-
Late Night thoughts v.4
*Our apartment experienced not one but TWO floods this weekend for two completely different reasons. It was pretty awesome.
*I just finished reading Eat, Pray, Love which has been a bestseller for awhile. It’s about this woman who takes a year out of her life and lives for four months each in Italy (to experience pleasure, eating and doing whatever she wants), India (to find her version of God while living in an Ashram), and Indonesia (trying to find a balance between pleasure and devotion). So, it was definitely a good read. Didn’t change my life. People are RAVING about this book though…maybe I missed it?
*Target on Sundays = not a fun experience. Do not plan on repeating that anytime soon.
*Lots of cultural type things are happening on campus because it’s almost the end of the semester, so it’s time for all the clubs on campus to put on their large events. I’m kind of a big deal, so students invite me to everything and I can’t go to all of them people! The guilt I’m feeling over this is kind of ridiculous. Although, this weekend we did go to the annual Cal community Native American pow-wow. It was awesome.
*Dan has recently been making a big thing about how most deodorants have aluminum in them (did you know? it’s actually pretty bad for you…) so today while we were at Whole Foods (yes, we shop at Whole Foods) we each bought a “natural” deodorant that is aluminum free. I told him I would try it for a week and see how it goes. For serious, Dan’s is a scent called “Woodspice” and it’s uber strong smelling…so, his armpits are going to smell like pine trees. Not sure how I’m feeling about that. I mean, I’d rather pine trees than funk, but really? Pine trees?
*Next week is MAY and during the lovely, beautiful,glorious month of May, students move out. I can’t believe the school year is almost over! 4 more weeks. Crazy talk.
*Is everyone around the country getting all this information about plastics of all kind being bad because they leach chemicals into everything that is being put in them? We hear all kinds of commercials and info bits about plastic bottles, plastic bgs, tupperware, Nalgenes, etc are the bane of all of our existence. Just wondering if everyone else is getting this too, or if it’s just a West Coast thing.
I overheard this conversation at Target today:
Kid (about 10?): Mom, I’m thirsty
Mom: We don’t need a bottle, lets go get some FREE water out of the water fountain! It’s yummy!Also, the mayor of San Francisco has decided that no city office or event can have bottled water (due to mentioned plastic issue but also because the Bay Area has the cleanest tap water in the nation) and so on and so forth. We’re crazy liberals out here.
**Just to clarify, we are converting from tupperware to glass, nalgene to stainless steel bottles, getting rid of bottled everything. I was just wondering if everyone else is getting the hard sell about plastics too.
***Also, thanks to David for differentiating all the types – it’s unfortunate, Berkeley only recycles 1 and 2. But now I know to stay as far away from 7 as possible (hermaphroditic rat babies? That’s not ok).
Also, I know I haven’t blogged about my Georgia/Florida adventures, but here’s a free photo of Ben in front of Paula Deen’s restaurant (in Savannah). Clearly, he’s a big fan.
Because I simply don’t have the cognitive capacity to respond to each late night thought this early in the morning, I’m simply going to laugh at the thought of Dan smelling like pine trees. Manly!
And, wo ist das Foto??
Almost earth day so here goes: Now that people buy so much bottled water, there are way too many bottles in landfills. While your average plastic bag might degrade in ~2 years, those bottles take much longer (although, many places are banning bags altogether, and some stores have baggies that are recyclable, so you minimize impact there too).
The number on the bottom of the recyclable material tells you what you need to know: anything with a #1 ,like bottled water, isn’t particularly good for re-use, but otherwise fine. Don’t reuse these bottles and especially don’t heat them. They leech chemicals after heat and/or reuse. The most safe are 2s and 4s, and also 5s which includes most all yogurt containers. Don’t reheat anything in a #5, though, as repeated heating will also leech chemicals. The 7s contain bisphenol-A, a hormone capable of nasty effects (I’m talking about hermaphroditic rat babies here) in monster doses. Its long term effects in small doses has NEVER been studied. Don’t. Use. I advise getting rid of any of your plasticware that is #3 (pvc-containing), #6 (styrofoam-containing), or especially #7 (polycarbonate).
I’ll take a look at the deoderant more closely, thanks. I knew about this, but my impression is that aluminum derivatives such as these don’t go through the skin at all (you’d have to ingest it to get breast cancer or alzheimers from it). The NON-aluminum ones appear to be only deoderants, not antiperspirants. But apparently Burt’s Bees makes one, as does Tom’s of Maine. And I love anything from Burt’s Bees.
I’ll have two sticks of butter with the mango salsa.
And score no more school! (for this semester anyway)
scheisse! what am i going to do with my nalgene bottle? am i going to die from drinking water from it?
i saw a hello kitty sig bottle a few weeks ago..i KNEW i should have gotten it!
what does your natural deo smell like?
also, it took me a reallly long time to get what josh was talking about with his delicioius food request.