Women's Weekend

First of all, I would like to note that women's weekend was not as bad as it could have been, all the way around. There was only one share-and-cry session, and they actually had some food that my friend and I could eat. Since I was steeling myself for lots of tears, and I brought enough food to survive the weekend (albeit a bit uncomfortably), this was a pleasant surprise.

It might have helped that the first hour and a half that I was at the church, I got to hang out with another less-than-enthused girl, where we talked about cool stuff like playing Raptor and Lava Monster on the playground, getting attacked by deer, and crowd surfing. And she also juggled things. I thought this was a very promising start to the evening, until a bunch of girls walked in and started giggling and taking pictures. The other girl and I made eye contact, sort of grimaced, and looked away.

Once I got past the fact that all the noises being made were high pitched, there were a lot of hugs and giggles, and there was a lot of talk about feeling instead of doing, it was okay. I put on my big girl boots and enjoyed myself as best I could, and listened to the speaker (who, in spite of the occasional outburst of giggling, was very good) where I learned a lot of very interesting things. We went back to basics, reaffirming who God was and who we were in God, then talked about spiritual warfare (one of the best non-weird talks I've had on it, props to her) and how to join in the combat. Most excellent.

On the food side of things, Friday night's snacks included PB&Js, and when I checked the label on the bread against my handy-dandy vegan checklist, lo and behold! There were no glycerides! I was thrilled. My friend was thrilled. We had sandwiches for dinner, and we were content. And there were also apples, which is good, because I love apples.

So, being the person that I am, I volunteered to help with breakfast at 7am, since I would most likely be awake anyway. I knew it would be a trial, since most breakfasty foods aren't vegan, but I was willing to take that risk. So, getting out of my nice, freezing cold, concrete bed at 6h40, I got ready for the day and headed down to the kitchen, prepared to help. First, I assisted with coffee. This was exciting. Coffee was very necessary, since only about 5 hours of bad sleep occurred. The next thing was a little tougher; she asked me to put cream cheese on bagels. Looking at the huge pile of bagels and cream cheese, mouth watering, I smiled and said I would.

That was a very difficult hour of my life, and I just want you to know that. Bagels and cream cheese are one of my very favorite things to eat on this earth (and I did check -- the bagels weren't okay) and I couldn't even lick my fingers when I was done. It was pretty much awful. But, I was holding out hope for a PB&J, so I made it through. However, when I went to look for the bread, it was gone. There was other bread, but this stuff had glycerides. Dangit! Turns out one of the schools had brought the snacks for the night before, and all that bread had been eaten.

Back to the drawing board. I gave my friend a Luna bar and ate one myself, along with a large pile of oranges and bananas. I tried not to think about the bagels.

Lunch was an assortment of sandwiches, which also made me sigh, but it was okay. I even managed to handle making an extra sandwich for one of my friends without any dire consequences. And the Olive Garden dinner, which we had expected to be a bust, was actually better than we expected; the catered salads didn't come pre-dressed (Italian dressing has anchovies in it. Delicious, huh?) so we could eat.

All in all, it was a good experience. I'm just in desperate need of some deep voices and violence. And I've now accomplished four days of being Vegan. Whew! Only 36 left!

(Shut up, cynic. =.=)