Veg-tastic weekend

I've been fighting some sort of illness for the past three days that has caused me to lose my voice and generally feel headache-y and tired, though hasn't hit my sinuses the way a head cold would. My dad said it's laryngitis, but I always thought that laryngitis was more serious, since this hasn't stopped me from having an excellent weekend.

This weekend is the biggest weekend of the year in the Seattle vegetarian community: Vegfest, an all-vegetarian trade show put on by Vegetarians of Washington. I signed up to volunteer a while ago (volunteers get free admission), and was assigned to hand out food from 4-8 PM. David asked a few days ago if there was still room for him to do the same, which there was, and so he handed out samples with me. We arrived about an hour early to tour the event and taste the samples. There were all sorts of tofu, drinks, desserts, snacks, entrees, and more, plus literature, cookbooks, etc. The food ranged from fake meat to crazy soy concoctions to weird raw stuff, all quite delicious (in my opinion- David didn't eat anything). We watched a video before our shift started to acquaint us as to what was required of us, then checked in and received our booth assignments. I handed out tortilla and pita chips, while David poured Almond Dream. Fortunately, the event closed at 6 so we were only doing this for a couple of hours instead of the 4 we had anticipated. From there, we began clean-up, and were out of the hall by 7:15. I renewed my membership and took home a bunch of stuff for doing so, including: a can of soda, a loaf of bread, some nutrition bars, and coupons to vegetarian restaurants. I've seen some weird things put in goodie bags, having worked now at two consumer golf shows and one upcoming wine show, but never a whole loaf of bread.

David went over to Chris' after we returned, but I stayed on the couch since I still wasn't feeling well. I read a manuscript ("novel") that a friend of mine from college wrote. It's all about the feelings of uncertaintly and depression that everyone experiences after graduating college, and is interesting only to people who have recently graduated college and are feeling depressed and uncertain. He's a good, creative writer and I think he will eventually have great success, but this is not it. The topic has been covered before, better, with an excellent Simon and Garfunkle soundtrack and Anne Bancroft's killer gams.

This morning, I woke up bright and early: 7 am. It's not too early, but because of my illness I didn't fall asleep until about 2, so I would have liked more sleep. I got a bagel and some coffee and hopped on the 49 (which turned into the 7) to the Red Cross for a pet first aid class. If I am going to be a pet sitter, seriously or just recreationally, being certified in feline first aid is critical for marketing, and a good skill set to have in case anything happens to The Cobra. We learned how to do CPR, mouth-to-mouth (mouth-to-nose), the kitty heimlich, first aid, and how to find normal indicators of health like heart rate, breathing rate, and temperature; we practiced on stuffed animals with breathing tubes instead of plastic dummies. The class was 4 hours but went by really quickly, which gives me hope for grad school: the classes will also be 4 hours, though they will be at night instead of in the morning. I've been worrying that my short attention span will be no match to marathon lectures, but as long as I am engaged in the material, I have a bit more confidence I will be able to survive.