For the past few months I’ve been getting more interested in recycling. I had two plastic recycling bins I picked up at Ikea, and I picked up a  third.  One is for paper, one is for metal and plastic, and the third is for colored glass like wine bottles that our neighborhood doesn’t handle.  It takes about 5 minutes a day to throw the stuff in the bins, and the hardest part is trying to break down the various cardboard boxes used for everything from pop cans to Buzz Lightyear toys.  Then on trash day it takes another 10-15 minutes to put the paper stuff together (usually in paper bags) and toss the rest in the town-provided recycling bin.  Then every few weeks we drive past the local recycling center to toss out the colored glass, which is fun for the kids. 

What have I noticed doing this?  Well,  you’d be amazed at the amount of stuff in daily life that is just packaging.  The number of trash cans with actual “trash” (leftover chicken, twist ties, whatever) I put out has gone from three or more down to one.  Out of curiosity, we recently started a compost bin as well, containing vegetable and fruit scraps, eggs, coffee grounds, etc. , which we’ll use on the garden.

Ocassionally I hear anti-recycling rhetoric from people who say you’re just wasting your time, you’re not doing any good, you’re part of a group-think on the environment, etc.  I don’t agree with this, and honestly, if you are lucky enough like so many of us to live in a municipality that supports  this kind of thing, why not take a few minutes out of your day to do something helpful?

I will also say that recycling has given me some serious thought about the point of buying stuff in the first place.  Especially if you have kids and as they get older, you just watch all this “valuable” stuff of one year ago or less just end up in the trash.  So why not skip the middleman and just  try and control your spending on stuff no one really needs anyway?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go harvest my hemp.

Further reading:  Recycling myths.  White People Stuff.

It’s my fault, really.  First my daughter wanted to go to the dreaded “Build A Bear” to spend $40 on a stuffed animal that she’d throw on the floor with the three thousand other stuffed animals two days later.  So I said “No, let’s design and make our own stuffed animals.”  Which she’s been doing, learning sewing skills, drawing, marketing them to her classmates, buying fabric.  Then she’s outside this weekend, and wants to use this cruddy piece of plywood for a “bench” outside, and Dad says “Oh no, I can build you one much nicer than that!”  And so then I’m stuck actually doing it!  Aargh!   

You can find the plans at this excellent site.  I took the recommendations of several people on the site and changed the slant of the backrest to 15 degrees from 10, and used shorter bolts, which I intend to cover so no one scrapes themselves.  I’ve also been advised by the pros in my office to screw a support slat to the center of on the seat and back to prevent warpage over time.  It took me approximately 3 hours to make.  I used a simple electric miter saw and an 1/2 drill bit.  Oh, and the sweat of my manly brow.  Next up…an ark!  More exciting pictures are here. 

The best blog I’ve read in months.  Props to my buddy Steve for the spot.  I qualify for so many of these things it’s embarassing!  Just click here!

My friend Donna from work died on Friday morning.  She was admitted to the hospital last Sunday with shortness of breath and a low oxygen level.  I talked to her on Monday and she walked me through running some reports we do every month.  We laughed and joked and she told me she was never going to smoke ever again, ever.  (She had taken those pills to stop smoking, but had taken it up again after the pills were done.)  She said she hoped to be back in by the end of the week to run our other reports.  She said the hospital was driving her crazy and she couldn’t wait to be out of there.  She caught pneumonia while in the hospital and died at 3:30 AM Friday morning, at age 50.

Donna is the first person I have known who has died.  My grandparents died when I was a boy.  I have acquaintances who have died, and friends parents, but no one I was that close to.  Donna was my cubemate, and I sat across from her every day for five years.  When we moved cubes recently I still set it up so I would be across from her.  When I talk to friends who have been through this, they confirmed for me the sense of unreality about this whole thing.  It just doesn’t seem possible.

If I had to put money on who would die first among my workmates and our circle, I would not necessarily have picked my friend Donna. Yes, she smoked, yes she was under a lot of stress, yes she was not in shape.  However, other people we knew had had multiple operations, or had been in the hospital with repeated drug problems.  But I would not have picked Donna, even though I had repeatedly, politely, tried to get her to quit smoking and keep better care of herself.  But you really can’t convince anyone to do anything.

It goes without saying that life is not fair, and that things happen for no reason, but when I think about this I am most struck by how unfair all of this is to poor Donna.  She would not have wanted to go like this, with so much still left to be done.   She was raising her 10-year old grandson, whom she adopted.  She was changing some of her programs to make them run easier “in case I’m not here.”  She had planned a vacation to see her sisters this Summer.  She still had hopes her problem daughter could turn herself around.

The thing that helps the most is to keep busy  We ran Donna’s programs on Friday, and they worked .  The people from work will go to the viewing on Monday and the service on Tuesday.  I’m spending time with my family and doing things around the house.  We’re keeping the world turning.  What else are you supposed to do?  What else can you do?

I will miss Donna very, very much.

My daughter brought this drawing home from Latch Key.  Obviously Decision 2008 is having a deep effect on all of us.

If someone had told me that one of the funniest new TV show of the season would be about a high school Chemistry teacher with terminal lung cancer and his adventures trying to start a  crystal meth business so he can raise enough of a nest egg to support his pregnant wife and his teenage son with cerebral palsy, I would have had my doubts.  But BREAKING BAD on AMC is a terrific show.  Oh sure, it’s darker than dark (one entire episode was dedicated to dissolving a dead drug dealer’s body with acid so it can be disposed of properly), and it’s sadder than sad, but it’s also alive and awake and really quite something.  I have no idea what the business meeting was like that approved this show (“Terminal cancer?  Awesome!  Crystal meth?  Great!  Palsy?  Even better!”) but thank God TV is fracturing enough to let shows like this on the air, for however long (it, is, as I write this, inexplicably popular…).  Go Walter go!

The best show on TV right now is IN THERAPY on HBO, which is hours and hours of people … talking.  Just talking.  They’re not throwing things, or screaming (most of the time).  They have problems, things on their mind, and they are trying to express those things the best way they know how.  Sometimes it seems very obvious what’s going on, at least to the viewer. Sometimes it comes out of left field.  Because one of the five shows every week is dedicated to the Psychiatrist talking to his psychiatrist about, in part, what he feels about his own patients, by the time week three of this nine-week run comes along, your mind is ping-ponging from one reference to the next.  Why did they say that?  Who are they really referring to with that offhand remark?  What did that mean?  What do you think it means? 

I’ve watched a lot of HBO shows over the year, and a lot of them are very, very good shows.  But this show really stands apart.  The acting is top notch, and it is a pleasure just listening to the actors do their thing and spin what they’re saying.   It’s a pleasure having a camera that barely moves.  You can certainly make an argument that it’s just a bunch of yuppies who can afford $150/hour to talk about their problems (thank God for HMOs!), but on the other side of this argument–isn’t it nice to have at least one show with people engaging in some intellectual exploration and understanding, rather than anti heroes garroting each other and struggling trying to articulate their inchoate feelings?  For me, at least, it’s nice to see people who can articulate their feelings, for all the positive and negatives that implies.

Sign Me,

Double Dome