Saturday, June 23, 2007

Planet Unicorn Heyyy

I was going to write a ranting post about how Mattel's plan to market masc-fucking-ara to little girls (because they aren't, apparently, sexy enough!?) pissed me off, but instead, I decided to post this video:

Friday, June 22, 2007

Wine Club!

Our friends the Holubs (of Movie Night with the Holubs) invited us about six months ago to take part in a wine/dinner club through Bonny Doon Winery. We eagerly accepted, just happy to do anything with the Holubs. They know a lot about wine and food and we are learning things like wine comes in "white."

There are four wine shipments in the year and each one comes with a detailed menu, info about the wines and suggestions on parings, tasting, etc.

The first shipment went to Ellen to work her magic. She prepared a "goddesses" menu with Hawaiian salad (avocado, guava, grapefruit vinaigrette) and Moroccan tagine (she actually has a tagine!) with lamb and squash and for dessert an Egyptian pomegranate baklava. There were wines with each course, and of course, I don't remember them, but they were GOOD!

Long story, short, tomorrow is my night to prepare the shipment's meal and serve the wines along side. I am attempting things which I haven't even EVER cooked before here, people. It's more than a little intimidating. I even had the produce guy at Whole Foods stumped.

The theme is perfect for us, but I won't say what or where in case the Holubs read this today. I'll let you know how it goes!

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Less scary than the "Backpack Bandit"

The smiling idiots on King 5 this morning described a female bank robber who wears a pony tail as "Fashion conscious, armed and dangerous."

Friday, June 15, 2007

OMG! o.b.s r kewl!

I bought some o.b. tampons yesterday. When I got them home, I noticed something weird on the box:
There she (?) was, a little cartoon dog on the side of the box with flowers and in crayon-y writing it says, "visit hiobie.com" So I did.

This is what greeted me:


Holy shit. It appears that my tampon of choice has been officially co-opted by tweens. On the home page we can mouse over the various "rooms" and with each one, a little animated Obie (the dog) peeks out to join in the menstrual fun. We can go to school, the movies and my favorite place when I am on the rag: the mall!

What bothers me first: All the writing is dumbed down online-speak.
...and I was like, ttly, like, OMG! Did U, like, take the period test? U can learn that like, it's ttly norm if U get ur boobs before ur "little visitor"...if U have yours and U tell me, I swear I won't tell any1. Having ur period is so ttly embarrassing. OMG!

What bothers me next: obviously girls are starting their periods younger and younger. Several factors contribute this: better nutrition (as compared, say, to the 1800s) all the way around the circle back to poor nutrition and an excess of fat; and something that freaks me out completely -- an "excess of estrogen in the environment". The average age is like 11 or 12 now and falling toward 9 or 10 by 2015 according to several articles posted at the Museum of Menstruation (who knew there even was one?!)

I totally get that if younger and younger girls are starting their periods that pads and tampon companies are going to market to them. It seems like they are making a (somewhat pathetic ) attempt to make it fun and cool and all peppermint candies and downloadable (period themed?) ringtones for girls only, but they miss that mark completely and the overall feeling is that you should treat your period like a dirty little secret and they encourage an underlying hatred of this function by "swearing not to tell anyone!" and having a place to post "period horror stories". Just to be clear, I am realistic about the drag of having a period and I am not suggesting that we build bonfires and eat Luna bars and dance naked under the full moon in a sisterhood menstrual frenzy, but I do know that the way society looks at the biological functions of women has a lot to do with how we are treated and valued and how we treat and value ourselves.

What bothers me most is that starting the self-hatred training so young is a tragedy and SUCH a missed opportunity for this company to be on the right side of bringing girls up to be strong, smart and confident and comfortable with their bodies. Personal Products Inc. (the makers of o.b. the tampon "made by a woman gynecologist",) is the one who should be ashamed, not the little dog who has her period.

Go here to tell o.b. what you think of "obie."

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Oh Yeah....


I met Paul Newman on Friday. Holy crap! He came into 826 on Friday with Dave Eggers and his friend Stewart Stern (who wrote Rebel Without a Cause, if you're interested) and we visited for 3 hours. He and Stewart got Space Competency Certified and when they left they gave us all hugs goodbye!
Wow. This is Justin Space Competency Certifying him, which included making him make animal noises.

Camp Finance NorthWest!

I went to camp yesterday. We didn't make macaroni pictures or sing songs or learn to canoe, but instead we talked about the exciting world of Nonprofit Finance Management. Wooooo! The one thing that I want to write about is that I really, really, really don't want to be like my colleagues in the nonprofit finance world. They are dumpy, annoying, grouchy, unaware and boring. Jesus, people get a life.

That said, except for the whining lesbian who had to tell me all about how she was forced to come, didn't want to be there, wasn't going to learn anything, etc. etc.; the high-waistband nerd who talked incessantly about his particular situation that has nothing to do with the rest of the group taking the seminar; and the other guy who complained multiple times about how high the (standard conference center-sized as near as I could tell) chairs were from the floor because of his short legs(!), it was interesting and informative and I would go back and do it again for the wide and tasty variety of snacks that were offered throughout the day: Tims chips, cookies, a fridge full of juices and soda and water, jelly beans, etc. In the breakfast buffet, they even had a waffle bar. Suh-weet.