Forget Mrs. Brady, I want a Maude.

No, not this Maude.

Maybe next time. It's so counter-culture it could almost be punk. Right? And girl, you rock that sweater vest! But I'm talking this Maude. As in Maude Lebowski.

I've wanted a sweet ass bob for AGES. Maude's here is a little poofy, but you get the idea. So I went in to my hair appointment with no clear idea of what I wanted, and my freaking awesome stylist Ashley and I had a chat. It came out that I loved the perfect bob, but had never had one. She said, you mean like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction? YES! Oh, my god, YES! She spent forever and a day cutting the most perfect precicion bob, but added some layering on top so if I don't have 2 hours to straighten it (ugh), it would look cool kind of messy, too.

TA-DA!!! I'm so freaking happy. Who knew I could be so vain and shallow?

And yes, I'm wearing the same Duran Duran t-shirt from the old, long-hair pic of me in the previous post. How embarassing...

I couldn't stop looking at myself in the rear-view mirror on my way home, and then I realized who I reminded myself of (in a totally AWESOME way). Please to enjoy, and watch for the gay man in the dominatrix drag. How delightfully perfect.

Mrs. Brady, where ARE you?!?

I'm getting a haircut this weekend, and I've been wanting to do something different. I've had many awesome 'dos over the years. Here's me in Kindergarden, ca. 1985:Told you I was awesome. Apparently I had a thing for Danny Elfman. (That's what you call an Ogilvie home perm. Thanks, Mom.)
When I was in high school my hair was so long I could tuck it in my pants. Seriously. I was kind of a punk in high school, so I went throught a phase where my hair was bright blue. Then I colored it with red Kool-Aid (obviously before sugar is added). But I got pretty sick of just being known as "the chick with the long-ass hair". Not to be confused with "the chick with the long ass-hair". I kept it this rediculous length just long enough to get my senior pics taken. Then I went over to my best friend's house, and took care of it... I don't know what the kids these days are doing to be rebelious, but if you grew up in the '90s, remember that awful "style" where the top half of the head had normal hair, but if it was up in a ponytail, you could see the bottom half was shaved? Yeah, I did that. Actually my friend did it, and she was all too happy to do it, too. She was so sick of strangers coming up to me to comment on my hair, and frankly so was I. I wanted a 'do that said, "Fuck off." So she shaved my head from the nape of my neck to about the top of my ears. I kept the top waist-length for a while, and usually put it in tiny little braids. Like 50 of them. Ah, youth. I miss that style. I worked at Subway in a truck stop, and people didn't mess with me with that hair. It was awesome. Unfortunately I don't have any pics of this period. :-(

Then I grew up. Booooo. I could do that now, but I've mellowed. I don't get 30 year-olds (wait, I'm still 29) with lingering teenage angst. There is still plenty for me to rebel against (the goverment, the meat industry, religion, etc.), but I don't feel a punk-ass hair style will really accomplish much. Plus I don't want to scare the other mommies at the library story time.

About a year after my daughter was born, I hadn't had a hair-cut in like 3 years, and I looked like this:

I liked the way I looked, but that hair was soooo HOT. And not as in, Meow. As in, SOMEBODY TURN THE AIR CONDITIONER ON! I had grown my hair out a few times and cut it off to give to Locks of Love. If you have long hair and are thinking of cutting it, look into it. The make wigs for kids with conditions such as alopecia, and can't grow hair. So I knew I was ready to do it again, and I was ready to take it ALL off. So I scoured the world wide web for cute pics, and once I found this I knew I was ready to chop:

18 inches of hair were gone and I looked like this:

Not exactly the same, but it was close and I loved it. It was the shortest it had been since my Danny Elfman phase and I felt so free! But then I started seeing other girls and their cute ponytails, and felt kind of sad. But I know I looked awesome, so in my head I told those girls with pretty, feminine, flowing locks to suck it.

I've had some trims here and there since that first chop, but it's grown out to a very messy, unkempt shoulder-length bob with bangs. I haven't colored in in years, and years... and years. I think the last color I got was highlights for my wedding... almost 10 years ago. But think I'm going to hold of on any color till I start to grey. Or maybe I'll just rock the grey hair, too. I digress... I was watching "The Brady Bunch" with VegGirl a couple weeks ago, and it was a very early one. You know, before Peter became a delicious heart-throb, and was just a little cutie-pie. I think it was the second season. I noticed Carol had a super adorable little '60s not-quite-a-pixie, not-quite-a-shag 'do and I thought it was FREAKING AWESOME. I called the hubs in and said, "What do you think of that?!?" He smirked at me and said something about being married to Mrs. Brady. I told him if he weren't nice I'd give him a Mike Brady perm in his sleep.
But he actually agreed it was a cute hair do, and gave me the thumbs up. I think. I don't care. I've always wanted to be a member of the Brady Bunch, and if I stole her look, I could pretend I was Mrs. Brady and exchage thinly veiled inuendos with my husband before bed then totally make out with him while our 6 darling kids get into harmless mischief.

The only thing is, I can't find a good pic of the good hair anywhere. When you Google "Carol Brady" or "Florence Hederson" the only thing that comes up is this monstrosity:
Totally NOT what I'm going for. I'm looking for girly, polyester dress wearing young mom, before the bell bottoms and paisley devoured our poor Carol and refused to spit her out. I'm still debating whether to do this 'do now or wait for summer, but if you happen to run across any pics of the cute style I'm looking for, please send them my way. You know, while you randomly Google Brady Bunch images for your personal collection.

Doppel, doppel, doppelganger.

Let's all calm down.

A while ago, a comment was left on a post I had written months ago. I made a (admittedly bad... and grody) joke about men menstruating and probably needing to visit a proctologist. An annonymous person wrote: "i just got the sense that the comment was made with transphobic sentiment, and saw it as an opportunity for a teachable moment", mentioning how some men are born with female genetalia and don't have the means to change that. I promptly appologized and stated I had no intention of being transphobic. But I would like to elaborate...

I am, in no way whatsoever racist, homophobic, transphobic, sexist or any other kind of -ist or -phobic. When it comes to people, that is. And only when it comes to how a person is born, and it's something they can't change. I'm a white, straight female. But I'm not racist. My first BFF ever was actually the only black girl in my school system. And I think people's sex lives and personal relationships are their own business. I've actually had the occasional girl-crush. Who hasn't? But if I meet a Latina who's a total bitch, yeah, I'm probably not going to be her best friend. And if a gay cellist calls my husband and me an "ugly couple who are meant for each other", I'm probably going to want to punch that fat queen in the face. And we're not ugly, by the way. But if the white, straight female who lives next door lets her dogs bark all day, I'm going to think she's a total hag, too.

I don't know any transexuals, so it's not something that I think of very often. Hower, I do know they exist and thing they have every right to be happy and treated right as anyone else. I'm empathetic to their situation, and can't imagine the pain one woule have to go through to live every day feeling that uncomfortable with their own body and identity. Hell, I sometimes have issues with my own body. Overall, though, I love my body and am comfortable in my own skin. And I'm very thankful for that. I've learned to love my "child-bearing hips" which I was told I had in SEVETH GRADE by my best friend's dad. (Ewww.) And I love my "David Bowie" teeth (pre-veneers), and wouldn't think of getting them "fixed". But I don't know what I would do if I had a penis, but was still the same person inside. It's a sensitive issue, and I'm sure difficult to deal with.

Now, here comes the part where I may come off like a bitch. When one is part of such a small minority, one has to accept that (as best as we can), and learn to deal. Let some things slide off our backs. We? Wait, I'm a middle-class, straight white gal living in the 'burbs with my husband and 2 kids. But, I'm also a vegetarian. And a "natural" mom. And an atheist. I don't always (or EVER) fit in with the other moms at the library story time. Or my husband's boss's winter party. Or Thanksgiving diner at my mom's house. In fact, I don't know ANYONE like me. And it's frustrating as hell. But I've HAD to adapt. HAD to accept that when I go to someone's house for dinner, the only thing I may be eating is a dinner roll and carrot sticks. When the other moms at the library are talking about how much they loved their epidurals and I say I had 2 kids without drugs, I get looks like I'm some kind of sado-masochistic tree-hugging freak. (And what's wrong with that?) But I just smile and know I did the best thing for myself and my children.

The worst thing, by far, in other people's minds, is my atheism. (I may ramble and rant here, so bear with me.) That's something that's not really "chosen", and relates most to this post. I could no more be a church going Christian girl than I could be a dude. I'm just not a person who can be led by blind faith. I love science. I love reason. If you want me to believe in something, show it to me. Prove it to me. I'm not going to get into my person feelings on religion; this is not the time nor the place. This is about predjudice. When I was in 7th grade, it got out that I was an atheist. You wouldn't believe the amount of hatred that was directed toward me. And in a class size of 120, I really stuck out like a sore thumb, and was called "atheist bitch" for years. Thankfully I didn't lose any friendships over it then, but have had people turn against me and our friendship later on. For some reason people get scared when they hear you don't believe there is a god. Then the questions start. "So what DO you believe?" "What do you think happens after you die?" "You actually believe in evolution? You know it's only a theory, right?" Yeah, so is gravity, and the sun being the center of our solar system. Theory has two meanings, and the scientific meaning is different than the philosophical one. Look it up. As for the other questions, I have answered them far too many times and am tired of them.

And as for the terminology used to describe atheists, I just like atheist. There are humanists. Secularists. Unitarian Universalists. Etc, etc, etc. But I'm an atheist. As in a-theism. Meaning no-religion. And I'm sick of it being a dirty word. (I do, however like the term free-thinker, and am planning a rad tattoo soon based on this term, because it can apply to all facets of my life, not just religion.)

So when I say I feel for minorities, and can empathize with being chastized for who you are, some people look at my situation without really knowing me and laugh. I look like a slice of apple pie; what could I possibly be discriminated against? Well, atheism is probably the most feared and hated (or at least distrusted) minority. And I feel it. Every day when I drive past a church, or someone says, "God bless you", or I see someone wearing a gold cross around their neck. But, because nearly 98% of every human I've ever had contact with is probably Christian, I have to let it roll of my back. Of course, I could buy a gold necklace that says "Athiest", and that would be awesome. (Go here, it's beautiful: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_1&listing_id=31966298) But I guess I just care too much about other people's feelings. My family would be offended by my blatent lack of religion, and of course now I have my children to think of. I would hate for them to be the "weird atheist kids" and have them go through anything like I did. I do, however, sport a scarlet "A" button on my bag for The Out Campaign, started by the amazing and brilliant Richard Dawkins. It's unassuming, and doen't totally rat me out to the masses, but I do hope someday I'll be in the grocery store or at a restaurant and a like-minded person will recognize it and comment.

I also have some sweet-ass buttons from Krista (just thought I'd throw these in for fun):I also can't get pissed everytime I drive past the golden arches or see a commercial on TV for a dripping, disgusting hamburger that is making everyone fat and diabetic. I just murmmer, "Gross" and ignore it. When I moved to the small-ish town I now reside in, we were driving around with our realtor looking at houses. She said, "Oh, we have lots of good restaurants here in town. Italian, Mexican, lots of stuff." My husband said, "Katie is a vegetarian, do you know of any places that are vegetarian friendly?" Her reply was, "Oh, the place downtown has a good fish dinner. And during Lent you can find lots of fish." I just rolled my eyes and said, "Sorry, don't eat fish, either." But I couldn't get mad at her for her ignorance. Then we were driving past a church and she said, "I don't know what you guys are, but we have pretty much everything here. Lutheran, Baptist, Catholic. Pretty much everything." Ok, what about a synagogue? Or a mosque? It annoyed me that she thought "most Christian churches" were "pretty much everything." But I just ignored it, nodded and smiled.

So I guess what I'm getting at, in a very long-winded way, is that when you are part of a minority that is a tremedously small amount of the population, you have to realize that not everybody is always going to be thinking of your feelings. When I posted a recipe and said it was super duper easy, I didn't stop to think that it might not be easy for a person with no arms to open a can of cream of mushroom soup. Does that mean I discriminate against people with no arms? Absolutely not. But one can't cater to all groups of people all the time.

To the person who commented on my post: I am not ranting at you. You just provoked thoughts that I needed to share. Your comment was in no way insulting and was actually quite polite. I do appreciate you commenting, but what I had originally posted was a joke. And I can't very well go around to all the Christian blogs and tell them they are atheistist. Or atheophobes. And I can't write McDonald's complaining they don't meet my needs as a vegetarian. We just have to surround ourselves with like-minded people who get us. And if there aren't any around, we have to make some up and have tea parties with our invisible vegetarian, atheist, transgendered, no armed friends and help them lift their teacups.

13 years ago...

I was 16. I was also asked on a date by a super cute guy I had a major crush on. Mr. Veg. Aww...

October 24, 1996, he picked me up at my house and took me to Bennigan's. (Don't judge, we lived in a small town and that restaurant was "big town". Super fancy.) I got some kind of sandwich, probably chicken since back then I was just Kat, and had yet to become VegKat. I was so nervous I could barely eat, and just picked at a few fries. I was so embarassed because I thought he would think I was one of those chicks that didn't eat in front of guys, which was so not the case. Just this guy. He, on the other hand, wolfed down his pasta dish, showing no sign that he was probably going to vomit in an anxiety induced panic attack. See, he was a big, bad 19 year old, and had a whole world of experience I didn't have. This was my first date. EVER. So I was a late bloomer. Whatever.

After dinner we still had about 30 minutes until our movie started, so we wandered around and talked for a while (my contribution to the convo: "Uh, huh." "Yeah, I know." "Me, too.") I don't remember anything we talked about, but all I did was agree with whatever he said because I didn't want to turn him off with any radical ideas about my favorite foods, colors or songs. While strolling around we actually walked past a house we would buy together 3 years later. But I digress. After our walk we went to the theater and took our seats to watch "Courage Under Fire." Yeah, I know, super romantic, right? As previously mentioned, we lived in a small town and our theater only had one screen, so if you wanted to go out to see a movie, you were at the mercy of the one screen and whatever they chose to show you. To this day I couldn't tell you what that damn movie was about. I think Meg Ryan was in it. I spent the whole time trying to breathe like a normal human being with the only sound I was hearing was the "THUD THUD THUD THUD" of my pulse in my ears. That's ok, though, because I wouldn't have been able to concentrate on the movie because my brain was too busy with, "OhmygodI'msonervous. CanhetellhownervousIam? OHMYGODHE'SHOLDINGMYHANDNOW!"

After the movie he drove me home and walked me up to my door. We had already had our first kiss the night he asked me out, but I was still extremely inexperienced and didn't have my womanly powers of sexuality yet. So I akwardly weasled out of a kiss and went inside.

And we lived happily ever after! Hee hee. Luckily I've grown up since then. And lucky for my husband I grew up to be AWESOME. Boy, did he dodge that bullet.

One word about this image. It looks exactly like us. I mean, obviously we don't have giant cartoon heads, and he doesn't wiggle his thumb at me all the time. And my chin-butt isn't quite that insane. But anyone who sees this in my house gets pissed. "Those are supposed to be funny, but that looks just like you guys!"

I'm a stinker.

Today was my son's 18 month check-up (I hate the term "well baby visit" and I refuse to use it except to make fun of it). He was perfectly healthy, as usual, but I still hate taking him there. Because of my idiotic HMO, I can't go to the hospital or doctor's office in my own town, I have to go to the next town over. I'm not about to get into a healthcare debate; that's not what this is about (but watch the doc Sicko and you'll understand how I feel). This is just merely set-up. See, depending on traffic, it takes me anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to get to the office, and the appiontments usually only take about 20 minutes. Anyway, before I really get on my way, I try to position myself in traffic so I'm not following a slow semi-truck or a loud beat-up jalopy that needs a tune up. I have to look at the same car for up to an hour, so it had better be clean, fast, and small. Or have fun bumper stickers.


[I'd like to say real quick that I don't have road rage. Really, I don't.]


Imagine my chagrin this morning when I got behind a giant, rumbly, dirty pick-up truck that probably gets about 12 miles to the gallon. There were a couple stickers in the back window, so I inched up behind them at a stop light to see what they said. I have a thing for stickers. I like to know everything about everyone around me, and bumper stickers are quite revealing. I'm also compiling a list of stickers I see in public; the good ones and the horrible ones. Stay tuned for that someday. Anyway, this A-hole had two. 1. A picture of a hand gun and the quote: "We don't call 911" 2. Uncle Sam pointing his finger in the classic iconic pose saying: "You are in MY country, learn MY language." Hmmm. They didn't really paint a picture of a peace loving, compassionate person. You know, my peeps. And I didn't really feel like following this moron for the better part of an hour. I saw I only had about 50 feet left of 4 lane traffic before it narrowed to 2, so I decided to piss these losers off. I swerved around them so fast they didn't know what hit them. They had to spend the next 45 staring at my Obama bumper sticker slapped on the back of my hybrid. HA HA HA!! For some reason, I'm thinking they didn't vote the same way I did. Oh, and the speed limit was 55, and I did EXACTLY the speed limit the whole way. >:-)

(Almost) just like mom used to make

When I was growing up, we didn't have a ton of money, so my mom had to come up with delicious yet cheap ways to feed us. With our tough economic times, blah blah blah, we all want to eat cheap. One of her favorites was tuna noodle casserole. It was not, however, one of us kids' favorites. I always thought it would be better if it was just the sauce, noodles and veggies. My brother HATED it. Whenever he smelled it cooking, he'd say, "I'm not eating that. I know what that is." But my mom would just look all surprised and say, "But it's tuna noodle casserole! It's your favorite! You must've forgotten!" Then he would look super confused and say, "Really...? Oh. Ok." And his plate full of TNC (tuna noodle casserole) would magically disappear. Of course, this little trick only worked until he was about 8, then he caught on and realized he really did hate TNC.

But she had another casserole that actually WAS our favorite, and it took no mommy-voodoo-trickery to get us to eat it. Tater tot casserole! Or TTC if you will. So yummy. How I missed it when I became a vegetarian. I knew there were products out on the market that were like meat, but made from other wierd stuff, but I was so afraid to try them. I was actually veg for a year or so before I worked up the nerve to try these exotic products. Like hamburgers. And chicken nuggets. Turns out they are actually yummy! And you never have to worry about biting down on a bone fragment or something that looks suspiciously like an artery. Gross. And I was able to substitute the meat in some of my favorite comfort foods from childhood without having to kill an animal.

So now I'm sharing a super yummy, super (well, pretty much) cheap casserole recipe, and hopefully you and yours will love it as much as I do. Ok, so it's not so much a recipe as much as it is a list of crap you stir together and bake.

What you need:

2 cans of some kind of cream soup. I like to use 1 can mushroom and one can celery, but cream of potato can work in a pinch. Condensed cheese soup can work, too, but I prefer the veggie creams. Just be sure to read your labels (as I'm sure you already do if you're veg). There are a couple cream soups out there that hide chicken in it.

1 bag mixed veggies. I like the one with carrots, corn, green beans, peas and lima beans. Just like peas and carrots? That's cool. You can use whatever, except the ones with broccoli and the like. It think that would just be... gassy.

Some kind of hamburger substitute. My favorite is Morningstar Farms crumbles, but Boca or any other brand will work. Or tofu. Or seitan. Whatever you like. My mom's recipe called for a pound of hamburger, but I always thought it was too meaty. Use however much "meat" you think you would want. Oh, and make sure you always use fake meat. If you use real meat, sometimes there is a chemical reaction and the whole thing blows up and you will need to replace your oven. Don't ask me why, I'm not a chemist. Fake meat, ok? I don't want any lawsuits.

Tater tots. Nuff said.

Preheat oven to 350. Spray glass casserole with non-stick spray. I use a big flat Pyrex tray type casserole, because more surface area means more tots. Get yourself a big ass bowl and dump in the soup. Don't add milk or anything. You want that stuff thick. If you are using two different flavors of soup, just give it a little stir so the flavors mix up. Then dump in your bag of veggies and your meat. If you want, you can add a little black pepper, or get a little creative and add a dash of your favorite herb/spice. Go crazy and make it your own. Then stir that shit up. It will get a little difficult to stir once the frozen veggies and frozen "meat" hit that cream, so stir fast. Pour (more like dump the giant frozen blob) in your casserole, and cover the top with tots. Bake for... oh, let's say 40 minutes? I have a majorly defective oven and I have to rotate the dish and check on my stuff constantly. You might want to check it at about 30 minutes, but it will probably need a bit more. You'll know when it's done when the sauce bubbles and the tots are crispy and delicious. Serve with some crusty bread or something, and devour. The VegKids go nuts-o for this. Whenever my 3 year old sees me getting tots at the store, she starts yelling, "YAY! Tater tot casserole!" And this is a kid I've had to tell, "Hurry up and eat your cake. I don't want to be sitting here at the table all night."

Sorry, vegans. :-(