reducerenewrecycle

It took five hours, but our garage is cleared out.

This isn’t the two-car, well-lit, garage-door-opener garage of my childhood.  Nope. This is the 1939 version complete with a dirt floor, antique cobwebs, fauna, and a padlock.

In total, we had three sets of patio furniture.  The one we use, the one left with the house, and the set our neighbors were fortunate enough to offer to us the morning of my brother’s welcome home BBQ.

TB’s armoire had been holding the hand-me-down hammock while several old storm windows, 2×12’s, and drywall fought with the wheelbarrow and the lawnmower for space.

We called friends – particularly a friend building a cabin up north with remnants, offered up the unused goods to our neighbors, and then left the rest for the alley trollers.

In our fair metropolis, old beater pick up trucks wander up and down the city’s system of alleyways searching for the treasures of one man’s trash.  Within two days, 90% was taken. Within a week, everything down to the  ‘FREE’ sign had found a new home.

I’m proud that the guts of the garage will be recycled by some crafty alley trollers.  It was also a nice reminder to never leave the garage open and unattended.

Thanksgiving is an institution. Every year, my mom cooks while we play Monopoly in the kitchen.  My dad is always the battleship, the Blonde Wonder gets bored halfway through, VP turns into a slumlord, and I have an incessant need to own the first two ghetto purple properties. We free the china, Waterford, and silver from the sideboard for their thrice-yearly use.  We eat and then we watch a movie.

But the menu is really what the day is all about.  A turkey that spent much of the morning splayed in the sink under a cool waterfall.  Stove top stuffing, cranberry sauce that retained the shape of the can, the $6.99 pumpkin pie from the grocery store, Redi-Whip in the red can for said pie, yam balls which never made any sense to us and were never eaten, mashed potatoes from scratch, and carrot coins with cheese.

My mom had a simple philosophy when it came to feeding her children: if you put something they like on top of something they don’t like, they will eat it.  Just like hiding a pill inside of a cheese cube for a pup, I suppose.

Cauliflower? No!  Cauliflower with cheese sauce? Yes please!  Broccoli? Uh-uh. Broccoli with cheese on top?  Heck yeah!  Squash?  Negative. Squash with maple syrup and brown sugar?!  Hell to the no. (Okay, so her plan didn’t work every time.)

Aside from the annual game of Monopoly, I think I miss those carrots those most.  It’s been eight years since I had Thanksgiving with my family.  It’s also been eight years since I stopped talking to my dad, but that’s an entirely different story.

Since 2004, I’ve spent Thanksgiving with S and her family – 200 miles due east from my own.

Tonight, I was talking to my mom and she was telling what my brother had made for Thanksgiving dinner.  It wasn’t until she told me about the carrot coins with cheese that I closed my eyes tightly and felt the burn of tears. I realized, that the Thanksgiving menu I serve to my children will be turkey, Stove Top stuffing, gravy, Burt Reynolds Corn Pudding, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, and cranberry sauce in the shape of the can.  The Thanksgiving I will serve will mostly be S’s family’s menu – the Thanksgiving of my youth is like that of a grandmother’s undocumented recipe that is longed for but can never be recreated.

Of course it’s silly to mourn a menu, but in therapy, I’ve learned that mourning is a part of healing – even if that grief is over an idea or a memory.

So, I mourn.  RIP Thanksgiving 1984-2003.  Thank you for the memories, traditions, family time, the menu, my mom’s cooking and, of course, the carrot coins with cheese.

The reduction of household trash as a direct result of composting and increased recycling efforts has been amazing.  The goal to reduce to one bag of trash a month has been successful to date.

While one bag of trash is great, it’s becoming apparent that the bulk of our  waste is now comprised of soiled paper products like Kleenex, napkins, paper towels, Q-Tips, etc.  Our city launched a pilot program in one of the neighborhoods (not mine) to recycle this type of waste and if this program is implemented citywide, I would estimate our trash would be reduced to one bag every quarter. But what to do in the interim or if this program is abandoned?

The county will let constituents bring this type of trash to a recycling center located just a little too far away.  A decent option if we had a place to store and accumulate waste in order to make a quarterly trip, but since space is limited, onto the next plan.

The fancy washing machine has a sanitary setting that could be the conduit of change to cloth napkins, and to reduce paper towels in favor of old rags to dust, wash the windows, clean the kitchen, and parts of the bathroom.  But alas, a quick search for ‘alternatives to Q-tips’ yielded nothing worth repeating and handkerchiefs sound like a really bad plan during cold season, so those may remain vices for the time being.

A friend has also raved about the Diva Cup and while it’s an attractive idea from the waste and toxic shock syndrome standpoint, but for now, we’ll consider that ‘extreme green’ to my adventures in Green 101.