Meatballs at Midnight

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Last night just before midnight, I had just laid down for bed when the familiar "ring, ring" alarm sounded on my cell phone.  I had a text message from my BFF.

Katie:  "I want a meatball.  I'm pretty sure I have issues with food.  Pitiful."

Me:  "You're a mess, and I am totally going to blog about you tomorrow.  :-)"

Katie:  "I mean, this is ridic.  It's midnight, and I'm thinking about meatballs!"

Me:  "Perhaps this veganism isn't your thing..."

Katie:  "I'm committed to 30 days.  I keep telling myself it's for my health.  It'll get better.  Right?!?!?!?!?"

Me:  "Oh totally!  :-)"

Katie:  "I sense sarcasm."

Me:  "From ME???  Never!!!"

Katie:  "I hear vegans are really in touch with their bodies and surroundings.  I think my special vegan power must have picked up your sarcasm."

Me:  "That must be it...  Who wants a meatball when you can have superhuman abilities???"

Katie:  "Exactly!  Well, off to dream about dancing steaks and hamburgers.  Nighty night!"

You see, Katie is beginning Day Three of a 30-day Vegan challenge.  She doesn't do anything half-way when it comes to diet and exercise.  She's always trying to convince me to do some crazy "health" plan.  And by "crazy," I mean things that involved sweating and/or diets consisting of weird four letter foods that no normal person would consume like kale and tofu.  I like foods that end with "a" like "enchilada" and "lasagna" thank you very much!  There was the time that Katie tried to get me to train for a 5K "Fun Run."  When that didn't work, she tried to convince me to sign up for an Elite Boot Camp.  F'real!  Do I strike you as the type of person who would willingly wake up at 5:00am to go sweat???  She's even managed to sucker me into joining Fat Class at work (aka. Weight Watchers) before!

When Katie presented her "let's go vegan" proposal, she attempted to win me over with a picture of a super yummy looking smoothie.  It really did look good, and I made the mistake of mentioning that.  Katie replied with "It is good!  So you just need to take the plunge and go vegan with me!!!"  I proposed a counter offer of "modified vegan..."  You know...  Where I get to still eat meat, cheese, and other dairy products...  Katie wasn't impressed.  At least she can't say I'm not supportive!  I offered!  :-)

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I have gone vegetarian before for about a year, and am giving that some serious thought as a good compromise on the vegan thing.  I was almost convinced that it was a good idea this morning until Katie made the mistake of sending me a photo of this morning's smoothie.  It was green and runny, and her "you need to go vegan" spiel was "You really can't taste it.  Just didn't get the texture right so it sticks to me teeth."  In the past 48 hours I have heard, "It's hard not to be jealous, but I'm eating apple slices for breakfast!"  "I think my stomach is shrinking." and "I considered eating my own finger a few minutes ago just to get some meat in my mouth."  Um, yeah...  I think she needs to work on her marketing skills a bit.

So here I sit, trying to decide just how far I am willing to go as the supportive BFF.  I'm thinking "vegetarian" with one "free day" a week so I can still get my Tex-Mex fix.  I wonder if Katie will find that acceptable...  I just can't bring myself to do vegan.  If I'm going to eat spinach lasagna, it had better darn well be packed full of cheese!  Wish me luck!  I think I'll have to start tomorrow (seeing as how I've already had a meaty breakfast burrito this morning. ;-)  Stay tuned as I give a play by play of my attempt at vegetarianism in the days to come!  :-)