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Dear People Who Design and Manufacture Clothing for Women,

All these years I have never complained about certain things - namely such uncomfortable and torturous items as bras, thongs, designer jeans it takes a coat hanger to zip up (yes, I lived through the 80s) and high heel shoes. Today, however, I can remain silent no longer.

I bought a cute little pair of cargo capris a few weeks ago for summer. They are a great color and fit perfectly, but I practically have to know a secret handshake to get them on and off. They have an interior button, an outside hook, a zipper and then they also tie. Seriously? Do you really think I need to be that securely fastened into my capris? Who designed such a thing - a father who is afraid his teenage daughter is, perhaps, a little too eager to unleash her beaver?

It is fine in the morning when I put them on, but during the day when I have to go to the bathroom in a time is of the essence manner all these hooks and ties and buttons and zippers amount to a huge pain in my bladder. What’s worse is when you only unzip, unhook and unbutton but forget to untie. Or unzip, unbutton and untie but forget to unhook. Or untie, unhook and unzip but forget to unbutton. Or unbutton, untie, oh you get the idea…

So please keep it simple, my bladder will thank you.

Warmest regards,
Mick

cc: China; Project Runway contestants

It seems like whenever I have a conversation with anyone lately the subject eventually turns to the economy, specifically gas prices. A lot of the people I work with drive quite a distance to work (for some at least an hour one way) and it is really starting to hurt them financially. I am lucky as I live close to where I work so I am not working so I can afford to drive to work so to speak, and I only have to fill up about once a week.

As gas prices began sneaking up I started to cut back a lot on my driving. I used to love a long drive in the country on the weekend, but now I putter around the house instead. When I do go out I plan my route making sure to maximize the amount of stops while minimizing the amount of miles. I’ve also been working on changing my driving habits but haven’t noticed much of a difference with that yet.

One of the links that has been passed around work is a calculator where you punch in your zip code and it tells you where you can find the cheapest gas in your area. They go by the previous night’s prices, so it might not be exact, but usually the cheapest station yesterday will also be the cheapest today. Hope it helps you all find the cheapest gas in your area!

A snipit of an email conversation today at work between some co-workers and myself which began with Carmen Electra’s engagement and somehow devolved into the year 1995 (when 311’s self titled album was released)…

Maura: 1995… my sophomore year of high school. that’s when they were cool.

Me: SOPHOMORE YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL!?! Holy crap, I feel wicked old.

Jana: I wasn’t even in high school yet….

Me: Everyone on this list except Jason and Donna makes me want to barf.

Jason: They were cool from 1995-2001, just like my jumbled pasting job from Wikipedia says below. And if Wikipedia says it, it’s pretty much the word of god.

I was a sophomore in college in ’95 and clearly remember them being popular then. HOWEVER, as it also says below in my garbled text, their single “down” was released 14 months after the album was released, which would be 1996 or even ’97 depending on what month it was released, and “down” was their biggest hit, reaching number 1 on the charts…so there…

EVERCLEAR RULES!

Me: In Wiki terms god = anyone with a computer connection. Hey, I have seen Everclear numerous times, they do rule.

Jason: Exactly! Its like the old saying “if its on the internet, it MUST be true!”

Me too dude, Everclear really came up on random on my ipod when I was rambling away, so I threw it in at the end…haha

Kyle: I was 12 in 1995 and still cool enough to like 311. EAT IT OLD PEOPLE!

Me: When I was 12 I already owned more albums than you probably own NOW and had been to several concerts. So eat it, Kyle.

Kyle: Neat, did you play your albums on an old time phonograph???

BTW I have to jump on the Everclear band wagon too. What ever happened to them?

Me: Yes I did, and I also had my 8-track player. So EAT IT AGAIN KYLE!

OK, so I meant to post these tidbits yesterday as they were Earth Day related but it was my first day back at work after my vacation and, well, I am sure you know how that went.

I have been trying to find small ways of cutting back on packaging and waste lately. I haven’t done a full on compost pile yet, but I have become very aware of just how quickly trash fills that receptacle in my kitchen.

One of my favorite companies, LUSH, has products they label “naked” which means they have very little or no packaging at all. What plastic packaging they do use is “low numbered” (1 or 2) which is accepted by any town with a recycling program. Plus, a lot of the products LUSH makes are vegan, so if you are extremely earthy-crunchy you will really like their stuff a lot!

Some of my favorite “naked” products by LUSH…

I also recently purchased a Brita water filter. I grew up in a town that was once a superfund site - a place where you just DID NOT drink the water AT ALL. (As a matter of fact quite a few of my school mates that had played in the sports fields around the Nyanza site developed very rare cancers in their early 20s, and some died as a result.) So I had it pretty much etched on my soul that TAP WATER IS EVIL and as a result it lead to my mass consumption of bottled water. However, I have been recently rethinking my position since most bottled waters are just filtered tap water anyway, and what are all these bottles doing for the environment? (Cliff Notes answer: nothing good.) Since I no longer live in Superfundville though I decided to trust my town’s tap water again and just use the Brita filter instead of the bottled stuff. I can attest that the Brita filtered water does have a crisp, clean taste and I prefer it over even Poland Spring.

A pleasant side effect of the Brita filter? It cost me under $30, but in the short time I’ve had it, it has already saved me twice that on bottled water I would have purchased. So I’m saving money and the environment at the same time! It’s a win-win situation.

Brita Filters…

I’ve also longed to be one of those folks who brings her own canvas bags to the grocery store. But you know what? I shop at several different grocery stores and I would not feel right using a Whole Foods bag at Stop-n-Shop. (Yeah, I’m weird like that.) Plus carting around several canvas bags is bulky and I’d most likely forget to bring them. The solution? Envirosax! They have sets of 5 sturdy nylon bags that roll up and fit in a tidy little pouch that you can keep in your purse! That way they will always be handy (so I won’t forget them) and I won’t have to worry about any store logos. Environmental problem solved!

Envirosax come in a variety of retro prints…

Ah yes, but I have a cat and at least have been reusing all those plastic bags to scoop Layla’s poop into. What will I do about that now? For a few years I’ve used the World’s Best Cat Litter which is an environmentally safe, natural (corn based) litter that lasts a lot longer (and IMO hides odor better) than all the chemical litters on the market. WBCL is also flushable, so I am just going to start doing that as opposed to bagging and trashing it.

It really is The World’s Best Cat Litter!

I’ve also resolved to stop buying to-go coffee at Dunkin Donuts. There are 2 reasons behind this: 1) At the Dunks I frequent, a medium coffee just went up another 10 cents to $1.90 which seems kinda pricey to me. 2) They still insist on serving their coffee in styrofoam containers. I can save myself $13.30 a week (over $690 a year!) and the environment by brewing at home and drinking it from a mug.

So hopefully as my trash can gets slimmer my wallet will get a little fatter! That’s the plan, anyway!

A few months ago when dates were released for Eddie Vedder’s west coast solo tour and I spotted April 15 - San Diego on the roster I knew I had to make the extra effort to go. Why? Well, April 15th is my birthday and I have always wanted to go to a show on my birthday, plus it was in San Diego - a place I had heard so many great things about but had yet to visit myself. Tickets for the show were hard to get (the historic Spreckels Theater only holds just under 1,500), but I lucked out and scored a pair through the Pearl Jam 10 Club.

The show was just plain awesome! Liam Finn opened, and I was excited to see him again. (He still totally rocks!) When Ed took the stage it was a very simple set-up - pretty much just him and a variety of stringed instruments (various guitars, a mandolin and the infamous Luke The Uke) for a majority of the show. Ed performed songs from the Into The Wild soundtrack along with Pearl Jam tunes and some covers. The gems of the evening for me were hearing the PJ classics Around the Bend and I Am Mine, hearing new favorite tunes Driftin’ and Far Behind for the first time, I Am A Patriot was a special treat and Masters of War (which I always think Ed sings so well) gave me total goosebumps.

Related media…

Ed also closed the first encore with Arc, which I had heard before. I never understood why fans always got so juiced to hear him do this, but now I understand how special that song is. When I had seen it performed before it was in a larger open aired venue (Tweeter Center in Mansfield) but in the small Spreckels the acoustics were amazing and Ed’s voice came up and wrapped around you from all directions. I could actually feel his voice vibrating in my chest cavity which moved me both figuratively and literally.

Ed seemed very relaxed (albeit hungover - “my hair hurts” he said) and was gregarious towards the crowd - constantly stopping to chat, tell a story, go tit-for-tat with a yelled out request or voice an opinion. The show was a more intimate experience than any other show I had been to before and that was probably due to the small crowd size and Ed’s informal nature. The highlight of the show for me was when he played a disco track on his loop machine and launched into a Barry White-esque sexy rap. I have tried to explain this to fans who were not at the show who just keep asking me: What do you mean he “did a Barry White thing”? but I guess all I can tell them is I guess you had to be there.

It seems Ed Vedder + Barry White x disco track loop = DOES NOT COMPUTE

The show was made even better due to the fact that my friends Kath and Clare were also there. Kath has an amazing eye for detail and wrote all about the show (as well as a bunch of others on the tour) for her site twofeetthick.com. I am going to link to her review from the show I went to, as she can give you a far better idea of the whole night. It is a long read, but well worth it!

As a side note to those of you who come here looking for Pearl Jam photos, I did not take any of Ed’s show (with the exception of the one of the marquee above as well as another of the marquee). The reason for this is because the camera policy for Ed’s shows was strictly no photos and I wanted to respect that.

I got back from San Diego very, very late on Wed (well, technically very, very early on Thurs) and spent yesterday in a complete fog. This was one vacation that I was not happy to come home from. Even though Layla greeted me with little high pitched squeals of glee and then long pleasant purrs, I had to fight the urge to just toss her and some clean clothes into my car and head back to the southwest.

I loved the San Diego area - the air was fresh and clean with just a hint of sweet honeysuckle. There were hummingbirds everywhere of all shapes, sizes and colors which gave a sort of magic quality to even the most ordinary location. The hummingbirds were everywhere because there were flowers everywhere - and not once did I sneeze! Bonus!

The courtyard at the Estancia.

Kicking back on our balcony up in the trees.

My friend Clare and I stayed at the beautiful and serene Estancia in La Jolla which was a hotel and spa (we decided to do it up right). At one time the Estancia was a horse ranch, and they kept a lot of the original architecture when it was remodeled into a hotel. There were decorative tiles, unique doors and ornate lanterns - every nook of the place held some sort of visual treat. They also added special touches like barn doors in the rooms and horse blankets on the beds to make sure the new hotel meshed well with the old ranch.

The Brockton Villa Restaurant. I highly recommend their “coast toast”!

We started each day with breakfast at a place along the coast in La Jolla called the Brockton Villa Restaurant. We would sip our coffee, watch dolphins swim by and listen to the ocean pound against the rocks. It was like starting your day in RELAX mode which made sure that no matter what may lie ahead that your outlook was already TOTALLY AWESOME, DUDE!

Some things we noticed right away - people stop fully at stop signs there. Like, full on “wait at least 10 seconds even though no one else is at the intersection” stops. I mentioned this to Clare like why are these people stopping and not just checking and then rolling through like WE do!?!, and she pointed out that no one there seemed to be in the typical hurrythefuckup rush mode that we from the North East constantly seem to be in. (Clare is a native New Yorker, I am a native Bostonian.) Also, we noticed people smiled a lot. And you know how you hear about places where people stop and watch the sunset? (I did not actually believe places like that existed.) They do that there are well! And so we did it, too.

Watching the sunset over the ocean is so different from watching it set over land. Much larger and more colorful. Pictures don’t do it justice.

And it was wonderful! Even for a couple jaded North Eastern chicks like us.

We did do some tourist-y type things, one of which was a visit to the San Diego Wild Animal Park. We saw all sorts of animals…

…lion cubs (aren’t they the cutest thing EVER?)…

…adult lions…

…gorillas…

…giraffes…

…and whatever the heck these things are.

We also went shopping in Old Town and we ate real (read: not what you get here in Mass.) Mexican food and drank strawberry margaritas. Other than that we hung out along the coast in La Jolla or by the hotel pool and hot tub. Yeah, we really roughed it.

I did all the driving, and as we rolled up and down along the I-5 I would get all excited every time I saw a CHiP. Perhaps it was my girlhood crush on Ponch that made me gush when I saw the desert sand colored uniform whiz by on a motorcycle (which I think worried Clare that I was gonna do something crazy just to get arrested by one of them). When we were driving to the Eddie Vedder show a CHiP pulled right up next to us and the conversation between Clare and I went a little something like this…

Me: “OMG! A CHiP! Do you think if I did something to get pulled over he would get mad if I asked to pose for a pic with him?”

Clare: “YES HE WOULD! And DO NOT do anything to get pulled over PLEASE.”

Me: “Fine. I will just take his picture then.” >whips out Blackberry<

Clare: “OMG MICK! DO NOT TAKE HIS PIC-”

>>click<<

If you are interested in seeing more vacation photos, you can check them out here. I will blog about the Eddie Vedder show a little later.

The 5 day outlook for San Diego…

*sighs*

Clare flight update: Her flight for tomorrow got cancelled, but she was able to rebook over the phone and is getting another flight that will be around the same time (but not on one of the MD-80s - the planes with all the wiring issues).

So we’re onward, upward, Vedderward…