I just think it's cool. I think it's cool he knew. And I think it's cool he became.

I am a writer. I love to write. I wouldn't say writing keeps me sane, rather it keeps me necessarily indifferent to what sane is. I wrote my first story that excited me when I was around eleven, too. (It was not called "Eggs All Over the Place," but, man, I'd love to steal that title.) I can't say it was that moment that made me want to be a writer, though. It was more something that built slowly with encouragement over time. All I knew at the time was that I'd written some words that felt like they came partly from me and partly from some much more thrilling otherme. It helped that when my teacher handed it back, it had the word "daring" written on it - a word I can undaringly say has not often applied to me. I wanted to do it again. Not necessarily forever. Just again. Now I want to do it forever.

The only thing I can say I've known with absolute certainty since I was eleven is that I love animals. I don't mean in an I-always-bought-kitten-Trapper-Keepers way (though who would blame me if I did?), but in a way that made me absolutely sure no understood animals like I did; in a way that could keep me up at night just knowing they were in the house (or in the deepest hole in the ocean); in a way that made me first-love dizzy, and still does. Writing is surely my delight - my daring, my freedom. But animals are my architecture. I know I can't "be" animals when I grow up. If I could, I probably would. But I can be near them. I can be for them. Which is exactly what I hope to offer here - ways we can all be for animals. 

As a recently converted vegetarian, as well as the owner of two cats and two dogs, I'm paying extra careful attention to the animal world these days. This blog is my way of sharing what I know and what I'm learning every day - from favorite animal-friendly sites to facts, tips, tricks, hints and products. The way I see it is simple: if I can give animals the same love and respect they've given me (and better yet, if I can help others do the same), then I'll be exactly whom I'm supposed to be when I grow up. 

I wish I'd started this blog-I-said-I'd-never-have a long time ago. But I'm here now. Let's here it for eleven-year-old dreams. And, of course, eggs all over the place.