dear kiki...

Self Portrait Tuesday...

It's the last week of the All of Me theme at Self Portrait Tuesday and on to a new theme starting next week for March.  Wheeew!  It was a tough month, I'm excited to tackle a new exciting theme!  This is me, all of me, in all my smudged makeup from the late night before, freckled, bumpy, pudgy, lazy eyed, dark circled, chapped lipped glory.  Yes people I sometimes do not wash my makeup off when I have been out late, say drinking!  I know, it's horrible but it's true.  And those dark circles around my eyes, they never go away.  Hereditary flaw that my mother, and sister share with me.  I really need to start washing my face the night before, no matter what...

SS Celebrations in the house!

Woooohoooo!  Simple Scrapbooks Scrapbooking Celebrations 2 is available for order on the website!  It should be in stores shortly, same ones as always, Barnes and Noble, Borders and Local Scrapbook Stores.  I have one layout in this special issue/book.  Guess who it is of???  That's right my SISTER!!!  Bet ya never saw that one coming!!  I really like this page it's about a conversation I had with my sister about job hunting and what she said both cracked me up and just made me love her even more!  I think I made almost everything myself in the layout too.  Also I have been waiting a while for this one to come out too, so it's exciting!  You can order it direct from the website at the above link or you can pick it up at the bookstore.  I will post the layout to the BLOG and scan the page from the mag but not until it has been out for at least a month or 2.  Now tonight when I get home from work I have to bust it out and finish 2 layouts before midnight for Digital Memories Magazine it's been a REALLY busy week at work, crazy and I just haven't had the time or the energy to get these done so I have to crank them out tonight.  Oh well I work well under pressure!  Tomorrow night is a little Birthday Gala for two of my favorite girls in the City so I really want to go but it's just such a pain b/c BART doesn't run late but I want to go dancing and see my pals so I will try my best to get everything done before tomorrow night!  Have a great weekend Ciao!

Self Portrait Tuesday...

Well, I'm not sure what I should say about my Self Portrait Tuesday this week.  The theme this month is All of me, which is very inspiring and challenging at the same time.  I am really trying to think outside the box and push myself creatively.  With this pose I feel like I am revealing myself, showing the underneath of my arms, offering my soul for viewing.  I think it is really vulnerable and says a lot.  Then my idea was to self tattoo all of me on my arms.  Let me just say writing on your right arm with your left hand when your right handed is really freaking hard!!!  I'm really happy with the image, it would be cooler if I was a better artist but I guess then it wouldn't be real.

Simple Scrapbooks March/April Issue...

YAY!!!  On Newsstand's everywhere now the Simple Scrapbooks March/April issue with a layout in the Our Readers section by Moi!!!  I just picked up the issue at Barnes and Noble and I know they have it at Borders as well.  So pick up an issue and look for my layout!  It's called The Sad Pout and features a big picture of my little sister.  I am sooooo excited about this coming out, I feel like I have been waiting forever, I was first contacted about the photo it seems like a million years ago and now it's finally out!!  Plus I LOVE this layout, I love the subject and the photo.  Just one of those really great candid photos!  So yes please check it out, let me know what you think!  It's really cool going to the book store and picking up a magazine with something you made in it.  Really exciting!  I will re-post the layout and the scan of the page but not until late April after the new issue of the mag is out.  I had a really fun and productive weekend.  I am in one of those zones where I have too many ideas and inspirations just pouring out of me and not enough time to execute them all.  I have spent a lot of time on my Self Portrait Tuesday assignments last week and this weekend.  I had two interesting ideas that took some time to execute, I am loving the challenge of the All of me theme!  I am loving participating in this challenge, I am finding it so inspiring, and it is really getting my creative juices flowing, big time!  There is just a lot to dig into there, which is so fun!  Worked on some Magazine assignments, still behind on those, need to finish those up in the next couple days so it's time to bust my arse!  I bought a journal with water color paper or really sketch book this weekend because I want to start an art journal to fill with all my thoughts and ideas, inspirations and that is really my first leap back into tactile paper art as opposed to digital.  I also just received confirmation that two of my layouts will appear in the June/July issue of Legacy Magazine, first time in Legacy and I have been waiting about 2 months to hear for sure about that one.  Very excited about appearing in that magazine, it is amazing and inspirational!  Plus not one but two layouts!!  Anyway also had a fun night of dancing at the Golden Bull in Oakland on Saturday Night, they played some AWESOME music!!!  Super fun!!  Now I am one of the few working today, but that's OK, it's a quite not super stressful day!  Clearly as I am typing my blog entry!  Ciao Bellas, have a great Holiday!

HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY BOOPIE!!!

My baby sister turns 20 today!!  Posting this layout and picture of her in honor of her Birthday!!  I love you Boop and I miss you!!!  Have an AWESOME birthday!!!!  Oh and thanks to everyone who left sweet encouraging comments in response to flamer comment!  I feel loved ;)  I can't believe my sister is already 20, she isn't a teen anymore!!!  Oh and for anyone wondering where the name of this blog came from it's my nickname that my little sister has called me since she was 3.  So Kiki is me.  Little blog trivia for you!  Happy Valentine's Day!

Self Portrait Tuesday...

This month is so challenging.  I have lots of ideas, just taking pictures and picking my favorites.  This picture reflects the real me, blurry and venerable.  That's the part of me I hide, that I pretend isn't there.  It doesn't have to do with how I look on the outside but guarding my insides, protecting myself from hurt.  I have a lot of walls, defenses, ways of keeping bad people out.  Sometimes, I'm wrong, sometimes I just can't admit I care.  If they see that part of me, then they will have power over me.  The fact that I can become affected by other people, by their actions, hurt is was scares me most of all.  Even so, I am aware of it, I try to make progress, I do the best I can and I love who I am today.  Mistakes, mes-sups, misstep's, imperfections, emotional scars and all.

WOW! My first flaming comment!!!

Now I feel like a real blogger, I have received my first flaming comment people!!  I'm actually not sure if this person "John" if that's their real name is serious or making a poor attempt at sarcasm.  I mean if you read it you think, this person can not be serious but it seems serious???  I don't know??  Well here is the post in all its flaming glory for your opinions...

"Give me a break. Your going vegan has nothing to do with the "plight" of chickens. It has everything to do with your vanity, and weight loss. A little honesty would be as healthy for you as going vegan. I did vegan for six years and it was good, but it was never about the animals, really."

It seems like a joke right??  First let me say I am astounded that any of my post's would evoke such a passionate reaction!  It's such an insane accusation.  News to me, did any of you know that people go vegan for vanity and weight loss?  I mean really if that's true John is indeed far more vain than I because if it were that easy to just stop eating certain food for weight loss, um I wouldn't have to loose weight in the first place.  I would have the self control and discipline to eat low fat and healthy.  Plus eating vegan can be lower in fat but many vegan foods are not low fat and if that were my intention why not start eating pounds of bacon and steak and go Atkins a far more effective weight loss program??  I would love to discuss this matter further with you John but alas you left me no contact information.  I have several vegan friends and none of them went vegan to loose weight.  I've honestly NEVER heard of that, new fad weight loss diet in bookstores everywhere Go Vegan!  Going vegan has been easier than I thought it would be but, that is because I have a good reason not to eat things I like.  It is far easier for me not to eat Milk Duds because I don't want to support the industrial farming industry or be a part of animal suffering than because I want to loose a few pounds!!  But hey that's just me.  What do you think blog readers out there?  Do you think people go Vegan just to loose weight??  Seems like a dramatic lifestyle change to me.  Also the hostility of the post leads me to believe John has some deeper issues here and possibly some self ex-vegan hatred.  Or is it all a joke?  Things that make you hmmmmm...

Self Portrait Tuesday...

The Self Portrait Tuesday theme for February is All of Me, embracing every part of yourself, especially the things we don't like.  Raw, the real you, no masks.  That is a vulnerable state to be in.  What a challenging month it will be!  I took this picture of myself last June I think right after a REALLY REALLY bad day at work!  It is not particularly flattering, there is a little double chin action happening but it's real.  I wanted to document how emotionally drained I was that day.  I was feeling low, really low, I just wanted to curl up in the fetal position and stay there, forever.  I think I called in sick the next day.  It had gotten to point where I didn't want to go to work anymore because of the abuse I was getting from a co-worker who was taking out her problems on me.  I wanted to quit really bad, but I stuck it out a while longer.  I was also going to school to finish my degree while working full time so I was extremely stressed out.  It took all my strength and the need for a paycheck to keep going but really I would have rather been working at Starbucks or something where I didn't have to be subjected to other peoples neurosis, negativity, nastiness and office politics.  It is times like this that I think I can not survive in the corporate world and I wasn't even in the corporate world I was working for a California University!  I loose hope that I fit in at all, I feel like a total outsider, misunderstood, confused and lost.  I look at this picture and I am happy that I survived and that I am where I am now.  I think I have found a job at a company where I fit in, but even if it doesn't work out perfectly I know I can get through whatever life throws at me.  Unfortunately I am a little less naive about people and their motives but also I am a little bit stronger.

Fun Pictures...

Since my last post was sad, depressing and sobering, I am posting some fun pics from my girls trip to Tahoe in January.  There are so many awesome pictures from this trip, some too scandalous to post on this blog ;)  But I'm posting some G rated pics.  I'm craving another girls trip, to Vegas!  I also have a ton of great pics from New Years, those are WAY out of control.  One of the girls had a disposable camera and sent us the pics from that, and they are even worse!  Let's just say it was the BEST party EVER and we all had a REALLY, REALLY good time!!!  I was laughing so hard I was in tears!! 

Well I start my new job tomorrow, wish me luck.  I doubt I will do anything too terribly interesting, just paperwork and getting settled.  So not prepared to get back into the 9-5 work week but I will adjust, I'm just a night owl and I get my creative juices flowing late in the day.  I'm excited though, but the first day at a new job is kind of like the first day at a new school in Jr high or High School.  Hope people are nice to you, don't know anyone, will probably end up eating lunch by yourself in cubicle ya know the usual.  Plus the girl who will be training me is on vacation till Friday so I may be on my own a bit at first. 

I enjoyed my last weekend as a free woman by going to The Kona Club with friends and having cocktails.  Love that place!  Also saw the drummer from Green Day there.  They hang out in the bay, well they live up here.  Lots of my friends have had encounters but this was my first.  I had no clue until my friend pointed it out because I am so not a Green Day fan.  Interesting.  In fact I actually bought their last album begrudgingly, it had some good stuff on it.  It's kind of difficult hearing Green Day go all political when I'm used to them being all pop like but nothing to write home about.  Then Saturday went to my Favorite Veggie well actually Vegan Japanese Restaurant Chi-Ya on Shattuck Avenue.  MMMMM...sake...veggie sushi and udon...  I Freaking love that place!!!  I could eat there every day!!!  I want to try everything on the menu!!!  So all in all lots of fun.  Next weekend is busy, it's WonderCon in San Francisco, going to check it out on Saturday and then Lucas is playing his last show with his soon to be ex-band Truxton.  So gotta go see that Sat night and may hook up with some Comic Industry friends that are in town for the show Thurs/Fri for cocktails and stuff.  Well enjoy the silly pics, I think one of them we were doing our "Fierce" look well some of us were and others were cracking up courtesy of Tyra Banks.  Ciao Bellas!

Why I am going Vegan...

So I just want to post some information and you will find added links on the left of some informative websites on industrial farming and animal cruelty.  I think these are issues everyone should be aware of and become involved in whether that includes cutting down on your meat eating, becoming vegetarian or vegan or lobbying for change.

What about free-range products?

Meat, eggs, and dairy may be labeled “free-range” if the animals had USDA-certified access to the outdoors. However, no other criteria—such as environmental quality, size of the outside area, number of animals, or
space per individual—are included in this term.
Free-range laying hens, for example, often have only one to two square feet of floor space per bird and must compete with many others for access to a small exit
from the shed. While these chickens can live an average of seven to eight years, they are taken to slaughter after a year or two. Also, both free-range and commercial laying hens generally come from the same hatcheries, where the baby hens’ beaks are painfully trimmed and the unwanted male chicks are commonly gassed, ground up alive, or thrown into trash bags to suffocate or starve.  Although some of these farms may be an improvement over standard factory-farm conditions, free-range does not mean cruelty-free.  Unless you investigate a farm to see the conditions yourself, do not put much trust in the term “free-range.” For more information, see COK.net/lit/freerange.php  VeganOutreach.org

My Quest for a Humane Egg

 

by David Sudarsky

      

Over the past few years, the mainstream consumer has become aware of the horrific modern production of eggs, under which hens are stuffed into battery cages, where they spend their entire miserable lives on a wired surface averaging approximately 7x7 inches         per bird. As with the exposed veal industry decades ago, the brutal truth of egg production has prompted a good number of consumers to look for more humane alternatives. Even if 97% of eggs are still produced under atrocious conditions, at least consumers now have the option of purchasing         "Cage-Free" eggs, "Free Range" eggs, "Animal Care Certified" eggs, and eggs from "Free-Roaming" hens or "Happy Hens." But what do these terms really mean? Are these terms regulated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), or by anyone else?

      

Clearly, there are now plenty of labels relating to the welfare of egg-laying hens. This means that the    egg industry acknowledges that the consumer cares about the welfare of "food" animals, and the industry is doing something about it. Are they providing a humane alternative to the standard egg? That is the question, and here are some answers.

      

"Free Range" and "Free Roaming" are terms that bring to mind idyllic barnyard scenes. These labels, which are regulated by the USDA, may be used by a producer if their hens are allowed some access to the outdoors. This does not guarantee constant access, nor is there any specification of the size of the outdoor area (which is, of course, a penned area, not a range). Because production efficiency is paramount in the highly-competitive egg industry, a high density of hens per area is the norm.

      

Some producers, particularly those in colder regions of the country, have found little use for the terms   "Free Range" and "Free Roaming." Why would they want their hens to have access to a harsh or snow-covered landscape? Instead, the term, "Cage-Free," is their buzzword of choice. The problem is that this term is completely unregulated. Still, it is reasonable to take this term at face value and     assume that the hens do not live their lives in cages. It is not reasonable to assume that there is ample space, that birds are not debeaked (as in factory farms), or that their physical and psychological welfare is of any concern to the producer. Hens will lay eggs even if they are under great stress. Egg-laying is simply a biological function.

      

I thought it might be a good idea to contact a few companies that I know to be somewhat more animal-friendly and/or socially conscious than the average. Trader Joe's, a national specialty         grocer, offers a large range of vegan and soy products. They also offer "Cage Free" eggs. None of the employees at my local store could offer any information concerning the welfare of the hens. However, I did get a response from corporate headquarters: "The hens live in barns with some access to the outdoors. They are debeaked because that is necessary to keep them from injuring each other." If, in fact, Trader Joe's deems debeaking as necessary, then this immediately reveals the high density of birds.  Under a true free range setting, hens can establish a "pecking order" and none is in danger so long as she can move easily to a different area.  Under a high-stress, high-density environment, a natural pecking order cannot be established and the sharp beaks of hens can result in injury (and death) to large numbers of birds.

      

Allow me to digress for a moment to detail debeaking: It is a process by which much of a young chick's beak is burned or cut off without anesthetic. Because a bird's beak has many nerves, it is a very painful procedure. This fact is well established.  Some chicks die of shock, while others may be left with deformed beaks that prevent them from feeding, thereby leading to starvation. But most chicks do make it past the debeaking process OK -- that is, if they are female. Male chicks do not lay eggs and are not good "meat" birds, so they are discarded at the hatchery well before the debeaking process.      Yes, a full 50% of chicks are simply killed without anesthetic or stunning because they are of no use to the industry and the time involved for a less painful death would be too costly to the industry. Many of their sisters are headed off to factory egg farms, while others are purchased by "Cage Free" or "Free Roaming" operations.

      

Speaking of "Free Roaming" operations, a few days after realizing that Trader Joe's does not offer humanely produced eggs, I was at our local natural foods co-op, where I found an expensive         half-dozen free range egg package from Shelton's. This was no ordinary package. It contained a photo-realistic image of a few hens outside a barn, and they had full beaks! I contacted Shelton's by email, because I wanted to know if their hens really were not debeaked. I received a quick, disappointing reply. It turned out that their hens are debeaked.  I shot off another email asking Shelton's why their package showed hens with full beaks. I also asked if they thought that was, perhaps, false or deceptive advertising on their part. I never did receive a reply to that email.

      

Perhaps I would fare better with "Animal Care Certified" eggs? No, this turned out to be a complete joke.  At least "Cage-Free" and "Free-Range" hens are not in tiny cages. "Animal Care Certified" is a seal developed by an egg industry trade group known as United Egg Producers. Standard battery cages are still used, but each bird will be guaranteed 35% more space than the previous average. This is a minor improvement, but adding 17-18 square inches of space is still not nearly enough for the birds to spread their wings. I intentionally stated, "will be guaranteed 35% more space," because the seal can be displayed now by any producer that agrees to phase in the extra space in the coming years, so that their business is not disrupted. In other words, the seal is a promise of sorts to provide a little more space for hens in the future.  This industry seal also carries with it other advances, such as maintaining a sufficient supply of food and water for the birds. Apparently, that is just too much to ask of some producers that cannot meet the meager United Egg Producers' standards. If keeping hens in battery cages too small for them to spread their wings (for their entire lives) is "animal care" in your estimation, then perhaps you should purchase "Animal Care Certified" eggs. However, the Better Business Bureau has asked United Egg Producers to stop using the seal because it implies that animals are actually treated reasonably well, which is very far from the truth.

      

The egg industry, like the meat industry, is morally bankrupt. They consistently offer consumers deception and half-truths concerning animal care standards. In general, consumers do want to continue to purchase eggs, but without a guilty conscience.   Terms such as "Happy Hens" (another ridiculous and completely unregulated label) imply that animals are raised with proper care and that they live         their lives naturally and happily before being slaughtered. This is complete and utter nonsense. Perhaps the only "Happy Hens" are those that have been rescued to live out their lives at Farm Sanctuary and other animal shelters, but their eggs aren't for sale.

To visit a modern CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operation) is to enter a world that, for all its technological sophistication, is still designed according to Cartesian principles: animals are machines incapable of feeling pain. Since no thinking person can possibly believe this any more, industrial animal agriculture depends on a suspension of disbelief on the part of the people who operate it and a willingness to avert your eyes on the part of everyone else.

From everything I’ve read, egg and hog operations are the worst. Beef cattle in America at least still live outdoors, albeit standing ankle deep in their own waste eating a diet that makes them sick.

And broiler chickens…at least don’t spend their eight-week lives in cages too small to ever stretch a wing.

            

That fate is reserved for the American laying hen, who passes her brief span piled together with a half-dozen other hens in a wire         cage whose floor a single page of this [New York Times] magazine could carpet.  Every natural instinct of this animal is thwarted, leading to a range of behavioral “vices” that can include cannibalizing her cagemates and rubbing her body against               the wire mesh until it is featherless and bleeding.… [T]he 10 percent or so of hens that can’t bear it and simply die is built into the cost    of production. And when the output of the others begins to ebb, the hens will be “force-molted”—starved of food and water and light for several days in order to stimulate a final bout of egg laying before their life’s work is done.…

               

Many                     breeding sows spend their whole                     adult lives in gestation and farrowing                     stalls where they cannot turn around.                     Click for larger image.

Piglets in confinement operations are weaned from their mothers 10 days after birth (compared with 13 weeks in nature) because they gain weight faster on their hormone- and antibiotic-fortified feed. This premature weaning leaves the pigs with a lifelong craving to suck and chew, a desire they gratify in confinement by biting the tail of the animal in front of them. A normal pig would fight off his molester, but a demoralized pig has stopped caring.

“Learned helplessness” is the psychological term, and it’s not uncommon in confinement operations, where tens of thousands of hogs spend their entire lives ignorant of sunshine or earth or straw, crowded together beneath a metal roof upon metal slats suspended over a manure pit. So it’s not surprising that an animal as sensitive and intelligent as a pig would get depressed, and a depressed pig will allow his tail to be chewed on to the point of infection.

Sick pigs, being underperforming “production units,” are clubbed to death on the spot. The USDA’s recommended solution to the problem is called “tail docking.” Using a pair of pliers (and no anesthetic), most but not all of the tail is snipped off. Why the little stump? Because the whole point of the exercise is not to remove the object of tail-biting so much as to render it more sensitive. Now, a bite on the tail is so painful that even the most demoralized pig will mount a struggle to avoid it.…

More than any other institution, the American industrial animal farm offers a nightmarish glimpse of what capitalism can look like in the absence of moral or regulatory constraint. Here in these places life itself is redefined—as protein production—and with it suffering. That venerable word becomes “stress,” an economic problem in search of a cost-effective solution, like tail-docking or beak-clipping or, in the industry’s latest plan, by simply engineering the “stress gene” out of pigs and chickens. Our own worst nightmare such a place may well be; it is also real life for the billions of animals unlucky enough to have been born beneath these grim steel roofs, into the brief, pitiless life of a “production unit” in the days before the suffering gene was found.

Michael Pollan,“An Animal’s Place” New York Times Magazine, 11/10/02