I Like My Environment.

I became obsessed with not mucking up the planet at a very young age. No one told me to, but I heard some catchy songs about acid rain and people starving in the desert, and my favorite movies were Blade Runner and Planet Of The Apes, plus I had a weird interest in fallen civilizations, so little by little I turned into the flaming hippie I am.

As a teenager, I sat around in a darkened room, not because I was moody (even though I was), or because I dug watching the bouncy lights on my stereo (even though I did), but because my house ran on two fuses and if I wanted my stereo and my computer, I couldn't have light. To add light would overload the circuit. My house taught me to be a conservationist. It also taught me to develop a little obsessive feeling that the house would burn down, but I see that as a good thing, because how else would I have seen all those episodes of Monty Python over and over if I wasn't up until dawn all alone every night?

My house isn't perfect, there was the oil spill of '04, when the oil tank under the patio disconnected itself from reality, and that followed the frozen pipe of doom that wasted a ridiculous amount of ice cold water, but overall this house has taught me what I need and what I don't need.

I don't throw out fallen leaves, I mulch them. My plants need the mulch, might as well use my own leaves. I can't afford loads of chemicals to treat anything, so I ward off the aphids with light oil and kill the weeds with boiling water.

I don't drive much. That's one way I've managed to not pollute. In this way, my migraines helped me save the Earth. Many people in my family haven't seen me in years, but hey, I prevented emissions!

I unplug everything I'm not using, not only to save money, but to keep my house from shortening the lives of the electronics. Even though the house was changed from two fuses to proper circuit breakers nearly twenty years ago, the wiring still demands a sacrifice once in a while.

I can stretch a three-inch scrap of paper to contain the notes for an entire month. It's not that I don't have paper to write separate things on, it's that I don't feel the need to write all big so everyone can see I need to remember to remind myself that I have to tape a movie and get the lotto numbers.

I'm still on the same four sets of rechargeable batteries for my radio, going on five years. Considering my radio uses two AAA's worth of power every three days, that's a lot of saved batteries. Yes, I have to recharge them off my house electricity, I'm not perfect. I haven't sent seven hundred-and-fifty alkaline batteries to the dump, though, that's something.

The low-wattage light bulbs we're all switching to with trace amounts of mercury in them are something, too, I just haven't figured out what, yet. They may make all my photos without a flash look green and creepy, but they've saved us a chunk of change we've used for...well, I guess not enough for healthcare, but we can eat!

Happy Blog Action Day, everyone. This post made me feel petulant and I'm sorry if it came through, but the whole purpose of Blog Action Day was to raise awareness for the environment--which some people think is perfectly fine and that thinking crosses over into places in my head where I am not funny and friendly and I don't want to go there because I do think the environment's going downhill as fast as my own house, but like with my house, I can only do what I can do and hope it helps. Another point of the day was to donate the day's earnings to charity, and well, from here? There are none. But I reused some packing today, and I still haven't gotten my faucet repaired, so I didn't waste any water today because no water comes out unless I use the sprayer. It's also cooling off so that's less power used to keep me from melting. Yay for natural air conditioning.

I Like My Environment.

Cash In The Trash

Who the hell came up with the term Cash in the Trash? I've seen two equally irritating commercials on TV that brag that before these products, everyone was doing things that amounted to cash in the trash. (I feel like there should be a chord or two of horror music there).

Billy Mays screams that his super towels prevent cash in the trash in the form of cleaning up things people waste paper towels on, like apparently dog vomit (I swear, watch the commercial next time it's on), but the first place I noticed it said was in a commercial for some kind of can topper that turns soda cans into color-coded bottles with cups that double as coasters, and lets parents give old, flat, spit in soda to their kids again and again without having to open a new can.

Yeah, you heard me, its not bad enough kids have to get hooked on soda in the first place, now if they're gonna drink that crap, they're gonna drink all of it.

I don't know about you, but in my paternal grandfather's days, the crap he'd bring home would furnish his house...well, I think it did, I don't really know much about him except that he was dressed up in women's clothes in a photo and he could talk but just didn't, so until Nan started talking to him one time and he answered, no one really knew he spoke.

But my point is that ratty old paper towels and half-drunk soda doesn't strike me as cash in the trash so much as an environmental disaster. Plus, ad dudes, why are you throwing the soda in the garbage? Cans go into the recycling, dumbasses. NOW where are you putting that cash? Or, like we have to, take the tinny bastards back to the store, and MAKE MONEY off them. Cash? My trash? Hell no. I want my five bucks and not your spitty old soda, so step off mah can.

I can only imagine the next products "Cash in the Trash" will be used for. Super absorbent lady products? Oh, I wanna see Billy Mays hawk that.

The author would like to note that she has used paper towels and drinks exactly one can of soda a day--two on the weekend--and is a firm believer in the magic that is Orange Glo...just not for cars. Never for cars.

Cash In The Trash