wasteful--bad blogger

I've been a delinquent, bad blogger. I could easily blame it on my coursework, surgery recovery, my cat getting sick, the holidays, company and dreadful work. 

But really it all, sort of, boils down to one thing, me being wasteful of my time. I'm an expert at this, time wastefulness. I am doing it right now. Well, yes and no. I've had blog on my to do list for over a month now, but I also have a list of school assignments to finish too. Oh well.

Back to my point--wastefulness. I've been wasteful about many things. Time goes on the top of my wastefulness list, next is food. Despite how hard I try to either share or compost, I waste so much and feel quite terrible over it. I'm not alone in this. Americans' waste is increasing whereas hunger across the globe and a shortage of resources is increasing. 

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How Plastics, Planned Obsolescence and Mad Men Go Together

This morning as I lugged my trash and recycling to the condo dumpster I felt sad that this black plastic bag would sit in the earth contaminating it for decades to come. (I know I have bizarre thoughts, okay.) Yes, whatever organic material I actually disposed of, that which did not make it to my compost, would decompose, but the rest? The rest would just sit there in the artificial hills of Florida, forever.

And my bulging bin of recyclables? Well, for one I am shocked at how much plastic I accumulated over two weeks. Vitamin, prescription and lotion bottles, yogurt tubs (I have yet to try out my new yogurt maker), plastic tops off the plastic lined paper cartons of soy creamer (which are not recyclable), those annoying lingerie plastic hangers (which turn out to NOT be recyclable) and other items I have forgotten. (1) All of these plastics will, hopefully, make it to another life as a lesser plastic. Yes, pat me on the back. Hurray! I recycle, but regardless there is an end to the road of a recyclable plastic that ends at the landfill (OR in the gut of a bird or fish). (2) Again, this is why I say Recycling is the last R. Reduce and Reuse should always come first. (3)

So where did we go wrong? Where did we go from reusable to disposable waste, a disposable society? Yes, I still can and do recycle the glass jars I have no use for and the metal tops, aluminum and soda cans; these will be reused, I hope, but again at a cost of more energy. The original birth of these items used resources and energy for their creation and now their multiple reincarnations will require more and more, to what end I ask?

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you, me and climate change

What is the real cost of climate change to you or me? What are the economics of this all? What will it take to make a change, a real change?

I don't know, that's why I'm asking you. I can ramble on about what I feel is the real cost of climate change...a livable environment or not a very hospitable environment. But when it boils down to it, my opinion is just one of many different voices in the world. And I feel as if I've been slacking in my efforts.

There are others working harder and louder at making a change. It can make one feel inadequate; it can make me feel insufficient. But that is not the point of this blog. The point is that it takes lots of small steps to reach a destination. So for some inspiration I look elsewhere to the elimination of plastic in Fake Plastic Fish's life, to No Impact Man's year of living lighter, to The Story of Stuff and to remembering the past of how this movement all got started with Earth Days. Then I can re-evaluate what I am doing and how I can work harder at being a more conscious citizen. I'll never be the greenest-best person out there, but I can be better.

The Jane Hotel: efficient hotel rooms

This past July I took a little vacation to New York City. For the most part I stayed in a lovely hotel, Hotel East Houston, on the edge of SOHO near the LES. It was perfect for me. I was close to shopping and live music events I attended; there was even a Whole Foods market a block away. I saw an amazing show, Next to Normal. I even made some new friends (thanks again Jon & Ana Sofie) my first night out at the Bowery Hotel restaurant; it has a great name!

I met up with an old coworker (DR!!) and some other old friends (thanks again M brothers & ABB!). My time in NYC seamlessly came together in one of the best solo vacations I've ever taken. Yes, it rained and it was terribly hot. Yes, I'm from Miami, but we don't walk in the heat or rain like New Yorkers do. I was energized and so content in my temporary home. Till I tried to leave and the skies opened up. And the airport closed. And the airlines canceled all the birds in the sky, leaving me stranded for two more nights in NYC. Thanks to frantic calls to my friends a temporary hotel was found for the first extra night, but on my second night I changed hotels. For my third NYC hotel I tried out one of my original options, a still under renovation, The Jane Hotel.

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pens: disposable or refillable?

This morning, as one of my bosses droned on about numbers, a thought occurred to me, pens. I sat there staring at and rolling my favorite blue uni-ball pen between my fingers when I realized the pen was such a waste of resources. Again, a product that was reusable and refillable, fountain pens, made near extinct by convenience and disposability.

This was not news to me, but I haven't been very good at employing this knowledge. Pens are so simple and useful, yet completely a waste when through with and chucked in the rubbish. Do you know how many blue pens I go through at work and school? At least ten to twelve a year. Multiply that by the population of the universe and what a waste. Wow, pens....pens are depressing me.

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Belated CSA rave review

My first CSA season ended in April, but due to a mad grad school schedule, work and the desire to have a life (damn me I know)..I never finished blogging about my wonderful CSA experience.

I loved it. It sounds silly and sad that going to pick up my half farm share every Saturday at the lovely host house on Miami Beach could incite happiness and just a cheesy good feeling. But it did just that. Half the time I didn't know what I was going to do with the goods till I rifled through my recipe books or googled up a definition (black sapote, que?) or a recipe. And sometimes, in the end, I either didn't take an item (left it in the share box) or gave it away to co-workers. I mean I'm a single gal and my cat, meow as he may, doesn't eat human food..so some items had to go to others. Or I had to get creative, like old school creative. I flash froze some veggies. I pickled cabbage. I made jam. I made the most delicious Dutch style beets. I made rice and collard greens vegetarian style. My freezer was full weeks after the season ended and I was still enjoying the goods. I can't even remember everything I made or tried right now. Some were hits, like the Butternut Squash Lasagna, and some were fails, hmm the Pain au Chou, but all in all it was fun. And a little stressful. I spent my weekends cooking all my food for the week. At times, I should have been writing papers or studying instead of simmering something on the stove.

It's been almost five months. The next season starts in November and I feel lucky to be able to share with the farmers and my community in this adventure. The newsletters, the stories of the interns, everything in it made me feel like I was a tiny bit in a community. This is not easy to achieve, the community feeling, in a spread out disconnected city of silicon filled faces, bodies and places. Cheesy, I know, but I do feel that community. I know every week where my food comes from, how many miles it traveled to reach me and what's in season for our wacky Florida weather. When I go to the grocer for the odd item, I buy based on what I have at home (ok and coffee & creamer...always coffee). Though I don't know what I'll do with it all each week. I know I'll share it with friends and feel good about all the lovely real dirty veggies I get from my local farms! -agcg

For more info on Community Supported Agriculture go to Local Harvest and to check out my CSA, the Southern most CSA visit Redland Organics.

Previous posts on my CSA experience including recipe links...

lost and found furniture

So have you ever saved, rescued or repurposed furniture left, discarded, on the side of the road?
Almost every day I commute to work, I see various pieces of perfectly good furniture put out by the wealthy inhabitants of the large houses on this very busy street in Miami Beach. I wonder, why just leave it on the side of the street instead of calling a charity to pick it up? Is it laziness or just no thought that it isn't trash, that someone else could find a use for it? I don't know what the answer is, but I feel sorry for it. It seems I'm not alone when I googled this topic I found a post under sympathy card for discarded furniture.

It sounds ridiculous, but I feel bad for the furniture. There has been a dining table sitting on the swale for the past week. It looks perfectly good. Inlaid wood, not cheap or MDF crap. But its rained a couple times now. It could have been adopted by a nice family if it was given to charity or even freecycle or craigslist even. FREE. It had a futon to keep it company on the first day. Now its just leaning on the tree. Poor table.

Today I saw a desk. Its not my style, but it looks perfectly fine. Sand it and slap a coat of paint on that puppy and voila new desk for free.

I saved a chair once. It's a knock off of a very expensive design. It needs some work. Maybe one day I will reupholster it. I got out of my car one night and started walking on the sidewalk toward my apartment and it was just sitting there in the middle of the sidewalk. So sad. I walked away from it, looking in all directions for its owner, like it was a wandering child missing an adult. No one. I got to my apartment, put my purse and work bag down and went back for it. Awkwardly lugging it across the street and up the stairs into my place. Then I thoroughly cleaned and inspected it. It's not perfect, but it has a purpose for me now. I throw my clothes on it when I'm too lazy to rehang them. This is a daily occurrence.

Once, I truly regretted leaving this cute bike, and really it was up for grabs, not just left by someone riding their bike.

While walking with my friend ABB in NYC, I believe it was the Gramercy Park neighborhood, we figured out what day was the best day for picking up useful discarded pieces of furniture. It was a Thursday night. The sidewalk was lined with the trash and discarded furniture, a bookcase , a nightstand, a chest of drawers.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a trash collector or dumpster diver (and I'm not referring to this posh secret NYC swim hole). But I suppose it goes back to the way I grew up. We had the same sofa my whole life. Eventually it became the dogs sofa. It was horrid by the time they claimed it. The sofa had about three reincarnations in my lifetime. From the pictures of my infancy it looks to have started out in some gawd awful seventies brown floral print. Then it was slip-covered in a rust brown color. That was the best it ever looked. The next and last reincarnation was a rough velour brown floral pattern. What was with the brown floral pattern? Now that I think of it, it would have fit in some woodsy hole of a hunting lodge not the floridaroom of a Miami home!

I digress. My point is that even when my mother finally got rid of the thing after over thirty years of brown floral abuse. She gave it away to charity. Granted at this point I think it should have been used for science experiments or something. Still it didn't go to the trash pile or the Florida hills (aka landfills).

So no I don't claim at all to be a freegan or go picking through the trash, even though this is a growing trend. I do claim to save a piece of furniture every once in awhile. In my apartment, the chair is the only thing I saved from a life on the street. But I do have other pieces I saved, or bought from thrift stores, nice solid vintage pieces with a bit of past. Also, since childhood I've never had a problem with hand me downs. I'm never too proud to say no to a hand me down, especially if it is an electronic that I don't have. This was how I got my TV and DVD when I had nothing in my first apartment along with many many other things.

This post is getting rambly. But if you want to know where to cruise on Miami Beach for some free furniture, send me an email. -agcg