The Barbi Twins have once again lent their fame and faces to support the animal welfare cause. This time, Shane and Sia Barbi appear on the new poster for the documentary, Earthlings. Click here to read more…
Month: May 2010
My Compass Still Works
As someone who runs but has not yet tried the Vibram fivefingers, and as someone who used to work at Goldman Sachs and was dismayed by the company’s “best practices” while there, (not to mention now), and as someone who is part of the animal welfare movement, I feel like this Huff entry was written just for me. Luckily, my compass is not broken and I was able to find this wonderful blog post.
Meeting The Pediatrician
We had a prenatal consultation with the Dr. who may become our baby’s pediatrician, Dr. Jana Dehovitz of Brooklyn Heights Pediatrics. I say “may,” because her practice is supposed to start participating with our insurance provider, but doesn’t at the moment. If they still don’t by late June, then we’ll be on the hunt for a new ped.
When I first set out in search of a pediatrician I Googled “vegetarian-friendly” Dr.’s in my neighborhood. They need not be veg themselves, but they at least need to be supportive and/or understanding of the lifestyle in which we’re choosing to raise the baby. Dr. Dehovitz came recommended to me by a parent on the Bococa parents listserve who called her “very alternative medicine/veggie friendly.”
It turns out Dr. Dehovitz was the original Brooklyn office of Tribeca Pediatrics before going solo, and carries their same philosophy. A plus. My friend Brooke uses Dr. Tholany from Tribeca Pediatrics and I have heard wonderful things about her, too.
Our first impression of Dr. Dehovitz was perhaps that she was a bit cold. She asked to see our list of questions, and while we had some, they were not on paper. What it came down to was, “would she support and guide us as we raised our child as a vegetarian, and what was her protocol for immunizations?”
We heard all the things we needed to hear and then some. I knew when she said that she doesn’t over-prescribe drugs and antibiotics, that she had my husband at hello… even if it were a bit cold.
Dr. Dehovitz’s practice is on Pierrepont Street just one block from the Brooklyn Heights promenade. The office is bright and welcoming, with shelves of books for children and parents alike. The waiting area is also outfitted with tons of toys for toddlers, while the examination rooms have windows that resemble that of a ship’s. If you don’t have children and it’s been decades since you were one yourself, you forget how traumatic of an experience visiting the Dr. can be. Seeing Dr. Dehovitz’s office makes me think that hopefully, the experience is a tad easier on the tykes.
Oh yea, and just as I was feeling all warm and fuzzy, I grabbed her business card on the way out. I said to J, isn’t it totally freaky that they have some little kid dressed in a devil suit representing their practice? “Definitely, but I kind of like it.”
What can I say, twisted senses of humor I guess!
Meet Mr. Biggs
Mr. Biggs awaits his turn to get neutered Sunday at UA4A's spay/neuter clinic in Jamaica, Queens
This is Mr. Biggs. Someone had big plans to make a champ out of him so they chopped his ears. But Mr. Biggs turned out to be a lover not a fighter, so they dumped him at a neighbor’s house saying they would return to get him in a couple of hours and of course never did. He is being fostered by this gentleman who lives in Brooklyn and has two dogs and several cats of his own. He adores Mr. Biggs but there’s only one problem: he doesn’t get along with cats. Despite this small caveat, Mr. Biggs has an amazing disposition and desperately needs a good home. He’s young and let’s not forget… he’s also neutered thanks to United Action for Animals! Please let me know if you would like to meet this special boy.
Miss USA Is Arab-American
The new Miss USA is of Lebanese descent.
I stumbled upon the Miss USA Pageant Sunday night while flipping through channels and while most of it is absolutely ridiculous and seems almost dated and inconsequential to what’s going on in the world, I found Rima Fakih of Miss Michigan totally charming. I was rooting for her as soon as I heard her speak and saw her smile. I assumed while I was watching, that she was Iranian, so you could imagine my delight and surprise when I learned this morning that she is, in fact, Lebanese — with parents who are Catholic AND Muslim. Hehem.
I know she will spend the next year traveling and drawing attention to frivolous things like hair care products and fancy jewelry, but I also hope she will cast a much-needed, positive light on being Arab-American.
Congrats to the young lady!
gDiapers.com Crashes as Preggo Women Pursue the “New Baby Bundle!”
What started out as a laid back quest to find the best reusable diapers that would fit our lifestyle, ended in a frenetic feeding frenzy to purchase them today.
I credit Jason with having discovered gDiapers in one of my pregnancy magazines a couple of months ago, and after falling in love, I set out to educate myself on what we would need for our little one to get started. Alas, the “new baby bundle.” Outfitted with 12 tiny gPants (for newborns), six little gPants in gender neutral colors, and one case of gRefills, this bundle is only available via gDiapers’ website and retails for $149.99. Sure other retailers carry gDiapers, but they don’t carry the precious new baby bundle, whose main attraction is the tough-to-get tiny gPant for newborns.
Delighted to purchase a bundle for us to get started, I was met with a message in red that said, “Sorry, but we are currently sold out of the new baby bundle. Click here to be notified when they are back.” Even though there was a lot of time left in my pregnancy for me to purchase them, my heart sank and I regrettably filled out the form to be notified. This was a couple of months ago.
Today at 2:30pm, I received an email from Kelli McKee at gDiapers alerting me that at 1:00pm (PST) the new baby bundle would be back in stock and ready for purchase, but that there was still a very limited stock. Yikes! I had an hour and a half until I could pull the trigger. “Should I go food shopping before, or after?” Dinner would have to wait. I did not want to miss the 4:00 door opener. And apparently, I was not the only one.
I checked in with gDiaper’s Facebook page, of which there are nearly 14,000 fans, and noticed a post from gDiapers at noon that said, “Before Dec of 2009 we only sold three sizes: sm, med, and lg. No tiny g’s just yet. So for 4 years folks (including parents on the gTeam) started their babies in small. And guess what? Diapers.com has an amazing deal on size small everyday g’s and sweet bundle (and individual pants, too!). Check it out.”
“Oh no, they are already trying to create diversion,” I thought. This is going to be war. And sure enough, at 4:00 my time and 1:00 PST, their website crashed. Thinking it would be temporary I refreshed the page frantically to no avail. Thanks to Facebook, though, I was able to stay apprised of what was going on. Almost immediately, fans (myself included) began to post to their wall that they were having problems. Then came the first update by gDiapers an hour later: “We’re experiencing technical difficulties because so many people are logging in to our shop at the same time. Please bear with us. We’re working through this as quickly as possible.” That update received almost 60 comments – some humorous, some annoyed, some sympathetic – within minutes. Sounds crazy, I know, but let’s not forget that the majority of customers are desperate pregnant women with wild and raging hormones!
So after several status updates and pleas by gDiapers staff to layoff the refresh button, I went food shopping. I mean a pregnant woman’s gotta eat, right?! Upon coming home I checked their Facebook page and saw that several users were rejoicing in the fact that they were finally able to buy their bundle. And so, at 5:51pm, nearly two hours after the gDiapers new baby bundle feeding frenzy began, I was able to buy ours!
It does sort of bring to question why there is such little supply for such high demand for the tiny gPants. As one Facebook fan by the name of Tammy suggested to me, “perhaps gdiapers is afraid of going too big too fast. making mass quantities of terrible products might not be worth it to them. in keeping it small, perhaps they’re able to do better quality control.” Point taken, but when there is overwhelming demand and clearly not enough supply, isn’t that when you want to uh, I don’t know, get big-ger? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want them to sell out to Procter & Gamble, but create the supply to meet the demand already!
At last glance, gDiapers staff posted a YouTube video to let us know that they were indeed hard at work to resolve the website crash. Aren’t they happy that this didn’t happen on a Friday!