Monday blues (and yellow and pink)

Front: campanula; Lower left: love-in-a-mist














Campanula




yet another campanula

Ozark sundrops (and if you look closely, you will see my nemesis, bindweed, creeping up near the top center of the photo.)

One of our miniature roses

It just continues to get worse for our city! Following the heels of the announcement of GM’s closing and another large business closing, there are strong rumors of a third large employer in town closing soon. That blow was followed up with the flooding. The downtown portion of the city is under water, as are several other areas. People are sandbagging, trying to prevent or minimize the damage. Portions of M’s botanic garden are flooded as well. Other than our garden looking a little rough, we have been extremely lucky and have no other flooding issues in our neighborhood. We lost power for a while this weekend, but that was just a minor inconvenience.

Dej and I went to see the movie, “The Happening”, on Saturday afternoon. It was fairly entertaining, and I liked the environmentalist message presented. It did not scare me. I repeatedly go to movies that look like they will be scary, as long as they don’t appear too violent. I prefer intelligent psychological terror to gore. I did look away during several portions of this movie, as I just have no desire to see gore. I see enough real-life gore, that I sure as hell don’t intend to look at it for fun. We weren’t pissed that we went, but were glad that we had only paid matinee prices, rather than regular prices.

Right after the movie, D left to go to Chicago with her friends. They drove to the Harvard station and took the train from there. They stayed with another friend of theirs who had moved to Chicago. D has never taken a trip like that with friends before—she’s never gone so far or to a big city. We were pretty nervous about it, but she did make it there and back okay.

Saturday night, we went to Madison to have dinner with some AR friends, and managed to squeeze both business and pleasure into our night. We had a fabulous time with good vegan food and great conversation. They also had animals, which is a vital ingredient for me to have a good time. I’m completely lost and weirded out in homes with no animals (not to mention that I don’t trust people who don’t have animals; I generally assume they are selfish and/or lazy or are such shitty humans that most animals hate them). I was quite late giving the cats their bedtime treats when we returned home, and they let me know what a rotten mother I was. They were able to recover from their snits enough to eat their treats though.

Both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day really snuck up on me this year. They weren’t even on my radar, and then suddenly they’re here! This year, for a change, I already had something for Mark and I knew what I was going to do for my dad. I was unprecedentedly prepared for this sneaky day. Luciana made very well-thought-out gifts for her dad and her grandpas.

I tried a new vegan fettuccini alfredo recipe, as this is a dish Mark liked (as did I) before becoming vegan. I was not thrilled by it. It was kind of bland and just not quite right. I can’t identify what could be done to improve it though. He ate it politely, as he does everything I prepare, but I don’t think he was thrilled by it either. I’ll keep trying to find a good recipe for it. We went, later in the afternoon, to my parents' for strawberry pie.

D. returned from Chicago, came home, showered and spiffed herself up, and immediately left again to go to her friend's graduation party. She spent the night there and didn't return until this morning. I'm very disappointed with her decision to be completely absent from our Father's Day activities. She didn't see her grandpa at all and only saw her dad for about five minutes. She called them both. I guess that's something. I know logically that it's normal at this age, but it really makes me sad. Maybe next year she will have grown up to be a bit more thoughtful.

I'm struggling with a few AR issues and have spent a lot of time thinking. The stress and time taken by rescue work is such that it leaves Allegrea and I with very little (sometimes NO) time to be activists and change the world for animals. We have to find a way to get back some time and energy for activism. We're just not sure how to do it. Both jobs are incredibly important, and there are not nearly enough people doing either. We have to find some kind of balance, and A & I will continue to talk about this very soon. We wanted to get together last week and last weekend, but couldn't get our schedules to cooperate. We'll talk this week for sure, as it's weighing heavily on both of us.

I'm also really feeling all kinds of sad and horrible. AR comes first in my life. Hands down. This Sunday is our annual date with the Zor Shrine Circus boys (TIC, as they are all around 90). We ALWAYS protest this circus, because they are horrible animal abusers. Last year, I was able to get a hold of the circus's license and all of their inspection papers from the USDA (I love my secret source!!) and I printed them, took them, and handed them out. It was fantastic! They had TONS of violations through the years, and the USDA standards are obscenely low. They really hate us, and it's interesting as we've had years to forge our hostile relationship. It's always the same people, on their side and our side--it's kind of a summer tradition for us. It is really devastating for me to miss this one. We have to go to IL that day, though, as M's brother and family will be coming to visit from NJ. I feel weepy just thinking about it--I feel horrible about bailing on my group!