mipmup.

fierce mexican wedding.

one of my good friends, michael willms of entertainment design (west hollywood, calif.) is a wedding planner and he just did a fabulous wedding in mexico. here is the reception table. click here for mo.

photo credit: roberto contreras de puebla, mexico.

pet food redux.

this is a follow-up to my post about pet food. the folks at old mother hubbard dog food company apparently don't want to be on peta's "do not test list." here's what they had to say on the matter:

consumers call us to ask why we are not on peta's do not test list.  old mother hubbard is not ready to jump on the peta.org bandwagon.  joining the list implies we support/endorse/agree with peta in general.....they are involved in so many aspects of animal rights that it would be too risky to just jump in without a fair amount of research into their claims.

so, i thought i'd forward that along to peta's research department to see what they thought. got their response today:

thank you for your email. pet foods do not have to pass feeding tests compliant with aafco standards before they can be sold in the u.s. and canada.

click on this link to view the survey and statement of assurance that we have asked companies to complete. under the survey section on the second page, you will see this option: "studies conducted at the home of companion animals whose guardians have agreed to participate in palpability tests." other acceptable means of conducting palatability tests are: animals that are temporarily housed at a boarding kennel whose guardians have agreed to have them participate in short term palpability tests and feeding trials with animals housed at shelters awaiting adoption. these are the testing standards that we want all companies to meet and are the only acceptable methods; the ideal no harm situation for animals.

old mother hubbard (wellness) is not included on our list because it has not assured us in writing that it conducts only humane (as described above) feeding trials. old mother hubbard informed us that it works with several contract labs in order to test its food: summit ridge, kennelwood, and ontario nutrilab. life for animals in laboratories is filled with days, weeks, months, or years of loneliness, suffering, pain, and fear. while a toy, a resting board, or a few minutes of "socialization" (if provided) might slightly ease the horrors of imprisonment, they do not make animal experimentation humane.

furthermore, the following dog and cat food companies, which manufacture many well-known brands, have not confirmed to us whether or not they conduct animal tests. we cannot recommend buying the products of these companies until we have received additional information about their practices.

• del monte (gravy train, reward, medi-cal, kibbles-n-bits, nature's recipe, cycle, skippy, techni-cal, 9 lives, medi-cal, meaty bone, jerky treats, snausages, pup-peroni, canine carry outs, wagwells, pounce)
  the landmark @ one market
  p.o. box 193575
  san francisco, ca 94119-3575
  800.543.3090 or 415.247.3000
  del monte web site
• heinz (reward, ivd [innovative vet diets], amore, wagwells, jerky treats, barbeque bites, chew chews, porky treats, beefy strips, petdeli crunchy tuna treats)
  p.o. box 57
  pittsburgh, pa 15230
  800.255.5750
  heinz web site
• hill's (science diet, prescription diet)
  p.o. box 148
  topeka, ks 66601
  800.445.5777
  hill's web site
• mars, inc. (kal kan, mealtime, pedigree, waltham, cesar, trill, aquarian, winergy, schmacko's, meaty bites, excelpet, pedigree, chum, brekkies, whiskas, kitekat, sheba)
  6885 elm st.
  mclean, va 22101
  800.443.1010 or 703.821.4900
  mars, inc. web site
• nestlé purina pet care (alpo, beneful, come 'n get it, dog chow, fit & trim, mighty dog, pro plan, puppy chow, hipro, kibbles and chunks, moist & meaty, purina one, purina veterinary diets, bonnie, beggin' strips, chew-rific, purina essentials, t bonz, secondnature, trusty, lucky dog, cat chow, chef's blend, deli-cat, fancy feast, friskies, kit 'n kaboodle, kitten chow, purina special care, tender vittles, meow mix, whisker lickin's, tidy cats, yesterday's news, go-cat, vital balance)
  checkerboard square
  st louis, mo 63164
  800.778.7462 or 314.982.1000
  nestlé purina pet care web site
• nutro products, inc. (nutro max, natural choice, max cat, gourmet classics, nutro max biscuits, natural choice biscuits)
  445 wilson way
  city of industry, ca 91744
  800.833.5330
  nutro products, inc. web site
• poulin grain (gold'n glow, kennel pride, pro-form, pro nature 22, purrfection)
  24 railroad square
  newport, vt 05855
  800.334.6731 or 800.638.3112
  poulin grain web site
• royal canin (natural blend, sensible choice, excel, wayne, kasco)
  5600 mexico road, suite 2
  st. peters, mo 63376
  800.592.6687 or 636.926.0003
  royal canin web site

click here for a list of companion animal food companies that do not test on animals.

for more information on our iams and menu foods undercover investigations, visit here or here. thank you for caring and all that you do for the animals.

sincerely,
caring consumer project
people for the ethical treatment of animals

i had no idea that so many "household name" pet foods do not meet peta's standards. that's it for our pounce treats. anyone know of any other peta-friendly treats (that cats actually enjoy)?

art credit: havana street

eat me (or not).

"people can lower their pesticide exposure by 90 percent by avoiding the top 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables and eating the least contaminated instead. eating the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables will expose a person to nearly 20 pesticides per day, on average."
— environmental working group (ewg)

saw a little blurb about the best foods to buy organically-grown in this month's organic style while at the nail place being pampered like no one in my financial position should be pampered, but hey - it had been a while and my toenails resembled those of a small reptilian creature. the article was great and i wanted to share it with you. unfortunately, it's not online, so i did a bit of googling and found the 411 i was looking for.

thanks to the ewg for figuring out how much junk is really (or really not) on our fruits and veggies. i'm still for buying pretty much everything and anything organic, but sometimes it's not feasible/available for everyone. cost still remains an issue for some people (including myself), but if you go to your local farmers' markets, you'll be surprised. for example, every week, i buy two bags of organically-grown lemons (with at least 8 lemons) for 50 cents a piece. i've seen them at chain grocery stores for 50 cents each, conventionally-grown. they are delicious and pretty perfect as lemons go.

from ewg:

highest in pesticides
these 12 popular fresh fruits and vegetables are consistently the most contaminated with pesticides buy these organic.

• apples
• bell peppers
• celery
• cherries
• grapes (imported)
• nectarines
• peaches
• pears
• potatoes
• red raspberries
• spinach
• strawberries

lowest in pesticides
these 12 popular fresh fruits and vegetables consistently have the lowest levels of pesticides.

• asparagus
• avocados
• bananas
• broccoli
• cauliflower
• corn (sweet)
• kiwi
• mangos
• onions
• papaya
• pineapples
• peas (sweet)

check out this page for additional information.

get this cute downloadable wallet card so you're never not in the know whilst shopping.

one for the random file.

break-dancers perform for the pope. hmmm.

i'm hairy sorry.

my better half is no metrosexual, but he is finicky about his hair. when we first started dating, he had had the same barber for 13 years and only left him because jacques was getting a little distracted in his old age and his skills started - er - slipping. so now, he goes to josé eber atelier (that's pronounced "jo-zay" and "'atl`yey," which means "an artist's studio"). unfortunately, in our current status, a $75+, hour and a half haircut bonanza (not including tip for the stylist and for the "shampoo technician") isn't going to fly.

three months have gone by, folks and he was looking pretty shaggy. couple that with an upcoming wedding and something had to be done.

on our daily walk, we happened upon a neighborhood barber shop that advertised $16 haircuts for men. $16?! that's like an automatic savings of at least 84 bucks. sweet!

so i started in.

"haircut today?"

"wanna try that barber?"

"it's only $16."

"if you hate it, your hair grows fast."

"we really can't afford $75 on hair right now."

"honey, your hair is not looking great."

"it's my duty to tell you."

"if you don't get a haircut, i'm gonna be pissed."

"we are trying to simplify, right? live more humbly?"

"it looks bad."

so after about a week of badgering, he relented and we went. together.

in retrospect, maybe we should have waited for the more stylish italian-speaking guy that everyone else seemed to be waiting for, but alas, that hindsight thing.

first off, my poor better half had to take off his glasses and so he couldn't see a thing the entire time. i think this is the kind of barber where you actually need to be watching. apparently, the barber should have started by actually cutting his hair instead of shaving it off. at the time, i was glad to see it go. it was quickly whisked away by the housekeeping barber waiting in the wings. then he started snipping. i peeped over my paper occassionally during the five-minute escapade, but i don't know what the hell i'm supposed to be looking for. it looked like a haircut. in a barber shop. it looked ok.

when the barber finished he said it's "second to none." then he looked at us expectantly. he repeated, "second to none." we didn't get it. we still don't get it. puzzled, we paid the guy and walked out.

i said, "it looks good." i meant it.

he said, "i fucking hate it."

oh goodie. not only was i the pestering worse half, but now he has a haircut that he fucking hates.

throughout yesterday and part of today, i offered:

"maybe with some gel?"

"let's book an appointment at josé."

"it will be my treat."

"i like it."

"it doesn't look bad."

"just wear your hat."

"i'm sorry. it's all my fault."

"maybe we could go to joey's barber? or brad pitt's?"

"i think it looks good."

"maybe after you wash it?"

he is such a good sport, he has forgiven me (i think) and has declared that there is to be no more speaking of the hair or the barber. in fact, i think it is growing on him. a wash, some gel and hey, $16 ain't so bad.

his birthday is coming up so maybe a visit to the ol' atelier wouldn't be such a bad gift. at least i would feel a little better, a little less like the worse half who created the haircut from hell.

real bush.

some stats from w's first term compiled by our neighbors across the pond. it's an interesting read.

another reason i hate toothy julia.

jazz women blue over julia
by richard johnson
page six, new york post

female jazz musicians who appeared in the julia roberts hit "mona lisa smile" are locked in a bitter legal battle with the toothy tinseltown titan.

jeanne daly, jill mccarron, ada rovatti and lauren sevian, all new york area residents, say they were only paid half what they were promised for appearing as extras, and less than a male jazz band got.

the irony is that "mona lisa smile" is a prototypical "chick flick" with a female empowerment theme. set in 1953, it stars roberts as a spunky art history professor who takes a job at all-female wellesley college, and proceeds to persuade her husband-hunting students to strive for something more in life. julia stiles, kirsten dunst and maggie gyllenhaal co-star as students.

"julia roberts plays a professor who gets women to stand up for themselves and break out of their stereotypical roles," jeanne daly told page six. "and here we are being discriminated against. it's pretty pathetic."

daly says that she and other women musicians were told they each would be paid $800 per eight-hour shift for each day of the four-day shoot. but after they arrived on the set, they were given paperwork saying they would be paid $400 per day for 12 hours of work.

the women say they were told the rest of the money promised would be made up in residuals from the movie soundtrack.

but producers later decided the women would not play their instruments live as planned, but would mime their performance - which nixed the residuals. meanwhile, the women discovered that male jazz players in the picture were each getting $650 a day.

daly and her co-plaintiffs - members of the 18-person female ensemble who appeared in the film - sued last fall in manhattan supreme court. they also filed complaints with the equal employment opportunity commission and the screen actors guild.

roberts, her production company red om films and smile productions have counter-sued, accusing the women of filing a "frivolous" lawsuit in a bid to "harass, embarrass and annoy defendants and in order to extract a sizable settlement."

daly shot back: "they're trying to intimidate us as they have every step of the way. i think they have underestimated the tenacity of four very angry female musicians. we're looking forward to moving towards trial."

to welcome baby.

need something to welcome baby? aren't these blankets by oliebollen adorable? they're only $25 and 100% of the profit is donated to sitara, a non-profit organization caring for afghan war orphans.

the would-be juror.

"you have been summoned to serve as a trial juror. such service is both a privilege and a duty and, when conscientiously performed, is a mark of good citizenship. although jury service may cause you financial loss, personal inconvenience or hardship, the opportunity to participate in our justice system should be a rewarding experience."
— pearls of wisdom generated by my local government

after a few summonses (yes, that's the plural form), a couple postponements and some missed call-in dates due to ambiguous governmental directions (shocking as that sounds), i was strongly urged by the court to actual report in for jury duty or risk a $1,500 fine. and because i (honestly) misinterpreted the instructions last time around i was no longer eligible to call-in; i had to have a little confab at the courthouse in person. i could have totally blown it off, but i didn't feel like subtracting any karmic bonus points i may have left.

i arrived promptly at 8:15 this morning. luckily, i was pulled from the rather lengthy security line by a johnny cochran-esque clad gentlemen in an ill-fitting purple suit who made it clear that his name was not "lero-y," but "lero-l." he even had his very own cross-stitch displayed in the jury room that said "it's not leroy. it's lerol!" (someone went all out on christmas). after going through the now much shorter line for those with a summons, i entered the jury room.

first off, the room smelled like one huge fat person. you know how fat people smell? it smelled like that, plus butt. it was totally sick. and the smell was compounded by this cross-section of humanity - all 160 of us crammed into this little portable trailer. according to lerol, this was a step up from where the jury room used to be. he also mentioned that the restrooms were the "best in the building." a saleable fact to be sure. luckily, i positioned myself near the anti-butt-smell air conditioning, so i was safe.

the jury room is sort of like an airport — you have a completely mixed bag of people ready to be somewhere else and you're surrounded by institutional furnishings made expressly for your discomfort. there were lots of white hairs, lots of white trash, some young kids too responsible to throw away a summons like i usually did until this year (i am growing up!), fat people, skinny people, weird people, conservative people. i suppose it was truly representative of our little community.

we watched a rather wearisome video about how we all should be supercharged because we're prospective jurors and we're doing our civic duty - blah blah blah. put brad pitt in the video and you got me. have the presiding judge of the superior court read information to us and you've already got me snoozing.

lerol then went on to explain the process. i have to give him props — he did a great job. he explained every detail, down to the fact that our jury duty pays $15 a day today, not $5 a day like before! woo-hoo! he told us he used to work for the post office, so i'm sure that's where he got all those interpersonal skills down.

i kept my nose in my book the entire time, only peeping up a couple times when the lady next to me started snoring, the woman on my other side started picking her nails incessantly and the old woman across the way turned on oprah.

at about 3:45, the new jury person in charge (lerol's lackey), came out with a wireless mic (state-of-the-art!) to tell us that about half of us would have to stay on until 5:00 to see if the court needed to select jurors. in our county, we have a one-day or one-trial service, meaning if you are not selected after one day (or if you have served on one trial), your service is complete for 12 months (that seems like an awfully short time after today).

the lackey asked for volunteers first. five people actually raised their hands (i was utterly puzzled). he said it had to be all volunteers or no volunteers. since 55 other people weren't ready to extend themselves, he said he had to volunteer us the old fashioned way — by force. so he said he was going to start calling names. if your name wasn't called, you were staying on and coming back tomorrow. curses!

palms were getting sweaty. my heart started racing. i can't be away from my siesta cure for another day. i'm working on shit here! so he is about to start calling names when he says, "just kidding. you're all excused." i guess that is "jury person humor."

all 160 of us crammed the exit doors and walked to our cars without any cool whatsoever. we were out of the fat-butt room! and we didn't have to face any convicts — or worse — lawyers!

unfortunately, my service is complete for another year. but luckily according to lerol, i'll probably get summoned again in the next year since our county apparently has the worst database ever. the system just keeps spitting out summonses to those who have already served. now if that isn't efficient use of our tax dollars, i don't know what is!

at least i can rest tonight knowing that i have the mark of good citizenship if nothing else.

the siesta cure.

in the january-february 2004 issue of utne, you will find an article that appeared in alternative medicine called "the siesta cure" by ann japenga (it's not available online, though some of the articles in the feature are here. if you want a copy, email me and i'll send you a scanned pdf.). it is introduced with this:

"canadian humorist stephen leacock once wrote, 'americans are a queer people; they can't rest.' and that's hard to deny. while our get-things-done mentality has fostered incredible imagination and productivity, it also makes us exhausted and often sick. we're wearing ourselves out. with overused soil and overfished seas, we're also wearing out the earth. rest seems a healthy prescription all the way around... ."
— the editors

i just happened to pick up the magazine and couldn't believe how serendipitous this really was. the last two years of my life, i have been scrambling - mostly aimlessly - at what i really want to do with my life. i suppose it's a bit of depression mixed with anxiety. or maybe it's like my friend's therapist said - we're at a stage in our lives where saturn, the "great equalizer" in astrology, is wreaking havoc. i have a business that is not thriving and no matter how hard i tried, nothing seemed to make it better. i would rack my brain over how to fix things - how to improve them - how to just make sense of all the messiness that was my life. sitting in front of my computer just hopelessly struggling on how to improve this or that or everything. and getting more and more frustrated by the day.

last month around the holidays, i decided to just rest. i let go completely. i stopped having this internal debate with myself about how to mend things that just wouldn't be mended. for christmas, my mom got me knitting materials, so i knitted. i read. i cleaned. i organized. i was productive for the first time in a long time. instead of being manic, i decided to relax and let things be.

i started listening more, looking more. taking breaks. walking with presence of mind. appreciating small things i always considered cliché. like watching the waves. feeling crisp, cold wind on my face. watching dolphins. sitting down. playing with my dog. listening to the kids walk to and from school. it sounds so utterly lame, but here i was enjoying it. it was like my mind was free again.

and that's when i started to feel something. i felt glad again for the first time in a long time. i felt like there was hope. like there was possibility. a felt a little bit stronger.

it's not like i believe things will fix themselves, but i have decided to let things work out as they may in a relaxed fashion. it's kind of like my sabbatical year i guess. i still have difficulty sleeping and sometimes, difficulty getting up, but i feel like i am a more productive member of the household, of the business now that my head is a little bit clearer.

i'm not sure where this is leading, but luckily and thankfully, my partner is supportive and encourages me to go and "find my dream."

maybe all i needed was a little siesta.

for ideas on rest, see david kundtz's book, "stopping: how to be still when you have to keep going."