The PMS news report
So I'm at work, I'm bored and I have cramps. Super fun times. Allow me to turn my moodiness into rants about the news.
A couple from Montreal were lost for nine days in BC. Two separate pilots (at least) on two separate occasions reported seeing SOS signals in the snow, but a search and rescue party wasn't sent out until a third pilot saw an SOS and the man waving for help. He was saved but by then his wife was dead. They were staying at a small ski resort, went out of bounds, and got lost. For nine days. With only two granola bars. Peter Mansbridge etc. kept calling it a "tragedy" but really, I think the only tragedy is how dumb these people were. If you're one of those skiiers who can't be content with staying on the trails and has to strike off in search of virgin powder/adventure or what have you, you should know that you're taking your life into your own hands. There's an assload of stuff that can befall you in the mountains of BC (avalanches, bears, your own inability to find your way back to the resort) and if you can't handle it, then don't go out of bounds, you dumbass. I feel bad for the family of the dead woman, but I really can't bring myself to feel bad for the couple themselves. If they hadn't been idiots in the first place, she'd still be alive and they'd be back at work like nothing had happened. I really don't think it's right to put yourself in danger through stupidity and then potentially endanger the lives of rescue workers by making them find you. My mum was saying that when it's your own stupid fault you should have to pay for the cost of your rescue, which I agree with.
Apparently the woman who gave birth to octuplets is now worried that the hospital may not release the babies to her. Gee, I can't imagine why not. Maybe it's because you're an unemployed single mom who already has six kids. She lives with her mom, who is financially tapped out, to the extent that her house might be foreclosed. I can't understand why any doctor would implant eight embryos in a woman who already had six kids in the first place, and especially a woman with no job or income. Isn't IVF crazy expensive? Who paid for this? Anyway, this woman obviously has some serious issues. I think the hospital would be negligent to release the kids to her. (And probably, if they released them and then the woman wasn't able to take care of all fourteen kids and something happened to one of them, she'd end up suing the hospital for releasing the kids to her when they should have known she couldn't take care of them!)
Finally, I have pretty much been forced to give up dairy in all its forms over the past couple of years, but yesterday I was doing some idle googling and I found www.notmilk.com which definitely reinforced that it was the right thing to do. Check it out if you're interested in why milk may not actually be good for you. It's not just vegan propaganda, either, most articles are backed up with lots of references to articles from reputable medical journals. Perhaps most interesting for a lot of women is the fact that milk is not actually good for preventing osteoporosis. I remember when Sally and I were in Japan, after about a week she had a major panic about the fact that she wasn't drinking any milk and "wasn't getting any calcium". In spite of the fact that I tried to reassure her that she was probably getting it from other sources (and offered to share my supply of calcium pills with her), she would not be persuaded that three weeks without milk or cheese would not condemn her to an osteoporotic old age. I kind of had to restrain myself from giggling and talking about dairy lobby brainwashing, but really. The vast majority of human populations (not to mention the entire animal kingdom) does not drink milk after infancy. Where are osteoporois rates the highest? Countries with high milk and protein consumption. But don't take my word for it, as our old friend Levar would say.
In no 'poo news, I felt like my hair wasn't getting quite as clean as I wanted and was getting oily pretty quickly, so I increased the amount of shikakai powder a bit and switched from a vineagar to a lemon juice rinse. It's awesome. My hair is really shiny and stays clean for longer, so I can stretch out washings to every four days and it only starts to look a bit greasy on the last day. Also, I've been experimenting with different ways to shave without using shaving gel/cream since I figured it's probably full of chemicals, too. Experiments with olive oil were not all I'd hoped. It wouldn't rinse off easily and I was paranoid that if I touched my hair with it still on my hands I would have majorly oily hair. Also, the hairs stayed in the oil and stuck in the razor, all over my legs, etc, and I ended up with a rather nasty ankle wound. However, I have found a solution! I cooked up a batch of flax seed shaving cream, and it's awesome. It's rather the consistency of snail slime, but it works perfectly and rinses off easily. I find it works best if I dip the razor into it rather than try to apply it to myself. Yay! Also, it's hella cheap since you only need a tablespoon of flax seeds to make about a cup of it. Hooray! I'm probably the cleanest dirty hippie in town.
A couple from Montreal were lost for nine days in BC. Two separate pilots (at least) on two separate occasions reported seeing SOS signals in the snow, but a search and rescue party wasn't sent out until a third pilot saw an SOS and the man waving for help. He was saved but by then his wife was dead. They were staying at a small ski resort, went out of bounds, and got lost. For nine days. With only two granola bars. Peter Mansbridge etc. kept calling it a "tragedy" but really, I think the only tragedy is how dumb these people were. If you're one of those skiiers who can't be content with staying on the trails and has to strike off in search of virgin powder/adventure or what have you, you should know that you're taking your life into your own hands. There's an assload of stuff that can befall you in the mountains of BC (avalanches, bears, your own inability to find your way back to the resort) and if you can't handle it, then don't go out of bounds, you dumbass. I feel bad for the family of the dead woman, but I really can't bring myself to feel bad for the couple themselves. If they hadn't been idiots in the first place, she'd still be alive and they'd be back at work like nothing had happened. I really don't think it's right to put yourself in danger through stupidity and then potentially endanger the lives of rescue workers by making them find you. My mum was saying that when it's your own stupid fault you should have to pay for the cost of your rescue, which I agree with.
Apparently the woman who gave birth to octuplets is now worried that the hospital may not release the babies to her. Gee, I can't imagine why not. Maybe it's because you're an unemployed single mom who already has six kids. She lives with her mom, who is financially tapped out, to the extent that her house might be foreclosed. I can't understand why any doctor would implant eight embryos in a woman who already had six kids in the first place, and especially a woman with no job or income. Isn't IVF crazy expensive? Who paid for this? Anyway, this woman obviously has some serious issues. I think the hospital would be negligent to release the kids to her. (And probably, if they released them and then the woman wasn't able to take care of all fourteen kids and something happened to one of them, she'd end up suing the hospital for releasing the kids to her when they should have known she couldn't take care of them!)
Finally, I have pretty much been forced to give up dairy in all its forms over the past couple of years, but yesterday I was doing some idle googling and I found www.notmilk.com which definitely reinforced that it was the right thing to do. Check it out if you're interested in why milk may not actually be good for you. It's not just vegan propaganda, either, most articles are backed up with lots of references to articles from reputable medical journals. Perhaps most interesting for a lot of women is the fact that milk is not actually good for preventing osteoporosis. I remember when Sally and I were in Japan, after about a week she had a major panic about the fact that she wasn't drinking any milk and "wasn't getting any calcium". In spite of the fact that I tried to reassure her that she was probably getting it from other sources (and offered to share my supply of calcium pills with her), she would not be persuaded that three weeks without milk or cheese would not condemn her to an osteoporotic old age. I kind of had to restrain myself from giggling and talking about dairy lobby brainwashing, but really. The vast majority of human populations (not to mention the entire animal kingdom) does not drink milk after infancy. Where are osteoporois rates the highest? Countries with high milk and protein consumption. But don't take my word for it, as our old friend Levar would say.
In no 'poo news, I felt like my hair wasn't getting quite as clean as I wanted and was getting oily pretty quickly, so I increased the amount of shikakai powder a bit and switched from a vineagar to a lemon juice rinse. It's awesome. My hair is really shiny and stays clean for longer, so I can stretch out washings to every four days and it only starts to look a bit greasy on the last day. Also, I've been experimenting with different ways to shave without using shaving gel/cream since I figured it's probably full of chemicals, too. Experiments with olive oil were not all I'd hoped. It wouldn't rinse off easily and I was paranoid that if I touched my hair with it still on my hands I would have majorly oily hair. Also, the hairs stayed in the oil and stuck in the razor, all over my legs, etc, and I ended up with a rather nasty ankle wound. However, I have found a solution! I cooked up a batch of flax seed shaving cream, and it's awesome. It's rather the consistency of snail slime, but it works perfectly and rinses off easily. I find it works best if I dip the razor into it rather than try to apply it to myself. Yay! Also, it's hella cheap since you only need a tablespoon of flax seeds to make about a cup of it. Hooray! I'm probably the cleanest dirty hippie in town.