My family has been members of an animal rights group here in Sweden (a national group with local divisions.) for ages. In any case, my sister and I hadn’t made an appearance on the meetings for more than ten years (when we went to a very nice vegan Christmas meal) so we thought that this year, for the annual meeting, we’d actually go. One reason we haven’t been there is that they’ve been rather bad at announcing those member meetings, expecting people to check the web page for all info.

Anyway, when we first found out about the meeting (from the web site) they hadn’t decided on a place for it, but eventually, they settled on a new vegetarian restaurant, cafe and shop in a big fancy building in the center of the town next to here. I’d never been there so I’d always been a bit curious about what it looked like from inside. Tonight I found out. It was just as a impressive as on the outside. They were just a little short on light, for some reason. I was curious about the shop, but the meeting dragged on so long that I’d lost my wish to check it out if it was even still open by that time.

The main reason I wanted to join the meeting was that I want to do a bit more for the animals. It’s good that I had no other reason, such as meeting nice new like-minded people, because though the board members were pretty much ok, there were a number of older members who just seemed to be there to complain and make trouble. Maybe I’m being unfair, but I got so tired of their whining after a while. When the meeting was declared finished, my sister and I just left. Some of the more reasonable people might have understood our feelings and others might have realized that it was getting late and we needed to go (no car). In any case, everyone else stayed behind. I’m not sure what they were up to.

There was some talk about nut allergies (there was coffee/tea and something like a muffin or sandwich served for those who wanted) and I’m just saying that if my sensitivity or allergy to garlic had been as serious as nut allergies, I might have died there because one of the worst old people there stank of garlic. It was a bit hard to breathe, even though he was across the table from me.

After the meeting I got to thinking about the way people see us animal rights activists and vegans. Do they see me and my sister as similar to these very weird, tiresome old people, or do we just look like ordinary people from a distance? I’m not sure I want to know. Even if they do see us as the same as these people, I wouldn’t change a thing. Fighting for the animals is my life. The thing is, my sister and I have once been told by a girl with half a pound of scrap metal in her face, that we ‘don’t look like real vegans’, so maybe we do look more like people in general, than the typical animal rights activists, though these whiny old people aren’t even vegans. They were going on about ‘humane farms’ as if there was such a thing.

I’m not sure what I want to say really, maybe just vent. If you’ve read this post all the way through to the end, thank you for that.

We’ll probably go to a few more meetings and see what we can do. My sister got roped in and put on the board so now she’ll definitely have to go sometimes.

Also posted on my personal homepage.