Organic Vegan Fair Trade Junk Food

I had another trying day with the tool of crankiness. It was kind of fun because I got to call some random people I would ordinarily never meet and discuss the situation and they were once again able to validate the fact that it is acting "weird". But mostly it was frustrating. Every day I get halfway closer to making it production worthy. I'm asymptotically approaching available. So when the local instigator suggested a happy hour today at a pub within walking distance of my condo, I RSVPed with alacrity.

It was cool. Five people showed, and I had 2 beers and a meat pie (I've seen too many Sw.eeny T.odd ads recently and I checked - it was pork, not people) in short order. As an unrelated point of interest, it's both drizzly and chilly, so my glasses fogged up for the first time since I moved to CA. When they cleared, I found my colleagues and set to drinking and got a nice little buzz on.

The pub is one of those places tucked out of the way behind other places making everyone say "they should put up a sign" but it's already crowded so they probably don't see the need. One of the people who showed after wandering around lost said he finally called one of our other managers to gave him a landmark. Turns out this landmark is the local "Valley Natural Foods". And I didn't even know it. It's one turn in farther along than I've managed to wander.

Valley Natural Foods is the name of the local food co-op where I grew up, so I tend to relate all organic food, vegan friendly, volunteer oriented shops to it, like the Cambridge Natural Foods. This was much the same. The one big change in 25 years is the amount of prepackaged organic, vegan crap. I mean snack food. I guess it means they hit the big time. The supplement aisle is larger too. I was able to pick up "parsnip chips" and "orangutan-Os" and a couple other drunken, but free trade purchases with the $20 in my pocket and stagger home crunching on my snackage. Because what I need after 3 days of all-you-can-eat cookies is vegan junk food. Vegan sugar is still sugar.

Anyhow, I'm a little relieved that fair trade junk food is my vice of the evening. I've been keyed up enough this week that I had a real worry I'd hit on a co-worker and live to regret it, but that turned out to be easy enough to avoid. So I'm still a little tweaked up because parsnip chips are good but they are not that satisfying. I might sit in the dark and look at my little tree with fiber optic lights which I put up last night. Or I might ponder the humor of the yard long receipt for 5 objects from the tree-hugger store. Or laugh at the soy based glue they're using on the green makeover playing in the background on HGTV. Perhaps another beer is in order.