A GOOD SPA

I'm on a roll, of confusion. January accuses me of being unfocused, and one of the Canadians likes it, I'm not sure which Canadian, obviously That One and The Other One are messing with me.

The Plastic Diet is still a pain, but we are learning some things. Homemade sour cream and buttermilk biscuits are better than not homemade ones. The Comma Editor is going to try English Muffins, which I think could  go either way really. Doesn't that seem hard? But it has to be tried since we can't figure out how to get around buying them without a plastic bag. So far all the things we have made, and by "we" I mean the Comma Editor, have been better than manufactured.

I have a problem with eating breakfast at home when I'm working. It kind of seems odd now that I see it in print, but I'm not making enough for a therapist so we are just living with it. Anyway, I eat in the car on the way, therefore I need a method of holding my food together. I've used English muffins up to now, but the homemade biscuits are better than factory English muffins. I haven't had the homemade English muffins yet, don't worry I'll keep you posted. I already knew about the homemade buttermilk biscuits being better of course, I'm not not Martha Stewart. But I admit I did not know you could make sour cream out of cream and sour.

The other night I was sitting around the place with my feet on the footstool, and noticed once again that my feet are all dried out. (The Comma Editor hates my feet. I can have all the pedicures I want as long as he gets to stay out of it.)  As I sometimes do, I said to myself  "What would Jesus do?" I'm not very religious, but the one thing the Catholics didn't ruin for me is the concept of Jesus being a good guy. I was started out with the Old Testament and the hair shirts and whatnot, we ran out of Catholic school money before I got to the non-scary part of Christianity.

The "anoint the feet with oil" popped into my head. (That is straight out of the Bible, I'm almost positive. I think Mary Magdalene was tangled up in it somehow.) I don't really know what anoint means, I'm thinking rub. Anyway I usually use suntan oil, which works fine, but it comes in a plastic bottle, of course, and I ran out a month or more ago. I was mulling it over and realized that Jesus was in the Jerusalem area and what grows there? Olives! And what do we make out of olives? Tapenade, I know, but try to focus. Olive oil is the correct answer.

 All you have to do is get some, rub it on and you're done. It's fabulous! Why one wonders, would I pay eight dollars for a bottle of suntan oil, when I can use a twelve dollar bottle of olive oil? I'd rather wear it than eat it too, so that's a bonus.

Here comes the . . .

PREACHY BIT!

We were at the hippy grocery store that sells bulk dish washing detergent and other liquid things, the dish washing liquid seemed really expensive, because we are used to paying $1.69 for a 16 oz bottle more or less, and the hippy stuff is about $6.00. What we need to mull over is that perhaps we will value the more expensive product and waste less. I know this, and I know it isn't an original thought, yet I have to remind myself over and over. Cheap is not the same as good. And furthermore, maybe sometimes none is better. I know, I know. Pinko Commie.

This is here to keep the Canadians attention.

They like pictures.

Business schools teach that we have to sell each other stuff or we will perish from an economic meltdown, but it's starting to look a little bit like we may perish from an environmental one first. Or dead heat.

The hall of shame plastic picture will be published next week, we did pretty well I think. We have learned that plastic shows up when you least expect it. We have seriously agonized over how to avoid it, and still been blindsided. Straws in drinks? Dammit. Vegetarians understand this, when food comes with bacon bits on it, it's maddening. Who the hell does that??  You don't tell them not to because it never occurs to you that one would put a plastic thing in, or a bacon bit on. And the bacon bit people and the plastic people think they are doing you a favor. But they aren't.

OK enough of the PREACHY BIT,  we move on to the. . .


BITCHY BIT.

The Hard Rock opened a place in Seattle a few months ago.

Do Not Go There
We went in because it is close to where we were walking around, near the Market, (International Readers The Pike Place Market is the best part of Seattle, Google it) and we thought we would check it out. Jesus God.

Seriously, we were in there for an hour and a half, I told the Comma Editor finally that this must be what being in a minimum security prison is like. Not that unpleasant, but finally you just feel like you've done your time and want out. The service was abysmal, the food was abysmal. It was just foul. I always thought Arnold Schwarzenegger is kind of a not Rhodes Scholar, but divorcing himself from that mess took a couple of IQ points, although now that I think about it, it was probably his version of our Kirk that told him to bail.

Shame on me, I knew better than to go into a giant corporate place, instead of supporting a small Seattle one, and I got what I deserved.

Bacon bits. I asked for no bacon bits and I got...


Cold bacon bits.

In my quest for non plastic we ventured into a store that has all good stuff for the planet, looking for toilet paper. Well, the Comma Editor believes that it's made out of recycled plastic, but it isn't. It's made out of 80% post consumer paper. How bad that could be was a surprise.  I'm just saying that leaves would be a lateral move. And they are free.

A good thing, Roselator named this edition, and it's pretty apt. The part about the olive oil captured her attention.

This is late again, and it's full of Plastic Talk, the happy thing is you can't get fired from your own blog. HA!


Less Plastic next week, Canucks.

Hippier Than Thou

In my picture at the top of the blog, (web log, let's practice what we preach!) you can see the paper towel dispenser. I like it quite a little, it goes with the stainless steel stuff. Well we have a NEW USE! I really haven't used a paper towel for weeks and for me it's a bit like quitting smoking or heroin so I'm pretty proud of myself. I took the roll of paper towels off and now I'm using it for a dryer for plastic bags. When you reuse plastic bags you must swish them around in soapy water and get them all clean, then what? Especially if you live in a tiny condo? You reduce re-use recycle!

One of the many fabulous things about this here web log is the Comma Editor is going to have it in black and white for the doctors when he needs to document the road I took to crazy ville.

The plastic diet is depressing. Go into a store, it doesn't even matter what kind and look around. The plastic surrounding you, I don't know, just think about it. I'm not sure what to say except don't buy it unless not buying it is life threatening. I guess not eating is kind of life threatening. But cooking food from scratch is an option even though the corporate types spend a ton of money to make us think otherwise.

Write to manufactures, they do listen, maybe a little. The new Sun Chips bags that compost is a start, in a measly fashion. Have you heard these new bags? They sound like thunder. I don't know why I find that amusing. There is even a note on the bags that explain exactly nothing except that you aren't hearing things. The bags are just crazy loud. I don't think even the people at the factory know what happened there. It's telling that the Frito Lay  folks started with the composting bags with the relatively hippy dippy Sun Chip bags, I bet they are hoping the Pork Rind crowd and the Sun Chip group don't meet up. Fisticuffs!

The reason we are using and tossing all this plastic of course is because we now believe that easy is the same as happy.

PREACHY! I like it!

I'm adding a Preachy Bit to the lineup.

OK, how many of you are finished with your reading list? None of you? No surprise here. I never cease to be amazed by the lack of interest in our food chain. I'm just saying. I'm adding Animal, Vegetable, Miracle to the list. I haven't finished it yet but it's good. You might as well not read that one too.

WORDS

Irregardless, we must move on.

Hah, you know I wasn't really using the word IRREGARDLESS, because there is no such word!

Notate that.

There is some good news of course. The plastic diet is going to overlap in terms of thinking about what we are using and where it comes from. The hairspray made out of sugar actually works pretty well. I put lavender oil in it so it smells good, and so far not a sign of a bee. However it's only May, the bees may be gathering. 

http://dkmommyspot.com/how-to-make-homemade-hairspray-that-really-works/

 

This part is really great. We made, well the Comma Editor did but I'm taking credit anyway, deodorant that works just dandy. A disclaimer already though. One of the family members had a reaction, probably to the tea tree oil. I haven't had any issues, but if you have sensitive skin, beware.

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Stick-Deodorant 

Today was Ride Your Bike to Work Day, my favorite holiday as you know.

It's good that the churros are being utilized. In honor of the holiday I didn't run over any. Well of course I ran over the GD churros because they are everywhere. I didn't run over a bicyclist though. I would like to clarify that I am fine with people riding bikes. I'm not fine with them riding in Downtown Seattle in a Superior Way. The streets aren't built for them. Damn squirrels.

By the way, which one of you is working on my jet pack? I don't even have any drawings yet.

I'm introducing a new topic here. I'm giving you credit for keeping up with the changes. 

As a card carrying bleeding heart liberal (as you know) of course I enjoy watching my tax money being thrown away. Sometimes on Saturday morning I get up early to watch my congressman Jim McDermott bring a sack of money to the beach and throw handfuls of dollar bills into Puget Sound. Imagine how much I am enjoying seeing these signs.

                                            

The beauty of this one is our tax money is actually being used brilliantly. You can turn this one upside down or sideways and it makes just as much sense. Four times the use for one price I say, go government! Do I want these people running my health care? NO, I'm not sure they are going to know where my gizzard is, in case it needs work.

Myrtle Edwards Park, you know really, it doesn't hurt to be extra clear.This one makes up for the last one.

                                                                 

                                                                       

Lowe's doors. Now see, it's just not the government, there is a lot of dumb to go around. I just wish they would stick to placing ads on automatic doors and stop drilling oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

I have no idea what they are advertising on these moving billboards, but it's nice that they remind us that we got all the way to the store and forgot our Goddammit bags again. Thanks QFC. Put the signs on the poles in the parking lot. I'm old, and I have ADD.

Actual run over tulips would be more attractive than this. Now that tulip season is over, shouldn't it say children or something?

We have had enormous technical difficulties this week, which explains why this is 2 days late. 

The comma editor has figured out how to make it easier to make comments. There's a BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR if I ever saw one. 

Be Nice!

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!

Oh Suzanna!

Well, we are just pioneers here, not the kind that goes where no man has gone before. The kind that has a mule.

The plastic diet is truly a pain in the ass. You can't buy anything. Thank God for Happy Hour. We would have starved by now. Actually we have a lot of vegetables, and you can get a couple of kinds of cheese at Metropolitan Market wrapped in paper. If you want something besides cheddar or Swiss you are SOL, but you can make a living off of that as my Uncle Jerry used to say. We are noticing a dearth of Parmesan, but one suffers for ones principles.

I would like to report some victories. One of the readers, (not a follower however), cleaned out her fridge and washed the bottles of weirdness out and recycled the containers instead of throwing the whole thing in the trash, which is commendable, because as you know it's not that much fun cleaning out old mustard and whatnot. It seems like it's not that bad to throw it all away, but it is because we have to remember that our bad behavior is being replicated millions of times by other people who think it's not that much. Wow make that into a sentence if you dare Comma Editor.

Speaking of the Comma Editor, he made tortillas out of scratch that were wow awesome bomb. That is an expression that Roselator made up when she was about three. It means the best of the best. Now we aren't going to be able to buy tortillas from Rosarita or whatever she calls herself, anymore. Never mind the plastic, tortillas are just considerably better homemade. You can make some really good burritos without a hint of plastic, and now that we know the Comma Editor can make tortillas, well the sky's the limit, eh? (That was for the Canadians, I'm checking to see if they are reading). Sorry about the Canucks dudes. Now so you know whats up, the Chicago Blackhawks are the Yankees.

Furthermore! You can make hairspray and deodorant! Out of stuff!

Saturday morning the Comma Editor and our friend Other Grandma who had spent the night were up talking and running the damn coffee grinder and talking really loud and waking your corespondent up. I finally got up and wandered into the living room and sat around fuming in a sleepy way when the Comma Editor bounded up and just squirted my hair with a spray bottle, which as it turned out was the hair spray which was made out of sugar and water, cooked, so Simple Syrup! Rawther a rude way to wake up the rest of the way, but harmless ultimately. You need to put some lavender essential oil in to keep the bees from coming to your hair. Small price to pay I say. It actually works better than you would think. As I said before, I'm not that into my hair anyway. A side note. Doesn't putting lavender oil in seem counter intuitive? Don't bees love lavender? I guess we will find out as spring progresses. 


The ingredients in a bottle of hairspray are pretty intimidating, I've never paid attention before. I guess I just thought it was sticky stuff and if I bought it in a spray bottle instead of an aerosol can that was enough, but now I see the error of my ways.

Now for the deodorant part. It is: baking soda, corn starch, shortening, and tea tree oil. Tea tree oil smells foul, just so you know but I guess it's antibacterial. (I'm not even sure there is such a thing as a tea tree.) That's it. Not sure what the proportions are since I haven't actually tried it yet, but someone on the internet said it's great, so how wrong can you go?
 
I know you can use baking soda to brush your teeth, so when we run out of tooth paste we will be fine.

Another side note. When I used to smoke I brushed my teeth with baking soda one time then lit a cigarette. The worst taste of all time. Really really awful. So let that be a lesson to you about brushing your teeth.






We had to buy light bulbs in the traditional corrugated cardboard package, the Comma editor couldn't buy the ones he wanted, the more energy efficient twirly type, because he said they were in the packages you have to open with scissors and dynamite. I asked him how that works, he said scissors first.

I would give you a good thing of the week but I think you might explode what with the tortillas and the hairspray and all the rest.

I haven't been paying much attention to politics this week, and what I have is Seattle based, so I'm taking the Apostrophe Editors word for it and leaving it alone.

Just one thing. I heard on the way home on the radio that BP Oil is giving Louisiana and Florida millions of dollars to promote tourism. Seriously. The new brochures are going to say "Just wipe it off, it's good as new!" 

 

Plastic, yikes

 DON CHERRY EVERYBODY!

+

The good news is no matter how bad your week was, you probably haven't destroyed  an entire eco-system. I suppose there is an argument that we all did collectively. In my defense I would have voted for more redundancy in safety equipment and then paid more for gas, but who wouldn't now?  Like when someone falls down the stairs and  then someone in the crowd says "Be careful!" Hey BP Oil, be careful!

The silver lining here  for the liberal Dem's is of course  the response to: (Sneering) "So, do you want the Government running health care?" NO, I want BP Oil, no wait, Goldman Sachs, no, no, WA MU. The free market obviously has our best interest at heart and strives to cut no corners.

This is week two of the Plastic Diet. Now that I'm here, let us talk about plastic spoons, and forks. And advertising.

Of course you don't want to use the family silver if you are camping or having an off site picnic, but using plastic seems silly since you can buy pieces of flatware at Goodwill for 20 cents if you're that worried about it. Therefore the sell becomes: if you use plastic you can throw it away! The part that makes no sense is throwing it away. Just toss it back in the bag at the end of the picnic and wash it when you get home for Christ's sake, you can put it in the dishwasher. How did we get to the place where we throw away perfectly functional things and get pissey when someone points out that it's STUPID? (Um, that would be me.)

I will explain. Companies like Dow Chemical (for example) have scientists and engineers and designers and all sorts or people who come up with new products. Most of the time these items aren't especially wonderful, but the Dow Chemical dudes have to make us think they are, otherwise we won't pay money for it. Plastic silverware and paper plates don't really make sense especially if you are in your own house. They are unpleasant to use really. But, if you somehow get it into your head that washing dishes is on par with coal mining or digging ditches, and you deserve better, well of course you are going to throw perfectly good stuff in the ocean, trash, whatever. And where do we get this idea? We become advertised into it.

Watch, the bad stuff happens in black and white, ( close up on a woman with huge icky sink full of dishes she never has good hair in fact she is doing that blow the bangs out of her eyes thing), then *!*!*! Color! Woman throwing plastic forks and paper plates in the trash and she is so GORGEOUS and she is wearing HIGH HEELS and she is YOUNG and her HUSBAND is so HANDSOME and so PROUD of how BEAUTIFUL and SMART she is, why would you not throw perfectly good stuff out!!!

Anyway, washing dishes, especially when there are a bunch of people in the kitchen to help is kind of pleasant, and even if you are all by yourself, it's not that hard. Think about it for a minute.

THINGS WE HAVE NOT PURCHASED THIS WEEK

AT COSTCO

Potatoes

Broccoli

Bananas

Onions

Asparagus

Coffee

Morning Star Farms Sausage

Orchid for Mothers Day, the pot was glass, but it was wrapped in plastic.

Everything else at Costco

THINGS WE DID PURCHASE AT COSTCO

Beer

Oranges in a Box

THINGS THAT MAY BE A PROBLEM THIS WEEK

Hair spray. January said she would get me some for Mothers Day, but that would be cheating.

Dish washing liquid. My mother used Cheer laundry detergent to wash dishes when I was a kid, and other than the fact that it will probably take a layer of skin off your hands I think it will work. It comes in cardboard.

HALL OF SHAME

On Cinco De Mayo the Comma Editor walked down to a Mexican bar and had a Margarita, which I guess because it was Cinco de Mayo they were serving them in plastic cups. So that was bad. The badder part was that he had another one, so our plastic diet has been cheated on. He brought them home at least, so we can reuse them for something. Turns out this isn't the only transgression. We are saving all the bits. A picture will be published at the end of the month.

The More Jokes and Everything Else Editor told me the whole blog couldn't be about plastic, but I say, I had a hard week, next week we will be more wide ranging.

HOCKEY

I told you I would tell you the two good things about the NHL. OK, the first one is Don Cherry, he is a Canadian announcer who wears the best outfits EVER. They are suits made out of fabric that you would think came from the planet Weird Fabric. He is great. They don't show him on the US channel, you have to tune into channel 99, the Canadian station. I think he was a player at one time, but who cares. It's about the outfit.

The other good thing about hockey is that the goalies each get to have the design they want on their hockey hat things, helmets. Some of them are quite good. Most of them aren't, but it's hockey, so once again who cares. Now I will know if That One and The Other One are reading, there will be blistering comments.

I am getting to the point where I can sort of watch a hockey game. I'm always awed by people being able to skate like that and play a game at the same time, and attempt to beat the shit out of each other in their spare time.

GOOD THING THIS WEEK

The Comma Editor and I were driving down Yesler and there was a kid about 15 or so walking down the sidewalk picking up random trash. He had an I Pod or whatever in his ears, and seemed to be doing it just to be doing it. That's what I want to believe.

Cool

Good news everybody, we have an new editor, this one will specialize in the apostrophe. Only the best writers have this many editors, I bet Mark Twain only had four. Now I have to contract a lot of words so he has something to do.

The apostrophe editor gave me some advice about the blog. Apparently this is the sort of thing people will idly read at work because they don't want to be doing their work, so publishing it on Monday is the best time. And I should post it on Faceplant, and when I email it I should put a subject line so people know it isn't someone trying to sell them Viagra, it's only me complaining about Happy Hour and how people use too much plastic. So that's what I'm going to do. Another guest editor said I should post something every day and use more pictures. I could do that, but one wonders should I?

It's the first day of the Plastic Diet as it has become known. It's 9:30 and so far so good, the only one who has taken a hit is the cat. The canned food she has been eating comes in cans lined with plastic. I was doing some reading about that, I'm not sure why they started putting the plastic lining in cans but it sounds like it has some potential health issues for people I'm guessing cats are not immune either. I have already tried to stop buying it for humans, I just hadn't noticed it in the cat food. I'm going to take it away from her. She seems pretty unfazed by the news.

On the record, I haven't cheated by stocking up on things, I know I'm going to run out of hair spray, I have the little plastic pump bottle, I wonder how hard it can be to make? I'm not that crazy about my hair anyway, so I will cross that bridge when I get there. I will tell you this though, don't try to mix shampoo and conditioner in a bottle and shake it up to make Pert Plus. It makes some kind of mess that won't really come out of your hair and doesn't clean it either. 

You know what? Speaking of complaining about Happy Hour, the Weekly or the Stranger, (I R's they are independent newspaper tabloids in Seattle) had a whole edition devoted to Happy Hours and only one out of about 50 even mentioned a vegetarian dish. Jesus people. Too much meat.

I just read another Happy Hour review and now I am mad. It said you could get chicken quesadillas and for a dollar more, mushroom ones. Goddammit. You know why meat is cheaper than mushrooms? All I'm saying is read Omnivores Dilemma, Fast Food Nation and In Defense of Food, and you will go "Huh" It may not make you stop eating meat, but it will sure as hell make you think twice about where you get it.

I have no luck turning people into vegetarians, (imagine how hard it must be to talk someone into being gay), which is fine, but folks should know how their food is produced, because the consequences actually do effect everybody. I wish PETA wasn't such a stupid group. The most famous vegetarian group is so annoying that if I ever start eating meat again it's going to be a PETA member first.

And further more speaking of I R's, January's husband That One is from Canada so I should have a bunch of  Canadian IR's, but I'm not seeing them. He did tell me he wasn't going to read the blog, but he does once in awhile. The Other One, his cousin has some connections there too. Get cracking you two.

We were at January and That One's house the other night and we watched a show called Corner Gas, it's a sitcom from Canada, it's pretty good. They were talking about which episode to show us and they picked one about a guy who writes a blog, and people keep telling him to stop talking and to write it in his blog, it's funny, that happens to me too. January and That One were laughing and laughing, it was good but not that funny.

I have a paid advertisement and about time too, I expect to be paid in Bud Light, which is currency in my world.

Our awesome CPA / Financial Adviser Kirk Mills is someone you might want to get in touch with. The Comma Editor was doing the taxes because I made him, It didn't seem like the taxes should be that hard. It got quite tense as the Comma Editor hates doing taxes, which is where Kirk has always come in handy, so we finally caved and had Kirk do them. He literally got us a refund that was about 20 times what the Comma Editor figured out to that point. They were done in about 45 seconds too. Also, we are seeing our investments come back at a pretty snappy pace, so just in case you want to talk to someone about all your dough, here is your guy.

A good thing this week is, I needed some little pots to put bulbs in and at Fred Meyer of all places they have these little ones that are made out of bamboo and are meant to break down and compost after a couple of years, they come in cute colors and different sizes and they were pretty much the same price as any others, so we are getting somewhere there. Bamboo is supposed to be a very renewable resource, I know it's a bitch to get rid of in your yard, so I think this is good. I just hope we don't find out later it takes a bunch of chemical fertilizer or something, but we do what we can.

Next week I will tell you the two good things about hockey.

Go Canucks.

We Should Worry About the Big Things

Mans inhumanity to man is our subject this week. This is a tiny capsule of why there are wars later on, there is a direct link, indirectly.

January and her husband live in a suburb in the City Without A Soul. Some guy in the cul-de-sac had a truck that was kind of a mess, admittedly, parked in front of their house on the street. Someone called the Parking Nosy Parkers (they are probably really some sort of cops, but as they are shooting fish in a barrel here, they aren't going to get actual cop respect) and the truck disappeared.

In the meantime the whole "Oh my god, someone's work truck is in VIEW of my eyes mentality took over and apparently the Parking Nosy Parkers got all fired up and kept on patrolling and now January and her husband who is probably dying of the flu and therefore didn't take his car to work got a goddammit $40 parking ticket in front of their own house.

Here is the mans inhumanity to mans part. The reason they got a ticket in the first place is because the neighborhood has one of those deals where you have to have a permit slapped on your windshield to park on the street where you live. Because, WHAT IF AN OUTSIDER PARKED ON MY STREET?! Well really, who gives a shit. In this neighborhood it's not going to be drug dealers, worst case (pretty bad case) Jehovah's Witnesses. In a neighborhood where it likely will be drug dealers there are no window permits. Where did this weird territorial street thing come from? If there are cars lining the street, so what? In this case the neighborhood is close to Bellevue Square, (Owned by Kemper Freeman, the wealthy non recycler). The potential problem in this case is that people who work at Bellevue Square would park their cars in the neighborhood during the day and walk to work so they don't have to pay to park, which is total bullshit, those people make a ton of money at Orange Julius.

Lets examine. Most houses have garages or carports, so the homeowners cars are taken care of. There are households who have kids so there will be the occasional teenager cars parked on the street. Then perhaps a birthday party once in awhile in the neighborhood so there may be cars parked for a block solid sometimes.The lesson is cars come and cars go and how exactly does that actually impact your life.

It doesn't unless you can't get out of your driveway.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course. One of the characters in this drama, owned, a car 40 years ago so ugly that I am still traumatized. It was a red and white Rambler, and the space it took up and turned ugly is still to this day indescribable. Rust is our friend sometimes.

And furthermore I am personally driving a car so old and raggedy assed that it could be a modern art instillation but I don't think I should have to pay $40 because it's no longer beautiful. It's reducing reusing and recycling, and bonus the radio works so I'm happy.

MY SERIOUS SACRIFICE FOR THE GOOD OF HUMANITY

Next on the agenda is the plastic situation that I wrote about last week concerning the month without plastic. I would just like to point out that I got ONE vote, and that was in person. The cry goes 'round What the Hell is Wrong With You People For God's sake? I am not slaving over this for you all to not participate, you call yourselves the 20. Shame on you.

The decision is thus, I am going to go for a month without using or buying any new plastic. January (the mean one) has put in her two cents worth with the rules. I'm not allowed to have the Comma Editor buy something to get around it, and I have to tell Roselator "No" if it comes to that. That has the potential to be difficult. For example, we can't make cupcakes out of a mix because the powdery part comes in plastic. I will start on May 1st, if I had my shit together I would have done it today, because it's Earth Day, however my shit is asunder.

Another rule, I'm not supposed to devote a whole blog to it. The Mean One doesn't like bad news environmentally. Nobody does so it would seem. The Gray whale that died in West Seattle last week that has all the plastic in it's stomach kind of spurs me on. I think it's a good idea to know what's going on with the place we have to live, but that's just me. I'm learning that most people keep their heads down, and go out of the way to not know whats up. Alright.

WORDS

I have been meaning to point out that the word Blog is just foul. It's a bone lazy contraction of web log. I'm just saying. Captain Kirk would never have stooped to this level. The Star Date never became State, the Ships Log didn't become the Slog. Lazy asses.

Also orientate? When did orient get to be too blah? Talk about a slippery slope.

ENVIRONMENTAL GENIUS IDEA

This isn't my idea, we were on Lopez Island last summer and the person in charge had a stack of fabric napkins or some sort of squares of fabric in her kitchen to use where I would grab a paper towel. It took about 8 months for the concept to trickle into my brain, but I finally figured out that that is the way to go. For being such a pain in the ass about environmental issues in the home I have to admit that paper towels are my favorite thing. I wish they weren't made out of trees that have been bleached with Dioxin which is about the most toxic chemical on Earth (I'm not kidding), but they are, and I know better. I really think we all need to just think about it as our days go along and throw things away, so I am happy to report that now we have a basket full of cloth towels that we can use to wipe up the black granite counter top,(which is like having a piece of mirror for your counter, I don't recommend it) and all the other kitchen things that come up. Then they go in the washer and come out and then we reuse them and I haven't used a whole roll of paper towels in a month. We will not discuss now how unusual that is. We are all a work in progress.


So what have we learned? 1.Take your own container for leftover at the restaurant

2. Have a bunch of cloths instead of paper towels.

We make progress.

This week I would like to dedicate the blog to the long suffering Comma Editor and the More Jokes and the All the Rest Editor. Thank you for all your hard work.

Jeez.

The thing about having the editors is they are working harder at it than I am, now I have to go back and do a bunch of revising.

I have to say I'm feeling pretty vindicated about the blog right now, since a big part of it is on the topic of Who The Hell is Running the Show?

Indeed, how in the Sam Hill does one build a 25 story building so poorly in the 21st (I think that's right) century in Seattle WA that in 8 years you have to tear it down? International readers this is an apartment building with retail on the street level, that was so poorly constructed it has been determined that for safety reasons it will have to be torn down. IT IS 8 YEARS OLD, IT'S 25 STORIES IT IS IN DOWNTOWN SEATTLE.

A lot of people will lose their shirts and a lot of others will lose their pensions because it was built for the Carpenters Union Pension fund along with some other pension funds. We used to laugh and laugh at this kind of shoddy workmanship when it was in Communist Soviet Russia. This is just embarrassing for a whole bunch of people, but strengthens my point, which is, it's a bad idea to assume that smart people rise to the top. Obviously a lot of smart people do end up in a position of importance, but it does not appear to be across the board. It seems that a percentage of influential people ride to top based on their outfits. Hell if I know.

In this case once again, the rich white guys who will come out smelling like a rose are lawyers. They are suing everyone no matter how unrelated the work was to the fact that the building has the potential to fall down.

Anyway, the point of this whole comma ridden blog, the apex if you will is this: If this
is the best a bunch of rich white guys with all the marbles can come up with, one despairs.

WaMu executives are testifying before Congress this week, coincidentally, in a not so parallel universe. Not repentant really, just pissed off that they didn't get bailed out. They can't afford cable now.

MANNERS

As you know I have excellent problem solving skills. If you believe as I do that people who spit on the sidewalk are vermin I can fix them. Seriously, why would you think it's OK to leave revolting spit on the sidewalk after you?

The solution is easy, and two fold.

First, it has to be a primary offense, or whatever they call it, like talking on your cell phone while driving, so the cops can arrest you for it. Then, after the trial where the offender is found guilty, the convicted criminal is taken outside the courtroom right that minute by the bailiff and made to spit on the sidewalk. He then  (not surprisingly the vast majority will be male) has to get down and lick it up. Sentence served. Cheap, quick, a little cruel, a little unusual maybe but I think the Supreme Court will uphold it.

If that doesn't solve the problem completely, for the second offense, the bailiff  takes some random guy out of the County Jail and he spits on the sidewalk and the guilty guy has to lick that up. Then if the spitter is stupid enough to do it again you just give up and throw him in the Big House. The Republicans will like it because it's cheap, the Democrats may not love it, but I'm an almost bleeding heart liberal and I'd pay to watch. Then there is the bonus "Get Out of Jail to Spit Card" for the guy in jail. Pretty win win if you ask me. Problem solved.

RECYCLING

I have decided not to throw my plastic in the ocean after all. Although there is a floating bunch of plastic 1,000 miles wide across in the Pacific Ocean which is almost impossible to believe, but if you look it up it's true, so really what's the difference. And late breaking news, there has been a similar mass found in the Atlantic.

I get this email thing from the Seattle library every month about new books that are out, you can pick categories, like Do It Yourself or Biography, and somehow I have gotten a bunch of titles that involve "A Year Of..." One I read was by a woman who along with her husband went a whole year without buying anything they didn't actually need. It was OK, although the only thing I actually remember about it was the line about them going to some Frugal Meeting or whatever they call themselves and being fascinated with a guy who "had an apparently self inflicted haircut".

Anyway, where I was going with this is. I am thinking about trying to go for a period of time without buying or using any new plastic, not a year, but a month maybe? What do you think? I am already pretty intense about it, particularly packaging that is out of control but I still use it. This means I can't buy Bud Light in six packs because of the plastic rings, for example. You 20 take a vote and I will do what you decide.The great part is I haven't really thought this through. I didn't even think of the Bud Light thing, one of The Editors did, so it could be pretty interesting.

OK what else what else this week?

WORDS

There is no such word as NOTATE.

PRETTY GOOD THING

Anyway, there is good news all around, lets look. The Space Needle is great. When you go up to the Observation Level there are pictures and captions about building it. Turns out they didn't really know if it was going to work. They had to make prototypes of many pieces,well no kidding, you can't go to Granger and order Space Needle bolts. It's interesting that the engineers involved weren't that sure how it was going to work out and it is still perfect. Which brings me back to the 25 story building, oh never mind. Whatever. I love the Space Needle.

The More Jokes and All The Rest Editor has informed me that this will be the last time I'm going to get away with looking out the window to find a good thing, which takes the Arches of Science off the table for future use so I might as well throw them in now. (Really, doesn't it seem like there should have been a whole bunch of commas in that last sentence?)

Well what is so wonderful about the Arches is they light them up for special occasions, and we can see them from our living room. It's usually pretty easy to figure out what's going on, they were green for St. Patrick's day for example. The last time they were Husky colors, that was a little confusing. I think it was because the Women's Softball team won something. A softball game probably. I love the Arches and the Space Needle.

We have a new International Reader, he is stuck in Europe due to the volcano, hope to see you back here soon!

The More Jokes and Everything Else Editor said this one was unfocused. God shes mean. Dammit, it's not mean if it's true.