Sweet Dreams Are Riding a Bike*

This new flowery blog theme will have to do. My genius is reserved for other things–not altering code in blog themes. I tried to fix the other theme but I couldn’t get it to work. I even deleted the theme, downloaded a new one and uploaded it again–still blacked out comments. So here we are–a different flowery theme. I like it, but I liked the other one better–but I won’t cry about it. Not today anyway.

Today I am too happy to cry. Why? Because I got a new bike yesterday! A bike that I can ride to Target and Safeway and to get coffee and visit friends and not drive my car that costs five cute tops at Marshall’s to fill up. I figured what better way to use some of China’s economic stimulus money than invest it in clean energy transportation.

Thanks China! I don’t care for your food or your policies–but I like your money!

Let me just say that My New Bike is the Coolest Bike on the Planet. It’s beautiful, red and shiny and it has a bell and a basket and a cushie seat.

And a secret.

I won’t reveal the secret yet–I’ll save it for the picture, or the video that will be coming up soon. I will tell you that the only thing that I don’t like about My New Bike–is that is that everyone is jealous of it–and I am sad that the whole world doesn’t have one.

I’m off to make a flower arrangement to adore the basket. If I’m riding a bike around town–it will be doily and flowery–because that’s the kind of lesbian I am.

*When I was a little girl, my Nana would ride a bike with me on the back in a baby seat. While we road I would sing a song that went, “Riding a bike, sweet dreams are riding a bike.” I was only two or three years old, but I remember the song!

Green Living

It’s easy to be “green” in the Northwest, we’re set up for it around here, what with all of the tree hugging environmentalists all about. HG and I do our best to do our part, but of course it’s always lacking, because there is always more that we can do.

Sometimes I have a little fantasy about buying a few acres west of the Scary Suburbs, having a little farm where we can grow vegetables, raise chickens (for eggs,) have a goat (to keep the grass low,) grow lavender (because we’re lesbians,) maybe make some wine and beer, (because we’re lushes.) Live sustainably, be kind to the earth, you know.

As much as I love this idea, this fantasy is in direct violation of our Five Year Plan, and our Ten Year Plan; the plans that will ultimately take us to living on our sailboat in South America after the children leave home.

So I can’t have my farm where I grow organic vegetables, so we must settle for some other kind of Green Living.

Let’s take a gander of how far we have come:

1. We recycle, (of course we recycle, we live in Portland, if we didn’t recycle we could possibly be taken out by a firing squad.)
2. I pack the girls lunches every day in a lunch box with re-usable containers and re-usable water bottles., (except for DD#1, who is high maintenance and obviously doesn’t care about the earth, she must have a brown paper bag!)
3. We don’t use the store’s shopping bags anymore, or get boxes from Costco. We bring our own bags, and only request a paper bag if we must have one for our recycling. We have trained the girls to do the same.
4. We try to combine our trips and make DD#1 walk to and from school unless we’re going that way or coming back home at the time she’s walking. This saves an incredible amount of gas.
5. I carpool with the neighbors to take the other girls to school or they take the bus, (most of the time.)
6. We don’t eat fast food.
7. I buy a lot of groceries in bulk to cut down on packaging.
8. We only use natural cleaning products that do not contain any chemicals harmful to the environment.
9. We keep our thermostat set to 66 degrees (F) during the day and 61 degrees (F) at night. If I’m cold during the day I put on more clothes or turn a small portable electric heater on in my office, which Ginger loves to sit in front of.
10. Since Christmas I’ve been on a “spending diet” and really scrutinizing every thing I buy. I want to cut down on “stuff” in our lives.
11. I buy natural and organic foods when ever I can. I do not purchase any pre-packaged foods and make all of our meals from scratch. We eat at home as a family almost every night that the girls are with us and are now trying to eat at home when we’re here alone. This cuts down on money and resource waste.
12. We replaced all of our light bulbs, except for the dimmer bulbs in our dining room, with Compact Fluorescent bulbs. The initial cost was high (about $100.00 or so,) but by replacing just 5 bulbs with CF bulbs you save on average $50.00 per year. We replaced many more than 5!
13. We try to be conscience of unplugging our electrical appliances when not in use. The toaster, the coffee maker, lamps, television, cell phone chargers, camera chargers etc. These items are called “vampire electronics” because they continue to use electricity even if they are not turned on.

Many of these changes I have made have not come easily. I happen to love cleaning products, especially bleach. I love shopping, I love consumerism, and I love traveling and dining out. I have been resistant, yet willing to move forward.

On Friday we watched, Who Killed the Electric Car, (a must see,) and debated how are we supposed to make a difference, when most of the rest of the country is setting us up to fail? In the movie, they speak of the concept of a non-gas running/polluting engine as a carrot being dangled in front of our eyes, never to really be achieved. Corporations and oil companies are controlling what we as consumers are wanting, advertisers are dictating what we “need,” and the world is suffering because of it. HG is hell bent on purchasing an Electric Vehicle, but the prices are astounding despite the fact that the technology for zero emissions electric cars has been around for over a decade. We want a world without pollution, but no one makes any money on a clean earth. Money is made is destroying and then attempting to repair it. Is this what humanity is about? I like to think not, but I know that the realities of our world are much different than my logic or even my naivety.

Yesterday I was looking into purchasing a Worm Composting Bin and a Rain Catching barrel. These two items, despite their initial cost will help to cut down on contributing to land fills, eliminate the need for purchasing fertilizers, and re-use the rainwater we get so abundantly in Oregon for the dry times during  the summer.

But despite all of our strides, our willingness to do our part, paired with the powers of resistance, I do realize that I (we) aren’t there yet and have a long way to go to live the way we can and should be living. One day at a time on the journey of Being Green, I guess. A journey that begins with small steps.

As I have been sitting here writing this, my beautiful “Greener Than Me” wife has announced to me her plan for an activity for us tomorrow.

We will WALK to the bus stop, and take the BUS from the scary suburbs to down town Portland where we will peruse used books at Powell’s and see a movie at a theatre that projects digitally (more environmentally friendly than film.)

All of this sounds great except for the walking and the bus part. That idea causes me to look for my non-environmentally friendly hand sanitizer and long for my internal-combusting-fossil-fuel burning polluter of an SUV for heat.

I will do it, I’ll be a trooper and I’ll even have a smile on my face, (I will, I will, I will.) It’s just one step. Just one small step. If I can do it, anyone can!