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One of my customers came came in yesterday with a little present for me.

Eeek. It’s a tiny doll of ME!! Isn’t she cute?? The doll I mean??  🙂

Check out Spencer Diamond’s blog post about Sarah’s Place HERE.

Went for a hike on the weekend at Goldstream Park. It’s only about a 20 minute drive from Victoria but for some reason I’ve only been there half a dozen times in the 25 years I’ve lived here. Weird. I need to spend more time here – It’s a really special place…

I love the drive up to Goldstream. A lot of people don’t like the windy roads of the Malahat but I love it …

Let me tell you a little something about Fergus. He LOVES to go hiking. He’s only 13lbs and is the size of a cat but this little doggie can hike like a mountain goat.

He never gets tired. He loves to explore every nook and cranny … and he loves to pee on EVERYTHING! Including children – so keep away from his crotch if you’re under 8 years old. It’s a dominance thing.

The whole time we were walking around the park – I felt like I was in The Walking Dead. I kept expecting to see a zombie stuck in the mud that we could poke with a stick.

We did find the abandoned Gold Mine where The Smoke Monster from Lost lives. Just kidding. Everyone knows it lives in Hawaii.

Gerry was SO scared to go look inside but Fergus just trotted in there without a care in the world. Yikes! FERGUS!! It’s good to be a little tentative sometimes.

On the way home we stopped at the grocery store to grab some ingredients for dinner. I noticed these apples in a plastic box called Grapple.

Um.. What? This is an apple that tastes like a grape?

I took a good look at it. I don’t know about you but I don’t think that fresh fruit should A) come in a plastic container and B) come with an ingredients list. Yikes.

Check out this 360* view of the inside of Sarah’s Place.  🙂
Only 7.5 feet wide – but I make it work.

A little back-story… my friend Trinity and I are birthday buddies. We share the same birthday (June 27th) and I will never forget meeting her on her 1st birthday (I think it was my 21st?) when I bumped into her parents in downtown Victoria. It was love at first sight and we have been in each others lives ever since. 🙂

My talented friend Alexa makes the most beautiful bags and she’s come up with these custom vintage style totes just for Sarah’s Place!

These are STRONG bags. I use mine for picking up groceries and for hauling around packages to the post office. You can fit A LOT of items into these totes. The vegan waxed canvas makes them very durable and the beautiful vintage fabric on the inside makes me smile every time I open the bag.

Plus there is an inner pocket with a snap for loose change and chapstick and an outer pocket for quick grab items like water bottles, sunglasses etc.

My favourite feature is the flat bottom on the bag. This means you can put your bag down on the ground without having to worry about it tipping over. LOVE!

This is a limited edition item. So if you snooze you lose! 🙂 Purchase the bag HERE.

We have Victoria Vegan Fest shirts up for grabs at our fundraising page!!  🙂

They were designed by the uber talented Kelly Lawrence at Thinking Cap Design!!

Grab one HERE.

Just when you think Twitter is a mindless wasteland …

Something radical happened to me the other night while scrolling through my feed. I received a message from @Thessalia101

She said: “Love, your books. Love them. But very sad you recommend /Sleepaway Camp/ even if as silly fun. Transphobic + mean. That ‘amazing last scene’ you praise, for me as a teen with gender dysphoria, made me think my body was evil and monstrous.”

I was taken aback. Holy shit. I wrote about Sleep Away Camp in Garden of Vegan and I never thought of that movie from her perspective before. Of course it’s Transphobic! The premise of the movie is that a pre-op MtF hates her body (and her penis) so much that she tortures and kills people. Ugh!! How awful!

My eyes filled up with tears as I thought about how painful watching a movie like that must have been for her. I collected my thoughts and wrote back: “It was a different time back then and I guess when I look back at it now -I still think of it as I did as a naive teen. Thank you for re-framing it for me. ;)”

She wrote back: “I really appreciate that you understand why the film was so incredibly hurtful to me during a very bad time in my life. In no way meant to make any accusations about you as a person or your very giving and generous spirit. Please understand. I am deeply heartened that you can understand my sincere feelings on what that movie represents to women #girlslike us.”

I wrote back: “It makes me wonder what else there is that I need to re-frame. #foodforthought“

@Thessalia101 explained further: “My gender dysphoria = creepy nightmarish punchline to a slasher movie? I must be really, really sick inside. 🙁 So I felt.”

The more I thought about the ramifications of that movie for someone with gender dysphoria the more upset I became. I mean – the movie is what it is. It’s a time capsule of 1983 and where we as a society were in regards to gender. It makes me wonder what other things that I look back at from my past (with fondness and childish naivety) are actually hateful and hurtful.

Thank you @Thessalia101 for turning my world upside down with a tweet. I am now looking at everything from a different perspective and I needed that.  🙂

If you’d like to read @Thessalia101’s essay about what happened for her when she watched Sleepaway Camp – you can read about it HERE.

HEY!!
As many of you know – I am helping to organize the 1st annual Victoria Vegan Fest in Market Square on July 1st. We’ve been doing a lot of local fundraising for the event (festivals cost a lot of $$ to run) and I’ve been receiving lots messages and tweets from those of you who live out of town who want to help.

So I decided to organize an ONLINE fundraiser. 🙂

You can simply just donate cold hard cash – or you can choose one of the perks that are listed on the fundraising website. Some of the prizes are limited to Victoria or North America only and are clearly marked. Some perks are limited edition – meaning only a few are available. So if you snooze – you lose.

So visit the online fundraising page HERE. Every dollar goes directly to funding The Victoria Vegan Fest!! BIG thanks to all the sponsors who donated perks – and BIG thanks to YOU for all your help!!

Well. Well. Well…

Look who’s getting a little love from the iTunes store. 🙂

If you haven’t already – you can download the GoVegan! w/Sarah Kramer HERE.