ANOTHER MILESTONE?
Monday June 30, 2015 9:09 am
Today marks the 21st. year of my being an Ovo-lacto vegetarian. (As an aside, I really don't like that word, especially in print after I just typed it... ovo-lacto, it sort of looks disgusting in black-and-white.)
Since I began this in '94 I have basically strayed three times. Once several years ago I became sick. I won't go into the reasons why I thought maybe it was an important act for me to at least try eating flesh one more time, so I did. I bought and prepared a dish that had fish as the central part. I ate it.
Then, nearly 2 years ago in September and for a different reason altogether (besides health) I tried sushi for the first time in my life. Then, several months after that and for still yet an altogether different reason, I ate sushi again.
That's it, or as a little boy (Jeremy) I knew long ago used to say, "Fort-Pitt, that's it." I have no idea what that means but when he used to say it it would always cause me to grin... it seemed like a cute phrasing of words I suppose and it always made him seem somehow so innocent as he said it :)
So, for 21 years I have been vegetarian and with a few times of me even trying to be vegan, but always failing. Now a couple of those tries did last a few months, but in the end I always capitulated and went back to the "ovo" thing. I absolutely refuse to type that full word again... ever!
I suppose if I live to retirement (I still have a couple of years to go) I will then try to be vegan full time, as I should have more time to prepare a lot of my own foods.
Well, I guess (for me) that's the news that is news so I will stop this now. I hope all who reads this has a good day.
I will leave you with a great saying I just remembered. I saw it somewhere (bumper sticker, tee shirt, etc.) a few years ago: "Vegetarian -- prehistoric name for bad hunter."
HAHAHAHAHA I thought it was hilarious! Of course, it might not really be that funny but I think that sometimes I'm just easily amused.
REFLECTIONS
Monday June 29, 2015 9:26 am
This weekend we took a short trip through parts of WV and Ohio. The main two reasons for the trip was to see a few people we haven't seen in awhile and to visit grave-sites that we have not been to recently. For the most part we accomplished both of those things.
Our brief visits with different people were all pleasant, and we did go to a total of 7 cemeteries and lay flowers on twelve different graves. (That latter statement is what has prompted me to write a blog this morning.)
As flowers were laid by the stones and I thought about those I knew well and even the three I never met (Deb's grandmother, my great grandfather and great grandmother) I had the same two thoughts. I wondered if they ever did anything that really mattered in their entire lives? And secondly: were they happy? (It was that last thought that consumed me!)
It's funny because many of them I knew very well... but I still could not answer that question for any of them.
As I looked at the dates of their birth and the year of their deaths I kept a running tally in my mind and when the last grave was visited I saw that these twelve people had lived a combined 800 years. 800 years! And still I wondered, how many of those years were any of them truly happy?
The youngest, Rhonda... died at 31 and the oldest, Herb, lived to be 86. As an aside, I have never liked my own name... but, if I had been named Herb, I would have hated that name even more.
The average life lived by these twelve people was a little under 67 years. So, if I am average... and I believe I am, then I have approximately 7 more trips around our Sun left to me. And it is not any fear of my own death that troubles me this morning, it really isn't. In many ways I am like a line in a favourite song of mine, "I have no fear of death, it brings no sorrow." Nope, what troubles me as I sit here and hunt-and-peck my way across this keyboard is that damnable question which I silently asked all of them as I carefully read each name... were you happy???
One last thing: I had a few errands to run this morning so I go out to the car, start it up and the radio is already tuned to 103.1 and the song that is playing... Big & Rich: Run Away With You! D***! D***! D***! I turned the stupid thing off and completed my errands in silence.
Great start to another day :)
