Summer Days

Realizing I haven't blogged in a while, I feel the need to say something, anything, but (wonder of wonders) don't have much to say.
Summer days have a certain lazy rhythm about them here, long walks with the dog, gardening in the backyard, mowing the front lawn until it faces certain death from the dry. LO's friends go on trips and camps just as she does, and her social life seems to be on hold until school starts again. Her neighborhood buddies do just fine during the summertime, and she plays and chats on the phone with them. Otherwise, she lies around and watches TV, plays on the computer, and plays about just like I did when I was her age. Escept, she does not have outside adventures as I did when I was little. I attribute this to the relative safety of our day as compared to hers. Frankly we have not allowed her much out of our sight; I think most parents feel the same way.
The neighborhood pool as usual is a hopping place, filled with moms and kids during the day, and the occasional dad; cookouts on Sunday nights even offer vegetarian burgers, cooked on the meat-crusted grill. Bleh.
This would be a good time to say I recently read "Skinny Bitch," sorry you will have to look up the authors yourself as I loaned it to a gf. I first learned of this book when I read the review of it in the NYT. A good review -- they loved the book. It is mostly a rant about the food industry, aspartame, the FDA, and other related topics. They (there are 2 authors, both of them SB's) mention time and again how meat is dead, rotting, animals. Feeling the same way, I had no trouble reading it, and actually learned a few things. The one thing that really jumped out at me was their observation that a calf grows from 90 pounds to 500 pounds on only cow's milk in the first year. Hm. And I have been filling myself on cheese, sour cream, butter, cream cheese, and ohh-la-la, Ben & Jerry's for how many years? So. I took the plunge and ... went vegan. Many of you know I have tried this before but craved my favorite meal, the asparagus omelette with an English muffin on the side, with orange marmalade. White wine and my favorite old china plate. No more. This time it feels great for me and frankly I never made it to two weeks before. We shall see how it goes...