Whole Health Dietitian — Tastefully Fueling Active Transportation
How to lose a car in a small parking lot — photographic evidence for this post:
If you look very closely, you might be able to see the tail pipe. It’s not like I drive a Smart Car, or anything else particularly tiny, it’s just that some things are TOO BIG! While you could argue (and I might even agree sometimes) that such vehicles are useful in certain situations, driving back and forth to work every day just isn’t one of them.
So one thing that I find kind-of sort-of maybe not so bad about a car commute? The radio. At home radio listening revolves almost exclusively around NPR, so I only listen to other stations when I’m in the car, which, up until six months ago, was almost never. I lost touch with the latest pop music (maybe not a huge loss?). Biking is plenty of fun without the radio.
I fall into the “channel surfer” category when it comes to the radio. I flip channels during commercials, DJ blathering, songs I dislike, and songs that clash with my mood. That adds up to a lot of channel surfing. Total radio ADD. I imagine being in the car with me would be QUITE annoying. Sometimes I manage to annoy myself, and I just have to pull the plug.
Anyhow, I have a couple of favorites at the moment. While driving home the other night, I heard all three of them back-to-back! Yeah, that was a good drive. Without further ado, my top three, in no particular order:
No doubt that I’ll tire of these and move on to other songs of the moment before too long.
A couple months ago, I left work and walked through the parking lot toward the last known location of my car. I rounded the corner and should have seen my car, but no! I stopped in my tracks, rather stunned, then took a few more tentative steps forward. My car. It was parked right over there. How could it be gone? Had someone really stolen my car in broad daylight within sight of my office?
How was I going to get home? I imagined calling Matthew:
“Hi, honey. Somebody stole our car. Can you come pick me up on your bicycle?”
Wearing a look of utter shock and confusion, I ventured forward a few more steps, and, lo! My car! Hidden between two behemoths, tucked in snugly (and deceptively) at the front of the parking space, all cute and little.
I found a repeat scene when I left work last night, with less of the shock value, and more of the, “Where’s my car? Oh, wait. This is that thing that happened before, with the ginormous vehicles. Don’t panic, I’m sure the Corolla is in there somewhere . . . unless one of the trucks got hungry and ate it for dinner . . . .”
I recently received an email from St. Louis Green, Inc. inviting me to their, “Where Grand Meets Green,” home tour. (Excuse me while I step away from my computer so I don’t vomit on the keyboard.) I’m sorry, but I fail to see what’s “green” about a McMansion built out in the suburbs, accessible only by car. I don’t care how energy-efficient you make the walls or what building materials you use. These “homes” would more accurately be called “compounds.” I must admit that I wasted time and money driving out to Town and Country (yes, that really is the name of one of the more affluent suburbs around here) for one of their home tours in the past — never again!
I want to tour homes in the city, homes that are affordable for normal middle-class families (and I’m talking about the middle-class that makes less than $100,000/year), heck, maybe even affordable for low-income families. Homes that are truly green:
Some examples of these exist, but not nearly enough. While many builders give a nod to this type of construction, few seem really invested in it, because it won’t make them rich. If someone has close to one million dollars that he/she wants to spend to build an over-sized, green-washed home out in Town and Country, fine, but let’s not celebrate or reward that choice by hosting a “green” event.
If you blinked, you might have missed Earth Hour on Saturday night. According to the website, “On Earth Hour hundreds of millions of people around the world will come together to call for action on climate change by doing something quite simple—turning off their lights for one hour. The movement symbolizes that by working together, each of us can make a positive impact in this fight, protecting our future and that of future generations.”
I’d heard of it in the past, but it fell off my radar this year. At about 7:30pm on Saturday, as we were preparing a VERY late dinner after a full day of hiking, Matthew happened to see something about it. When the appointed hour rolled around (8:30pm), we sat down to a candlelight dinner. So far, so good. We finished eating by 9:05pm, at which point I just wanted to sit on the couch and read.
If you follow the link above to the Earth Hour website, they display before and after photos around the world. Most of the photos focus on recognizable sites. While it’s cool to see, and I get the symbolic aspect of it, it feels more like paying lip service to the environmental problems that we face. At 9:30pm, everyone flips the switch and the status quo continues. What about the other 23 hours in the day? What about the other 364 days in the year?
While I know my attempts are far from perfect, I strive to live those other 8759 hours as “Earth hours.” So that’s why, at 9:10pm on Saturday, March 27, 2010, I turned on one lamp with a CFL, sat on our second-hand couch, and enjoyed my library book.
Her Green Life