My husband finally found some leather-free basketball shoes that he loves: here’s the full saga!

Basketball Shoe Diaries
By Christopher Jarecki

I love basketball and play at least once a week. Shoes are very important, because rolling an ankle is one of the worst things ever. So, I need good basketball shoes. Now, besides the temperature of our house (my hippie wife doesn’t believe in air conditioning or heating), this is a topic we argue about once a year, when I go to get shoes.
My argument is that they have not come up with the technology to make good basketball shoes that properly support your feet without using leather. My wife’s argument is that I am a pussy and don’t care about the planet or the suffering of animals.
In general, I’m conscientious – I don’t buy new leather, wool or cashmere. For example, I wanted some cashmere sweaters once, and told my wife I couldn’t find any good used ones; I was hinting that I might have to buy new ones. Well, she dragged my ass to the flea market on a football Sunday and spent two hours looking for the used cashmere sweater dude. But, by god, we found him, and I have the greatest cashmere sweaters ever. All used.
Anyway, I dug my heels in year after year about the leather basketball shoes, and took my verbal whippings like a man. But guess what, they’ve finally made some amazing shoes with no leather. They’re awesome and super light. I never realized how heavy those leather shoes were. These leather-free shoes are made from some crazy new material that is for astronauts or something (I don’t know this for sure, but that is what everything new and cool seems to be taken from).
They’re made by Adidas and they’re called the Adizero Ghost Shoes, and they’re endorsed by Derrick Rose from the Bulls (that dude is so good).
*The ghost shoe is no longer available but the rose shoe is the same deal. You can find it here.

My Hippie Rebuttal…aka: How Cute Is My Husband?

This is Alicia! Thank god for these shoes! The leather ones really bummed me out.
Okay, the heater and air conditioner – while I’m not a fan of either, I’m not 1000% against a little climate control. I just like to be as close to natural as possible, for health and energy conservation. When it’s cold out, I ask that we all wear sweaters and layers instead of cranking up the heat. Right now it’s cold, so the game I like to play is, “how low can I have the heater and still be comfortable?” I add more blankets and layers to use as little heat as possible. That’s my game. And then I do the opposite for the summertime. Whereas my husband, what he’d prefer to do is sit around when it’s cold in a t-shirt and crank the heat up. When he wants to tease me, he’ll send me a text when I’m not home saying something like, “Bear and I are at home in our underwear with the heat cranked up” or in the summertime he will say, “Baby I love you. I’m at home with the air conditioning blasting, wearing a sweater.” Just to mess with me! So that’s one of the fun crazy games we play in our house and it is probably the one things we’ve fought about over the years in a friendly, cute way.
In my cute husband’s defense, there have been times when he’s said “Baby, it’s cold!” and I’d tell him to put more layers on. He’d come over and show me his 5 or 6 layers–a pair of long johns, a pair of sweat pants, 4 shirts and a sweater. Or two sweaters on top of each other! It makes no sense to me that he’s cold but I’m not. I guess I have a lot more squish on me than he does. Ha! But anyway, he tries!
I feel good about keeping the thermostat around 62 degrees, maybe 63 or 64 if I want to be spoiled. And for hot days, I ask that we strip down to cute undies or whatever is comfy before cranking the AC. That said, I can understand setting the thermostat to around 76-79 degrees. When my husband is not around, I go to 80.
Anywho, thank you to my husband Christopher for guest blogging! Have you made any awesome veg-friendly discoveries lately? Share them in the comments below!