Scary things about pesticides

So, I get an email newsletter from Real Simple magazine, and today's newsletter had a bit about which organic foods really are important to get. The thing that really scared me and made me laugh at the same time was the bit about spinach, and how I should "Vigilantly wash each leaf separately." Yeah right! I think the only thing I'd really worry about getting organic would be baby food. Maybe. I mean, I like the idea of organic foods but there aren't any regulations on what "organic" means, as far as I've heard. And the organic food industry hurts small farmers who can't spend all that money and time NOT using pesticides. I'm sure it creates a lot of "destroyed" foods if you don't use pesticides; people in grocery stores aren't going to buy those apples from the little NJ farm trying to go organic if they have little bug bites in them... they're going to buy the pretty looking apples from the big CA organic grower instead. Anyway... I probably should be a little more "vigilant" about washing produce, but I'm just lazy and I don't have cancer yet...

Clear Care Contacts Crisis, part II

I saw a company-wide email yesterday on the "social list" from someone trying to get rid of a contact solution she bought by mistake, and it was the kind I use, so I went to her office to take it off her hands. She then told me that she had accidentally (though at the time it was intentional) used it to rinse and replace one of her contacts. OH MY GOD! It's peroxide! She said her eye was immediately on fire and she could barely get her eyelids open to get her contact out. Her eye was still very red, and I hope she didn't cause serious damage. It says "DO NOT PUT IN EYES" right on the bottle... though if someone's putting their contacts in, isn't it possible that they can't read that?

Musings of an Editress: Clear Care Contacts Crisis

ATM Now Available!

Ben and I went to Berkeley Springs, WV, a purported "spa town," for our anniversary. The spa part was right, but "town" can barely apply here. I call it more a cluster of realtors and law offices, with a few spas, salons, and restaurants peppered through it. Ben and I of course had a great time, because we were away together and went for some spa treatments and ate a lot and eventually got to go hiking when it stopped raining, but what kind of "town" doesn't have ANY place to go after 9pm? No bars, no coffee shops, not even the bar areas of restaurants. What we could do, though the whole place was reserved starting at 10:30, half an hour after we arrived, was go to the Berkeley Springs Bowlerama! Yeehaw!

Mad at Google Maps

Google Map people, if you can hear me, you need to do some serious work! I had a terrible experience with you on Thursday night. Ben was driving to PA and saw a sign that said I-83 was closed in all directions, so he called and I got on Google Maps. First I couldn't find where he was, because I typed in "I-83, MD" and got nothing. I couldn't even get results when I typed in an intersection of two highways. When I finally got enough information from Ben about where he was, I could find it. This in itself was pretty neat, because I felt like God directing a lost soul via a camera monitor. BUT, as I re-routed him away from where I thought the closing was, we realized I didn't have exit numbers on my Google map. When he got back to 83, he was right smack AT the road closing! In his words, "I just took this fakakta detour for nothing!" He had to drive over the median to get back off and go another route. Fakakta, by the way, means shit. Google results will give you nicer versions of the word, like "all screwed up" or "dizzy." I was taught that it means shit. Can you use it in a sentence, please? I used those fakakta Google maps to get my husband absolutely nowhere instead of around a chemical spill.

In memory of a great boss

It's been over 6 months since the death of the head of our department. I thought I'd share a fun story about him:

After a particularly rough day involving long hours put in by the editors, he walks into a room where most of the editors are taking a break. He has in his hands red pens, Post-it notes, and Post-it sticky flags. He says, with crocodile-hunter-like amazement, "Look! Editor spoor!"

Spoor:

1 : a track, a trail, a scent, or droppings especially of a wild animal 2 : a trace by which the progress of someone or something may be followed

This editor prefers her dinner sans fumeurs

The DC ban on smoking in restaurants takes effect today! I just found this out; apparently Friday night was the last time in DC that we'll ask to move because just as we're putting our order in, someone next to us lights up. We went to dinner at Old Glory in Georgetown, a classic BBQ joint on the main drag, and we sat at a booth near the bar, where actually no one was smoking, but the woman at the table next to us lit a cigarette right as our waiter came over with bread. They were happy to move us... and now I'm even happier about the ban. But I wonder, will it hurt business? Probably not, since I'm thinking to myself, sweet! We can go out to eat more. I think it will hurt two things: (1) smokers and (2) my waistline. I do think that more smokers will end up going out in VA where it's still legal, but maybe it's better that way, for people to have a choice (for now). Another year and we'll be able to go to the bars and not feel like we have to shower and do laundry right when we get home because we reek. It's hard to think of the time that I smoked (granted it was a short time, and in France) and didn't mind the smell. But smoking was so pervasive in France that it was almost impossible to be somewhere without smoke.