Musings
Would you like some plastic with that?
I think plastic is evil, but wondrous. It doesn’t break, it’s cheap, light-weight and can be fashioned into most anything. Think what you may of the stuff, if you have yourself a look around this America, it’s everywhere. I’ve spent the better part of a year trying to rid myself of the stuff, but everywhere I look, there it is again. Until I decided to do battle with plastic, I never noticed just how pervasive it had become. The marketing tag “Plastic makes it possible” has been taken to the extreme and it seems that plastic is the only material that makes anything possible…my last car was made of plastic. All this from a material that never completely breaks down, is difficult to recycle and cites petroleum and natural gas as the primary sources of its key ingredients. Obviously, the great benefits of using plastic outweigh the downside to most people. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve done the best that I can as a consumer and now it’s up to the manufacturers to stop using petroleum plastic. For example, when I shop at my local co-op and I buy a loaf of the yummiest sourdough bread ever, it comes in a plastic bag. The co-op is a locally owned, eco-conscious type of business and even they package a lot of their product in plastic. I expect soon to see businesses like this begin to take on the plastics challenge. While in Seattle, I’ve noticed two occasions where companies are beginning to adopt a greener plastic. Teva flip-flops hang on plastic hangers wherever they are sold. The plastic they use for this is now a plastic made from starch. We were at a folk festival yesterday and Brown Cow yogurt was handing out samples using plastic spoons made from starch. Hopefully in a few years time this will be the norm instead of the exception.
Aqua
Here’s the deal: I’m a water snob. If bottled water wasn’t bad for you, me and the planet, I’d happily sip, sip, sip bottles of the stuff any time I was away from home. But, being that it is bad for you, me and the planet, I’ve been trying to mend my ways and avoid bottled water at all costs. I used to buy the occasional bottle of water at the movies or if I was out and about and really thirsty and I’ve done a good job of breaking that habit. The harder habit for me to break is buying water while on vacation. I always have good intentions and I start out well every time. I bring my Sigg bottle and fill it from whatever tap is available. What inevitably happens after a short period of time is that I’m scared of the water, it tastes funny, and I’m at the store buying gallon jugs of bottled water. I’ve been bound and determined this trip to once and for all rid myself of this stupid habit. I’m doing pretty well so far. I’m drinking far less water than I normally do at home, but no bottles of Dasani or Crystal Springs or whatever has passed my lips. The kind people at Glacier National Park have water that is impeccable and so far Seattle isn’t too bad either. There have been a couple of rough patches, Glendive isn’t going to win any water awards, but I’m really hoping to ditch my snobbery and turn over a new leaf.
So, I know this is a long, relatively boring post, but I just have to add one more thing about water before I finish. A few years ago, Jamie and I went on a kayaking trip in the Apostle Islands just outside of Bayfield, Wisconsin. We kayaked and camped for three nights on various islands and retrieved our water from the islands where we beached. The water was visibly brown with little bits of this and that floating in it. Gross! I drank enough to stay alive, but not one drop more. Me: water snob.
Quotes from the Road
Mazie confirms suspicions that she’s a little bit weird by reciting for 5 minutes in the car all of the various parts of “dad” that should be taken apart: ears, eyes, nose, back, arms, legs, head, hand, and on and on. She concludes the monologue with the statement, “I want someone to take dad apart.” Neither Jamie or I have any idea what this all means, but we are happy to report at this time that “dad” is still all put together.
Jamie, while looking wistfully at the mountains in Glacier National Park laments that he doesn’t quite have all of the necessary craziness to climb mountains and says, “I lack the salt for that.”. Huh? Sometimes I think I married an ole’ man from the hills, instead of some uber-techy geek guy. Confounding…
Resolution - Resolved!
To you the faithful reader of this seldom written blog, I have personal progress to report: Big Smith has been seen, heard, experienced. After careful consideration of the available venues in which to fulfill destiny, The Bottleneck in Lawrence, Kansas was selected. My good friend Amy did her master’s program at the University in Lawrence and I had visited her once and liked the town. It’s always fun to hang out in a college town for a few days now-and-again. It reminds me both of my quickly passing/passed youth and also about how different life and everything has become in the last 18 years (hard to believe) since the epic college road first began.
So, on to the journey. My co-pilot Jamie and I piled into the big, blue station wagon on Friday afternoon after lunching with Mazie. She was left in the ever-loving arms of Grandma Rosalin where much fun and laughter has ensued since our leaving (we’ve kept in touch via mobile phone technology). We drove the 7 hours west and south, glimpsed the ever-greening grass and buds breaking way into leaves as we rolled ever further away from that big, cold Minneapolis place. We arrived at The Springhill Suites in Lawrence shortly before 9pm and after checking out our somewhat strange hotel (it’s built in the space between the railroad tracks and the river, which is just wide enough to house such a hotel and makes for an odd experience) we walked our butts down to the Bottleneck to check out the action.
Blue Mountain, a band Jamie feels affinity for, opened up the night. They were fun and joyous and generally a good time, but made the Big Smith wait longer. Finally at 11:30pm, a mere 1 1/2 hours after my usual bedtime, Big Smith took stage. They opened with a song I knew well and all was good. They ended up playing for 2 1/4 hours, straight, no break. The members were all in top-notch form and the dancing commenced, continued, slowed and finally stomped it’s way into exhausted on-looking. The dancing at a Big Smith show is really amazing. It seems that a certain sameness overtakes the crowd and everyone begins stomping, twirling, jumping and generally behaving hoe-downish. The moves are infectious and I’ve never had as much fun dancing anywhere as I have every time I see Big Smith play.
Conclusion: Things in real-life are rarely as great as memory recalls them to be. I think Big Smith lived up to my memories as well as could be expected. The only let down of the evening was me. I don’t have the same stamina to keep at the dancing and enjoying myself in the wee-hours of the morning that I once possessed. But, despite my general lack of late-night fitness, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was only at 1:30am, 2 hours after Big Smith began plucking and 3 1/2 hours after my normal bedtime, that I wished the evening would just end already. Today I’m tired, but I feel whole and complete, as if the missing Big Smith part of me has finally been returned.
i am resolute
the man kept asking me what my new year’s resolution was. the thing is, i don’t do the whole resolution thing. this idea that this year i’m going to get more sleep or get in shape or learn something new or fly a plane or whatever, is dumb to me (not to knock the millions or trillions of people who make such resolutions). but, today, i was struck with a vision of my new year’s resolution…before the year is out, i shall see big smith play live. it’s been several years since i’ve heard them and i love them profusely. while living in arkansas i first heard and then danced to their bluegrass goodness. every time they were in town, i was at their show. i left arkansas in 1999 and i’ve tried to see them since, but it’s never happened. i’m always looking at their website and getting ready to plan a trip to go and see them someplace, but i’m still coming up empty. MARK my words fair reader or two, in this year 2008 i will see, hear, listen, dance, dance some more and then report back about all that was BIG SMITH LIVE IN 2008.
so, it seems i’ve changed my tune. i guess i just hadn’t figured out how the new year’s resolution thing should work for me in my life. i think i get it now and i’m thrilled.
one cold and windy sunday
yesterday at 8:30am i found myself at the starting line of the gear west duathlon. i was feeling very lucky to have made it there since fifteen minutes previous i had been driving about the countryside completely lost and in a state of despair. but i made it in time thanks to some driving luck and my brother-in-law hector who helped me get my bike set-up and my butt to the start. at 8:43am my wave left the start line and i began my journey. two hours and seven minutes later i finished.
i’ve done a couple other duathlons and while i went slower during this one my endurance is actually better this year. i have hope that at some point during the summer my speed will improve and i will be better than ever. of course my better would still be pretty bad, but i am just thankful to be fit enough to compete at all.
the course was a 5k run, 28k bike and then a 4k run. it was kinda hilly during the bike and we ran a lot on grass; not my favorite course. my least favorite part of the day was the bike. it was so cold and i couldn’t generate enough heat to stay warm. i spent at least 10 miles on the bike where i was pretty miserable. by the end of the bike part of the course my legs were numb from my knees down to my toes, brrrr.
a shout out to the hector-man who saved my butt getting me all set up and ready to race. as i was getting off of the bike and set to run the last 4k, he had already finished. did i mention that his wave also started about five minutes after mine? he’s pretty good at this stuff; he’s training to do a full ironman triathlon this summer. crazy stuff - go hector go!
buddy j - a.k.a. the husband
today my buddy turns 35. since it’s his special day i thought he deserved a special post. happy birthday buddy!
…well, he turned 35 a little over 5 months ago. i guess better late than never. i had this idea that on his birthday i would write him a post about how great he was and blah, blah, blah and i wouldn’t tell him and then he would get it in his RSS feed and it would make his day cause i’m not very good at saying nice things. so i saved a draft that i meant to beef-up on his birthday, but then his birthday came and went and i tried a bunch of times to write something nice, but it just never came. it seems i have more problems than i thought.
so, 5+ months after the fact, happy birthday buddy j. i can’t really do the mushy stuff, but i can say i love you and i like that you are my husband. you treat me with respect, kindness and love, you are smart and have lots of interesting ideas, you are full of life, wonder and joy and you are a great dad. thanks for being you.
the green lantern
“just wait until i bring this to a meeting and everyone has their red lights and i’ll have my green light. the most awesomest thing i’ve ever seen”….jamie thingelstad
as random, strange and riddled with grammatical hmm’s and ha’s as the above quote may sound, my husband said it. he was referring to a pen light that he received for his birthday from his mom. it’s a green laser used for looking at celestial things in the nighttime skies. my husband is a gadget man. he loves to buy, receive, talk about, give advice on and play with new, fun technology. sometimes, he drives me crazy.
the end.
if you hit me again, i'll hit you back 10 times harder...
this was a popular refrain in my childhood. i was four years younger than my older sister and i loved to taunt her. in turn, she loved to hit me back 10 times harder. she was nice about it, she would warn me. i would hit her and then she would chant the words that my little self loved to hear, “hit me again and i’ll hit you back 10 times harder”. the words were both thrilling and terrifying as every time it set into motion a chain of events that i couldn’t bare not to follow through with.
there was just something about the challenge. i knew after i hit her again, she would at some point hit me back. i don’t know if it was always 10 times harder, but it was always hard, painful and almost tear-inducing. the anticipation of waiting for the hit, cause you never knew when it would come, was a big part of the fun.
every week i go to the gym and workout with a personal trainer. i would highly recommend this activity to anyone; a workout induced by a trainer is so much different than what you would do on your own. one of the trainers that i work out with has been determined to make me hurt in the days following my workout. each time i see her, she asks if i was in pain after the last workout and i always answer that i wasn’t. this drives her crazy because she thinks that unless you are sore for a day or two after a workout, you haven’t worked out hard enough.
yesterday morning i went to the gym and met up with this trainer. she decided that today was the day that i was going to feel pain. she put me through the paces and made me whimper and scream. i realized at some point during the workout that the two of us have been playing a game much like the game that i used to play with my sister. each time she asks me if i am sore after a workout, i am proud to answer no. it’s sort of a “is that all you got sister?” kind of thing, even though i know in answering as i do that it’s going to cause me future pain. i essentially want to egg her on, get her to kill me and then i want to tell her again that no, i didn’t experience any pain.
so, am i sore today? no, of course not : ).
toilet paper
i intended this website to be full of interesting topics and discussion. what seems to be happening so far is that i talk about things that aren’t very riveting. i’m not going to call my website boring or intellectually challenged, but someone else could and i wouldn’t want to hit them. i had my hopes set high on the people i know. i feel privileged to be acquainted with quite a few smart people and many of those smart people are talented writers. i thought they would be sending in post after post of stuff that would make your head twirl. so far only honeybee has posted and try as i might, i can’t convince anyone else to do the same. okay, that’s not entirely fair, TwoStep did send in a contribution but i shot it down. you see this TwoStep guy is a very talented writer and his submission while lovely and poetic, was short, oh so short and i was hoping for more. my point in going on about all of this is that this here post, this current post, takes my high-minded website ideas and grinds them to a halt. i’m writing about toilet paper and i actually feel some need to write about toilet paper. obviously, my mind is small.
here goes…
i buy seventh generation toilet paper. i feel good knowing that i’m doing some small part to help the planet by wiping my butt with 100% recycled paper. i like the company and i like the toilet paper. even though it costs two or three times more than the plushiest, terrycloth-like toilet paper and it feels like the cheapest generic stuff on the market, it gives me a strange satisfaction. i’m so used to this toilet paper that the stuff at other people’s houses feels almost vulgar. but, this is not the point of my post.
the reason that i’m here writing about toilet paper has to due with the inconsistency of this toilet paper. at its softest, it feels soft to me, but i’m sure to others it still feels like the stuff you get in a public restroom. but it’s not always at its softest, sometimes it’s hard, very hard and then even i wonder how i’m supposed to use the stuff. most times it’s somewhere in the middle, but rarely is it the same from package to package. our household just finished off two twelve-pack double rolls of the hardest stuff i’ve ever experienced, imagine wiping your butt with a tree branch. okay not that bad, but close. it was a struggle. not wanting to place such a big bet this time around, i opted for two four-pack double rolls and i ended up with the softest toilet paper they make. it was such a contrast to go from the one to the other that it made me want to write this post. the inconsistency perplexes me.
part of something
today at 8:05am the husband, the kid and myself walked into target to get some wii action. (for those of you not in the know, which would be me if not for the husband, the wii is the latest console game thingy from nintendo which was released today.) we didn’t know what to expect. what we found was a long line about 120 people deep and a bunch of people with tickets. it seems that the tickets were handed out around 7am to the many people who had either spent the night or shown up in the wee hours of the morning. since we had arrived at 8:05am, we were way past any chance of finding wii action. we stayed in line anyway, just cause, and after a couple of minutes this dude walks by and asks the people in our part of the line if anyone needs a ticket. no one responds except me, which i still don’t understand, cause none of the other people around us had tickets either. so the dude hands me a ticket with a number 9 on it, we walk up to the front of the line, pick out a couple of games and in a few minutes we’ve bought a wii. a crazy stroke of luck.
we made our way home and ever since the husband has been glued to the tv learning the ins and outs of the wii. this is the fun part for him. he has verbalized his fascination and joy many times with “look at this” and “cool” and “ohh, ahh”, but for the most part he has been silently taking it in. he has played a couple of games and i have played a couple of games. it’s a very different type of video game and i think i will enjoy it much more than a typical video game system, but for me the real fun happened at the store.
the feeling of driving to the store not knowing what to expect, walking in and seeing all of the people, learning what’s going on from others and just being a part of something that exists for only a few moments in time and place, no matter how trivial, is fun for me. once the hunt is over, i’m less interested. i wonder if this is a me thing, a female thing, a lots of people thing or what?
all grown-up
i remember watching the made for television movie “the day after” when i was 10 or so. it was a movie about an atomic bomb being dropped somewhere in america and what would happen in the days following such an event. mainly, lots of people died and it was all quite horrible.
i think of that night as a small turning point in my life. up until then i had believed that people older than myself had all of the answers and pretty much knew everything. after the movie i asked my very old and mature 14 year old sister lots of questions, expecting her to have all of the answers, but she didn’t. older people didn’t know everything. i’m sure to some kids this would have come as a relief, but to me it was a very disheartening realization. i ended up feeling more troubled by the realization than the movie.
now i’m 35 and i don’t feel much more informed than i did at 10. adults don’t have all of the answers, yet we are supposed to make the decisions. i never thought i would be one of the grown-ups and it’s still hard to think of myself that way. yet, here i am…all grown-up.
yeah, that's right, i'm smaller than a redwood...
and so is my landscaper friend, Ann. We came to this realization while talking on the phone, and poof a blog was born.