Vegan New York, part one: shoes!!!

Even though it's not a good thing to be jealous, I definitely envy the vegans in New York. I will write a separate post about the vegan food options in NYC, which are plenty!

I have to admit that stopping to wear leather or suede shoes wasn't the easiest thing in the world. I knew very well that that's the right thing to do, I wasn’t at all interested in the argument that it's just a by-product of the meat production, so as long as people eat meat, it would be unwise not to use the skin of the animals. Well, I'm not really interested in any by-products of mass murder.

My first non-leather shoes came probably from h&m or deichmann, they seemed to fulfill all the criteria: made of vegan materials, inexpensive, easy to find. Unfortunately I soon discovered that most of them were not comfortable and of really poor quality.. I still shop high-street brands for shoes, you can from time to time find great stuff, you just have to learn to avoid the cheap, terribly-smelling plastic crap ;) Then there's e-bay, where you can always find great deals, if you're willing to take a bit of risk which always comes with online shoe shopping. But none of these options come close to the discovery I made during my visit to New York last month: Moo Shoes!

Moo Shoes is a fantastic vegan shop in the Lower East Side. They have an amazing selection of beautiful (yes!) vegan sandals, heels, wedges, boots, sneakers, you name it. The price range is also quite friendly, the ones I looked at were between 50 and 200$. Yes, that's more than H&M, but the quality is beyond any comparison. I am a person who loves to walk and who walks a lot every day. At the same time I like nice shoes that are not exactly the same kind that everyone in the street is wearing at a given moment. Well, Moo Shoes has it all! In fact it has more than that - they also sell some clothing, vegan books and magazines, bags.. You can see yourself at their homepage:

http://www.mooshoes.com/

Still, they do even more. At the shop's homepage you can find a list of ideas how to get involved in animal rights issues. The projects include for example volunteering at the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary or (obviously;) going vegan. Here's the link:

http://www.mooshoes.com/getactive

The only regret you might have after visiting Moo Shoes (if you're from my side of the big water, of course;) is that you really wish we had a store like that in Europe. I don't even necessarily mean Brussels, but London would be nice. It's a bit easier to take a shopping trip from Brussels to London than to New York ;)

Last but not least, I have to mention the extremely friendly staff at the shop. That includes the humans and the resident cats, who definitely give you the impression that in fact it's them running the place. Every once in a while they wake up from their naps at the counter, just to make sure that the business is going as it should.

Cleo by Helen Brown - not only for cat people

After a few months of winter laziness, I've decided the blog deserves a bit of my attention ;)

I've just finished reading an amazing book, Cleo: How a Small Black Cat Helped Heal a Family by Helen Brown. It doesn't have anything to do with veganism or with animal rights as such, still it is probably the most beautiful book about the relationship between people and an animal that I've ever read. The story begins as a very tragic one - the author's older son, Sam, dies in a traffic accident, leaving the rest of the family shattered, struggling to live on. Hope arrives at their doorstep in the form of the little black cat that Sam had chosen a couple of months before his death. At first Helen wants to give the cat back, but when she sees that Cleo has managed something that nobody else has since Sam's death, to bring a smile on her other son's face, she knows the little animal has to stay. Cleo quickly becomes the most important member of the family, patiently tolerating the ever changing circumstances: divorces, marriages, births, relocations..

Helen Brown described herself as not really being a cat person at the beginning of the book. That didn't last long. Cleo quickly proves what all cat owners know - she is not 'just' a cat, she is a very intelligent, sensitive being, who fully participates in the life of the family, who 'knows' more than people suspect, who helps them get through tough times and who brings indescribable joy into their home. Even if, as most of our beloved furry friends, she can in no time bring the house into a state reminding of an aftermath of a natural disaster or drive the normally patient slaves (after all that's what we are to a cat, aren't we?) completely crazy ;) Amid the joys and sorrows of everyday life she teaches them to express their true feelings, to enjoy every single moment of happiness, not to be afraid to grieve, to be good and kind.

Every chapter begins with a few sentences of cat wisdom, let me just quote you my favourite ones: Stress - a waste of nap time.

A truly beautiful book about the special bond, love and mutual respect between humans and animals. Just a word of warning, if you're a bit 'soft' like me, you might need a lot of tissues..