Change we can believe in....

Oh yes we can.... I am so happy. I really didn't think it was possible.

Jon Swift

The satirist Jon Swift/Al Weisel was my favorite blogger. He regularly made me laugh until my sides hurt and, as others said, gave me something to hold onto during the Bush years (I should mention that he was a liberal, but he freely linked to anyone and just as freely skewered the deserving on either side). I wish I had known him in person. For any satire afficionados out there, a link. I recommend the best of to start.

Less Waste

It just so happened that our electric bill, water bill, and day to take the garbage out all came around the same time this month - and it was all good news. So good that I thought I should write about it.

We've been working, a bit at a time, on addressing our poor consumption habits. It started with eating organic produce, as much of it locally grown as possible. That led to putting a compost bin in the back yard. We were already pretty good at paying attention to our recycling and whether what we bought was recyclable. When we put in the compost bin, our garbage went to practically nothing. We take it out maybe once a month - and then it's at most a bag, but usually more like half a bag. And composting is much easier than I ever would have guessed. I have a large plastic container with a lid - like to make a trough of sweet tea in (if we drank that, which we don't - coffee, though, now you're talking). I put all my veggie scraps in there and take it out to the compost pile every few days. Even if it's more like 5 or 6 days, it still never seems to smell bad. That's it (plus the leaves and cardboard, etc.). Then we use the compost for the garden.

In May of last year, we had massive rains and lost our roof and our bathroom. Before that, our electric bills in winter were nearly $300 a month. Summer wasn't much less. We used 6000 gallons of water a month. When we replaced the bathroom, we put in a toto, dual flush, water conserver toilet and lower flow sink and shower faucets. We also replaced the windows, which we'd been saving to buy for years. I've been watching our laundry use for a long time anyway, only washing clothes when they needed it rather than that obsessive, commercial driven washing things as soon as my kids cast them to the floor. When I do dishes, I fill a small bowl and use a scrubber dipped into it to clean off everything else, then wash on the energy saver setting when the washer is full. Our bill this month for electric was $150 - half of what it was for the last several years. We used 1000 gallons of water. It has been 2000 every month since redoing the bathroom. I don't know how we managed 1000, but still, it really made me feel good. Now I want to see where else I can cut.

The Family Bed

My husband and I were talking about the family bed, where our children, ages 4 and just 6, still sleep when they're so inclined, which is pretty much every night. They start out in their own room, and quite happy about it for the most part, but some time in the middle of the night they migrate to the comfort of their parents' room. We were talking about the subtle, and not so subtle, judgment we sometimes feel emanating from a beloved librarian when it comes to our homeschool group and comparing it to that same feeling we got when we were talking about the family bed.

"It's just baby jail!" my husband said of the crib we never used. Not original, but true enough. "They need to learn to self-soothe and put themselves to sleep," we were told by various family members (including all the grandparents) and friends. It dawned on me, tonight, as we rehashed this old wound - which indeed it was, because I listened to it once or twice against my gut, resulting in a couple of harrowing and truly horrible evenings for us and our first baby - that it was beyond ridiculous to expect a baby - who couldn't talk, couldn't walk, couldn't reach anything: completely helpless - to comfort herself, alone, without her parents.

"That's what's wrong with people today," my husband said. And it's true. Our kids are confident, they are not afraid, they don't feel vulnerable, they are not meepy, scared, or mousy. And they learned to put themselves to sleep just fine when they felt secure enough.

Ingenious Ingenuity

I posted this link on Facebook and a friend asked what on earth had happened to American ingenuity. This was my response: We used it to design "green" vehicles that get the same gas mileage as suvs so we didn't lose any power, genetically modified food that does God knows what and factory farms that are hell on earth for the animals so we could poison ourselves with our food. Oh, and we used it to particularly good advantage to figure out how to game the system so we didn't have to pay taxes, or much to employees (for that matter), or anything to clean up our pollution or toward making a safe product - to figure out how we could get the absolute last dollar from the poor saps buying our BS. Then we (the saps - the 1% who raped the world were off somewhere sunning themselves, swimming in the warm Caribbean, and eating organic nummies prepared by world-class chefs) freaked out and stuck our heads in the sand and wailed, "This is not happening, this is not happening, this is not happening," as the world collapsed around us on absolutely every possible front. Apparently, the 1% is too busy congratulating themselves to have figured out that it's their world, too.

Bring out the violins - and not that world's tiniest, either!

I just called my mother: Mom? Can I call you and just whine?
Sure, honey.
Okay - I don't feeeeeel gooood and I'm feeeverish and my husband is a lousy mother! He has no maternal instinct at all.
Awww, poor baby, I'm sorry. You're right - he's not at all maternal. Poor baby.

Right before calling her, I called him: I'm going to bed if you're not coming home soon. I'd called him to be kind, sort of. And perhaps to lay a trap, unintentionally. I couldn't help it. There was no winning answer (You've just won bitch of the year for a wife! Ha ha, you lucky devil! Wrong answer!). I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I didn't think it would be cool to have him come home and watch me shiver while listening to me whine when he could be hanging around with his fun buddies who weren't pitiful and greasy and wearing the same sweat pants for a week and a half. On the other hand: Come home you #*@&#^&^^ - don't you know I'm sick?!? I'm feverish! (Okay, temperaturish, whatever.) I don't care if you just made buckets of money - you only going to spend it on your new young trophy wife after I DIE OF THIS MISERABLE FLU (okay, cold maybe, or possibly a sinus infection - but it's a really bad one)!

In his defense, he just closed his biggest deal this year (That's nice, dear. But did I tell you that I had a fever?) - and he went out to celebrate! While I had a fever! (Ok, so it was a temperature - but it did hit 100! Briefly. Mostly it was around 99. But that's high for an adult! My eyeballs feel hot!)

He left me here with two (well, one really, but the other one was still coughing yesterday!) coughing children. And I can't get the ornery 4yo to stand still and put her cool little hands on my face - or even bring me a glass of ice water or some juice! Yeah, I know she's 4 - and she's too short to reach the freezer - but she could get a chair or something.

It's time for someone to take care of me! I've been in this house with a bunch of sick people for 2 weeks! I am running a fever (okay, okay, a temperature). Still! Where's my poor baby? Who's bringing me some soup? And juice! I want some juice! And a pet on my aching head....

Mom???? Mother? Where are you?

Oh wait, that's me now. Wow! What a thankless job. Sorry, Mom....

Clean Freaks

Eh, what the heck. I never get to post anymore and this was just too funny. First read the blog. Then read my comment. (Sorry, Honey, couldn't be helped.... This was a story that needed to be told.)

I love the way you clean! Me, too! That was hysterical... Last night, and I post this only because I'm basically anonymous, my husband "cleaned" the tub by swishing his body around in an epsom salt bath. I high-fived him over it. Unfortunately, he was unable to get the sides of the tub "scrubbed."