Happy belated birthday, Canada.

Okay, I admit it. Even though I'm not strictly Canadian in the sense of citizenship, I still enjoy some of the Canada Day celebrations around here. Not so much the constant proclamations of, "Happy Canada Day!" everywhere I go, and people wearing red and a white isn't a big deal, but this city turns most of the uptown area into an open-air market. Stores have their stalls, some people grab tables and just get rid of some of their excess clutter, artists get a chance to display their awesome art. The smell of french fries, sausages, and cotton candy is everywhere.

So Rei and Cass and I went to hang out at said open market. Cass's mother was playing with a band around lunchtime, so we three got some drinks and sweet potato fries and sat to have a listen. Quite enjoyable. And then we wandered through the stalls, picked up and lost a few stray friends now and then, and lamented our lack of money, because there was, for once, a large number of things worth buying there.

In the end, I ended up buying a focusing crystal for Rei, from the Spirit2All stall. The store is owned by a friend, and I love supporting her, and I had the chance to chat to a few old friends there too. (Judy gave me the name of a lawyer who was involved in the last lawsuit against my idiotic ex-boss, and I shall contact them on Monday to see what can be done.)

Purchases were a toss-up between that crystal, and a katana that was in need of some polishing and repair but could easily be restored to a state or glory with little work. The crystal was cheaper, though, and right now we have nowhere to store extra swords even if we could afford them. Perhaps next year.

Next year, when I can hopefully remember to get a table of my own to sell knitted goods and tooled-leather bookmarks. Possibly tablet-woven belts if I ever get around to perfecting that technique.

Then it was back to Cass's to hang out for a little while before we had to go home, since Rei had a shift at holy-crap o'clock this morning. Shame I don't think her spicy lasagna agreed with me, though, since I ended up in pain by the time I got home and had to drink some of the herbal tea that helps calm my digestive system down. I'm really sick of that problem. My October appointment with a specialist just can't come fast enough!

What. The. Flying. Fuck?

A drug for pregnant women that prevents lesbian daughters.

... Yeah, you read that right.

The theory behind this is that a tiny and inconclusive study in Sweden may have shown that this drug reduces the rate of girls being born with congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which other studies have linked to "ambiguous genitalia" as well as higher rates of homosexuality and "masculine behaviour" in females, and apparently some doctor in New York thinks that this means that if pregnant women take the drug, the chances of them giving birth to a lesbian get drastically reduced.

A quote from this doctor: "The challenge here is... to see what could be done to restore this baby to the normal female appearance which would be compatible with her parents presenting her as a girl, with her eventually becoming somebody's wife, and having normal sexual development, and becoming a mother."

I think I'm going to go be sick now.