Floss-ophy

Ya gotta look at the little picture.
If you look too hard and too long at the big picture of life you'll just develop a twitch along side an overwhelming urge to hide under the bed. And I could do it too. Ever since I got those bed risers that lift the bed another half foot off the floor I've been very aware of how easy it is to crawl under there and just...chill....be at one with the dust bunnies and lost cat toys and ouiji board (cause every one has one of those under their bed right?)
The idea behind bed risers is more storage space, the un-spoken underlying idea that they don't mention in those commercials and Bed Bath and Beyond flyers is that the storage is for you!
When you look too hard at the big picture of life and sensory overload is imminent, the dark and dusty and surprisingly cool coffin like confines of the under-the-bed-ness is just a belly crawl away. Waiting like a secret hug from your furniture. Ahhhh...
Luckily my husband doesn't find me under there too often, striped socks peeking from under the bed skirt giving away my position as I hum and contemplate putting glow in the dark stars under our box spring to complete that *drifting in the dark void of space* feeling that relaxing under the bed offers.
I can avoid that *hide from the world and all it's annoying problems* feeling by deliberately NOT looking at the big picture. Instead I narrow my vision until I'm practically microscopic eyes woman and look at something small. Something manageable.
The earth could spin off it's access, spewing it's excessive piles of non-recyclable garbage out into space like a great vomiting orb of humanity infested planetoid that it is and I'd be ok, because I'd be there relaxing under my bed marveling at the ingeniousness of my tooth flosser. (I like how I felt compelled to specify TOOTH flosser as if I flossed other things and didn't want there to be any confusion as to what sort of flosser I was speaking of)
I try not to incur the wrath of my dentist. No one can lay a guilt trip on you faster than
1) a Mom,
2) any puppy from any animal shelter commercial and
3) your dentist.
Mine suggested I floss more and I agreed, what with him having shiny, sharp, pointed objects in my mouth at the time of the afore mentioned suggestion. Also, annoying mouth maintenance chores like flossing are less annoying after you're grown up and have already sunk thousands of dollars into your mouth in tooth repair. *gulp* If there's anything I would do with a time machine it's go back in time and slap the crap outta me for not flossing when I was 6.
BUT I am pleased to say 31 year old me needs no slapping!
I've been very diligent and with the use of these little clip on to a handle type disposable, pre threaded floss dealies was actually getting the hang of every day flossing with out it being a 4 hour event that ended with me cutting off the circulation in my finger tips from knotted and tangled floss. Let me just state that only people with giant mouths and little hands can floss their teeth easily and un-painfully with JUST floss. So, hence the need for a flosser doo-hickey and of course as I started using those little plastic doohickies that clipped into the handle I started feeling the weight of them on my conscience as I threw them away. As a crafter there's only so many things I can save to reuse and make arty stuff out of and I draw the line at used tooth flossers.
They're so small, just a little "C" shaped bit of plastic with floss threaded between but those little bits of plastic add up. Sure there are oil spills and toxic waste dumps and Styrofoam everything littering endless miles of road in North America, there's plastic bags clinging to tree branches like alien flowers, there's massive piles of STUFF every where that needs addressed or else it'll choke us off this planet in another few generations but....I can't always think about the BIG picture or else I'll need a little recuperation time under the bed again.
But the little picture, totally doable. I'm gonna say it, I'm gonna pull out a tired phrase and use it one more time and squeeze out every last bit of usability from it, I make the LITTLE picture my beeeeeotch.
I decided to put my foot down and refuse to believe that my only tooth flossing options were disposable flossers that I could actually use without cutting my lips and pinching my fingers OR just regular floss that meant I had to start playing favorites with my teeth, no attention for you molars. No!
This is why the internet is my best friend. Like seriously don't ask me to start rating family and friends and the internet in my life because the top 2 positions would create world war 3 and some shunning the likes of which the world has never seen. But suffice it to say I think of an idea, a product and I ask my bestest non-carbon based friend if such a thing exists and it tells me YESSSSSSS. (I should say I feel sort of guilty at the amount of love and slobberly attention I bestow upon my monitor because I know in my heart of hearts it's not actually responsible for all the awesomeness it displays. But my computer is all tied up inside and behind the monitor and what am I supposed to do? Tell the screen this hug isn't for you, pass it along? You're beginning to see the allure of the underside of my bed now aren't you?)
But as I was saying I found it. The holy grail of teeth flossing........*insert respectful moment of silence here*.....a RE-THREADABLE FLOSSER!
A plastic handle that should in theory last for fricking ever, probably longer than human teeth actually, and it can be threaded and unthreaded and it's soooooo easy to use that it causes a person to make inappropriate sounds of pleasure from performing the most hated of dental chores.
Now of course the only thing I need to do is look a little harder at my floss because I have heard tell there are eco-friendly options available for it too. Sweet. I can not fix the world but I can fix my negative impact upon it. One itty bitty bit of dental waste at a time.
Today is a good day, definitely a nap on top of the bed and not under it sort of day thanks to my new Flossaid Dental Floss Holder!

The technologically trashy life.....

(I'd have gotten out of the car to snap photos but since they had lots of signs expressly forbidding people from leaving their vehicles I had to snap photos through our dusty windshield at the recycling place. I wonder if it's like one of those wild safari parks and a lion would have ate us if we got out?)

Today was an exceptional day. I swear I floated around on a cloud of smug satisfaction and pure superiority all day. Where ever I walked, people cast startled glances my way like lines from a fishing rod, trying to catch just what this air of mysteriousness that hung about me was.
Was it the bounce in my step?
Did gravity not cling to me with quite as desperate a grasp as it did to every one else?
Perhaps.
I know that I felt lighter, in fact it is quite possible that I floated on my way into the grocery store. Not only did we empty the garage of a car load of techno trash and recycle it responsibly today, but I emptied my brain of the responsibility and associated guilt of said accumulated pile of techno trash. The kind of stuff that multiplies shockingly fast in this *digital* and technologically advanced age we live in. And in our case, having my husband in a computer related web site building biz, monitors and keyboards, fax machines and multiple printers have a way of stacking up.
I am not the first person to suggest strange and un-seemly procreative things happening in the dark corners of our abodes where the junk stuff lives. Perhaps it's a natural combination of time and dust, coupling with the trash in the early hours of the morning when eyes are not on them, spawning new bits of wire and cables and cords and phones and hard drives and disturbing numbers of computer power supplies. The sort of things you can't point your finger at and say "A HA! You did NOT exist yesterday!!!!" Because with out a doubt you'll only get that eye brow raised, quick step back and hasty goodbyes, reaction from any witnesses. Though deep in their hearts, in the very back corner, in the crevices that resist logical thought they know.....they know what happens with junk in the dark because it happens in their garages too. But they turn a blind eye when the garage door opens and pretend it's a bit of dust that has caused their startled gasp and not the newborn piles of computer mice that lay still and silent in the light of day.
There are only so many ways to attractively stack and store 3 old computer monitors, 3 old computers and the various and out dated non-working parts to accompany each bit. Eventually it gets to the point where if you have to look at any bit of it any longer you're going to do something drastic like banish it from your life forever, or scream.
Banishing is fun, easier on the throat, highly effective and very satisfying. But I like to do my banishing legally and responsibly so I researched where to take techno trash so it could be recycled and like a shining, golden beam of light guiding me I found just the place.

(The place where we took our techno trash has free drop off the first Saturday of every month. I love free! Also look at the incredibly strange cubes of mashed together parts. It's weird but oddly beautiful because all of that is being recycled or reused in some way instead of just being buried!!)

The place we took our stuff is called E World Recyclers and they claim to recycle 100% of what can be salvaged from techno trash. They say....."Nothing Goes in a Landfill but the organics and other materials such as wood that belong there. E-World Recyclers is driving the entire industry toward a cleaner process, being the first recycler in the country able to create furnace-ready glass from CRT tubes."

Alan has commented several times about the strange times we live in. How something that still works, was once fairly expensive, like a monitor, is now so worthless you can't even donate them to a goodwill. In fact in some places you have to pay for them to take your techno trash to be disposed of properly. These things don't *age* well. Bell bottoms come back in style but old style clunky chunky monitors? I doubt it.
At this point I should say I can feel that feeling that means that at some point in the year 3421 that some person has probably dug this blog post out of the massive blog post graveyard and will chuckle at my old fashioned ways and be aghast at the notion of wanting and needing a skinny high resolution monitor when giant old style ones are all the rage and are being dug up like fossils from our old dumps and being polished and sold as antiques for a quadrillion Teractoles. (Teractoles being the planatoid currency in the year 3421)
Delivery of our car load of non-working non-usable technology trash was easy. What wasn't easy was having the dedication and resolve to set the alarm clock so we'd get up in the morning at the appointed time to deliver the car load of stuff. We hate wake up alarms like people hate calories. With a deep and abiding hate and a healthy dose of respect for their awesome power and potential.
But we did it. That and more, I finally mailed off my box of # 5 plastics I had gathered up. If you thought there were a lot of sour cream containers in that pile before.....good golly. Plus I used the time in the last couple weeks to dig out every # 5 plastic anything I could suss out and 9.50 later it's on it's way, outta my hands and off to be put to use instead of buried in a landfill.
Like I said, today was an exceptional day.
To top off my waste management and trash related day I saw something VERY interesting.

(forgive the blurry picture but when you're spying you snap photos on the move, because a moving spy is a spy that's less likely to get it's ass kicked)

Three blue bins at a local business. THREE. Even I in all my obsessive recycling insane ways can hardly fill 2/3 of our blue bin on a good day and yet they had three......
I think it may be my first big break in my blue bin thefting case. Perhaps I shall lurk closer one of these nights and with a few deft rolls and acrobatic jumps to avoid the security cameras I shall inspect the bins closer to see if any look like mine.
I see this as going one of two ways. One, they are mine and I shall exact my revenge and meter out justice Canadian style (meaning ice will be involved) or Two, I shall find out this business is really really really good at recycling and I shall bow down before them and study at their feet to learn the ways of a zero waste lifestyle.
I'll be fine with either way.
For now, I shall go down to the garage and dance in the spots where old monitors used to sit.

Garbage Bin %#$#$%^!!!!!!

I can't very well title this post garbage bin bastards, but I can dang well think it.
Politeness and manners dictates I use caution with my words, temper my temper with a dash of sanity and not just say '"oh bugger it all" and curse the blog air blue with inventive phrases that would have my Mother warning of the minister hiding in the bushes.
If there's 2 things my Mother taught me, it's not to point (I still wave with a fist to indicate something, which can make people think I'm starting a fisty cuffs scuffle) and also not to curse because you never know who might be listening. Meanwhile since I am obeying the "no pointing" rule I curse a little more often than is strictly lady like. But you can be sure I do an impressive imitation of a horror movie creature, head swiveling 360 degrees to see if any one, including ministers in the bushes, heard me.
But all of this is besides my point, which I admit I am either very good at or bad at.
Getting beside my point I mean.
There are times I look to the right and left of me and my point is sooooooo far down the line of things I am yakking on about I can hardly see it. Sometimes we wave at each other and my point will shrug in an embarrassed sort of way, wordlessly asking "how did I end up here?" I'll tell you how point, it's because I got side tracked thinking of curses when I was meaning to expose the seamy dark underside of a garbage bin crime world.
Our bins have been...stolen....no less than 3 times.
Now, call me crazy, but a full bin seems more interesting than an empty one.
Should I be embarrassed that the bin thieves don't think my garbage is good enough for them? Should I be grateful that they don't dump the bins out, thank goodness, but rather wait until after the garbage trucks have come and gone and apparently mosey on down our private road and load up on bins to their little heart's delight as if we're hosting a fricking bin buffet, an all you can steal blue bin special, ya bunch-o-thievin-buggers. The bin thieves not you.
I no longer cast suspicious glances at the neighbors, having learned they have been victims of the bin thieves as well.....so they say......I suppose they could be ultra clever and are eluding my accusing eye and finger of judgment (the pointy "j'accuse" finger, not the middle one) by including themselves in the barbaric bin business going on around here, but meanwhile every night they go out to their secret bin hideaway and glory over their stash of stolen plastic containers.
I shudder when I think of that...of some stranger running their fingers over my grey garbage can....or worse....the brilliant blue plastic of the recycling bin.
WHY THE RECYCLING BIN?????? Are ye thieves with an environmental conscious? Does that make me feel better or worse? How do the scales of justice weigh that out?
On the one hand they stole private property, on the other hand they might be recycling. Does that even out? Aggghhh...
So anyways I've been trying to figure out how to install a gps device on my new bins that were dropped off by Edco. I think this is a brilliant idea. I make my bin trackable, wait for it to get stolen, then I locate it using what ever doolybobber-thing-a-ma-jig one uses with their garbage can gps, (hence forth called gcgps) go to my poor abducted bin and NOT only steal it back but....but.....
This is where my plan falls apart. I am not sure what I want to do, something heinous like unleashing my look of supreme disapproval that clearly states through nothing but facial muscles and exquisite eyebrow control that says, "You are going to hell buddy. HELL. Pitchforks will be jabbing your azz for eternity and you shall choke on the fumes of melting plastic, surrounded by all the bins you've purloined."
OR something subtle like just start watching those people for the REST OF THEIR LIVES. Waiting, biding my time until one day I introduce myself, make friends with them, get invited to their bbq's and birthdays, wait for years to go by and then when they least suspect it I will tell them I hate them, take back all of the Christmas presents I've given them and spit in their face. See, it'll hurt more if they don't understand why AND they care. Muaaaah ahhh ahhhh.
In the mean time life goes on.
I have not taped a row of thumbtacks with their pointy parts poking out under the edge of the garbage bin handle.
I have not set up a secret spy web cam in the bushes so I can see the comings and goings on around my precious, precious bins on garbage day.
I have not joined the volunteer sheriff's program in my community, though if truth be told that's ONLY because it's for seniors and I don't think they let you arrest people.
In the mean time I gather my trash and take it down every week. And try not to obsess over how I can attach a gps doolie to my can so that it remains hidden as well as active.
I also no longer name my bins. I do not let myself grow attached......
But...if truth be told, on Fridays when we go down for our cans and we round the end of the driveway and walk past the cactus that conceal the bit of road where we place our bins...my heart speeds up...just a little. And I find myself holding my breath, and when my bins are there, EXACTLY where they should be, I feel relieved.
And so should the bin thieves........

48 reasons I should have been named Daisy....

And here is where you become fully acquainted with the depths of my garbage guilt.
I am mailing away my trash.
And I am thrilled about it.
I am personally paying, out of my own pocket, to box up and mail away my garbage. And before you even begin to scoff or shoot me a sly knowing looking from under your eyelashes let me specify that this is not a prank. Although can you imagine the look on Aunt Ruthie's face if she received my trash in the mail for her upcoming birthday? I can......hmm.....
But this is not a joke, it's reality.
Plastic #5 and I have a love hate relationship, I love the sour cream that comes in this number, but I hate the plastic. Or do I hate the fact that my county does not recycle this plastic? Or do I hate the fact that people would package and sell stuff and make it available in a county that does not recycle it? Or do I just hate the fact that I have been seriously trying to figure out if I can make my own sour cream so I can avoid all of these packaging issues but the allure and ease of store bought is like a siren in the oceans of temptation and I am the ship full of sailors about to be dashed upon the rocks?
Well, for the time being, I am no longer lost at sea. I have a solution, perhaps not the BEST solution in the world but it's a step. I am mailing away my trash, all of the #5 plastics I have saved up and squirreled away in my closets with desperate hopes for inspiration to come down and conk me in the head so that I may make something with all of these sour cream containers and assuage my guilt that I even have them.
I could throw them away.
In fact I confess I have tried.
I have winged an empty #5 plastic sour cream container in to my trash can and walked a way. I made it about 3 steps before the wave of overwhelming guilt engulfed me. I just can't. Some people can't rob banks, some people can't get tattoos, some people can't say the Lord's name in vain but I just can't throw away a fricking sour cream container.
So I have been saving them. And occasionally when I open my craft closet they stand in there, a towering plastic monument of either my dedication or insanity, or more like a weird mixture of both. As a statue, it symbolizes my love of the environment, of my part in taking care of the earth, my awareness of trash production and contributing to the landfills but also that we might be sour cream addicts.
However no longer will this monument of #5 plastic mock me. Because I am mailing it away. There is a company called Preserve that creates products from recycled plastics and they accept mailed in contributions of #5 plastics. Their program is called the "Preserve Gimme 5". Before the hard core people jump on my back like lunatic monkeys, yes I realize mailing things off, consuming fuels and all that stuff has it's own negative impact on the environment as well but this is a start.
Also the company Preserve has done a study to analyze the impact of mailing #5 plastics away. And since they said it so much better and probably with less words and more punctuation than I ever could:

• "The results showed the benefits of keeping #5 plastics out of landfills and remaking them into new products outweigh the environmental impacts of shipping them back to us. We hope that the success of our program will help convince local recyclers of the value of taking #5 plastics back in more communities across the US."

So you see, it's a step. It's not the ideal solution. I do not know what the ideal solution would be. For the world or me. Maybe for me it would just be completely weaning off of items that are packaged in #5 plastics. We already have started this to a point. We buy as many products as we can that come in containers we can recycle. I save what ever can't be recycled and at least try to reuse it, giving it an extra life, one more purpose at the very least before being shipped off to some mysterious hole in the ground.
I have a dream.
Zero trash household. Ohhhh I got goosebumps. Like most things this will be something I will have to work at and for. It's not the sort of thing that is going to happen over night. But you never know......can you imagine how fabulous it would feel to some day not be responsible for any non-recyclable trash? Ohhh goosebumps again.
If you also suffer from #5 plastic guilt then perhaps we ought to start a support group. I can bring cookies and coffee and tubs of sour cream and we can share our woes over the lack of acceptance of #5 plastic in our own counties. And then we can make enchiladas and decorate boxes of trash to mail away.
It'll be fun.
For the time being I have 48 less reasons to feel guilty when I haul my trash down to the curb. Though I do now have 48 reasons to seriously consider the sour cream consumption in this household of two people. Seriously you'd think we gulp down mugs of the stuff for breakfast lunch and dinner. They say the human body is 70 % water, not here, we have to be at least 70% sour cream by now.....

The case of the blue bin:

It was a hot July day when EDCO (trash disposal service) sidled up to us, slid it's imaginary eyes left and right and muttered out of the corners of it's non-existent mouth, between just as non-real clenched teeth, "Tomorrow, Early. There will be a...delivery. Expect the noisy trucks at dawn."
That wasn't spy talk, the garbage trucks really are noisy and like to do their rumbling business at dawn. But nonetheless a spark of excitement ignited inside me.
How often do the garbage people bring you something?
Take, take take. You'd think they could drop off an old table, a used bookshelf or some broken marionettes (my personal dream) from what I imagine to be a wealth of California garbage, every once in a while.
By the way, there IS a wealth of California garbage. You gotta realize I am from the boooonies. That means the garbage truck came every 2 weeks and if you felt like walking a zillion steps to peer at one, maybe two neighbor's trash you could. But who would wanna? Cause no one throws anything cool away in the boonies. It's completely different than the quick, turn-over apartment lifestyle of a city-ish place in California. I'm almost positive that when people move from apartments around here that 30% of them just toss everything out into the trash area and buy new stuff when they get to where they're going.
And yes, I do enjoy making up statistics....well 72.39% of the time I do.
CONTINUE to keep in mind, I'm from the boonies, and yes I have been to thrift stores and yard sales but there's no use lusting after some dresser or table or what ever even if you did happen to see one whilst browsing cause then you'd have to have your heart broken by leaving it or go through the hassle of finding some one with a big enough vehicle that can haul a broken dresser 40 miles into the woods, up a long dirt drive way and preferably for free.
So imagine my amazement when my first few visits to a California trash area in an apartment complex I feel like I just walked into a thrift store. I back up a couple paces, swing my head left and right, step back into the walled area and behold....chairs......screen doors? Lamps, picture frames, dishes, more chairs, night stands, more screen doors, pipe???? and goodies galore.
I am not ashamed to admit that a helluva a lot of our possessions we have acquired together came from the trash area of an apartment complex. I mean hell, you didn't even need to dumpster dive, the stuff was just sitting there.
2 night stands, hardwood tv stand dresser thingy, 2 lamps, picture frame, 3 chairs, window screen, giant wooden book shelf thingy, quaker oatmeal sign (I kid you not), 4 baskets and a plant stand. I'm sure there's more but I'd have to get up off my chair and run around the house cataloging our possessions and I'm not gonna do that, honesty compels me to admit I'm thrifty AND lazy.
If I could some how clone myself and my doppelganger clone person would obey my every whim then I'd have that alternate self open up a thrift store some day. I swear some one out there could probably make a fortune picking up all the discarded things left for the trash man, maybe refurbishing them and selling them in a "new to you" type second hand store....ahhhh...the dream...cloning I heart you.
Well anyways all of that is to say the garbage man takes, but he never gives...until recently.
That sweet little love note from our local disposal service left my heart all a pitty patter pat patting.
Did I sleep that night?
As anxious as a child on Christmas eve waiting for Santa to go the hell home so they could rip in to their stockings?
Hell no..I mean I didn't sleep, such was my level of excitement. You ever wonder what palpable means? If you'd been near me on this momentous occasion, waiting for the trash trucks to drop off our present you'd have seen the very real excitement I was experiencing...excitement that was truly palpable. You could literally touch my excitement and palpate it, that's how thrilled I was.....maybe...or maybe I'm just hepped up on caffeine again and the ol' exaggeration train has left the station. Now this has gotta be like the millionth blog post I've wrote about trash so I'll leave it to you to figure out...exaggeration train? Or sadly excited Canadian gal living in California with her hottie husband waiting for the trash man to bring her a present.....
It was blue.
It was big and blue and a beauty to behold.
A giant blue recycling bin....oh, don't start shivering with joy yet. It gets better...it had wheels. (Those of you with clever murder-she-wrote type minds has picked up on the use of *had*)
Immediately the first thing I did upon meeting our new company issued recycling bin was raise the lid and sniff inside.
What?
I just wanted to make sure it was as clean and sweet as it looked....and yes...I wanted to get inside...I mean this beauty had wheels, serious business wheels and if I could get my husband to push me around in ol' Blue before we started dumping tin cans and papers in her that would be one of my dreams come true. The dream on my list of dreams that I wish come true, the one that's right under "Find antique marionette for cheap or free" and right above "clone self so alternate self can fulfill alternate life role fantasies like owning a thrift store".
Let me just say that dream still remains un-crossed off.
Turns out getting IN a big blue recycling bin, especially without getting hurt, is dang hard. It's like they built that sucker knowing people would want to get in and so they made damn sure we couldn't.
Alan offered to lift it up and put it over my head but come on, how long would a recycling bin as a hat satisfy me?
3.4 minutes tops.
Who knew the turmoil these blue bins would cause.
But, emotional tug of war on my sad little recycling bin heart strings aside...there was more to come.
One fine Thursday evening we took ol' Blue, loaded down with tin cans, papers, flyers, jars and so on, down to the communal garbage area near our house. The spot where about 7 or 8 other neighbors all put their bins. What pride we took in seeing the still gleaming blue bins lined up like earth saving soldiers, waiting to do their duty.
We happily tucked Ol' Blue in amongst the neighbors and walked home, holding hands as the sun set gloriously behind us, the last dying rays glinting off the blue plastic.
The next day we went down to retrieve our empty bin...and....
I can't even begin to say it as I can barely stand to bear it....
N-n-n-n-n-no bin.
All the neighbors had already collected their bins because they don't have strange sleep cycles like us. This was nothing new...but the glaring absence of Ol' Blue, who we'd only had a week or so stuck out like a giant wrongness that produced strange keening wails from both Alan and I. (Ok just me but I didn't want to sound weird)
A ha we thought, clinging to the one sliver of desperate hope that brought light to the cloud of gloom that had enveloped us upon seeing the space devoid of our pretty new blue bin...a ha, a neighbor has probably accidentally taken our bin mistaking it for their own because they're stupid..er... I mean...they got confused, yeaah, having collected their bins in the early morning dim light...or...maybe the husband took the bins home not knowing the wife had already collected them so they ended up with double...I dunno.
Look I was desperate, trying to see the glass half full, hoping our bin would show up on it's own when some one realized their mistake.
We waited 2 whole days.....no bin.
We left kind notes that didn't sound accusatory in any way on everyone's mail boxes suggesting perhaps the possibility some one had accidentally mistaken our beautiful blue bin for their own? Perhaps?
You know how easy it is to accidentally see two giant space hogging blue bins as actually one...right?
No bin.
*sigh*
I'm not sure what's more satisfying to the mind. That a neighbor accidentally took it and can't see that they have 2, or that a recycling bin thief was on the loose. Acquiring massive piles of giant blue recycling bins for their own fun and glory. Doing strange, sick things with my recyclables and putting their dirty thief hands all over my pretty blue plastic.
For days I cast a wary eye on my neighbors as we came and went along the road here.
Harshly whispering to my husband as I slowly drove past a sweet elderly woman who actually had a sweater around her shoulders, "Psssssst see if she looks nefarious would ya hun? I can't take my eyes off the road for too long."
She didn't look nefarious. Damn it.
Genius thief or sweet old lady?
I dunno.......
We finally accepted the facts, our bin wasn't coming back. And it's not like we can just replace the sweet plastic blue box on wheels that I was beginning to think of as my trashy child...oh wait...we could!!!
Sweet.
A quick call to our disposal company and a new bin was brought to us the very next morning.
Our new bin has been just as fabulous as our old one, the one we barely got to know before it disappeared.
And dare I admit it?
This new one is even better in some ways...like the foot high house numbers we adhered over every side of it so that no one could *accidentally* mistake it for their own....that and the pretty pink note with Edwardian style font that reads "touch my blue bin, go ahead, I dare you. I might not see you but GOD is."
Nothing like hauling God out of the dusty corners of my mind where I've relegated him to put the fear of me in to would be recycling bin thieves.

******confession: I didn't really leave a note like that on our bin...but I thought about it...muahhh ahhh ahhh.

Let There Be Light...

Recipe for a refuse lamp:

• Get you a lamp. Preferably one found sitting in the communal trash area of an apartment complex you lived at 4 years ago and you've been using as a plain jane boring lamp since then. (We lived at the apartment complex, not in the communal trash area, though from the amount of furniture discarded there every week you could make yourself right comfortable amongst the trash bins if need be. I swear that trash area had nicer furniture than most people's houses I've been in)
• Gather your guilt and accumulated pile of stuff you can't bare to throw in the trash and decide if you're gonna have it take up space in your house it might as well be as something useful. Things like aluminum coffee pots that got funky inside and are no longer being used since you've upgraded to the stainless steel model of them, a broken coffee cup, a sweet looking steel cut oats can and some corks are all good.
• Ask your Mother-in-law to keep her eyes peeled for a colander for a lamp shade for your kitchen-esque themed refuse lamp creation and then have her actually go one better and score a .25 cent fryer basket from a yard sale and be kind enough to give it to you.
• Don some swank looking safety goggles and then drill holes in everything so the rod of the lamp can fit through and stack it all up on the lamp rod as you see fit. Please note you can do a nice messy job of cracking out the bottom of the coffee mug because a neat and tidy hole won't make any difference, since it's pressed down against oats can lid. Holding your breath while slamming a screw driver down through the bottom of the coffee cup may or may not have been what kept the entire thing from shattering...but don't rule it out. Never rule out the power of holding your breath.
• Bat your eyelashes at your blue eyed husband and call upon his expert handy man skills and assistance in wiring the lamp back together, bending bits of metal and also encouraging you not to run around like a mad woman drilling holes in everything until you're sure they'll all fit on the lamp rod. Thanks to him I don't have half a dozen items with holes in them that don't need em.......
• Get a cute little fluorescent bulb and screw in to your wicked awesome refuse lamp and turn it on with a few soft spoken words and whispered bits of flattery...or you can just hit the switch.
• Bask in the soft light of your creation that cost...well what ever the price of the bulb and two bits of wire cost.

(Place of honor on top of the fridge for my kitchen-esque themed lamp!)

(The cat was exhausted and couldn't stay awake any longer waiting for us to finish our lamping. Either that or she was bored senseless.)

Biting the bullet about dust eaters biting the dust...just bites.

If you're anything like me you've spent many an hour agonizing over your dust buster. You haven't? Umm......well this is awkward.
Let me restart the beginning of my blab-fest with this then....I have this friend...um..yeah...and SHE (who is NOT me) has spent many an hour agonizing over her dust buster. Because that's the kind of person she is.
The kind of person who'd always thought a dust buster was a frivolous, extravagant purchase but none the less eyed them with something akin to lust in the department stores. Never daring to let her gaze linger too long, lest her husband suspect her desires. She had a vacuum cleaner did she not? She reasoned with herself, why would she need a second apparatus that sucked?
Was she enamored by the delicate pastel hued plastic body?
Was she tickled over the idea of a teeny weeny cleaning machine she could keep in her kitchen? Was she just sick?
Yes, yes and no. She was in love, and afraid to admit it...until......
I'm sure you know where this is headed.
An "until" so heavily laden with passion and intrigue can only lead to one thing.....an explosion of gasping, girlish delight in the middle of a Linens n' Things as she was brought to her knees by a display of dust busters for only 14.99.
Ignoring one's secret desire is easy...until....you're faced with your secret desire only costing 14.99. Also, stuttering and stammering and clutching the unit they had on display in a childish "mine, mine, mine" sort of attitude goes a long way towards shattering the illusions that you're a cool, sophisticated woman who doesn't swoon over dust busters. My....HER husband was surprised.
"You really want one?"
And he asked it in such a casual way that implied he wasn't shocked, or disgusted by her needs, just surprised that she was hyperventilating over the 14.99 price tag, and manically searching for crumbs on the store floor so she could play with the demo unit. Lifting her husband's feet and knocking dirt onto the floor so she could feed her little beast.... crooning "There's a good plastic baby, mama's gonna fix you up good."
They bought one.
She cried the first night. Not realizing the new addition to the household had to charge first for 24 hours. It sat there happily suckling electricity from the plug whilst she eyed the little piles of crumbs that seemed to have miraculously appeared on every surface, as if sensing the arrival of the chosen one. Crumbs she could not, in good conscience, clean in any other way but with her new dust buster.
Finally, the next day....the day that took for-fricking-ever to arrive, she and her dust buster were united in the full glory that is a woman and her little sucking device coming together in holy house cleaning union.
She buzzed about the living room and kitchen, sucking up crumbs. Where there weren't crumbs she MADE crumbs, so as to test the little sucker on every surface available. Her husband was delighted by her strange and baffling joy that a little tool could bring.
When it's battery wound down she didn't howl. She just bit her lip and held the dark cloud of despair at bay by screeching, "WHY DID IT STOP?"
"It's not meant for cleaning an entire house." Her husband rationally explains. "5 minutes is a pretty good run time for picking up crumbs, if you think about it. If you have more than 5 minutes worth of crumbs to clean up maybe you need to use the big vacuum right?"
He made a lot of sense. And eventually the cloud of despair would retreat far enough that she could see this logic and not just stand and stare at her little plastic baby slurping electricity from the plug, belly full of coffee grounds, bits of tortilla chips and scraps of paper she'd ripped and scattered across the carpet for testing purposes.
Life was rainbows, sunbeams and lollypops for a while. Until......
Damn them "untils"........everything life changing happens after an until, have you ever noticed?
Well...all was perfect...UNTIL......she noticed she couldn't suck all the crumbs under the edge of the counter PLUS the coffee grounds around the stove all in one go......how odd.....it was as if the little plastic baby was growing weaker......she couldn't admit it until one day her husband innocently said, "It sounds like that thing is dying."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Why would you say that? Why? WHY?????? You don't like my dust buster do you? You've never wanted me to have a dust buster, you'd let coffee grounds just pile up till we lived on nothing but coffee grounds, and wore nothing but coffee grounds, I suppose you think I ought to just quit spilling coffee grounds huh? HUH?????????????? "
He forgave her. As he understood the depth of love she had for the dust buster, having had such a relationship with a harmonica himself.
He suggested she time it. Cleverly realizing lets not have HIM destroy her dreams but lets have MATH do it. Numbers never lie, they may scar your soul with mind numbing cruelty, revealing truths that are too big for some minds to grasp....like the number of pints of ice cream left in the freezer, the number of poisonous snakes in the world or that your dust buster that used to run for 5 minutes at a time and now runs for only 40 seconds....but they never lie. Math will break your heart time and time again but it never lies.
40 seconds.
And every day she unites in cleaning joy with her plastic companion the time is less......Death hovers over the plastic dust buster with every hairball it consumes.
So fine, what ever, death is the inevitable conclusion to life, well that's just FRICKING PEACHY.
Is there a funeral service for the dust buster?
A final resting place?
Is there reincarnation for the dust buster?
Are batteries, life giving batteries, easily and readily available for the poor wee duster buster whose clock is running out?
*sigh*
The funeral services for most people's dust busters involve a complicated and scary process of smothering the plastic tool in yet more plastic, having it carted off by strangers in a loud rumbly truck and buried amongst everything our society considers too disgusting to keep. No loving embrace of sweet mother earth should ever be given to the dust buster, I feel very certain it goes against it's religious beliefs.
It's like a mummy, but instead of put in a museum on display where we put all the other old timey mummys that refuse to deteriorate, it's discarded. Hidden deep in our garages....IF it's lucky....and if it's not, it's sent along to the garbage heap. And a shiny NEW dust buster comes in to take it's place but like a pet...you know...you just KNOW you're going to outlive it......that some day, a hell of a lot sooner than you'd like, you will be faced with the same situation all over again....
Poor little dust buster, and poor she who longs to keep using her little cleaning aid and yet knows the time is drawing near. A decision will have to be made.
Which is more important to her? Hearing the gentle purr of a NEW Mr. Sucker-upper as he happily gobbles up the day's mess under the edge of the counter....or the environment? Will she start a collection of dead dust busters to join the blenders in the garage? Or will she realize that by keeping her kitchen counters garbage free by mechanical means she might actually be contributing to a larger garbage problem on the earth.....
Crap.
Seriously, why do I.........of course, just a slip of the fingers, why does SHE even have to think of these things?
Why care about the future generations? Why give a rat's ass about her legacy to the earth?
Why think about what she'll have to do with the old, dead dust buster when it finally bites the dust? Why can't she just throw it out and never think about it?
WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHY?
Is this cause her Mother was talking about goats whilst in labour with her? It all goes back to that doesn't it? She's a fricking hippy wanna-be because her Mother had to be running her mouth off about goats whilst giving birth. Something like that's gotta scar a child ya know?
So......she thinks about her dust buster, but enjoys the time they have together in the here and now.
Maybe by some miracle of miracles it won't die. Maybe it will forever run for 40 seconds at a time, just enough time to whizz through the kitchen chasing dust bunnies.
I hear too that she wonders how people cleaned up crumbs before dust busters? There's this thing called a whisk broom, like a regular broom only tiny........tiny is cute......though she doesn't dare speak of such things as whisk brooms around her Mr. Sucker-upper, lest he hear and ask uncomfortable questions she can't answer. Like what happens if some day....there's not even 40 seconds?
What if there's not even 2?
Will Mr.Sucker-upper be given a place of honor as art amongst all the prized possessions that are jammed in every corner, crowding every surface of the house? How valuable is he to the household when he can't work any more?
She might steal side long glances at him as he sleeps, recharging for the next hopefully 40 second cleaning spree and acknowledge.....he's beautiful as a dust buster....but as art? Hmmmmmm.....
Hope stirs, I know this for a fact. She has hope. One can't spend endless hours worrying, and agonizing over their dust buster and not have some hope.....a new battery? A new life? A new purpose?
She can't predict what the future holds but I damn well know this....he won't be garbage. He will NEVER be garbage.
He might become the world's funkiest flower vase, or secret compartment to hide valuables, weirdly shaped doll, strange little planter or the world's clunkiest cat toy that never gets played with....but he'll never be garbage.

Hmmmmmmmm...do you see what I see...would that make him..Dirty Smurf?

New Year's Resolutions: Or how I can not fail!

(Writing my resolutions, bet I can keep mine up more then you can keep yours)

• I resolve to swear more often and use the Z%$#^ word in creative ways at least 3 times a week. (and one of those times will be in front of the baggers at the grocery store, is there anything more fun then making teenagers cringe?)

• I resolve to buy more ice cream. Piling carton upon carton into my super market basket. Especially when skinny minny women and big eyed children are present, so that they may weep with envy at my icy cold gluttony. So they shall turn green with jealousy over my wild ice cream ways. Store clerks will raise an eyebrow, just one, as they ring through my purchases and ask if we're having a party, and I shall pertly answer with just the right amount of acid on my tongue (as in tone not drug) that no, we're not having a party we're having ice cream.

• I resolve to drink more port and solve every one's problems whilst tipping back a few. Is there any issue in the world that couldn't be solved whilst in the hazy glow of a port warmed brain muddle?

• I resolve to buy newly released Nora Roberts books so soon off the store shelves that the covers are still warm from the stock boy's hands.

• I resolve to talk loudly in public about our secret rendezvous with the french embassy and that we have the goods hidden in a cracker box at the grocery store. Just so some house wife can have a little thrill....and possibly some crackers.

• I resolve to learn more words in Spanish because even though I can apply "caliente" to a lot of things it would be cooler if I could say "mucho caliente". Like I would like a mucho caliente new hat, or wow that baby has the cutest mucho caliente dimples I've ever seen. For you Canadians mucho caliente= tres chaud (approximately I think)

• I resolve to reduce the amount of trash we throw out every week to even smaller amounts then last year, so that I can prance my tiny can down to the corner and throw my hands up in a gesture of "TAKE THAT!" attitude as our neighbors put their overflowing trash bins next to ours. Then I will dance a little "ha ha I'm hurting the environment less then you" kind of dance whilst they slink away, possibly even in tears.

• I resolve to watch Talladega Nights at least once a month, or at least this scene which is the BEST movie scene EVER. I dare you to defy me. Saying Grace
  

My Little bit....

My Nod To Blog Action Day: The Environment........
You know how sometimes you throw a piece of trash in the garbage can and then have to go weep in the corner, curled up in the fetal position sucking your thumb and cradling bits of number 1 and number 2 plastic?
The days when you drag yourself back and lift the lid of the garbage and stare into it's nasty abyss wondering "WHY oh WHY? What sense does this make?" The days you glare down at the things that you've accumulated in your daily life that can't be recycled.
And oh sure you're on the right path, gleefully recycling all the bits of plastic with the proper numbers (which you memorized 1 and 2, yay me!), the tin cans the glass bottles. Chuckling merrily to yourself at your own genius in setting a little basket in the middle of the kitchen to collect the recycling before taking it down to the big can in the garage. Where it sleeps until it's weekly trip to Trash Heaven. You've even developed an eagle eye that can turn menacing in a wink if some one should so much as look like they're going to throw that soda can in to the *gasp* non-recyclable trash.
Your relatives think you're a kook because on Christmas morning whilst they all roll around under the tree playing with plastic dinosaurs you're diving across the room grabbing crumpled wrapping paper from people's hands doing an excellent impression of a Hobbit gone wrong by snarling and cooing t2 And even with the rug burn from the slide to save the paper you're as bursting with joy at saving it as any one person could be.
So you have those days, when despite all your best efforts at not contributing needlessly to the waste and horror of a landfill site you end up cuddling your garbage, sprawled across the kitchen floor whispering to it that you're sorry. Damn sorry that tasty fresh sprouts have to come in a container with a number five, NUMBER FIVE. Goll dang it, why can't my disposal service take number five? WHY didn't I LOOK at the bottom of the container before I bought the sprouts? WHY why why why........ Days like this not even ice cream can fix. (well I mean I'm not saying don't go for the ice cream, you should always go for the ice cream I'm just saying in some rare instances the ice cream can't actually make the problem go away. I know, I'm as shocked as you.)
Ohhhhhh those days, those dark days of depression over being born in to a world where they already had a silly trash system in place, where it's the norm to just tie things up in a non biodegradable plastic bag and cart it away to be forgotten about. The world doesn't have a reset button...that I've found. It's not under any rock in the yard.
I can't stand garbage. The kind that has a life span of sometimes literally minutes. There are cups and containers and straws and all kinds of icky things out there that are meant to exist only as long as it takes for us to shovel the fast food in to our mouths. Is that not insane? Easy solution is to cut down on stuff like that. If you can't.....then tell me where you live so I can smack you over the head with my environmental stick, guaranteed to make you think twice about a piece of Styrofoam or plastic that will be buried lovingly in a hole for a zillion years. Ewwwwwwww.
You don't have to be a waste disposal environmental genius with pink tights and a sequined cape like me...er..hypothetically speaking.... to realize that some things are just wrong. That the world sped along a track so fast it can't get off it with out major reconstruction and rethinking.......
The only thing to do on a day like that, besides sucking down some primo tequila from a lovely (and recyclable) glass bottle is to remind oneself that being AWARE of a problem is better then nothing. And if some one should see me passed out on the kitchen mat, spooning the garbage can maybe it'll make them aware too. One that tequila lasts longer...so to speak....if you mix it with lime juice and TWO (and more importantly) that it might make THEM aware of garbage as well. Just a little bit, and if you add up all the little bits of the world you wind up with one hell of a BIG bit. And a BIG BIT of awareness could and does lead to all sorts of life changing discoveries.
If we all just cried a little bit more when reluctantly resigning the empty chip bag to the trash can then maybe some day chip bags would be recyclable, or maybe we wouldn't buy chips that weren't in recyclable bags OR maybe we'd at least find ways for garbage to have a longer life span. Why use it once if you can use it twice. It's just a little bit but remember...your little bit and my little bit can get together and have a little bit party and soon the world will heave a sigh of relief that we're no longer jamming our nasties in to holes.
Like imagine that YOU are the earth, and you have a population of little critters living on you. (Gross right off the bat right?) Well imagine if the little critters managed to start producing horrific amounts of non-biodegradable, poisonous trash from your very own natural resources and THEN they dig a HOLE IN YOU AND BURY IT! Wouldn't that suck? It would.
I rest my case.
So to reiterate:

• Recycling.... GOOD
• Non-Recyclable things..... BAD
• One time use thingies that have a life span for as long as it takes to eat a bag of chips...BAD
• Giving the bag away to some one by using it as innovative wrapping paper.... DAMN GOOD.
• Avoiding buying non-recyclable chip bags in the future GOOD but not completely possible until somebody starts selling organic chips in a recyclable bag.....OR I learn to make my own.......stay tuned!

(note I don't say I'll just give up chips, it's important to be a realist)

(this beautifully gift wrapped bottle is housed in not one but TWO empty corn chip bags, a little slicing and dicing for that sassy fringe at the top. Tied together with a savedtwist tie that boasts the word *organic* from some produce we'd bought and all topped off with the gorgeous sour cream container flowers. Just cut our flower shapes and stack on a pin for that lovely layered flower look. Not only is it cute, the wrapping was FREE and best part gave a second chance to items normally thrown straight in to the trash.)

Recycling: "or how people suck"

Some of my trash takes a trip to heaven every week. It's a known fact (at least in my own head) that trash yearns to be reincarnated. Wouldn't you? I much prefer the idea of coming back in a new form after I pass on rather then just lying like a lump some where. The other can of trash, though I'm pleased to say is a lot less then the recyclables, is sent off to much less enjoyable afterlife. Poor trash. In fact it's afterlife pretty much sucks, buried in a lined hole for eternity or at least till the futuristic generations dig it up to marvel at how stupid every one was in the past.
"Look at that, straws! You use them once for a short period of time with the full intention of throwing them in the garbage to be buried. Can you believe we came from those imbecilic idiots?"
*insert rant about stupid human race producing non recyclable everything and burying all our waste in big holes here*
It's too exhausting to write how frustrating it all is but on the positive side I'm recycling more now then I used to. I buy products more often based on their packaging. Spices in containers I can recycle, same with milk. There's a lot of things that can be done with a little effort and thought so that makes me feel good. Plus how much good karma am I building up by being less responsible for the pollution of the planet then every one else? Sweeeeet. hahaha Nothing like doing a good deed for the glory of it. I'm gonna get tshirts made:
"My trash kicks your trash's ass"

RANT!RANT!RANT!

I have decided that people, I mean all people, are stupid. No really, think about it. We exist on this beautiful planet and are clever enough to advance from dirt and sticks to huge skyscrapers, cars, computers and oodles and oodles of mass produced things. It's insane, I can't even imagine how we got from rocks and sticks and plants to this keyboard I'm typing at, the screen I'm looking at. It's almost like magic. I won't deny I enjoy all the wonders of new technology and living a bit above the rocks and sticks level....
But the thing that's so stupid about humans isn't that we can create all these amazing things from literally nothing it's that we think it's o.k. to just bury all the old stuff. Or thought it was o.k. to go ahead and create things that we didn't know what to do with when they were past their purpose. Who's idea was that?? Maybe in the *old* days it made sense because everything you buried was a lot closer to it's original "dirt and sticks" incarnation. Like if you buried your left over meal scraps, and old wood bits it actually helped your land be richer. But then we clever humans figured out how to make things that were stronger and last better and don't disappear as easily into the ground as the bones and plants and wood. But the habit was there, bury the trash, If we don't see it and it's not in my yard it doesn't exist. I think I can understand how after an entire human history of just carting your old stuff off to be buried that it would become something we're all used to.
But I don't like it. It hurts to put stuff in the trash can and know it's going to be buried in a hole some where. I looked it up, it's a *lined* hole so it doesn't mess up water systems...so..o.k....then what?? What happens when that hole fills up. And say by some miracle of miracle the whole thing manages to compost itself in like a zillion years? Do you want your great great great great grand babies digging in dirt made from diapers and and old radios and icky Band-Aids? Uggh and that's just some of the lesser nasty stuff that gets buried every day!!
It just seems so wrong that all the world is TRYING to start recycling programs etc AFTER the fact. AFTER every one is already used to just throwing stuff away and not thinking about it any more.
I'm one of the people who enjoys all these new things that come from human advancement in modern technology. I buy clay made from plastic, I buy glue and sparkles and all these things to make MORE things and I wonder if they'll be trash themselves in a hundred years. I try to balance my life though, I try to be aware of the choices I make. So besides the hot glue and paint and ribbon I use old bottle caps and wrapping paper and lightbulbs etc.
My garage fills up with blender motors and old office chairs and assorted doodads that I don't really want......BUT......I can not bear to throw them in the trash. It's frustrating because I don't necessarily NEED 2 working blender motors and an old food processor but how can you donate 2 working blender motors to a thrift store? They're sort of useless unless you have 2 good blender jars and no motor. The bizarre thing is if you want to buy JUST a new blender jar it costs as much or more then a WHOLE NEW blender........what????????
I kind of think that lugging these items around is a sort of penance for the way our society lives. At least if I do have to throw something in the trash I don't do it with out thought. I've had these blender motors for months and in one case years now and if someday (I hope not) we have to finally throw them out it will be with as much seriousness and forethought as deciding to get a pet or have a kid. I bet I give MORE thought about my blender motors then half the world does about making new people. Life is strange isn't it???
In a way I wish I was the type of person strong enough to just say *screw it* and go live off the land in the middle of nowhere and try existing with a zero trash producing lifestyle. Does that sound crazy? Is it crazier than an entire planet of people using NON-RECYCLABLE products every day with the sole intention of literally digging a hole and burying it??? How about if we all had to bury our own trash in our backyards. That seems fair to me. How long do you think it would take for the world to switch over to a more eco-friendly lifestyle if you had to wade through your used tissues, diapers, soured up milk cartons and razor blades and Band-Aids every day? How long would it take to quit buying stuff like that so you didn't have to keep digging deeper every night when you got home from work so you'd have more space to bury the day's trash. I think it's brilliant...oh...but that's right....that would be inconvenient.....oh well then we wouldn't want to inconvenience an entire world of stupid people. hahaha I know every one isn't really stupid, it's more like the whole human race has a bad habit. And lots and lots of people are aware of it and are even trying to fix it.
A gal's gotta blow off some earth friendly steam some times ya know? I'm by no means a fanatic about this stuff I just try to be aware.
Things I hate:

• straws
• take out food containers, sometimes you can't avoid them but doesn't mean you gotta like them.
• containers that have number 5 plastic for the container and a number 2 for the lid...why?? WHY?? Why make the lid something I can recycle and the container not??????
• styrofoam, this stuff might be evil. It too can be quite handy and is a marvelous invention I suppose, but what the hell do I do with the huge pieces that come in practically every thing you mail order. On a side note I have a lovely Styrofoam collection if any one would care to see it. Useful for mailing my own packages and potential crafting use but I'd feel better if they announce styrofoam recycling some day

So you don't think I'm a complete negative Nelly here's things I LOVE:

• packing peanuts that are made from starch! They're biodegradable. BRILLIANT!
• Edco Disposal services, they let me put all my recyclables in ONE bin, this makes it less complicated and therefore more likely a person will recycle. If you don't need to sort cans from plastic and paper life is much easier!
• Number 1 and 2 plastic, cause it's recyclable where I live.
• wrapping paper, a few years back it wasn't on the list of recyclables, at least where I used to live it wasn't, then I discovered that my beloved EDCO accepts it in their recyclables, Oh man that was a happy day. I use old wrapping paper in crafts but now I don't have to be the freaky relative who makes every one save every scrap of it at christmas for fear it will be dumped straight in the trash cause now I know it can go in the recycling, oh yeaaaaaaahhhhh.

Now for a final note I have a general world wide suggestion, why can't take out containers be made out of waffle bowls? SEE why ice cream is the MOST brilliant food, it comes in edible containers, damn....I just realized I didn't get a waffle bowl the other day when I had the chance.
Maybe next time I get take-out I can bring my own waffle bowl and just say fill er up! Mmmmmmm tasty!

UPDATE:
I just found out my Mother gets to recycle plastic 1 through 7 where she is....I am so unbelievably jealous......I wonder if it would be appropriate for me to mail her my plastics 3 through 7 so she could recycle them for me......