Wednesday, 09.19.2012 - 8:40 pm.
Most of these 10 days that have gone by without me updating have been filled with get-togethers and humongous meals. The Chilean Independence Day was yesterday but it is such a huge deal that people anticipate it and celebrate the anticipation, and then take to recover. Also, this year, the entire week is a holiday, so it kind of seems like a non-stop party.
So since last week I've been meeting with friends or with Andrew's family and eating too much food, because that's how they roll. I've been having one meal per day for days now. I skip breakfast and supper because I'm too full from the day before or from the same day. And meat! I miss not eating meat so. I love animals, I know a lot of their properties as beings, and I know how slaughterhouses (and rodeos and circuses, etc) work so that, plus the sheer lack of habit of eating meat have me suffering stomach cramps after every meal.
On sunday, Andrew and I were invited to the country by our vet friend Karin and her longtime boyfriend. I figured her family was wealthy but not to the point of owning endless land around a lake. We stayed at the family cabin, so elegant and comfortable. We walked around part of the property (endless, I tell you!) watching cows, bulls and calfs. I got to pet a newborn calf and got chased by an angry cow trying to protect her baby. It broke my heart when I remembered an undercover investigation I'd seen on the cruelty of the milk industry (I am trying to switch to alternatives, I'll have you know).
Karin's boyfriend is into falconry so Andrew and I saw him practice with his bird of prey (it was not a falcon). I got to call the bird once and she came flying to my hand, which was covered with a glove, of course...I did feel a little sorry for the bird, though. But other than my interspecies empathy, it was an amazing weekend. I'd never been to the country and seen how a farm is managed. The animals weren't very friendly but why would they be? The only times they have contact with humans is to get hurt, one way or another. Like, castrate while the animal is fully conscious? Jesus, what the fresh hell is this.
I should have more of an interesting update, I guess, but my days lately can be summed up in socializing and eating. I haven't stayed home one day this week and while it's nice to go out, I wish I had more discipline because my writing is being neglected. Also, funny story, my weight had rocketed these past months and I thought it'd get worse with the celebrations but I've lost a little. It looks like getting too full on one meal and thus skipping the other two is doing the trick for now. But please, no more meat!
Tomorrow Andrew and I are travelling by train to a town where a childhood friend of his used to live. She lives in Santiago now but her parents own a motel in that town and there's an interesting story about that, but that's from Andrew's teen years. Anyway, she's there for the holidays and we'll go visit her.
Now it's time to call home and check on my mom.
Until I have something mildly interesting to say.
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