an overheated, sleep-deprived vegan

This week has been different. I decided to be as adventurous as possible before my second job starts off for the school year. It has also been HOT. 95 degrees everyday. I've been drinking black coffee, water and a little bit of organic apple juice and that has gotten me by.

On Monday, I decided to go to Crystal City to watch Star Trek on a big screen on the grass. I don't like sci-fi. I slept almost the whole way through. I really did try to like it and paid attention at the beginning. But then it got too long, boring and hokey. But Bekah was the only one who stayed awake or stayed the whole time of our group. Sherwin kept asking me why I was there (knowing my hatred for sci-fi) but he fell asleep, too.

It was interesting to observe all the food present at the event. There was a breakfast burrito truck parked there, I saw people with food from Noodles and Co (blegh) There was beer, there was brownies. Everywhere you looked, a different food culture. A couple in front of us drank this deliciously fruity looking alcoholic drink out of wine glasses they brought. They had a whole picnic packed. So did Sherwin and Bekah, but none was Janelle-friendly food and I brought my dinner anyway. Bekah made me try her potato salad. I hate mayo and I hate potato salad, and it's not vegan, but out of my hospitalitarianism, I tried a bit. Surprisingly good, but wouldn't eat the whole thing.

In their picnic basket there was packed two bottles of (very hot) hot sauce and a whole big thing of red pepper. This is the distinguishing facet of these two-- they bring the hottness with them, whereever they may go.

I brought veggie fried rice with tofu which I bought at Pan Thai, a thai restaurant in Leesburg which is actually located in a Liberty gas station. I get gas for my car there often, but hardly step into the place. They advertise at the stations "fried rice for $5.99," but when I ordered my veggie fried rice with no egg but tofu, it came out to around $10. Humph. Did not make a big deal of it because there must be more to the veggie variety than a regular 5.99 thing.

Before I ordered my rice, I saw a well-dressed professional man in a cruddy looking white car (which I won't judge. Better that than a super fancy car) accidentally started driving off with the gas nozzle still in his car's tank, ripping off the nozzle. I have never seen such an event at the gas station before and was amazed. He rushed into the convenience store and grabbed cute gas attendent boy, and I saw cute gas attendent boy come out to see, as I was walking to get thai. I ordered my food, which was gonna take 5-10 minutes and meandered my way into the convenience store part of the station which connects directly.

I did not have a real reason to go in there.

Since when has a convenience store had vegan friendly items anyway?

I gandered at the granola bars, not seeing anything which caught my attention (aside from the fact I was shortly eating).  But then I grabbed a huge bottle of Dasani water. I hate bottled water, but since the loss of my reuseable water bottle, I had gone back to the bad, old ways.

Cute gas attendent boy greeted me in his usual personable way. And I asked about the guy ripping the nozzle off. "I'm just glad this guy told me," he said. "How often does this happen?" I inquire. "About 4-5 times a month." I mention as I leave that someday I'll probably be stupid enough to do that too, and he laughed as I walked away to wait for my food. I felt glad that I was wearing heels.

I find it odd to explain my dietary pursuits to strangers when I'm out in public. Besides being odd, it's a long-winded answer normally. I used the gas station exit as I left with my food, cause with the heat, it was closer to my car. Cute gas attendent boy smiled at me lazily and inquired about my food. "You got fried rice?! It's very good. The chicken fried rice is awesome."

"I got the veggie fried rice-- I-- um, am vegan-- temporarily."

"Still good!" He asserted.

That was the most concise response I could think of because it was temporary. In about an hour I'd be eating a bite of Bekah's mayo infested potato salad. As much as I would be conversational with this kid, I am sure he doesn't want my life story of food spoken before him. Or maybe he does. Maybe he's the type who is personable because he likes to hear peoples' histories and peoples' stories.

That's why I like working at a coffee shop.

Even if we have an automatic machine instead of manual and serve only kind sub-par but better than Starbucks coffee.

This brings me to this week's second adventure. Last minute, I decided to join some kids to see mewithoutYou play with murder by death and buried beds in Baltimore. We did not get back until 2am. Good thing, I had a crappy cup of coffee to hold me over that night.

My fellow vegan friend, and "holy crap, knows a whole lot about coffee" friend Matt, gave me some of his coffee before we left. He used this super cool but very basic coffee equipment that I had never seen before. It looked like a vase, and you place a filter in, somewhat fine grinds, and slowly, slowly do a pourover of hot water. What comes out is supposed to be very good but Matt feared he made it a little strong, which it was. I was thoroughly enjoying the fact that the biggest coffee snob I know gave me a subpar cup of coffee. Which made me feel better when I was confessing the fact that I sometimes like caramel macchiatos and that my coffee shop is only subpar (which he already brought up).

For food, I brought a very quick, and cold vegan meal to hold me over for the concert. Concerts are interesting because you stand up the whole time and sweat pounds off of you to see a hopefully stellar show. Sometimes when I eat before shows, I feel extremely ill before or after. The worse was maybe 5 years ago when Nathan Mitchell offered me hot dogs before we all left to go see Lovedrug play.

My COLD bean salad did not make me feel ill. I'll quickly share how it was made.
Take already refigerated black and red beans, mix in drained canned corn.
Chop a plum tomato, a piece of zucchini, cilantro and a few leaves of basil. Mix in some coconut oil and garlic powder, and you got yourself a quick, no stove, no oven, efficient for hot days, salad!

The great thing, is I still have some left. So because I am so sleep-deprived, and hot and will only sit in my AC infused room for the next two hours, I am eating some now. Bon Appetit!