Month: March 2019

Tahoe Trip

I wrote this post back in August, but never got around to posting. Here it is 🙂

Our family recently took a trip to Lake Tahoe. The California wildfires made the views a little hazy, but other than that it was a wonderful trip. Oh, and the baby gets car sick, but other than that, just fabulous. We stayed in South Lake Tahoe and had a plethora of vegan food choices.

We rolled into town around 1pm. After wiping most of the vomit off the seats, our stuff, and the kids we got to relax in the Tahoe keys for a few hours while we waited for the house we were staying at to be ready. It was great. I had a fantastic gluten free, vegan falafel lunch at The Artemis Mediterranean Grill. Later that night we got some insanely delicious gluten free, vegan pizza from Blue Dog Pizza. After that we went shopping at the local grocery store, Holiday Market, and made the majority of our food for the rest of the trip at the house. Holiday Market had a lot of good options, including jackfruit. The only other restaurant we went to was the Vegan Bliss CafĂ©. It’s an all vegan, soy free restaurant and you can make any meal gluten free as well. It was a small place but the food was amazing. I’m so over the “vegan” restaurants that are just tofu with a side. This place had personality, they made their own veggie patties and sauces. It’s a must try.

This was our first trip with a built in baby sitter. My Mom came with us. So I was able to hit the casinos a few times. Loved it. Family outings included a poorly prepared, intense hike in 90 degree heat. Not much water and no map made it interesting. It was nice though because it was just outside the house so we didn’t have to drive anywhere. We had to visit the main lake, so we did that Saturday morning, we got lucky on the parking but it was super crowded. After several summer months of swimming lessons, toddler swim, and a local lake I never actually ventured out on my own. I always had a hand on the baby. At the lake I was able to actually go for a swim. It was amazing. It was cold, but amazing. We weren’t at Lake Tahoe long, too crowded and hot. Someone told us about a place called Angora Lake and we went on a mission to find it.

We hit a taco joint on the way and were pleasantly surprised to see it was close to our house. Just a few miles but about 30 minutes out. We quickly figured out why. It was in the cuts. The road stayed paved but it was a one lane road with lots of blind turns. The best part was when we suddenly found ourselves on a ridge with steep drop offs on both sides. My brother’s girlfriend’s 9 year old started freaking out and I was quietly right there with her. It was beautiful yet horrifying. Soon after we arrived at the parking lot. From the parking lot to the lake is another mile hike. We decided to take the Bob stroller, we knew it was a tossup but went for it. We made it but it was touch and go for a minute. Signs entering the lake post warnings of the plaque. Just in case things weren’t exciting enough.

We get there and this place is amaze balls. Clear water, awesome mountain side and best of all, no crowds. We realized we should’ve just gone here in the morning, but it’s nice to try a little bit of everything.

The trip was great. Got to spend quality time with the fam, lots of good food and best of all… it’s been over 7 days and no one got the plaque :).

Cory Booker

As of right now, Cory Booker is my favorite democratic candidate. I should also mention, I will support and vote for whoever gets nominated. I will admit the reason the New Jersey Senniter is my current favorite is because he’s vegan. Not just because I’m vegan too and I stand by my own, but because being vegan means so many things. A vegan is a voice for the voiceless (the animals), they put the needs of others before their own (compassion for animals before “tasty food”), they’re a strong advocate for peace (living a peaceful existence by not financially supporting the abuse and torture of defenseless animals), they support healthy living, and are a huge proponent of the environment. All the things that I feel most strongly about. And he’s not just talking about these things, he’s living them. He’s been vegetarian since 1992 and vegan since 2014. My dream canidadate!

He’s an ivy league man. I like that. I feel it’s important. I like the idea that our leader be a product of our nations most prestigious institutions. It just makes sense. Don’t get me wrong, give me a great candidate, willing to listen to the experts and always trying to do the right thing and prestige goes right out the window. That being said, I miss having a president who can spell and form complete sentences. Seneter Booker got his undergrad from Stanford University, which particularly pleases me since I’m a bay area resident. I love that he has ties to this awesome state and particularly this area. He also played football for Stanford. I. Love.. Football. He then went across the pond to Oxford for a masters before attending Yale Law School. That’s another thing. The president should have a basic understanding of the law and Yale law school seems like a good place to find that understanding.

I do have some concerns. I grew up Catholic, but no longer practice. It’s kind of hard being a scientist and not be offended by almost everything preached by Catholicism. Cory Booker seems to be a bit of a holy man., posting several twitter pictures of himself “worshiping”. I try to be open minded about religion, but the word worship is pretty intense. I personally find it very difficult to understand science and still follow religion and I’m skeptical of others who do. Skeptical may be too harsh a word, they just puzzle me I guess. You can’t wholeheartedly believe in both, so which is? Which do you favor, science or religion? In an extremely general sense, it doesn’t matter, but in today’s day and age, and for a person in power, it matters a lot. Some people use religion as a shield. They use it to deny climate change, to discriminate against people, to spread hate, or even start wars. It’s a dangerous concept. I don’t believe Cory Booker (nor does his voting record indicate) he would do any of those things. It just makes me feel uneasy is all.

He’s single. I couldn’t care less how someone lives their lives, but as a married women I see the importance in having a partner in life. Especially in a high stress situations (such as the presidency), you need someone to share the burden. To keep sane. The up side of being single is he would have more time to focus on his job.

He has no children. Also can be a huge up side. More time for work. But there’s something to be said for doing the right thing for your children. I think it was Kristen Gillibrand that said, having children gives her more to fight for. It’s true, especially in the case of climate change. Many old assholes in Washington probably fully understand the consequences of climate change, but don’t care because they’re making a ton of money denying it and won’t be around for the more serious effects. I think they mostly all have children, but I guess maybe they’re not so fond of them?? Or they believe all the money they’re making from fossil fuel companies will shield their children from the harsher realities. They say the poorer communities will get hit the hardest. I really don’t know. I think they all just might be greedy assholes.

My last concern (for now) is this new bill he’s introducing, the American Opportunity Accounts Act. It’s a plan to try to close the wealth inequality gap. It basically makes a saving account for every child born in the US and the amount grows based on your household income. The money becomes available when the child turns 18.. Lower income families accrue the most, whereas the highest level of income accrue nothing. The lowest levels receiving over $40,000 and the highest is just over $1,000. It’s a noble plan and I applaud his efforts, but I take issue. While I agree we need to close the gap, it punishes hard working parents, like mine. My parents came to this country with nothing. They worked incredibly strenuous jobs, with insane hours to put me through college. My dad worked the night shift at a cement plant, having to always bring a change of clothes because he would sweat through the first, while my Mom cleaned houses and businesses. Their income would have placed them in the second to last bracket, building a very small percentage of the amount lower income families would attain if they had no jobs at all. Bills like this punish the hard working middle class. Why should people have to work so hard for something others get for free? It’s not right. I completely agree we need to help the less fortunate, especially children, but not like this.

In summation, the good far outweigh the “bad”. Nothing about Cory is actually “bad” (that I know of), just maybe he could use some tweaks. I’m extremely excited for his run and can’t wait to see what comes next.

https://prosperitynow.org/blog/cory-bookers-american-opportunity-accounts-act-bold-step-towards-wealth-equity

https://vegnews.com/2019/2/cory-booker-on-animal-rights-veganism-and-how-to-change-the-world