Fun With Bacon

I've been vegan for over a year now. I chose veganism over taking cholesterol meds every day for the rest of my life and 99.9% of the time I don't regret that decision at all.

But I really want to go to Camp Bacon.

First, I respect the sheer genius of holding a cooking class that centers around bacon and calling it Camp Bacon. I hope whoever came up with that name got a BIG promotion and a nice tropical vacation. Second, every meal at Camp Bacon includes.....wait for it.....bacon. In fact, lunch is a BLT bar. A. B. L. T. Bar. You could feasibly forgo the L. and the T. and just eat the B. You wouldn't have to bother with the bread if you didn't want to! Third, the shirt.

I just ordered one! I love the irony of a vegan wearing a Camp Bacon shirt and it's a Camp Bacon shirt!!

Today I feel like I did when I was pregnant for my son and craved bacon all day every day and the cravings continued while I was nursing him and one of my coworkers offered to bring in a big chafing dish full of bacon for me to nibble on while I was on the air but I didn't let her because it just seemed kind of obnoxious but now I'm wishing I had because now I'd at least have the memory of it.

My iPhone is smarter than I am

Yes, I got an iPhone for Christmas. And I just discovered yesterday that I didn't have a voicemail mailbox anymore even though the nice people at AT&T (I am not contractually obligated by my iPhone purchase to state that, I'm just not taking any chances) transferred everything else from my old phone (including my photos, nice) and I just assumed that the voicemail mailbox would make it too but apparently, no, so how about a moment of silence for my voicemail mailbox.

I am a little scared of my iPhone because it knows how to do a lot of things that I don't. For instance, I have Sync in my car but could never figure out how to really hook it up to my old phone and had to manually do it every time I got in the car but the minute I got into the car with my iPhone it was like Sync and my iPhone were old friends being reunited and they started doing all kinds of stuff like downloading my mailbox without me. And I'm starting to get worried that one of these days I'll get in the car and my Sync and my iPhone will have decided that I need to go to Five Guys and I'll be like "But I'm vegan!" but they won't care and the doors will lock by themselves and they'll drive me there and somehow force me to eat a burger.

And you might think it's a little ridiculous for me to think that but yesterday, when I was re-setting up my voicemail account (and WHY is voicemail the ONE thing that doesn't make the cut?) the iPhone computer voice lady is telling me that I need to think of a password and then - even though she's a computer! - she actually waits while I'm thinking of a password and she waits so long that I start to wonder if I won't even need to type the password in and maybe she knows what I'm thinking!

P.S. My iPhone is in the kitchen right now so it won't see me typing this. But it probably knows. It knows everything.

P.S.S. Yes, I know I am spoiled. My children keep reminding me of all the "stuff" I have and how spoiled I am and it's true, I am just plain spoiled these days. I have no idea why. Though I would like them to leave the dishwasher off the list because, yes, I did want a new dishwasher and I AM the only one who uses it but that still doesn't make it a "gift."

What's so great about clean arteries anyway?

I had my yearly physical last week and my LDL level is still hovering in the Just Above Acceptable range so I am going completely vegan for a month (which makes me feel like I'm saying I'm going nudist for a month, I don't know why) to see if it will go down.

I'm a little nervous, the last time I actually did something about my cholesterol was when I was 30 and my doctor said that birth control could be a contributing factor so I quit taking the pill and dieted for a month. 30 days later my cholesterol was normal and I was pregnant. Surprise.

I started Vegan Quest 2009 on Monday and lasted until dinner, when I had a ham and cheese Olga's. (Have you ever had Olga's? To. Die. For.) I might have had a french fries too. I can't really remember; I was a little delirious from no meat or cheese for the entire day.

So now, it's Thursday. Right? It's Thursday? I've managed to hang in there, but not without a struggle. After lunch today I an apple with Nutella and almond slivers and was feeling pretty darn good about myself until a friend on Facebook (who I am seriously considering unfriending right now) told me that Nutella has dairy in it.

Who put f**king milk in Nutella?

For dinner I made baked potato skins. They are somewhat a specialty of mine (i.e. one of the three things I make that everyone in the family will eat) but instead of awesomely gooey melted cheese mine were topped with sauteed spinach and grilled onions.

There is a small part of me that hopes that when this 30-day hellperiment is over my LDL has not budged because then I can just go out and buy an extra-large bottle of Crestor and a bacon-blue cheese burger.

Mmmmmmmmmm, bacon.