Open Your Eyes

Sometimes I am bewildered by what we can miss if we're not watching out for it. And by we, I of course mean me. Because frankly, I have a habit of being in my own head too much, and on planet Earth a little too seldom.

All this to say that this evening, I was headed to Honda's house, and the parking was a huge ol' pain, so I ended up parking a million miles away. Okay, that might be an exaggeration. But just a little one.

Anyway, I realized that I was across the street from this natural food market. Now, I have seen this market many times, but I always assumed they just sold vitamins and eye of newt and such. Now, I stared at the market with new eyes and wondered if it might be one of those bulk food goods stores I have heard so much about on the internets.

I was late to Honda's, but whatever, I walked in anyway. And, seriously? It was like I had died and gone to bulk unpackaged food heaven. And not only did they have bulk flour and rice and spices and beans and everything else good, but they also offered bulk laundry soap and dishwashing soap. 

How did I completely miss this damn store all this time?! I mean seriously. This store is down the street from Honda's place, and frankly, it's only a 20 minute walk from my place. I was so excited, I wanted to buy up the entire store right there and then. But, I didn't have any bags or containers with me. And well, frankly, I didn't actually need food. 

Anyway, now I know. Better late than never, I guess. 

P.S. Melinda at Elements In Time has conned gently persuaded me to give up internet and other technologies for a day. I'm going to try for tomorrow. We'll see how I do.

Life Less Disposable

Recently Colin at No Impact Man cited an amazing statistic by Heather Rogers, namely, that 80% of products sold in America are designed to be used once and tossed.

Now, I haven't read Rogers' book, Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage, yet, nor do I know where she got such a statistic from. At first it seemed like such an outrageously high number that I was inclined to dismiss it. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there's an awful lot of stuff out there that fits the bill: envelopes, scotch tape, packaging, cotton balls, paper cups, Biore pore strips, PAPER, etc etc.

Since then, I like to play this little game with myself. My mission in this game is to find ways to use things TWICE.

I mean, look, first of all, I try not to use unnecessary one-time use products. And there's a lot of "disposable" stuff that I use over and over again. Ziploc bags are a good example. But there's also a lot of stuff I'm just not going to use 20 times or even five times. But, I can maybe find a way to use them twice.

Like envelopes. If I get a manila envelope that wasn't actually sealed, but just held shut by the brass fastener, I'll throw a label on over where my address was marked, and send that envelope back out to someone else. If the envelope was sealed, I might use the back of the envelope to make a grocery list.

Since I can't recycle carbon copy paper, I rip it up and use it to mark the pages in my books when I read something blog-worthy.

Paper gets de-bradded and de-paper clipped before it goes in the recycling. Yeah, you can keep that stuff in, but why, when you can re-use it!

Packaging materials get saved. All of it. Boxes, ribbons, wrapping paper, bubble wrap.

I will even on occasion use one tea bag to make two cups of tea.

And every time I come up with a way to use one more thing twice, I get all excited, like I've just advanced to the next round of America's Next Top Re-user. What that says about me and my life (or lack thereof), I don't know. ;)

Good News!

Bow chicka bow bow.

Just When I Think I'm Free of CNN, They Reel Me Back In

Sorry I was away yesterday. I was trying to write an in depth post about how by reducing consumerism as a society, we could decrease working hours, but yesterday was too distracting with all the election drama. Hopefully I'll have that post for you all by tomorrow or Friday.

Speaking of the election, I am starting to feel like I might as well turn over my paycheck to the Democrats the way I am constantly guilted into giving money to them. Has anyone else experienced this? Everywhere I turn, I am getting emails and phone calls, and getting stopped on the street. And everyone is asking me to donate money.

And while I'm happy that for the first time in forever the Democrats are the ones winning the money game (in February, Obama and Clinton raised about $85 mil combined versus a paltry $12 mil from McCain) the non-consumerist in me feels queasy about all the money sloshed around. And ... for what? For some ads and counter ads all about little children at 3:00 am?

Really?

Aren't there better uses for this money?

Now, look. I'm going to continue to donate to the Democratic Party because this is the system we have *now.* And, honestly, I don't know that there IS a better system. Citizens have a right to donate to presidential campaigns. It's part of our free speech rights.

But I wish there was a better way. I'm troubled by the millions and millions of dollars that are lavished on campaigns. I'm worried that every campaign these days is getting more and more expensive.

On the other hand, if Obama wins the nomination, I don't want him to take public funding for the general election. Obama has shown that he can beat McCain handily in the money game if they don't accept public funding. Why give up this advantage the one year it favors Democrats?

So, I guess that means, while I'm troubled by all the money, I'd rather win more than anything.

Wherein I Officially End An Important Relationship

Crunchy Chicken made my fifteen minutes of armchair activism fairly easy this morning, with her most recent campaign to fix the farm bill. I urge you all to write your representative about this. The farm bill doesn't get much attention, which is weird considering how it almost single-handedly directs how agriculture is conducted in this country. Crunchy makes it super-easy for you too providing a template and everything. I took her template, and tweaked it a little to talk about how modifying the farm bill is good for California as well as the rest of the country.

Speaking of food, I gotta tell you, I never, ever thought of myself as someone who could cook before. Oh, I could follow a recipe, but to me there's a keen distinction between following a recipe (which anyone who can read can do) and cooking. I could do the former, and I could do the former well, even for complicated dishes. But I did not know how to cook the simplest dish.

But ever since DeSloFooMo, I've been forced to learn. Now that frozen or one-serving meals are pretty much verboten, if I want to eat, I have to do more than microwave. And I gotta tell you, that what started as a personal campaign against waste has become much more. It's not just that frozen meals produce a lot of trash, they have a lot of preservatives and sodium. And frankly? Now that I've started to remember what a home cooked meal tastes like? Well, Lean Cusine just doesn't compare.

On Wednesday night, I decided to try out a turkey-bacon chili recipe for the first time. I left out two spices I didn't have, and subbed in five others that I did have. Six months ago, I would never, ever have thought to defy a recipe. That would be blasphemy! I would have hurried off to the store and bought the two spices I didn't own, and never thought of adding anything else. But, now those once-weak cooking muscles are much stronger, and I'm no longer afraid to use those muscles. It's exciting to take a recipe and "make it my own," as Simon Cowell would say.

Fast-forward to Friday, when I handed a bowl of my chili to a co-worker of mine. "Wow," she said tasting it. "You know, I'm a Texan, and so I'm a huge chili snob. This? Is good chili."

Wow. No one ever complimented my microwaving skills like that!

So, sorry, Lean Cuisine. You probably have been wondering why I've been avoiding your eye in the grocery store. Why I ignore your calls. You send me coupons (5 for $10!) and I am still not enticed. And well, you've been good to me in the past, so I feel I owe you an explanation.

It's like this. We had a good run. But frankly, I've changed, and you ... well you haven't. It's not your fault, exactly. It's me. I want more than what you could provide me. I want food instead of maltodextrin and xanthan gum, and taste instead of cardboard. You were convenient, Lean Cuisine, but you didn't have much else to offer. So it's over. Don't try to call me or email anymore. Let's just agree to go our separate ways. No muss. No fuss. Breaking up is never easy. But it's time.

Armchair Activism #2

So, I decided to go for a more ... attention-grabbing method in today's armchair activism, since I'm dealing with a bigger company, and I think that with bigger companies it's good to differentiate yourself. Will it get results? We'll have to wait to see. Here it is:

Trader Joe's! You know how I love you, and yet lately I feel like you've become like that boyfriend that I love, but that still always disappoints.

Yesterday I walked into your store and saw that you were selling your insulated bags in PLASTIC SHRINK WRAP! Plastic shrink wrap, Trader Joe's! Wherefore has thou forsaken me?

The whole POINT of reusable bags is to lessen plastic and paper waste. There's not a safety or hygiene reason for plastic shrink wrap around a reusable bag, so please, Trader Joe's, don't keep breaking my heart.

Sincerely, Arduous

And now I'm off to enjoy what little weekend there is left. Happy Sunday, all!

Psst, Logan, I'm dedicating this post to you!

Armchair Activism #1

So, the votes are in and you overwhelmingly voted for MaArAcMo, or the Armchair Activist Challenge! So every day this month, I am going to spend 15 minutes a day on armchair activism, whether that be signing email petitions, or writing local businesses or calling my Congresswoman.

I also want to credit Melinda at Elements of Time for this idea. Melinda actually makes it really easy to be an armchair activist, so for any of you who are interested in playing along at home, here is a list of websites that she's provided. I have subscribed to some of these lists already, but you can bet I'm going to get subscribed to all of them now! Thanks, Melinda!

But for my first day of armchair activism, I'm going to go local. See, yesterday, my co-worker was going out to our local frozen yogurt joint, and she offered to pick some up for me, and in a moment of weakness I agreed. I know, I should have politely declined, what with the fiesta of bacon that I'm enjoying now. Plus, when people pick food up for you, you can't control things like whether or not the yogurt will come with a plastic lid, or whether they will bring back 50 plastic spoons. But it was FRIDAY and it was FROZEN YOGURT. How could I pass it up? Plus, it's supporting a local, small business! That's always good, right?

Well, when she dropped the frozen yogurt off on my desk, I very much wished I had passed. Not only was there a plastic lid, but the frozen yogurt was in a styrofoam cup. And THEN on TOP OF ALL THAT, they wrapped some of the cups (though thankfully not mine) in aluminum foil. I mean, seriously, who does that?!  

Now I guess I didn't remember this because I rarely go to our small, local frozen yogurt place because, well, I'm a Pinkberry fan (which, I guess,  is also actually local if not small anymore.) And when I do go to this frozen yogurt place, I tend to follow Vanessa's dictum and get a cone. But I don't want a small, local Los Angeles fixture to go out of business. I just want them to use less waste. So today I wrote them this letter:

Dear Owner:

I was excited to enjoy your yogurt this past Friday, but dismayed when I realized that you put your yogurt in Styrofoam cups. As I’m sure you are aware, Styrofoam is one of the worst containers for the environment as it never biodegrades and remains in the landfill indefinitely. I’m asking that you consider an alternative such as paper cups for your yogurt.

I understand that sometimes Styrofoam is cheaper than paper, but as a customer, I would be happy to pay the few cents more per cup of yogurt, and I would bet that most of your customers would agree.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration of this matter.

Sincerely,

Arduous

I'm going to print the letter out on Monday and mail it out on my lunch break. I also included my email address, so I'll be interested to see if I get any sort of response.