Saturday, December 13, 2008

Some Product Reviews, Some Uncharacteristic Football Musings, Some Stream of Consciousness Updates.

Normally I just spew stuff at you with uncensored abandon but today I feel like I want to catergorize a bit. You know, just to make things seem structured and predetermined. As if.
Anyhow, first the product reviews:

1)Instead Menstrual Cups.
I found myself "going on" while out and about one day, and not at all sure what my menstrual supply cupboard held back home. So I stopped in the drugstore to examine my options. Normally I just head straight for the OB, but this time the Instead caught my eye. I was feeling pretty experimental so I thought I'd give it a shot. Besides, I'd recently been thinking about how tampons are all kinds of carbon-footprinty, so maybe this rubber cup thingy would be a less resource intensive option? It seemed to make sense.
I didn't take a good look at the box till I got home, where I found that the manufacturers consider each cup to be a one time only item. You are supposed to be able to wear one for 12 hours, so a box of 14 is a one week supply. I sat there on the toilet trying to puzzle this out, and eventually just called bullshit on it. I can only assume that the manufacturers of the Instead are trying to avoid a lawsuit by telling you not to rinse and reinsert these puppies, because I suppose if someone got dirty fingers all over it and did not clean it off thoroughly and put it back in and got an infection, they could somehow be liable. In our litigious society, anyways. So I tore open the first purple package and popped the first one in. Calling on my long ago experience with the diaphragm, it was super easy for me to get it in the right spot. That first day was kind of amazing, because I felt all regular "down there" instead of the vaguely "stuffed up" feeling a tampon sometimes can give. Plus (and this is a huge, grossout preventing plus) no soggy string hanging around down there. At the risk of sharing a bit too much (stick with me ladies!) I really hate it when I've just changed the tampon and all of a sudden I have to pee, and then I have to make the decision to either go for a few hours with a pee sodden string hanging out of my hooha, or change the tampon again. Agony, I tells ya. So that was a definite bonus--being able to pee without considering the feminine hygiene consequences. Since it was the first light day, I went the whole twelve hours without having to think about the cup, and then when the 12th hour came, I just gave it a good rinse and popped it back in. My fingers did get bloody. I did watch my blood swish down the sink. I did have crazy hippie fantasies of collecting it and using it for plant food, but I'm not quite in that place right now (especially not in the winter time.) I felt super good about the whole thing, and overnight was also a pleasant, leak free time.
The next day (my heaviest) I had to go to work, where the sinks are outside of the toilet rooms. Uh oh. This proved a little tricky, and I did end up having to toss the second one in the trash after a couple hours since I didn't want to accidentally subject any customers to the sight of me rinsing my bloody cup in the sink. I did however have to wash my bloody hands, and luckily no one was around when I did that.
So the second heavy day I did experience some leakage, so I had to double up with a pad, and I ended up going through three cups in that twelve hours. So I'm no longer saving any resources and also, it's kind of a pain in the ass. I was reminded of my olden hippie days when I actually used the menstrual sponge for a while. Luckily I was working at the hippie co-op at the time, where you could reach the sink from the toilet and it was all good. But when I was out in public somewhere in a regular toilet stall kind of a place, things could get really dicey. I think I gave up on the sponge when I stopped working at the co-op for just that reason.
So anyhow, as the days went on it became a habit, and I think I ended up using 10 of the 14 cups in the box. I also ended up thinking a lot about getting one of those Diva things that are meant to be reused for years, but that would definitely necessitate public rinsing. Or maybe I could use the Diva thing at home and Insteads for at work? From a carbon footprint point of view, are the Insteads really better than tampons? I definitely feel much better about the Instead than a tampon from a personal health point of view. But I don't like the idea of throwing all that plastic in the trash. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the Insteads can't be recycled. I'll do some more research and get back to ya.

2)Buffy (the Backside Slayer)
I've been having some bad dry skin problems this cold season. Perhaps the thing that skeeves me out more even than the damp tampon string is when my dry skin sticks to socks or tights. Horrible it is. So I went on a mission. First I tried Caress Exotic Cream Oil Infused Body Wash in Moroccan. It smells good, and it's got a very sexy purple bottle, and it's oh so creamy in the shower, but pretty much the minute you get out of the shower you can forget it. Also, laden with chemicals. Avoid.
Fortunately, LUSH had opened a tiny little storelet in the downtown Macy's, and Jennie and I had a patty melt date at the Tic Toc restaurant. So I went in there and had the most unpleasant shopping experience I've ever had in a LUSH, for these reasons: a)it was really warm in there, and I was shopping in my outside gear; b)it's reeeeaaaaallllyyy small, and there were several people trying to move around; c)the ladies who were working are new (obivously) and so don't have the unbridled enthusiasm of your usual LUSH salesperson; d)there was some kind of register/credit card malfunction in the line ahead of me, which meant that I had to stand in line for about 10 minutes with my body bar literally melting in my hands. (I hadn't put it in a little bag because I thought it was going to be an in and out scenario. Eventually the other person working in the storelet brought a bag for me.)
Ok, so the store portion of my Buffy experience was pretty lame by LUSH standards, but once I got that puppy in the shower it all just "melted" (ha! ha!) away. I felt a little weird about roughly scrubbing my poor dry skin with what felt like grains of sand, but when I got out of the shower I was SMOOTH AS SILK. And still am, 24 or so hours later. I love it. I should warn you that it will make your bath mat slippy, so be careful (and rinse it off when you are done showering) But overall, this is a hearty endorsement. Huzzah for Buffy (the Backside Slayer.)!

Now for the uncharacteristic football content:
1)Jerome Bettis. I just happened to click on the TV this morning to the Bettis Playbook, which is where the sports reporter dude from channel 11 interviews Jerome about some Steelers thing that happened that week. This week he was asked about Willie Parker's blabbing to the media about how he doesn't think the offensive game is effective these days, what with the long throws down the field instead of the short yardage grabs of old. (watch me write like I know shit about football! woo!)
So anyhow, Jerome basically said that while he agrees with Willie's assessment of the lack of effectiveness of the new offensive plan, he believes Willie should have discussed his concerns with the offensive coach and head coach to try to make changes, rather than bring it to the media forcing coach Tomlin to make strong statements to back up his decisions, and pretty much making Parker out to look like a complainer. This is the second time I've seen the Bettis Playbook by accident, and the first time was when Hines Ward was getting all kinds of fined for "excessive celebrating" or whatever it was they called it. At that point Bettis made the same kind of well reasoned, diplomatic statements that made me think oh wouldn't he make a great secretary of state or something. Or even just a systems consultant. Wouldn't it be great if Jerome Bettis came to the Quiet Storm to talk to all the staff members about how their actions affect other people? Maybe they would listen to Jerome Bettis.
Ok, that's maybe getting a little too personal. Let's just say that I continue to love Jerome Bettis.
On a related football note, I have developed something of a low level crush on wacky place kicker, #3 Jeff Reed. I developed this crush just before Thanksgiving when I saw a little fluff piece on the news asking all the Steelers what their favorite Thanksgiving side dish was. I can't remember what he said (I *think* it was candied sweet potatoes, but I'm absolutely not sure. I know Hines Ward said green bean casserole) but what got me was the fact that his hair was all sticking out and he looked like Wolverine. Hee hee. So I was doing a little internet research and when his hair is not sticking out, he looks like a lughead, so try to ignore those pictures. Look at the ones where he looks like Wolverine. Also, he really is a weirdo, apparently, and ya gotta love that. He knows all the words to Fergie's "Glamorous." And plus, he's a solid bet because he is pretty much always going to be responsible for a few points per game. You can't say that about any other players, not even Big "Drink Like A Champion" Ben.

Ok, I think I'll save the general update for later. Time to get out there to the farmer's market and get some eggs before they're all gone.

2 Comments:

Blogger madorange said...

Yea! Jeff Reed!

We love Jeff aka THIGHS.

xo

10:18 AM  
Blogger Kelly said...

oh my god menstrual cups! I tried the Instead cups once and really didn't like them, but it didn't stop me from trying a Keeper (Diva Cup is another brand of basically the same thing, also different material). Dude. I LOVE my Keeper and I will totally get all psycho hippie earth mother telling you about it. if you would like more details just send me email or something.

6:57 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home