What's in a name?

Day 3 of NaNoWriMo and it is still hard - I'm pretty behind on my word count and the story is all over the place.

But it has got me thinking about unusual names. I love unique names, probably because I have an incredibly boring name. My main character will have an unusual name, which I haven't actually picked yet, because he is loosely based on a relative of mine with a fairly unusual name. Of course, I don't want to use the actual name, because that would be weird. The relative was named after another boy with the name that died as a baby, or in childhood, I never could keep the story straight.

(I was also able to incorporate another unique name related tale into the story - another relative of mine was given a singular name while still in the womb, after a friend of the family that had been killed in a car accident. She came out with a hair color and texture which looked nothing like the rest of the family - but was that of the deceased friend. They explain it away by saying a distant relative had that hair color...)

Anyway, since I don't know what the actual name is that I'll be using for the main character, I've procrastinated a bit by researching (and by researching, I mean Googling) the relative's name. I've found that it is the last name of a rather well known Trappist monk (OK, I knew this already), and is the name of a dozen or so towns in English speaking countries around the world. A shortened version of the name, by which the relative usually goes by, is actually a Turkish male name meaning trustworthy, hero, and brave.

I also once searched some historical archives at the library, and found that his name, to my surprise, was a not uncommon first name for boys at the turn of the [19th] century. But I don't think anybody in our family has ever met another person who has this first name.

And now, since this is starting to sound like a trivia question, it has become one! What is this relative's name? No fair if you already know my family.

Uh, writing a novel is hard, says the English major

Technically, the degree is "Writing / Literature," but who's ready to nitpic that with me? I'm not going to get too far into what I think the value of my degree from George Fox College (now University) is - let's just say I'm pretty sure I learned more and had a broader education in high school than I did at George Fox.

Anyhoo, I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo (not NoNoWriMo as I ridiculously referred to it earlier via Twitter, which sounds like I'm writing something naughty) and this is day 2. I finally got my word count up to day 1 levels a few minutes ago. It's a far cry better than yesterday, anyway. I've heeded the advice of the pep talk email and let the writing take me where it will, editing as little as possible. It's funny that when I started out a few hours ago, I wasn't in the mood, was kind of cranky, and began writing about something completely different than anything I thought would go in the story. But, amazingly, it came around and pretty soon I was on track again. So far so good.

Vegan Las Vegas!

Apparently, I'm one of those annoying people who starts a blog and then never updates it. Well, anyway, let's recap highlights from the last year:

• Finished my Dale Carnegie course without getting kicked out for excessive amounts of sarcasm (I actually started looking forward to the weekly meetings).
• Voted for and then celebrated the election of President Obama.
• Got pneumonia. Slowly recovered from pneumonia after a couple of months.
  
• Got married to my best friend after 6 LONG YEARS of cohabitation. Ya, we're exactly the same post marriage as pre marriage.
  
• Went Vegan.
  
• Presented at IgniteBend 2. I was 2nd in the 2nd half. "How cupcakes inspired a conversation about pregnant cows & milk at my wedding party; or the joys of a Vegan (plant-based) diet."
• Got sick of Twitter about the one year mark. Kept tweeting anyway.
  
• Started exercising again.
• Started yoga.
• Started hanging out with the Bend VegNet folks.
• Survived having my step-kids for the entire summer.
• Climbed a mountain (South Sister).
  
• Recently went to the SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas with my pal Jen.

That doesn't sound like a lot of exciting stuff, I know, but hey, I had to get some work in there too. And I've probably forgotten quite a bit.

The SharePoint Conference, Las Vegas was the hardest test yet of my vegan life. I blogged about the techy-geeky stuff last week, but I promised a few people I'd also blog about the food side of it. And what better day to blog about it, than on World Vegan Day.

In short, finding food sucked, and I was hungry and unsatisfied all week. I used to travel a fair bit for work, but it was to Seattle and usually at Microsoft campuses. So even before I was completely vegan, I could easily find vegetarian or vegan meals either at Microsoft or at many other restaurants in the area. The Microsoft cafes are very good about labeling all the food with vegetarian or vegan signs and providing easy to find ingredients lists - and some of the cafeterias actually have an entire vegan section. So I guess I assumed that a Microsoft conference would be the same, especially when they listed "vegan" as one of the choices on the registration.

Uh. I was wrong, very wrong. (I want to say upfront that every request I made of the catering staff was polite and respectful - I was not interested in giving anybody a hard time. I just wanted to eat according to my preference - a preference that I had chosen during registration. As I repeatedly stated, I would have made other arrangements if I had known that vegan meals would not in fact have been available.) The first day of the conference at The Mandalay Bay I arrived for breakfast. There were buffet lines of breakfast foods - fruit, pastries, bread, etc. Nothing was labeled. Teas and coffee with creamer and milk were set out (but no soy milk or other alternative). I loaded up a plate with fruit, a peanut butter packet, some jam, and a whole-wheat looking bread that I hoped might be vegan. Then I asked my server what the vegan option for breakfast was. She said she'd check with the kitchen. At least 15 minutes went by. I asked another server if they knew what happened to server #1 and again explained my request. That server disappeared. Eventually server #1 came back. She said there was nothing vegan available. I asked her if she could at least please let me know if there were dairy products in any of the bread (there were several types). After disappearing for another long while, she came back and told me that the bread I had chosen did in fact have dairy in it. At this point, it was time for my first conference session, so I ate a little more fruit and some of the peanut butter, and then went on to the conference, hungry. Then I tweeted about it.

Lunch was no better. Upon arriving, I immediately asked my server what the vegan option for lunch was. He disappeared for a while. I went through the line and chose some salad and a wrap that was labeled "vegetarian." The server checked in with me frequently. I must say, the catering staff were at all times very friendly and polite with me, and busted their butts trying to figure out if, in fact, the kitchen had any plans at all for vegan options. They even suggested that I go ahead and eat the wrap contents if I wanted, but not the tortilla, as they didn't know the tortilla ingredients. My server eventually came back to tell me (at least a 1/2 hour had gone by since I had arrived for lunch) that he could not get the kitchen to provide me anything for lunch. He was clearly mortified at his kitchen. Then he introduced me to the head honcho guy with the microphone who was coordinating the catering. That guy apologized profusely and said that the next day I was to see him personally for my meal. I left very hungry and frustrated, made a quick polite complaint at the main conference desk, and then went back to my room to eat a raw vegan bar, some nuts and dried fruits, and some Primal Strips vegan jerky that I had brought with me from Whole Foods. These saved me during the conference. I love this vegan jerky, by the way! - Although its texture is freakishly close to what I remember real jerky being like, which I'm not sure is a good thing. I began to think that I must be the only vegan in the approximately 7500 people at the conference. Then I tweeted about it.

Tuesday I arrived to find "special meals" signs held by conference staff at strategic locations. Catering staff pointed me to a special area. There I was brought my first vegan meal personally by the server from Monday's lunch. They had really tried. It was a lovely arrangement of an assortment of lightly steamed vegetables with no seasoning. No bread, no rice, nothing filling. I didn't meet any other vegans that day, but I did eat lunch with some other "special meals" folks - a vegetarian and a person who eats Halal.

Wednesday they again brought me a meal - THE SAME ONE FROM THE DAY BEFORE. The same vegetables, the same arrangement, the same blandness. The weird thing was, there were things on the buffet line that it looked like I should be able to eat - and upon inquiry, sometimes they were vegan (like white rice, potatoes, etc). But often, they had butter in them or something. I could only find this out by asking catering staff - and then waiting 15 minutes for them to find out.

By this time, I was resigned. At night, I was able to choose vegan options on the menus of the Asian and Japanese Sushi restaurants we went to. I was even able to get the Haufbrauhas to fix me up something later in the week. Thursday morning I was offered oatmeal (finally, some carbs). And there were always more veges available as hors d'oeuvres at the evening events we attended. In fact, funny I should mention, because Thursday's box lunch was THE HORS D'OEUVRES TRAY FROM THE NIGHT BEFORE. I kid you not. Minus some of the most popular items. That last lunch I did meet another vegan from (Venezuela?) who was quietly waiting for his box lunch. He agreed with me that the week had been very frustrating and the quality of the food not so great. But he didn't seem the type to speak up about it.

Overall, the experience was both frustrating and entertaining. And the week was so fun and full of good geeky information that I didn't have time to dwell on the food too much. I was glad that I was vocal about it and that I stuck to my convictions (except for eating a few bites of that toast on the first day before I knew it had dairy), but I was disappointed in the ignorance shown for what vegans actually eat. I wanted to shout, "Vegans eat more than asparagus and carrots - ever heard of beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, or root vegetables?" And of course, my dietary choices made for some good conversation and vegan education at almost every meal. I even had vegetarians and others come up to me during the week, recognizing me from Twitter, and asking me if I was getting my meals and how it was going.

One other cool thing - I wore one of my vegan t-shirts on the last night and day home and had a kind of cool experience at the airport. The young girl checking me through security took one look at me and said, "Oh my God, VEGAN! You guys are so awesome! I read Skinny Bitch & I was vegan for a while, then I had to move home." I didn't want to hold up the line, but I assured her that she was awesome herself, and that when the time was right she'd be able to act on her convictions as well.

When I arrived home I was never so glad to cook some satisfying meals for myself!

A side note: I checked Happy Cow before I went and there are a few vegetarian or veg friendly restaurants listed. They were off the beaten track though, and I was unable to seek them out. I really wanted to go to the vegan donut place! Also, after I returned, I happened to see a tweet that the Vegas Hilton has a vegan menu. Not sure if they're located anywhere near the strip.

Business Workshops I *Could* Be Taking

Just a sampling of business workshops I could be taking...

Poet: Principles of Effective Thinking

Creating Forward - Thinking Drama Workshops for the Business World

Leadership Skills: Is leadership a top down, white, male, professional class prerogative?

Mountain Survival is the ultimate business adventure and an incredible opportunity to mix outdoor fun into a business context

The Artistry of Change: Why add something as flakey sounding as artistry to the workplace?

Anxious to Please: Seven Practices for the Chronically Nice

Leadership Skills Through Stand Up

The Gettysburg Leadership Experience brings executives to the Civil War battlefiled to learn timeless lessons on leadership

Singing Workshops For Business

Leadership Safaris in Africa: Overcome Challenges of the Business Jungle

Laughter Yoga For Business World: Take Your Work Seriously But Take Yourself Lightly

"Persuasive communicator, problem-solver and focused leader"... in 12 short weeks!

"And you'll develop a take-charge attitude initiated with confidence and enthusiasm." Join me as I somewhat reluctantly enthusiastically take part in my employer sponsored Dale Carnegie Course, beginning election day 2008! Let the super positive self help vibe begin. 

But seriously folks, it could be interesting to see what happens to a cynical and introverted girl who would rather stab herself in the eye than take what she dreads is a 12-week speech class in Bend.

Maybe this is the attitude adjustment we've all been waiting for! Stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy the following from my reading list for more fun and games with self help: 

Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone and How To Lose Friends And Alienate People: A Memoir. And yes, I've actually read these books.

Vegetarian friendly Bend?

Had another great meal at Mio Sushi the other day. Plenty of vegetarian options, good range of relatively inexpensive choices, friendly staff. Eating vegetarian in Bend does pose its challenges. It's not like Seattle or the Bay Area where there are all-vegetarian restaurants, like Vegetarian Teapot in Redmond, WA. Restaurant staff here are not always as familiar with or respectful of vege requests. It's certainly a lot better than when I grew up here, but Bend still has a long way to go. I plan to update this list once in a while - probably won't be full fledged reviews, and probably won't be the trendy overpriced I'm-too-full-of-myself-to-have-more-than-one-word-in-my-name restaurants. But it might be helpful for those looking for decent vegetarian food - just because it gets listed in a directory as having vegetarian items, doesn't mean that those items will be adequate - or even really vegetarian.

Some restaurants that I've had a good experience with in Bend:

Bend Brewing Company - they clearly mark vegetarian items on the menu, usually including a vegetarian soup daily.

Deschutes Brewery - Great jerk tempeh sandwich among other options. Original brew pub in Bend, good reliable place that's been here since I was a kid. Unfortunately, ALWAYS crowded.

El Burrito - Good stuff. And blueberry (or is it blackberry?) margaritas.

Hong Kong - they're careful to let you know which options are vegetarian if you ask, even which soups have chicken broth. Veges always seem very fresh. Most meals come with yummy lemon cookies.

Kebaba - Yummy! Many vege options.

McMenamins - tend to have the same limited options, but are flexible if you ask. Every once in a while have a great special.

Mio Sushi - see above.

Typhoon - knowledgeable about what ingredients are in all of the options, have a vegan menu if you ask.

Some restaurants that I've had a bad experience with in Bend:

Cascade Lakes - I used to love getting the portobello mushroom burger (and beer) there, - until the day that we specifically mentioned we were vegetarian and then were served and consumed half of a sandwich with a big chunk of chicken mixed in. They did apologize and comp the mistake, but we were so grossed out that we haven't been back.

El Rancho Grande - I ordered something vegetarian and it came with chicken. I ate some of it before I noticed, which spoiled my meal. The wait staff was completely unsympathetic, grudgingly provided a luke-warm replacement burrito (or whatever it was). We used to go there fairly frequently and sit in the bar area - we'd always had good service before. It is possible we'll give them another chance sometime, but with Mio Sushi just across the alley, it is so much more tempting to just eat there.

McKay Cottage - Update: We ate there on 11/9. Staff was friendly, bloody mary and coffee liquor drinks were very good, food was hit and miss (disappointing gooey scone and usually the scones are outstanding) - but at least the vege was vege. We have frequented this breakfast place quite a bit over the years and were enjoying the newer friendly management. They offer vegetarian options and substitutions like garden burger instead of sausage. However, after having several good vege breakfasts, we were served meat in one of them. Again, they did apologize and correct the mistake, but we were grossed out and haven't been back. We'll probably give them another chance eventually.

Merenda Restaurant - I've definitely given up on this place. I've had very bad pretentious service from this restaurant on multiple occasions over the years - from right after they opened to as recently as a year ago. Last year I was sent there for the Bend Venture Conference lunch. The service was bad, the staff was completely unknowledgeable and uncaring about what entrees might possibly be vegetarian, and they didn't provide the table enough food (we had some good size college age boys at our table). Plus they have auto music on their website. I don't even want a free meal from them. Done.

That's it for now. I'd love to hear your suggestions and experiences!

Tree-hugging charismatic-megafauna-loving vegetarian hippy

So I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be vegetarian and how this affects the people around me. (Vegetarians like me are Ovo-Lacto Vegetarians, which means I don't eat meat, but I do eat some eggs and dairy products). Most of the people that I encounter daily are not vegetarians themselves and don't really get why it is important to me. They haven't come right out and said that I'm a tree-hugging charismatic-megafauna-loving hippy, but I know some of them, especially my relatives, are thinking it.

I've been a vegetarian for about 2.5 years now. You'd think the day I stopped eating meat would be an important date for me to remember. From the outside looking in, one day I was a meat eater, and the next day I was not. But for me, it was a gradual process.

I was an extremely shy and sensitive child, with a natural empathy for animals. The running joke in my family was that I was so sensitive that I would cry for hours if I even thought we might have run over a gopher with the car. It was as if there was something wrong with me, tolerated, but definitely not normal, in a family of hunters from backwoods Michigan, living in Minnesota, Idaho, then Oregon. Gradually I developed a tougher exterior, putting my love of animals into the few pets we had,  including cats, our one dog (a toy poodle), and a teddy bear hamster farm of about 20 at one point (boy do those guys crank out the babies, I discovered rather quickly). I was dragged along for target shooting with rifles (fun), and quail hunting (not so fun). It wasn't long before I made it very clear that I wasn't interested in being included in family hunting activities. But I'd eat what they brought home - meat was the center of every family meal, and it didn't even occur to me to think about what I was eating.

Even though still relatively shy, I developed a tough cynical exterior as a defense mechanism. I was married in my early twenties to a pretty big guy, who loved to eat Wendy's, pasta, and ginormous bowls of ice cream. And I did my best to keep up with him - as if I weren't going to get my fair share if I didn't eat just as much! Compounding the situation, we had moved to New Haven from Portland, and had a hard time in many ways adjusting to such a different culture. Food-wise,  Italian friends we made were serving one lobster each for Christmas dinner! Greasy pizza and cannoli were everywhere. (Oddly, moldy food was also everywhere: bread and cheese on the store shelves was often moldy, I was served a moldy bagel in a restaurant, and I started munching down on a bag of moldy chips before I realized it one time. I developed a temporary and minor eating disorder because of this, but apparently it didn't keep me from eating other things). This formerly stick thin girl started to gain weight without even realizing it. It wasn't until I later saw a shocking family wedding photo from that time period that I grasped what had happened to me.

Thank the gods we moved to California. At that point, anywhere on the West coast was going to be a great improvement. Suddenly, the food was normal (and fresh). I began to learn about what foods were really not healthy for me, and to pay attention to what was going into my mouth. I cut way down on red meat - and overcompensated with chicken. After living in Watsonville for a year I discovered Moss Landing and Elkhorn Slough. This beautiful wildlife refuge was right in my back yard. I took a great summer training course and began volunteering. I felt my exterior cracking - here it was OK to love and study animals - in fact it was encouraged. There were so many animals that were new to me: sea otters, sea lions, rays, whales, and birds - oh the birds! Brown pelicans with their prehistoric shapes, elegant terns with impossibly thin wings, cormorants, egrets, shore birds of every shape and size with silly legs, hawks, owls... I felt as if I finally had somewhere to belong. And I felt my natural empathy returning.

It was during this time that I met some friends who were vegetarian. The first were really my husband's friends, met through some forensic work. They lived in LA, probably one of the easiest places to be vegetarian. Unfortunately, they were a graphic designer and a photographer who snobbishly professed that there were two types of people in the world - those who were creative - and those who were parasites. In spite of the disdain I have for that type of thinking, they hold the dubious distinction of being my first example of every day vegetarians. They were vegetarian, but as opinionated as they were about other areas of life, they didn't act elitist about their diet. Later, through some biology classes I was taking, I met another vegetarian, who again, was not preachy, but just was. I didn't know it at the time, but these people, as imperfect as they were, showed me that living as a vegetarian was possible.

Once I moved back to Oregon, I continued to make improvements to my diet in my newly single life. I met and moved in with my fiancé who had once been vegan, but decided it didn't work for him, and was a big bacon and eggs breakfast eater. A couple of years later we met another friend who is vegetarian - and has been for probably 20 years. And some more friends, long-time vegans (vegans don't eat animals or animal products like eggs or dairy). These people were (and continue to be) a great influence on me as well. Again, they live their convictions every day, but in a completely non judgmental way. They are happy to talk about why, but don't feel the need to preach. We ended up sharing some holidays together, in which veggies and non veggies ate vegan for the day, just to make it easy, so everyone could relax and enjoy all the dishes. I saw that it was not so hard.

In the meantime, I had been learning about the very real horrors of factory farming. This post is already long enough, but suffice it to say that the information is out there if you are open to learning about it. We've been trained to close our eyes to or outright dismiss animal suffering, because we've been taught by religion and culture that we are the superior beings. Well, my take on it is that if we're going to keep animals in captivity, that we have the responsibility to see that they have healthy fulfilling lives, that their lives are not taken prematurely, and that they have the right to live and die without pain and suffering. This is just not happening in factory farms in America. I think we need to challenge our paradigms a little - if we didn't eat so many animals, then we wouldn't need to breed so many animals in the first place, consequently we wouldn't have to keep them in such awful conditions. And since I've learned that I can eat a very healthy diet without animal products, then I don't see any reason to eat them at all. 

And that's the conclusion I came to one day. Why not try it and see if it works for me? I tried it, and started educating myself on all of the food options out there. It helped that my fiancé decided to try along with me. I let my friends and relatives know when it came up. I got the requisite, "but you still eat chicken, right?" from a few people, and tried to politely explain that chickens are meat and that I don't eat meat anymore. For me it feels like absolutely the right thing to do. And my goal is to be the kind of example to others that the vegetarians and vegans in my life were to me. I'm not vegan, I haven't gotten that far, but I think it's a fair goal, especially since egg laying hens and dairy cows are kept in miserable conditions too. I've cut a lot of dairy out of my diet, but I'm still working on it - it's hard for me to avoid eggs in other products - and cheese. I have no doubt that some day soon I'll get there, gradually, 'cause that's the way it works for me. Some vegans really think that if you're not vegan, you're not making a difference - like Bob & Jenna of Vegan Freaks. Even though I don't agree, I still appreciate their outspokenness and their very entertaining and educational podcasts. A different example is Colleen of Compassionate Cooks - she very much believes that veganism is the way to go, but has a less judgmental message, in her also very enlightening and enjoyable podcasts . If vegetarianism had been shoved down my throat, I probably would not be in the place I am. I do what I can with where I am today. If I fail to be a good example, I'll try again tomorrow.