What I learned this week

I got my Project Management Professional certification about a month back, and one of the things I picked up by the teacher was in regards to "status" meetings or updates. Having update meetings to just tell everyone where your "at" seemed to be a complete waste of time. Everyone should know where you or your project is "at", and if you are telling your team where you are "at", than you aren't effectively communicating to your team. So instead of just presenting where you are at, perhaps it would be better to have everyone on your team discuss something that they learned in the last week or so. What lesson did you learn? Good or bad, right or wrong. What did you learn?

We are always experiencing and learning new things, so it would be doubtful that we could really walk through life and pick up absolutely nothing. So what did you learn? I ask my kids this all the time. What did you learn at school today? I never get an straight answer out of this, and it always takes prodding, but I am going to be adamant at dinner next time, and ask them to tell me one thing they learned in that day. No free passes, you have to answer the question. I expect dinner will be exciting. I had better give them a heads up, so they will remember to not forget what they did at school. My son can recite dialog from Minecraft or Roblox. Tell you the names of all the animators and directors at Studio Ghibli, but I'll be damned if he can remember what he did at school, as we are driving away from it.

So what have I learned since my last blog? Good question. My lesson for this week is "Pareve".

pa·re·ve    [pahr-uh-vuh, pahr-vuh]  Show IPA

adjective Judaism .

having no meat or milk in any form as an ingredient and beingpermissible for use with both meat and dairy meals as stated inthe dietary laws: a pareve bread; pareve soup.

I'm surprised I'd never heard of this term. My only experience with "Kosher" has been pickles. And I admittedly never really knew what that meant. Having spent a good deal of time on the east side of Cleveland, I've been exposed to a large Jewish population, but I didn't know anything about dietary laws. I remember going to a "diner" a few years back (pre vegan) and we went to get cheese burgers, which as I learned were not kosher. Actually, that's where I first realized you could not mix meat and dairy. A cheeseburger is really the ultimate insult to the life of a cow anyways, but then these dietary laws are not about animal rights anyway. Cheese and Burger apparently do not go together.

Also, my nephew has an extreme dairy allergy, and I learned that there were candy stores that would sell dairy free chocolate. This was stuff my mother-in-law had been buying for years. "Alex Safe", is what I heard. In the past year, I've been eating a lot more "Alex Safe" food. This week I heard my first news of the so called vegan M&M. So I found myself browsing through a candy store this week and this term "Pareve" was found on a vast majority of the candy in this place. I first thought it was a brand, but when I asked at the store, I was informed that this tells you that what you are eating is devoid of any milk or meat products, hence, it can be enjoyed with either. No milk or meat... that is damn near vegan. Well fortunately, I took a brief perusal of the ingredients to find that almost all of them were made without eggs as well. I started scooping my "Chocolate Lentils" out of the bin. (Albeit, damn expensive for M&M's)

Not a healthy discovery by any stretch, but a very important one. These are important battles in the daily vegan struggle. Finding new ways to enjoy this way of life, as opposed to just "dealing" with it. 

I only hope I learn as good a lesson next week.