(This note was originally composed for my personal facebook list “fierce vegans”, but I hope it inspires you, too!!)
Yes, yes, I know. We are all working tirelessly for peace & justice causes. You’re in animal activism, heading up humane societies, working on sociology Ph.D.s, writing code to save the world, baking for justice, interpreting law for the good of all, inspiring with blog posts, bringing folks of different faiths and philosophical perspectives together for community service… and so much more. In California, Colorado, Chicago, New Zealand or Guatemala, we’re united by compassion – towards others human, non-human, and not-even-humanoid.
But back to that note title. Even as we struggle to right what’s wrong, we have to remember RuPaul’s adage – if we can’t love ourselves, how in the HELL are we gonna love (or take care of) anyone else? (Can I get an amen? Amen?)
So here’s your chance. Lagusta Y. makes thoughtful artisan vegan chocolates in upstate New York (near where Nate is from) with hyper-local, super-duper-beyond-fair-trade ingredients. They’re simply the best you can buy anywhere & from anyone.
And today only she is offering her boxes on special – BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!!!!
Buying from Lagusta means supporting a fellow vegan chocolatier who works her fingers to the bone for the sake of peace, justice, and flavor. She has been donating to our mutually-beloved animal rights & feminist causes for years. And did I mention that they’re simply the best you can buy anywhere & from anyone? Oh, I did. Well I MEANT IT.
I received the big assortment from Nate for my birthday last week – every chocolate was sublime, but I especially loved the vandana shivas and mint matcha bonbons. Honestly, you can’t go wrong. So go! http://www.bluestockingbonbons.com/
And remember! You are a fierce vegan who deserves it!!
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I turn 27 on Thursday.
My sweetheart & I have a thing for birthday parties – specifically, for throwing each other surprise themed parties with costumes, hand-made (or thrifted) decorations and treats, games and prizes. I caught the birthday bug from my best friend Jina and her birthday twin Rahul, who always threw fantastic fêtes before they moved away to Ann Arbor and San Francisco, respectively. The first party I threw for Nate was Hobbit themed, featuring Gandalf’s fireworks, awesome ales, themed food (lembas bread) and a fully-dressed Witch King of Angmar; more recently, he got a Mario party with live-action Kart races (on bikes, with banana peels, water balloons, and attackers), an underground level, and a Yoshi’s (vegan) egg hunt. My party last year was Wonka themed; this year… Alice in Wonderland.
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do; once or twice she had peeped in the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversations?’
So she was considering, in her own mind… whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think is so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself , ‘O dear! O dear! I shall be too late!’; but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and hurried on, Alice started to her feet…
…burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
Either the well was very deep, or she fell slowly…
“Well!” thought Alice to herself. “After such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of falling down stairs!”
The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: ‘No room! No room!’ they cried out when they saw Alice coming. ‘There’s plenty of room!’ said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.
…round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words ‘DRINK ME‘ beautifully printed on it in large letters.
It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. ‘No, I’ll look first,’ she said, ‘and see whether it’s marked “poison” or not’; for she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.
However, this bottle was not marked ‘poison,’ so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast tofurkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off.
Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words ‘EAT ME‘ were beautifully marked in currants. ‘Well, I’ll eat it,’ said Alice, ‘and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I’ll get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!’
‘And ever since that,’ the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, ‘he won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.’
'You are old, Father William,' the young man said,
'And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?'
'In my youth,' Father William replied to his son,
'I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.'
'You are old,' said the youth, 'as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door--
Pray, what is the reason of that?'
'Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!
…she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off. The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had very long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.
‘Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. ‘Come, it’s pleased so far,’ thought Alice, and she went on. ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’ 
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
However, there was the hill full in sight, so there was nothing to be done but start again. This time she came upon a large flower-bed, with a border of daisies, and a willow-tree growing in the middle.
‘O Tiger-lily,’ said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, ‘I wish you could talk!’
‘We can talk,’ said the Tiger-lily: ‘when there’s anybody worth talking to.’
…Alice didn’t like being criticised, so she began asking questions. ‘Aren’t you sometimes frightened at being planted out here, with nobody to take care of you?’
‘There’s the tree in the middle,’ said the Rose: ‘what else is it good for?’
‘But what could it do, if any danger came?’ Alice asked.
‘It says “Bough-wough!”‘ cried a Daisy: ‘that’s why its branches are called boughs!’
‘Didn’t you know that?’ cried another Daisy, and here they all began shouting together, till the air seemed quite full of little shrill voices.
‘Get to your places!’ shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each other; however, they got settled down in a minute or two, and the game began.
Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
thanks, friends, for making this the best birthday ever! Miss Yuki, I am still living for your teapot flowerpots!
especially great gratitude to the two folks who pulled it all together:
Jacquie & Nate.
I hope you two enjoyed every ridiculously well-deserved bite.
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