Too late, too bad

Recently I decided at last that I was going to visit the Museum of Museums.  I had come across it accidently some time last year and kept thinking that one of these days I would explore it.  It describes itself thusly: Housed in a renovated mid-century medical building, MoM hosts two formal exhibition spaces, three additional on-site museums, rotating installations, murals and sculpture, a theater, weekly art classes, pop-ups, and conceptual gift shop.

Sadly, the MoM has closed.  "One of these days" had gone on too long, and I was too late.  Very disappointing.

I satisfied my quest for Something New by having lunch at a vegan restaurant I had passed many times.  The Impossible (or was it Beyond?) Burger was quite good, and I'm glad I finally tried this place, although I don't know that I'll go again.

When I lived in Los Angeles, I didn't know any vegans, and I can only remember one vegetarian.  She was one of the agents in the large real estate company for which I was office manager, my last job in L.A.  Vegetarians were rare enough then that the other agents would gather around Kim when she ate lunch and ask things like "Do you actually like vegetables?  Do you get enough to eat?  Don't you get tired of broccoli?  Why are you a vegetarian?"

Now that I live in Seattle, I know a large number of vegetarians and a few vegans.  I also know a lot of people who have long lists of things they won't or can't eat.  (My list has one item on it: cilantro.  If it ain't cilantro and can call itself food, I'll put it in my mouth.)  So different from my L.A. experience.  I don't know if that's a regional difference or a difference in the era. 

I admire vegetarians and vegans.  I have both kinds of cookbooks and using recipes from them.  I was a vegetarian once for several  years, and during that time began using all sorts of food I hadn't before, such as tofu, tempe, eggplant, dried beans.  I did enjoy the feeling of virtue that went with not eating animals.  But my true inclination is toward omnivorism. 

It's a a property of humans that we can be completely aware that one thing is better than another, and still do what we like instead of that which we know we should.  I know that vegetarianism is so much better for the planet, not to mention better for the animals, than carnivorism.  But I like bacon and burgers and roasted chicken and ham sandwiches, so I eat them, with only a tiny occasional twinge of self-condemnation now and then.  It explains a lot about to me about the state of the world when I remember this.