the witch of portobello

"the witch of portobello" by paulo coelho

i love love love coelho's books. his books are different from traditional novels. each book has a theme - faith, trust, love, etc - and teaches a lesson. this book is his latest installment and focuses on love. his books always include a discussion of god and religion, but again, not in the traditional sense.

i love the way his writing really makes you think about your life and how the things that really are important - family, love, relationships - aren't always the things we focus on the most. he has a way of presenting characters that are really relatable, causing you to reflect on your own life.

human toxome project

i remember watching a special on dateline nbc earlier this year about the toxic chemicals found in humans. dateline compared the levels of a "normal" family to those of one which did not eat fast food/ready made food and only used natural, chemical free products. much to the green family's dismay, the levels of toxicants in their blood were, for the most part, equal to those of the conventional family.

while looking for something else online today, i stumbled on the environmental working group's (the same organization that developed and maintains the skindeep database) human toxome project. the goal of the project is to really see the effect of industrial pollution on the human population by measuring how much of what chemicals are in people's blood. EWG took blood samples and tested them for 100s of different chemical compounds. the results are sorted by sex, geographic location, and age group. it's pretty interesting to see what chemicals are in, say, older people versus younger people...or even men versus women. you can also see the human health and environmental effects of the chemicals. it's pretty interesting stuff.

check out the study at http://www.ewg.org/sites/humantoxome/

trash tv

i love the people's court. the people are always trashy, the argument is always ridiculous, and something always has to be bleeped out. i've learned a lot of basic skills from other people's stupid mistakes: always take pictures of an apartment when you first rent it and on the day you move out. always do a walkthrough with the landlord when you move out. always pay with checks. you can't trace cash payments. always use written contracts. verbal contracts are legal in new york, but it just turns into a he-said-she-said game. if i don't learn anything, at least i'm entertained and after an especially crummy day, know that my life could be infinitely worse than it is...i could be suing my exboyfriend for smashing my car after he saw me with another guy.

lead & pvc free?

i bought this insulated lunch bag at walmart for $2.88 to take on hikes. the tag intrigued me as it says "ULTRA SAFE pvc & lead free lining - meets FDA & CPSC lead free standards". for $2.88, i'm sold. just for kicks i looked to see what it's made of - polyurethane foam.

here's how the three materials compare:
lead - leaches into food & causes neurological damage
pvc - leaches phthalates into food, which has been shown to cause liver damage and birth defects in lab rats (the production of pvc also creates dioxin, the most potent carcinogen known)
polyurethane foam - highly flammable

polyurethane foam is used in almost everything - car seats, mattresses, pretty much anything squishy and comfortable. not to say it's safe just because it's used in a number of products, but after a brief google, i couldn't find any compelling health effects. so there's no real health risk...just make sure not to keep it near your camp fire.

but is it really lead & pvc free? surprise! it's manufactured in china, so your guess is as good as mine.

brio's bano

along with handsoap and tissues, the bathroom at brio in pittsford has listerine pumps and little cups for you to swish away the garlic from your dinner before you kiss your date goodnight. excellent idea.

the ladies' room only had one chair. the men's room has 8ish. weird, yes. all the guys with us were fascinated by the number of chairs. what do you do with all of them? why are they also in the stalls? maybe that's where they store their extra chairs?

best vodka sauce...

...in rochester is at Veneto, on east ave. i'm a huge fan of vodka sauce when it's done right. i've had it at a couple local rochester restaurants and it's never been all that good. two that stand out in my mind were too greasy, too clumpy, and just plain didn't taste good.

saturday night we finally went to veneto. i started with the prosciutto wraps. warmed mozz wrapped with prosciutto, my favorite thing ever, over salad sounded amazing. the problem is that it was so greasy i almost didn't finish it. the penne in vodka sauce was excellent. the sauce was flavored perfect, not too greasy, not too heavy. i ate the rest today and was only slightly disappointed, as it was really greasy. still tasted really good.

www.venetorestaurant.com

sheryl crow @ cmac

toots and the somebodies opened = not so good

james blunt was the official opener = yes, he's whiny; i was fully expecting to completely hate him, but was pleasantly surprised. he's not as whiny as i expected and the music isn't too bad.

sheryl crow = i've seen her 3 other times (cmac before they redid it, new jersey, jones beach) so i knew what to expect. the crowd was a bit older...there was a 45 year old woman in the row ahead of us dancing like she was in a club. hilarious. the music was good, the weather was good, all in all a good night.

cmac = i don't remember exactly how it looked before, but i do remember big pillars in the middle, which are now gone. the only ice cream they have is dippin dots which are disgusting. beer is $8 a cup and i didn't even look to see how much other food is (dinosaur, tahou's, stadium fare). i couldn't figure out where everyone was getting mini bottles & boxes of wine.

next time = bring my own food & drink. every time i looked at the woman next to me she was eating something different. i was jealous.