Spring Break

Let's start with Saturday, shall we? That was the 9 hour car ride to my friend's house + 2 hour car ride to the place where I'm actually staying. I don't mind the long car ride as much as not being able to eat and drink like a normal person, because no one wants to stop more than they have to when the car ride already takes up the entire day. Nonetheless, we stopped at Big Boy's for breakfast, which smelled unfairly of sausage and eggs. I hadn't been very hungry until we walked in, then I was suddenly famished. And I don't know if you've been to Big Boy's, but they believe in animals there. It took five minutes of frantic searching to locate something I could eat, squashed into the a la carte entree section: oatmeal.

Now, oatmeal and I have a complicated relationship. I ate it a lot as a child, and I've fixed it up in every way imaginable. A different way every time, possibly. Still, nothing I did made it taste less like paper (I suspect soy is involved. o.o). I continued to eat it, because when you have to choose between oatmeal and starvation, the gluey mess starts to look pretty appetizing. And hey, if you throw in a lot of butter and sugar, maybe even syrup, then it's at least palatable.

But this stuff at the restaurant was not palatable, because I couldn't add butter (for obvious reasons) or sugar (because bone char is usually involved), and I didn't know about the syrup they used. And mass-produced oatmeal is even worse than usual. It kinda looked like a bowl of opaque jello with lots of little lumps. Super-delicious. I managed to shove it down with the help of an entire glass of OJ and half a glass of water. The waitress brought the water, because I think she might've caught one of the micro-expressions of grossness on my face.

What a lovely lady. She had pink in her hair. It was great. ...But anyway.

Then we bunkered down for the car ride. It was dull, but otherwise okay. I became grateful for the pretzels I brought at one point, and the Swedish Fish (They're vegan! One of the many small blessings.) which I shared with my friend. She examined them closely to be sure they weren't especially vegan pretzels or Swedish Fish, then happily took part. Seriously, why would I waste money on good-food substitutes? Rice Cream taught me that that was a bad idea, and I'm never doing it again. Blech.

10 hours later, I arrived at the place where I'm staying, with a different friend. Between miscommunications and altercations with the police (nothing serious: just a burnt-out headlight) it took longer to get there than I thought it would, but it was okay. I watched Lost with my friend whilst waiting for the other one to find her house. I'd never seen Lost before, and I think it's an interesting show. My friend is in love with Sayid. Personally, I like Desmond, He may be crazy, but he has the coolest accent.

But I digress.

So I get to my other friend's house, finally, and get another lowdown on the food situation -- this time, at a time when I can actually remember it. It looks something like this:
Father: No dairy, no meat.
Mother: No dairy, no sugar.
My friend: No dairy, no sugar, no bread.
The two things that I wanted most, therefore, are definitely not in the house. All I wanted was pizza and ice cream. But, oh well. I am thoroughly enjoying my second day of not being vegan. I've drunk at least three glasses of milk, ate a third of a chocolate heart, and had cake for breakfast yesterday. And my body was apparently wanting meat so much that a salmon burger sounded good yesterday -- and I hate fish. So I had a salmon burger, and I enjoyed it. Crazy stuff, man.

Eating here isn't going to involve a lot of meat or dairy, but I'm okay with that. Like I said before, at least I don't have to read labels (though I am doing some of that, almost out of habit) and I can enjoy a glass of milk. And hummus! The dad makes his own hummus, and it's very delicious. I have been enjoying that as well. ^-^ Break is going to be great.