Today was an interesting day. I started with a very brisk 2 mile walk with my furry friends. The walk was followed by breakfast of a pear and a pistachio butter/no sugar apricot jam and banana sandwich. Then a quick shower, and Brian and I were off to visit VegFest, Portland's premier vegan trade show/conference. It was right next door to the much more widely and wildly attended Rose City Comicon, which made the day even more interesting as we mingled with vegans dressed as pumpkins and Cosplay kids dressed as Japanese anime. After the Fest, we had tickets to see the musical version of Kiss of the Spider Woman.
VegFest was very well attended. It was in a pretty good sized room at the Convention Center and there were hundreds of vendors to peruse. This was a true vegan (no meat, eggs or dairy) event, with several folks protesting anything related to animal consumption: raising conditions, cruelty to animals, use of animal hides and much more. My personal favorite place was the table that had fake honey (made with concentrated apple juice and... SUGAR, lots of sugar). When I asked WHY, I was told that honey making harms bees. I had to walk away.
OK, enough ranting about the bee huggers, and back to the festival. It was loads of fun! Most of the booths had samples to try, and everyone was willing to share information about their products. I must have tried 12 different ways to eat hemp seed, 6 ways to eat kale, 4 powered green drinks, and 37 ways to eat different beans. Lunch was not on the menu today. One of the booths even had a "cleansing" drink to help your body get rid of any toxins it may have encountered by eating animal products. (For those clueless readers, "cleansing" means making your body discharge anything that might be considered a solid waste. More on this later.)
Most of the people were pretty friendly, but there were some serious vegans out there. Those folks were so militant, it was kind of off-putting. Eating is such a big part of life that it should be fun. But the real militants were the folks guarding the trash bins. For those of you who haven't been in the Pacific Northwest for awhile, folks around here take garbage very seriously. There is landfill (bad!), recycle (better) and composting (yay!!!). Your job is to figure out which of these things your garbage is. Today, there were trash harpies manning each of the trash stations. These creatures would swoop out of nowhere, screeching mercilessly, smacking hands away from potentially misplaced refuse. Most of the waste from today's event came from the paper cups, tasting spoons and other containers used to sample the products. Since all of these were paper that food had touched, they go into the composting bin. I kid you not: every time I started to throw one of these containers into the compost bin, a harpy examined the materials in my hand before graciously allowing me to dispose of my refuse. Yowza!
About 3/4 of our way through the vendors, I noticed a distinct gurgling sound coming from somewhere below my belly button. Luckily, restrooms were near and plentiful, because it seemed that cleansing had begun. Who knew that trying 59 samples of seeds, whole grains, veggie super powders and beans would be so good for you? If by "good for you" you mean able to empty one's colon in about 3 seconds. Hmmm. Perhaps this was not well thought out.
Feeling better after my bio-break, we finished the last few booths and made out way over to the theater. Before the show, I took a quick pit stop and found that the cleansing cycle was still on. Someone forgot to turn it off, I guess. No worries. I went in to see the play, and at one point in the plot, our hero gets poisoned, causing him to have extreme stomach cramps. While he was writhing on the stage, I was writhing in my seat... wishing for death or intermission, whichever allowed me to stop the madness. Well, I won't share any more; this has already gone deep into TMI territory. Let's just suffice it to say that any snarky comments I may have made in today's blog were more than paid for in the Revenge of the Vegans.
On a side note, dinner was a grilled cheese sandwich and part of a can of ginger ale. Both are on the do not eat list, but darn it, my stomach was begging me. Of course, I'm not 100% sure of the wisdom of eating the sandwich on Dave's Killer Bread (made with loads of whole grains and seeds), but hopefully the cheese will counter all of the cleansing agents I consumed today.
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