Just Lauren

The past couple of weeks have been almost non stop for me and so there’s been little time to write a post. I write these mainly for myself anyway, so I can go back in the future and see what I got up to over the years, so it’s not a huge deal I suppose. But I also enjoy writing and so not having the time to do it is a slight bummer. But today, this last Friday in May, I have a bit of time and so here I am. I’ve been up to a lot of different things:

I video chatted with my cousin who will be starting her senior year in college in a few months. She told me about her life and her plans to be in Colorado for half a semester in early 2022 so I look forward to that. Another day I had dinner with two of my coworkers and then I video chatted with my friend, Edward, later that evening. I went to my cousin’s house one Friday since she and her family live here now and we had dinner together and played a board game. That was an absolute blast and I am hoping we can do that more often than once a year now that we’re all vaccinated.

And then that following Saturday I spent four hours at a neighbor’s apartment (I met some new neighbors the other week, I don’t think I mentioned that!) where we ate snacks and played Steampunk Rally, a build your own race car as you roll, zoom, and fly down a track board game. I got to meet their lovely two cats and I drooled over their amazing collection of Lego mini figures. I have a feeling we’ll play board games again together sometime.

Then, immediately after that board game, Shari and I headed to a park to have our May comic book discussion. The next day, Shari and I went to the S. Pearl St Farmer’s Market where we waited in line for 30 minutes just to get into the market and then we waited probably another 15 to 20 minutes to get into Tokyo Premium Bakery because I said, “screw being vegan, I need a croissant right now” and I ate my croissant in less than a minute and have no regrets. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever been fully vegan, even when I was really trying I would accidentally eat something or I would not care about intaking vitamin D3 (which comes from a sheep). Being a militant vegan is not for me. I am now truly pondering if I give up on being vegan when it comes to desserts but continue to be vegan with everything else. Why does real butter and eggs make stuff so much better?! It’s a travesty and a moral dilemma for me but I’m sure I’ll make it through somehow.

So we wandered around the farmer’s market for a bit and I got myself some bread and canned dilly beans and then I came home and video chatted with my friend, Fiona, and after that I repotted my plants that I had repotted a few weeks ago (turns out plants generally don’t like their soil to be full compost, oops, lesson learned) and then I sewed more napkins for myself.

The following Monday (which means this past Monday, we’re almost caught up now!) I had dinner with my friend, Brittany, at Watercourse where I got their delicious new pesto gnocchi I had my eyes on when I went with Shari last month. Yeah it was tasty and I’d get that again if they continue to have it.

On Wednesday I had dinner with Shari and her friend, Jason (who is also becoming my friend), to thank him for watching Pippin when I went to the hot springs a couple weeks ago. We went to Bull and Bush, a favorite place of theirs and then we hopped over to Sweet Action Ice Cream because we just had to and I got their vegan mango cream ice cream. They are still the best ice cream place I have found for vegan ice cream. How do I know?

Because yesterday, Shari and I went to Stanley Marketplace to meet up with our friends Mel and Matt to listen to the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra at their Spring at Stanley program. This was the first time I had listened to live music in a while and so I loved it. We all sat outside on a lawn as the orchestra performed under a tent. It was fun to watch the musicians sitting on chairs in the grass too. They had a really great sound system so props to them for that. It was just so beautiful getting to watch the sun set and see the leaves on the trees and how they blew in the wind. The very first piece had me in tears because I felt so grateful and privileged to be able to listen to music live again. I closed my eyes and let the music seep into me. I pictured the musicians playing just for me and as they created sound, the sound waves skipped off their instruments and danced into my body in time with the music, filling me with sound and life. It was glorious. There was also a really amazing harp musician who played this fantastic salsa/tango piece.

So needless to say I enjoyed myself immensely and afterward, we all got ice cream at Sweet Cow. I got their vegan cookies and cream and was disappointed, it was mostly tasteless. So, that’s how I know that Sweet Action is superior. No offense to Sweet Cow, I appreciate that they had two or three options, but maybe figure out what Sweet Action does and copy them. We ate our ice cream and chatted a bit before heading back home where I crashed in bed and now here I am.

This weekend promises to be busy as well. But as I’ve told Shari, I’m the one that schedules myself all these activities and if I didn’t have activities I wouldn’t know what to do with myself (meditate, perhaps?). I feel like I spewed a bunch of words together just now and I feel like that’s fairly accurate on how my life has been going these past two weeks. It’s been a bunch of fun, non stop stuff, and so I’m taking this evening off to relax and decompress and get ready for some more fun!

I hope your lives are going as well as mine but perhaps just a tiny bit slower. I don’t know how I’m going to do everything I want to do this year but I will definitely try. And if it doesn’t work out this year – then there’s always next year, right? 😉