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Last week my boss was so kind as to take us out to lunch to celebrate our successful year. The lunch spot? Maggiano’s. Mmmmmmmm. I’ve been there plenty of times as a meat-eater but I figured that I could get some veggie spaghetti or a nice salad.
Boy, was I in for a surprise. There was maybe one thing on the lunch menu that I could eat as-is: angel hair pasta in a marinara sauce. No veggies by themselves. Even the salads had meat on them. The entrees all had meat. I scanned and re-scanned the menu. I must have missed something! Nope, the first scan was correct.
The waiter approached to take our orders. Everyone ordered something off the menu, but I had to be special vegetarian.
“Um, do you think that the kitchen could throw something together for me? I don’t eat meat.”
“Of any kind?”
Quizzical looks abound at the table. Some of my co-workers are just finding this out about me.
“No meat. Veggies, yet. Meat, no. Do you think I could get spaghetti in marinara sauce, but with some vegetables thrown in? I saw zucchini in something else, could I have that?”
“Sure. How about some spinach, too?”
What an accommodating waiter! I was thrilled!
“Yes, spinach would be great! And, if you have mushrooms and black olives? I love those.”
“Sure, and we can put some shrimp in there, too.”
My face fell.
“Oh, sorry, ma’am. No shrimp, duh.”
Good man.
So, it’s not very easy, I am finding, to locate vegetarian fare OR a common understanding of what vegetarianism is. I was chatting with my friend Christy about it all, because I knew she ate fish but not poultry, beef, or pork.
“So, is that considered vegetarian?”
“I am considered pescatarian,” she corrected, “since I eat fish.”
“If I eat no meat at all, am I a vegetarian?”
“Yes, but there are different kinds.”
“Okay, well, I eat dairy products – milk and cheese.”
“You’re an ovo- lactaterian,” she quipped.
“Huh?”
She laughed. “Ovo- means egg. Lacto- means milk or cheese.”
“Ah, so if you don’t eat either of those, you’re vegan?”
Turns out if you’re vegan, you also don’t eat honey. I might get there, but I am not there yet.
I am very grateful that my husband is supporting me.
“I would like to eat chicken in our stirfry, but I will cook it separately and then mix it in,” he decided last night. What a gem.
At work, I am blessed to receive a free lunch everyday as one of the benefits of working here. I’ve slowly eliminated things I will eat in my diet, so it’s getting more difficult to find things to eat there. Lately, I’ve been eating bananas with peanut butter on them.
Did I mention I don’t eat bread?
And I do have a squad now! A bunch of the girls cheered for football last year, and I have two girls who cheered for basketball who wanted to cheer for football this year because they are involved in other things during the winter, so that amounts to a lot of great experience for me to work with this year!
We go to camp next week. I am looking forward to it for several reasons – getting to know the squad, figuring who my captains will be, and seeing what these girls can do when they work together.
My Octave performances went well, too. My church loved us, and we were told that our performance at Red Light Cafe was our best ever – and there were actually only 10 or 11 of us there. It was a good time, that’s for sure. I like having good experiences with them because I am not always happy with the way things are going in the group. We’re now on an up-swing, I guess!
We have a lot of members who have taken sabbaticals since I joined. It’s a nice way to take a break from the group when otherwise you might be forced to quit. Sometimes, though, it makes things difficult for the group – having to turn down gigs or having to learn new parts to cover people who are missing. I am all for learning a new part, though. It keeps things interesting. I believe most of our people on sabbatical are doing it for good reasons, but sometimes I wonder if maybe some of them should just go on and quit. I guess maybe they are trying to figure that out, too.
Well, 6 other judges and I will be deciding the fate of the cheerleaders who are trying out today. Wow.
I really enjoyed the clinic, especially yesterday, when I went up to girls individually and gave them some feedback. It’s neat being a coach, and I like when they genuinely appreciate the feedback I offer them.
We have our first day of cheerleading clinics this afternoon!!!!!!!
I keep seeing girls who cheered on my squad last year. They are so excited and they keep coming by to say hello. One girl who is so prone to worry stopped me at lunch to exclaim that she’s freaking out about making football cheerleading.
I know. It must be nice if your little world contains the worry about whether or not you’ll make cheerleading next year. All the same, it’s exciting to me because I GET IT.
I know a lot of people make fun of cheerleaders. Well, no one does that better than cheerleaders themselves. In fact, becoming a cheerleader is one of the best ways to learn to laugh at yourself, I think!
Said our counseling professor in college.
It sounds weird. How can a BOUNDARY – something which sounds restricting and confining – give someone FREEDOM?
It turns out that it’s all in how you think about it (typical, I know).
Example: I am now a vegetarian. I has slowly been weaning myself off meat, and it just got easier and easier to not crave it. In fact, now I can’t stand it. I am now in awe of how much there is to eat besides meat. There are tons of sources of protein out there: nuts (some have calcium in them, too!), cheese, milk, other veggies. My digestive system won’t allow me to eat bread, either, so it’s on to other sources of carbs for me: lots of veggies and fruits. There is this amazing world of food out there I CAN eat, most of which I would have ignored if I hadn’t self-selected out of other types of food. My self-imposed boundary of not eating meat and bread gives me the freedom to eat whatever else I want to. My body is SO much happier now. It’s awesome. I may decide to remove my boundary eventually, but for now, it gives me the freedom to try out new food experiences. It’s pretty cool. 
Tonight’s the meeting for all the girls and their parents trying out for cheerleading. In four days, they will be finished trying out. Wow! That’s going to be weird. I dreamed about it a little bit last night. I know that the numbers are not there for every girl to make it, which breaks my heart. There may be girls who don’t make varsity that I coached in jv last year, which would also be hard.
I also didn’t have the best experience with one of the girls I coached last season, and she plans to try out, despite our discouragement that maybe this isn’t the best sport for her. I’ve definitely spoken my piece and said my prayers about that whole situation. I wish for this girl that she will learn how to live in community with others. For whatever reason, she is very selfish and enjoys manipulating the system to her advantage. She’s not honest and her parents don’t seem to control her – in fact, she seems to be controlling them. I know it’s not my business to know the whole story and it’s not my role’s responsibility to try to figure it out, but I can’t help but care for her as a student that I actually know (there are so many of them that I have no idea who they are!).
My a cappella group sings tonight for my church. It’s like worlds colliding a little bit for me. I sang in church choir, and it was a good experience; but Octave, the a cappella group, really started to take up a lot of time, plus I started coaching, so it made sense to drop church choir. It’s also selfishness on my part, and a practice in the act of saying no. If I can’t do it now, will I be able to when I am a parent? So, tonight I’ll be singing with Octave at church, and there will be people there who have only seen me sing while donning a black robe. I think it will be awesome, but it feels sort of like a rivalry. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but it feels like the choir is my ex-boyfriend and Octave is the new boyfriend, even though I technically was “dating” them at the same time for three years. And now, we’ll be at this joint event and here I will be dangling my new boyfriend in front of my old one. It’s not that I dislike my ex-boyfriend. I know, I am totally blowing this out of proportion. But, it makes me laugh as I explain my conflicting feelings.
Why did Octave win out? I can boogie will Octave while I sing – I am freer to be myself. I have more say in this smaller group – I have input in what happens in the relationship. The discipline is there, but there is freedom to experiment – this relationship is not so strict! What made the biggest impact was the realization that on Tuesday nights I was getting to Octave practice early whereas I’d arrive five to fifteen minutes late to church choir practice – I was clearly more excited to be in relationship with Octave. Of course it wins!
And after much procrastination, I am finally burning the cds that the girls who are trying out for cheerleading will need to practice their dance with. I didn’t really mean to procrastinate; it just sort of happened. And it’s going to be done here shortly. But of course I am tired, so I’m not really enjoying the experience. And the grouch in me complains that most of them won’t thank me. It’s that realization that hounds me lately: when I do something adultish and responsible, I somehow feel entitled to recognition. Sadly, I cannot say that when I was young and adults did things for me that I thanked them. Even when my parents commanded me to thank someone, I am quite sure it was not sincere. So it’s weird when the tables are turned that I expect this respect from all the students at the school where I work or at the church where we’re youth advisers. It’s funny – what makes me so freakin’ special all of a sudden? It’s not like I respected my elders in an outward fashion and have come into my own as an adult. No one ever told me that when I got to be 21 that those younger than I would suddenly start bowing down to me. It’s as though I am assuming some rights from that rite of passage into adulthood, specifically that of someone who works with teens.
I’m going into my second season as a coach. I am really looking forward to working with some of the girls I coached last year as they will still be on JV. I am excited about learning from my first year coaching mistakes and successes. I am really excited about coaching football cheerleading, as that was one of my favorite things about high school. One thing I’ve heard time and time again about the kids at this school (and, to be fair, all private schools) is how entitled they are. It’s true – there is a high level of expectation on their part for how things are to be and how they are to be treated. They are also incredibly sweet children, too, and I love having even a small impact on their world as they have a large impact on mine. Most of them do have very good manners, and sincerity in their graciousness, which I have already said I didn’t have when I was their age.
Maybe my entitlement I am experiencing is a result of being treated well by these children. When one of them is respectful, the disrespectful ones fall into my Trap of Judgment. It’s really a bit much. I really need to get over myself!
If you want to know what I wrote before today’s post in my new blog, then, by all means, check out my old blog. Good times. I just noticed that wordpress has a nicer appearance, so I’m giving it a shot.
My older blog was set up to contemplate my artistic thoughts and pursuits, and I am sure I’ll still continue, in vain, in that vein. Other than that, this blog will be about what happens to be on my mind, per the trend of other bloggers.
Without further ado (or content): Welcome to my blog. In time, I’ll show you around.
