Warm Home

I wake to the warm bedroom and sunshine outside.  The only reason my room is warm is that the space heater has been on all night.  It is cold downstairs I sit with the down comforter on my legs as I eat my breakfast, leftover Thai food.  Delicious.  I start to make a mental list of all the things I have to do today:  Put in the last two storms, rake the leaves in the front, put flannel on the backs of the curtains, wash them first, sweep the basement, get cobwebs off the ceilings, bring in wood, clean out the ashes, start a fire, run the vacuum, wash the dishes.  Sometime after ten I get started, coffee getting cold as I work outside.  I get hot fast and take off my sweatshirt.  I realize I have to rake the back too, part of it anyway.  I share my tarp with my neighbor, he cannot find his and we both know it is easier to lug all those leaves to the curb on a tarp.  My other neighbor steps outside to tell me someone will be coming to shore up the fence.  She thanks me for giving her the name of a local appliance repair guy.  The major department store quoted her 79$ just to put their feet on her floor.  This guy from Semple’s Appliance Repair charged her, I think she told me 39$.  The dog was barking it was hard to hear her but she said she was so thankful that I saved her so much money.  Awesome.  Back to the other neighbor who asks if my daughter got her brakes fixed.  I laughed, his friend was going to do it for her, but instead she did it herself.  Sometimes, he says, it seems like a bad day, but in the end it just isn’t.  Yeah.  I say, that is so true.  I cleaned the kitchen window from the outside, damn that aluminum ladder is a bitch to carry.  I clean the storm windows as I put them in the doors, and on a roll clean the front window too.  I hang out the new bird feeder and fill them both with food.  Later as I sit still sweaty from all the work I have done today, last bit of laundry, pulled in off the line when it started to rain, clicking and tapping in the dryer downstairs, listening to Ray LaMontagne and the fire crackling.  Steel cut oats and boiled eggs cooling on the stove.  The dog resting on the fresh couch cover, head resting happily on the stuffed toys I found behind it.  The curtains are hung between the doorways that let in the biggest drafts.

In a little while I am going to make apple crisp to warm up the house.  I feel a contentment that is grand.  I am so happy today.  It feels good to take care of my home.  It will feel even better when the temperature drops and the snow begins to fall and I am well prepared for the cold weather.  Doing what I can to save energy has always been a money saving thing for me, but on another level it is what is right for the planet.  That white flannel may well not look beautiful on the curtains, but it sure keeps the family room warm.  Using a space heater and lighting a fire saves on the bigger energy cost of running the furnace, and making sure my storms and so forth are on before I start it, also important.  There is this other too.  The sharing and helping of neighbors is important too.  It makes the neighborhood a better place, it makes my home a warmer place.  From the heart.

 

 

What a shameful waste.

Big basket of pencils

I stand at this post every morning.  I try to greet each child as they come up the stairs,  one new child from Iraq gets a Salam wa aleikum which always gets me a big smile.  The girl from Nepal says Namaste to me every morning.  The boy from Burundi says a formal Good Morning Mrs. Octopus.  And the Eritrean girls throw their arms around me and say Dehandalahi.  The Karin girls say no low eh (you are pretty). I get ignored, I get hugged, I get laughed at, people stop to chat with me, people wave as they rush by.   It is a busy post, I miss it when I have a meeting, I feel like I don’t know which kids are in the building.  They miss me too, where were you yesterday, are you feeling better?

Today as I was standing at this post my friend who is an art teacher turned TA came up to me with this basket full of pencils.  Ms. Gregory do you want these.  Of course I said.  What is their story?  The first grade teacher was throwing them away.  What?  Why?  I said incredulous.  They do not have erasers, said the TA with what I know is absolute disbelief.  I rescued as many as I could.   Oh my God are you kidding me?  What was she thinking?  Really.  Wow.  The girls from Burma were there and the little girl from Iran, whose beautiful black braid is at least 3 inches in diameter.  Why would you throw those away said the girl from Iraq quietly.  I have no idea I said.  This is our planet and throwing all these pencils away is a waste, a terrible waste and I think it shows a lack of care and consideration for our planet.  Oh she said softly, it is, I cannot believe anyone would throw them away.  The Karin girl took a pencil out, look I said, it is brand new, but no eraser.  I said, if you really want an eraser you can get a whole box (144) of pencil top erasers for less than one dollar.  The cost of just 12 of these pencils is exactly 96 cents.  That is not right they all said.  I am sure that the people in the refugee camps they came from would be happy as clams to have these pencils, even without the eraser.

As they walk away I find myself wondering how many of these pencils are thrown away each year in schools, just because they have no eraser.  I am filled with disgust.  What  a shameful waste.

I spend my whole planning period sharpening them, not all because my sharpener gets hot and stops working.

Later the 1st graders in my afterschool program, use them to write their names on the dragons we are making.

I stop then and write a note for the bulletin board.  Save us from certain death I say with the pencil taped to the top.  Donate us to the art room.

 

Nuclear Power

From http://www.freelogovectors.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Skull_And_Crossbones_clip_art_hight.png

Over twenty years ago I worked for Greenpeace for part of a summer.  The job really sucked, honestly, I had dreams of big protests and whales but all it was was door to door marketing.  Sucked.  But I remember distinctly some of the issues we campaigned about, one of which was nuclear power. Which I still to this day do not quite understand why we have allowed these plants to be built, why would we even consider it.

Yes it is initially a cheap source of power, but at what cost?  They talk about how safe it is and yet we have, in just the last 25 years, two disasters of significant proportion.  Oh I know Japan is hanging on by their bloody fingernails scraped down to the quick, but really it is in my opinion a disaster.  Considering that our nuclear plants are now aging and soon will be aged, I cannot imagine that the disasters will go away; I suspect more of them will occur in the near future.   One of the things that scares me the most is that nuclear power is a profit based business, and as with all profit based business, the safety of its workers and infrastructure will be compromised in search of the almighty and sacred dollar bill, the shareholders will insist.  The board of directors will authorize illegal cuts and we will all go “huh, how could this have happened?” scratch our heads while someone who wants to run for office will get up on his soap box and say “there should be congressional oversight!” and then the shit will really hit the F___ing fan.   I have no doubt in my mind that in 100 years as these plants are disintegrating the concrete is becoming brittle and the metal has begun to rust our descendants will all say “what the hell were these morons thinking?  Why did they ever think nuclear power was a good idea?”  Dolphins, whales, overfishing the ocean, pesticides, herbicides, growth hormone, food additives, putting grocery stores several miles from housing, Walmart, and fast food to name just a few things that will earn us disdain and out and out hatred.

I digress.  Who cares what those bastards think anyway, we have to have our cheap ass power now!

We have screwed up people!  Can someone please stop hitting the snooze alarm, and can we start getting our butts out of the lazy and dead asleep bed and start making some changes?  Or are we content to turn on your TVs and listen to Glenn, or Bill or maybe Anne, or Rush.  Those buffoons have it right, ah so blissful, like taking a benedryl, feel yourself drift into obliviousness.  Ah that’s better.  It ain’t your problem.  Sigh.

Or is it?