Attention Miraflow, Softwear Saline and Aosept Contact Lens Wearers!

so it came to my attention a few days ago when i went to buy some softwear saline for my contacts that ciba vision is discontinuing miraflow contact lens cleaner and softwear saline. wtf?

i have managed to score some miraflow and hopefully will be ordering some softwear saline. i can't believe this. well, you're probably wondering what the big deal is. i am allergic to just about every other contact lens solution available. i can't use alcon, clear care or renu. i can't use most salines because they have preservatives in them. my eyes become red, itchy, burn and have a disgusting discharge. i am not alone. i'm posting this to unite other people who have the same problem i do.

i found out about this discontinuation for a google search. ciba vision is wanting to swtich miraflow users to clear care. well, that wouldn't be such a problem if people weren't allergic to clear care's cleaning agent- pluronic 17r4. and yes, i followed the cleaning instruction to a t. that's why people still buy miraflow, even if the number seems to be small. i don't understand the discontinuation since there are people i converted over to aosept who had lens problems.

i have contacted ciba and told them about my dilemma, as on the internet they didn't post about alternatives available for people like me. they haven't even updated their website to inform consumers. well, i did find out that cvs makes a cleaner just like miraflow- it's their extra strength cleaner for soft contacts. you can check the ingredients and compare them.
here's a link to that product

i haven't tried the product myself yet, but i would love for others to post their experiences here.

as for needing preservative free saline, i've heard blairex has a can version available that's supposed to work wonderfully, since it seems other places like cvs discontinued their version long ago. why? i mean, i also use canned saline to heal piercings. the bottled version with preservatives is not good for piercings and keeping homemade solution sterile is not easy.

i hope my message gets through to ciba vision that their business decision as a poor one.

you may contact ciba vision at: 800-875-3001
or visit their site: www.cibavision.com
please tell them you are disatisfied with clear care and why. tell them that miraflow is the only thing you can use.

you may think i'm crazy posting about such a trivial matter, but i've relied on the aosept system for over 10 years. i haven't been able to use a single other cleaner without problems. and there are times where wearing glasses won't do and neither will stumbling around blind.

perhaps we could petition to ciba about this? post here if you're interested.

I'm Obsessed with a Stripper

it's always fun to toss in a parody song. this one is to the tune of t-pain's 'i'm in love with a stripper' which i think is an annoying song. be more creative. 'i'm in love with porta-potty cleaner' would be more unique. in case you're wondering, i feel this is a more true-to-the-stereotype song than t-pain's. take it tongue in cheek, it's not meant to be serious.

here goes:
got the body of a crack whore
i wave you away when i see you girl
(he's gay)
i tip you in drugs
(you crackhead)
yeah, i make all my money
(selling drugs)
i cant hold a job down
(you loser)
i even cant pay my child support and shouldn't be here
but i'm obsessed with a stripper

chorus:
i grabbed her ass and she slapped me
she peed in my shot but
i'm obsessed with a stripper
the bouncer came over and punched me
i'm not standin up cause i'm too drunk
i'm obsessed with a stripper

repeat chorus

out of all the girls
i need to stalk her
you look the most like my mother girl
(who left you)
in a supermarket
(with some crack)
yeah, i'm schizophrenic
(resperitol)
did i forget to mention
i escaped the loony bin in a straight jacket
but i'm obsessed with a stripper

chorus 2x

i pull my dick out of my pants
she tells me 'no thank you i don't smoke'
(he's that small)
i need to change my depends pad
(it's soaked)
yeah, i toss up some quarters
(cheap bastard)
she kicks my drink on me
(you deserved it)
i guess i'm just stuck with that vibrating butt plug
but i'm obsessed with a stripper

chorus 4x

Artificial Archives- Read This First

at this point i've decided it's time to let this blog get interesting. a blog titled vulgar vixen is pointless if all i'm going to do is post gardening tips. this is something i've debated in my head for quite some time.

i will be labeling these posts by number, so you know they belong in the 'Artificial Achives' section (it's a working title). i get random stories that creep into my head and won't leave me alone. so i sit at my late 90s computer and type them into a primitive word processing program. half the time i save them as email drafts just in case. did i mention i still have a zip drive floating around my residence?

anyways, back to the point. it's time to release these stories into the world. a few are very loosely based on real life events of people. the majority are not. anything you read in these stories is mostly fiction and any similarities are purely coincidental.

it's time to melt your brain...

Santa = Satan

gee, why on earth would i say such a thing?

i have yet to meet a single person who felt the way i did as a child. i'm still searching. so i hope putting this up here will help me find that person.

i am claustraphobic. i did not like santa as a child. there are a few pictures of me hightailing it away from him in a baby walker. when i was very small, santa was a big creepy man who had an abnormal beard (yes, i noticed that it wasn't like other beards!) and smelled funny. "ho ho ho!" never sounded happy to me, santa sounded wicked pissed. perhaps how i grew up is the real kicker.

so as a child i was told that if i was bad, santa wouldn't bring presents for anyone. well, honestly, i really didn't give a fuck about the presents for me. since early childhood, i rather would have done my own shopping in the mall and taken advantage of bargains (you should have seen me with the sale circulars at 5!). much more fun and i could get exactly what i wanted. it was my family being angry with me on xmas morning because santa didn't bring them presents that caused apprehension. do you have any idea what amount of stress i was under because if i did one little thing wrong, well, my family would go downstairs to an empty tree and blame ME?!

how did i figure this out? well, where i grew up, someone always got robbed on xmas- presents stolen, apartment ransacked, etc. the thief was never caught. every year it was on our tv, no fail. i lived in a big city. well, my parents also told me santa brought a lump of coal for bad kids. of course i was about 4 years old, so when my father said this, i didn't know what a 'lump of coal' was. we didn't use coal. my ability to comprehend wasn't at peak, so i heard it as 'lumper coal'. yeah, whatever 'lumper coal' was, it was something bad. so i thought it meant no presents.

the legend goes santa made presents in a workshop at the north pole. well, as a child, i watched geography shows with my parents on pbs. according to that, no lone lived on the north pole period. so the idea seemed far fetched, especially with the amount of presents he had to make, which all said 'made in taiwan' on them. so i figured he was more like a robin hood than a santa claus, stealing the presents from bad people and giving them to the good. this was what 'lumper coal' meant to me.

of course, growing up in the city in the 1980s also meant another lesson taught- stranger danger. never open the door for anyone. don't go near cars. it goes on. i was an only child on top of that which made my parents even more clingy. so why the hell were we letting a stranger in a red suit into our home?! and the risk of him ransacking our home on xmas eve made it all make even less sense. why did we put out presents we were giving to each other for santa to steal and not lock them up?

my parents would make me sit on santa's lap no matter how scared i was with the threat of "we can't have christmas if you don't sit on santa's lap." they have a photo of me, clearly uncomfortable, forced to sit on his lap. WHY?! WHY?! i wasn't a bad kid, but i had this horrid fear that no matter how good i was, especially around xmas, it wasn't good enough for santa and our house would be robbed. i asked my parents, "why does santa come?" "why can't we just give presents to each other?". of course, it was answered with, "santa HAS to come!" i was also told the, "behave because santa's watching!" even if i didn't do anything bad. so i was even more reluctant to express my fear of santa, worried that my fears would cause santa to rob us- because he saw and heard everything.

i tried my hardest to put a stop to this evil santa claus. i told my parents i didn't want him to come. i didn't want my family's presents stolen at my expense. i was just trying to stop santa's evil ways. it wasn't about presents- it was about protecting my family. i ran around on xmas eve making absolutely sure the windows and doors were locked tight. a habit my mother thought was quite odd until i explained it about 10 years later. i even tried to put chairs under the door knobs like i had seen in cartoons to keep santa out. i did it in my room when i went to bed xmas eve. well, none of it worked. and every year he still took a bite of the cookies we left out and left us presents.

most people would think with the nice presents that my fear would stop. it didn't. after we had presents, i would still be apprehensive, because next year we might not be as lucky.

my thoughts went deeper than that, even as a small child. why didn't santa give gifts to my childhood friend who was hindu? she was nice girl. how could being hindu make her a bad person? why were some of the poor kids skipped over as well? they were nice. santa and his cruel threats made no sense. i could never understand people's joy over his arrival.

it came to a head when i was about 8 or so. it was xmas morning. it was the year my parents decided to tell me he wasn't real. i came down to no presents from santa and thought santa had robbed us and it was my fault. i had a complete meltdown with my grandmother. i told her everything i thought about santa, which she had no idea because my parents told me my feelings were foolish, so i kept them to myself. i kinda flipped at my folks, angry for them for ignoring my fears. my grandmother said something i deeply love her for to this day, " oh honey, i'm so sorry!" she held me close, " i wish you had told us you were scared of santa. i had no idea! if you didn't want santa to come, he didn't have to! we will have no more santa in this house, ok? it will be just us." she told my parents no more santa.

from that point on, santa was forbidden from the house. i started buying my own presents as well, taking advantage of yard sales and after xmas bargains, much to the surprise of my family (my grandma wasn't surprised). 20 years later, i'm not angry at my parents over this. i understand my parents just wanted to pass along a childhood tradition they were fond of. santa was a fun tradition for them as both kids and parents. however, they weren't petrified of him as kids.

so i guess i'd like to find that someone who had that fear. and i'd like to tell parents out there: it is NOT CUTE to force your kids to sit on santa's lap while they cry. it's downright CRUEL. i hope this story shows you that kids aren't as stupid as you'd like them to be. i know watching your kids' eyes light up on xmas morning is fun, but please, that feeling of fear lasts a lot longer than the joy of xmas morning. if your kids don't like santa, please don't make him come like mine did. no child should have to spend xmas eve scared- it's supposed to be a happy holiday. i think telling the truth to kids about santa is even better. i wished mine had done it sooner. to be honest, i was much happier when i knew santa wasn't real, and i didn't feel like i was being made the butt of a cruel joke.

now, i don't even celebrate xmas. i was the first in the family to leave christianity. while i don't have any real religious affiliation, we still have a nice, quiet solstice.

Fox News Attempts to De-Mystify Strip Clubs for Couples

ok, i'll give them some credit for the republican-funded station for not condemning strippers to hell- again. but i have some problems with this article: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,579672,00.html

why is it that whenever the subject is brought up of heterosexual couples visiting a strip club is a strip club with male dancers never mentioned? i think it's very one-sided to not mention it. i am starting to doubt that this article was written by a woman in the first place. what woman wouldn't acknowledge the other side of the coin?

and why is it that with most men i meet, they are dying to bring their girlfriends to female strip clubs but are in toddler-like hysterics at the thought of gazing at male anatomy? you have a penis too, big deal. what are you so scared of? you expect your girlfriend to be more "open-minded", yet you yourself refuse to be. the familiar spoken lines of: "oh, it's just for fun.", "it doesn't make you gay to look at a naked woman." and "most girls are fine with it." seem to fade at the idea of having to look at your fellow men strut their stuff. it take balls to be a fag, sweetheart.

back to my commentary on the article:
in #1, the writer mentions skipping foreplay. excuse me, but foreplay is awesome! this sounds like a wham bam thing, and i dont know too many people who want their sex life to be 5 minute intervals. at least i don't. and 'work'? if you view sex as 'work' then you're doing it wrong.

in #2, how can a stripper be a mutually desired "object" if both parties are straight? unless she's referring to a hermaphrodite stripper, it's not gonna work. and what is up with this expectation of women to be bisexual and our society's repulsion of a bisexual man? i have a feeling that 'little bit of bi' so many women claim is also just as prevalent in our male counterparts- they just won't admit to it.

the writer also makes references to having an unattractive dancer around to have the woman feel more attractive herself. seriously, that is so pathetic and childish! i wonder if a person should even try to be in an adult relationship with that one. i see myself as me. if you think i'm ugly, there's the door. if a "man" would try to put me in a position where i would need to "compete" for him, i have batteries, thankyouverymuch.

the article also mentions the strip club as being "taboo" and "naughty". i just dont find it that way. taboo is having sex in a hydrotherapy tub- hell, i think that may be more than taboo, that's just downright twisted.

the one thing the article nailed on the head was about strip clubs being safe and free from the worries of stds. i wish more people would consider this one. it also frees a person from the requirements of child support for 18 years, which some disgruntled parents have told me is the worse std of all.

and now for my own opinions on the matter:
if a couple wants to go to a strip club, that's their business. don't pressure your partner to go. if your partner is unhappy there, leave. if you're unhappy and your partner won't listen, excuse yourself to the bathroom and when s/he's not looking, bolt. don't stay there and take your bad time out on the people who work there- it's not their fault, it's your partner's for not listening to you.

personally, i'm not against strip clubs. people work there so they can pay their bills. people go there to watch attractive dancers and be entertained by them. not everyone likes strip clubs, but that's why we have a wonderful thing in this world called choices.

"Thanksgiving"

so yesterday i'm sure many of you sat around a fancy schmancy dining room table with your families (bickering or not) and overindulged in turkey and side dishes. i did not. i haven't done it for years- before it became 'hip' to rebel against the so-called 'turkey day'.

why do we have to eat turkey? when i was a kid, it was told to me that the pilgrims ate it, so we have to as well. well, of course, i wondered at the age of 6 why didn't the pilgrims have pizza instead. i mean turkey was ok, but shouldn't we have something super-awesome for a holiday? like pizza? or chocolate cake? nope. it was turkey and blueberry pie- with 1/2 the sugar cause some of my family liked it that way. BO-RING!!!

thanksgiving is such a confusing holiday in this country. and so debated- with one side commemorating the pilgrims' landing at plymouth rock and another just using it as a time to give thanks, when really truly, all they do is engage in gluttonous behavior and bicker with family. doesn't sound like a 'thanksgiving' to me. usually women bust their asses in the kitchen all day to make a meal, probably feeling little thanks is given to them and horrible family pressure to have everything be 'perfect'. to be honest this crap truly disgusts me. it 100% misses the point of giving thanks. it turns into just a day of petty bullshit.

so i celebrate the day very differently from just about everyone i know. i give thanks in a different way. i take the day to do charity work for the homeless. nothing will make you appreciate what you have been blessed with until you look at thousands of people who flock to a turkey dinner, ragged, down-trodden and tired. when you stare deeply into their eyes because it seems the holidays are the only time people remember the unfortunate exist. what about the rest of the year? well, sometimes i make sandwiches for a shelter and drop them off. because people need food everyday, not just thanksgiving and xmas.

for food, well, i eat what i love and am truly thankful for- hot krispy kreme donuts. i pound those damn donuts since it's the only day i allow myself to eat them. i eat about 1 dozen- and am blessed with not gaining a pound. i am VERY grateful for the nice people at krispy kreme. if i'm going to eat something fattening, i'm going to eat things i truly love, one of them is krispy kreme. the good news is while everyone else has turkey coma, i will be wired from sugar and the coffee i have with my cherished donuts. what law says we HAVE to have turkey? what if the food you're truly thankful for is chef boyardee? well, eat it then!

it really brings me great joy to watch the eyes of the unfortunate light up when presented with a hot krispy kreme- something that they probably are hardly ever given. the volunteer i gave them to yesterday marveled that the donuts were still hot and was very happy that someone out there knew just how great it is for once to not eat stale leftovers. this dates back to over 5 years ago when i first moved down south.

back then, i was a broke kid with nothing but an old car and the clothes on my back. it was thanksgiving and with a few bucks and being alone, i decided i'd grab some chicken wings that night, my first meal of the day. so i walked through the ghetto i had moved into to hit the wing place. a couple pulled up in the parking lot in a new black mercedes. the lady driving put the window down. she asked if i was homeless. well, i didn't know what these people had in their heads, so i said, 'what's it to ya?' keeping back from that mercedes, a bit guarded. she asked if i needed food. i told her i was hoping to try to get something to eat (which $4 wasn't going to buy much). she told me she felt blessed and asked me to come over so she could give my something. this offer probably had to do with my small size and being a girl alone in a not so good neighborhood. i was a bit cautious when i started approaching, scared they'd snatch me. well, by the powers that be, that lady gave me a nice amount of $$$!!! can you believe it?! what a saint!!! and she told me happy thanksgiving and the couple drove away. my jaw dropped so hard i would have needed a crane to scoop it up. i profusely thanked those people for this. THIS is the true meaning of thanksgiving- and you can bet your ass i ate damn well that night. i also got a little extra food and gave it to the bums outside the chicken place, figuring one good turn deserved another.

and every year, out of thanks for the kindness of that couple, i give back.

recycled life

i have been searching for this documentary for over 1 year now wanting to rent it. well, no luck. i managed to finally find it on youtube. i am almost at a loss for words.

it's about people who live in guatemala city's garbage dump, considered the most toxic dump in central america. they search through heaps of trash that is dropped of daily for food, clothing and even items that can be RECYCLED. yes, recycled.

it really makes me baffled at the people i interact with in my life. how is it so hard to put a plastic bottle in a bin? if you are that lazy, your complaints about getting fat are ridiculous to me. no wonder why you are. you need your escalade to go to then end of the driveway! i'd hate to see what happens when you can't afford that escalade anymore and downgrade to an amc pacer. i'll probably wind up laughing at you as you struggle to figure out how to walk.

this has prompted me to do some research on recycling programs for various towns in the state i live in. if i think they're inadequate, i may start some petitions. wish me luck!

here's the link to 'recycled life' (it's in 4 parts). please watch- and think!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWZFN1rkaSc

if you want a cat to claw your eyes out...

buy him this:
http://www.amazon.com/Joybies-Piddle-Pants-Measuring-Collar/dp/B001N3TT8C/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1248751128&sr=8-5

yes. piddle pants. i do not see a cat possibly being even remotely sane once these are slipped on his behind. supposedly, they are to discourage spraying.

i got a blackberry!

no, i wasnt talking about the phone. i was composting my lettuce a few weeks ago until i could harvest my next crop (which is now seedlings, by the way). lo and behold i discovered the thorny branch that was creeping last year and attempting to conquer my porch has blossomed into blackberries!!! yum!

now to just keep the bush under control and get the berries before critters do...

sometimes i can be the BIGGEST TURN OFF EVER for guys

so i was dropping a girlfriend off at her place one night after a night out. her car wasnt running and she decided i would be the dd that night. i rarely drink so i often am. mind you, this young lady is very tiny and adorable. her gentle demeanor made me feel even more protective since it was a late saturday night.

so we're at a stoplight in my jalopy. i have no a/c. they stopped making the antifreeze for my car ages ago. no biggie. the jalopy will be less likely to overheat now. homie mcthugginsteen and his 3 friends pull up next to us and try to pick us up.

homie: hey girl, how you doin'?
now, to me, he's just being friendly until he says...
where you goin' girls? we wanna hang witch yoo!

of course, having a petite girl in the car makes me more protective and feel more bitchy. and with 4 large men in the car next to us, i'm going to be more guarded. so i make an attempt to be as off putting as possible:

me: i feel like crap and i'm on my period. got a problem with that?!
homie: wha???

the light turned green and the jalopy sped past their fancy large new car.

cute little girl and i burst out laughing. we couldnt stop. i bet homie and his friend laughed too. the good thing: we werent followed home and we were safe. no offense to those guys, but this world isn't very safe for small women at times.

sometimes you just have to be offputting and gross. to the men out there: now you see those cheesy pickup lines DON'T work, and you may not get the answer you were expecting.