In which Jayne comes face-to-face with her great white whale, known to the humans as “Lemmy.”

Actually, some days they spend hours this way, scoping out one another from their respective sides of the dog/cat boundary line. Lemmy knows enough to stay away from Jayne when there’s not an insurmountable obstacle preventing her from mauling him – but from his side of the glass, he becomes quite the provocateur: taking swipes at her, rolling around playfully (and occasionally right off the desk he uses for a perch), yawning and showing off his kitten belly and general lack of fear. And all she can do is quiver! High comedy, I tell you what. The two should star in a buddy film together.

Shane: Hey, come look at this! See Lemmy’s new favorite spot? [In the closet, sandwiched into my old monitor stand.]
Me: OMG, that’s ADORABLE! Did you get a picture? You have to take a picture!
Shane: [pause] I’m not gonna be one of those people who shares cat pictures online.
Me: What! I’m one of those people!
Shane: ….
Me: Well, I’m taking a picture then.

I bet he’ll share this post on Facebook.

Make pizza, photograph pizza, eat pizza, blog pizza, repeat.
THE ONLY TO DO LIST THAT MATTERS. LIVE BY IT!
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Lately I’ve been all about food and furkids. More specifically, pizza & ice cream and cats & dogs. It’s my own form of escapism, yo. (Burnout, who me?) So, while it might seem like I haven’t been up to much lately – particularly to those of you who just follow me here – the truth is that I’m still blogging, just in other spaces, including a few new places.

For instance: fuck yeah vegan pizza and fuck yeah vegan ice cream. I started these sister blogs on tumblr after realizing that my food self can basically be boiled down to these two foodstuffs. (And further realizing that posting mouth-watering photos of gooey, oozy, melty, cheesy pizza slices and delightfully decadent frozen desserts is worlds more fun than beating my head against the twin walls of speciesism and misogyny that encircle the feminist and animal advocacy communities. End: rant.) If you’re on tumblr, please follow and submit! (Photos, not yourself!) If not, sign up. I need you!

Also, I’ve been cooking up a storm in my real-world kitchen too, experimenting with new pizza and ice cream recipes, some of them developed by my own bad self. (Which would explain why I’ve gained ten lbs. since x-mas, but I digress.) Possibly you might be wondering where in the worlds I’ve been hoarding these delicious new dishes? Though I’ll save the ice cream not-porn for another day – this post is called “vegan nomz roundup!: pizza ed.” for a reason, peoples! – today I’d like to talk about some of the many pizzas I’ve made so far this year. All of the recipes are available on the PPP blog. (ETA: I also post uber-adorable photos of adoptable animals every Friday! You’ve been warned!)

(Certainly you remember the Perfect Pizza Press, yes? It’s a pizza cutter-esque kitchen utensil that Shane invented in ’09. He hired a welder to make a prototype based on his design and, when it proved a success, we decided to sell it online. While the website has been functional for months now, the presses are not yet available for purchase. Obtaining samples from local manufacturers has proven slow-going, and my recent health issues haven’t exactly sped things along. During the limbo we’ve been feasting on vegan pizza – for the blog/business, of course – so it’s a wash I guess!)

Possibly you’ll find that some of these pies are a repeat; if so, this is only because they rocked so hard the first time that they could not be denied an encore!

Listed in reverse chronological order; if you do nothing else, you simply must scroll through for the awesomness that is the Garbage Plate Pizza! Look for it in the middle.

And yes, I realize that these are all terribly unhealthy, over-processed, fat-laden dishes; again, see: my recent unexpected weight gain. (Unexpected? What did I think would happen when I bought Daiya in bulk? Play with fire much?) The good news? Now that I’m overhauling my diet to include pizzas with less or no cheese; thinner crusts topped with more fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds; and dough involving a greater variety of flours, future dishes will (mostly) be on the healthy side. Consider this the junk food pizza roundup.

Personal Pita Pizzas!

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is dejected: “Popcorn, y u b so unreachable?”

Ditto: mom, who’s similarly flailing at a new DSLR camera, which will vastly improve the quality of her food and furkid photos. Yeah, ’cause clearly it’s the camera – and only the camera – that’s to blame!

Epilogue: Don’t worry, mom to the rescue! Rennie’s frustrated nomz syndrome is no more.

This morning, I woke to vomit in the bed. Kaylee vomit, to be exact, which makes the situation slightly less bad than it might otherwise have been. (Also, it helps that it wasn’t on my pillow. Yes, that has happened. To Shane! Muahahaha….)

“What’s the diff?” you’re probably wondering; “Puke is puke, is it not?” Actually, there’s a 50-50 chance that I can match a pile of vomit to a dog – or at least one of my dog-kids – based on its content: Peedee likes to steal and nom on my earplugs, Ralphie is a grass and dirt eater, and during the spring and summer months Kaylee turns into a decidedly non-vegan bug hunter – but that’s beside the point. Kaylee vomit – and mishaps involving bodily fluids – is different ’cause it comes from Kaylee. Sweet, sweet Kaylee, who’s suffered so much in her short life – yet harbors not one resentful cell in her entire being – and with whom it’s impossible to become angry. At least, not for more than a split second at a time.

It’s difficult to celebrate Mother’s Day without also mourning for the billions of nonhuman animals whose reproductive systems and maternal instincts we exploit for our own gain: “laying” hens, “dairy” cows, “breeding” sows, and so on. For many vegans, it’s those females farmed for food who have come to symbolize motherhood hijacked and corrupted on Mother’s Day. But for me – a vegan who’s only visited a handful of farmed animal sanctuaries, and has yet to befriend and know a cow, hen or sow on a personal level – Kaylee is the representation of motherhood subverted.

Today I’d like to republish a piece I wrote for her last Mother’s Day. Every word rings as true now as it did then. More so, even: during the last two years, I’ve been struggling with some minor but chronic health issues. Whereas the other dogs – as much as I love and adore them – oftentimes add to the stress with their constant demands for attention and occasional doggy outbursts (bark! bark! bark!), to the point that I sometimes have to hand them off to Shane … not Kaylee.

While I long to comfort, coddle, pamper her – as a down payment on the debt humanity owes her for the pain she and so many like her have endured at our hands – so often, too often, it’s she who takes care of me. Rarely does she ask; never does she take. Most times, she is content to lay beside me, graciously accepting strokes and kisses; laments whispered. She is unflappable in her devotion and, despite all that she’s been through, manages to exude a sense of calmness. Of peace and pleasure, long delayed.

Always soft but steady in her presence … my rock, made from marshmallows. She keeps me sane.

Happy mother’s day to all the moms in the world: human and non, biological and adoptive, same and cross-species, of all genders, ages and orientations. I hope you have a compassionate and peaceful day! And to those who are separated or estranged from your mother(s), my heart is with you.

P.S. My birthday is tomorrow, but my wish remains the same: live vegan, or at least as vegan as your life circumstances will allow.

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Scenes of compassion, consideration and love from my own life.
Counterclockwise, from top-left: the family of geese who shared “my” pond last year,
and who have returned again this season (no goslings yet though!);
my sister Michelle and brother Mike cuddle and comfort our canine sibling Shadow
shortly after surgery to repair her shattered back leg;
Ralphie and I share a moment during a sentimental visit to
our old neighborhood in Fairport, NY; and
a mother cow licks her baby clean.
Sadly, both were the property of our former landlords, and are most likely ground beef by now. It was a privilege to live next to such lovely creatures – but one constantly clouded by sadness and despair, given their near-certain fate. The knowing can be painful; but the not knowing is far, far worse. Go vegan, for you and for them.
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One does not need to be human to feel the deep-seated instinct to protect her babies, to seek the warmth of one’s mother. When animal advocates point out the obvious – that mothers and their babies suffer profoundly when they are separated, that harming one’s baby causes emotional trauma to the mother – we are accused of anthropomorphizing. We are portrayed as having centers as squishy as marshmallows, as having naive, sentimental, childish minds. In fact, it is a cold biological imperative, not just an emotional one, that drives a mother to want to nurture and protect her young: entire species would be wiped out if not for a mother’s instinct to defend her babies. I think, though, that it’s highly arrogant and self-serving to presume that humans alone have an emotional stake in their babies’ livelihoods. [...]

One also doesn’t need to be a mother to be deeply driven to protect another. Long before I ever had a baby, I felt the same kind of adrenaline surge when someone intentionally whipped a hard rubber ball at my dog as I would have if he had done that same thing years later to my son. I chased that guy down the beach, screaming at him, and he ran away as if his life depended on it. Maybe it did. I’m a non-violent person, but you don’t mess with the ones I love.

For Mother’s Day, I propose that we honor this natural drive within all of us to protect the ones we love, the ones who depend on our consideration, by not consuming the products of exploitation and cruelty. This common thread of wanting our babies to thrive is natural and noble, a key part of our essential being. Whether we are men or women, children or adults, human or hen, that universal mother is in all of us. Let’s celebrate without exploiting another innocent mother who had not only the autonomy of her body but also her babies stolen from her for our appetites. Let’s connect to that profound mothering spirit that links us together. She wants her babies to be well and protected from harm. I think we can understand.

Happy Mother’s Day to everyone.

….with extra special hugs and kisses (and a few odd few bitter tears) to Miss Kaylee, of course.*

* Usually I stick with the status-neutral “Ms.,” but Kaylee prefers “Miss.” It makes her feel young, yo!

** The quote is excerpted from The Universal Mother… by Marla Rose, the one and only Vegan Feminist Agitator. Read and share, please and thanks.

I’m forever amazed (and amused) at the degree to which the rat terriers – particularly Rennie and Peedee – are able to bend and twist their noses whilst sniffing a scent on the breeze. So flexible, it’s almost as if they’re made of rubber!

I mean holy Ceiling Cat, Rennie must have her nose cocked at a 15-20 degree angle here! You can practically see an invisible pair of fingers twisting it to the side.

I didn’t manage to photograph an equally impressive example for Peedee yesterday, but this one gives you an idea:

That little pink strip running down the middle of his nose? It should be perfectly vertical. His poo sensors must be kicking in, for it to be all off-kilter like that.

That is all.

boil down to this:

GRRRRRRRR!!!!!

He’s a grumpy old fart, just like mom!

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Me: Okay, the afternoon sun is shining on your side of the house.
IT’S PICTURE TIME!

Lemmy: Silly human. The only times I recognize are “mealtime” and “playtime” and, since I don’t see any nomz around, YOU WILL ENTERTAIN ME.

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This week I spent a few (much-needed) lazy afternoons outside, alternately napping and chasing the dogs around the yard, camera in hand. I can’t remember why, but I thought it might be fun to take some “macro” shots of the dogs and all their adorable little body parts: eyes, noses, behinds, ears, legs, tummies.* (Lever 2000, holla!) Now I realize that this might make for an awfully cool art project – print and display my favorites in uniform sizes and frames, arranging them on a single wall to make one larger exhibit. I just need to find an available wall!

And more pictures of Ralphie: of all five dogs, the 13-year-old, one-eyed wiener dog proved hardest to catch on camera. Go figure.

Ralphie butt, on the move!
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Not very macro, but here’s a decent look at Ralphie’s missing eye.
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Ralphie shoulder, complete with extra skin rolls!
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