It’s Good Friday. Today is my official rest day. Both as a
statutory holiday and as a physical break from marathon training. I can’t
remember the last time I had the spring stat days off. The leap year this year
really has jumbled my schedule a bit. I have no agenda today, except to catch
up on sleep, cook/preserve/freeze the rest of the unprocessed food in my fridge
before it spoils, read, enjoy some tea, and reflect a little. Today was also
the typically kind of day to begin Operation Green Justice (read on for
explanation), and it was best to do it today before the freak mid-spring
snowfall that they were predicting for this weekend comes along.
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| Bye bye purple pony, here's the new stallion. |
When spring comes, I’m
usually switching my gears into thinking more with the mindset of a frugal
environmentalist. For some reason, I begin finding any needless squandering,
and waste of material, space, and energy abhorrent. I economize more
appropriately and fervently to avoid such things. I become much, much more shrewd
before committing to any purchases; if any expense ultimately doesn’t serve any
greater good, or generate any other repercussive benefits, then I only become even
more parsimonious. I challenge myself with experiments in frugality. This mode
usually starts around Easter when (most years) spring is soundly established.
Yesterday, I invested in a new bike. With gasoline prices predicted to soar to new
all time highs during this summer, I know I’ll be driving my car a lot less. My
old one was reaching its twentieth year of service. It was a damn good warhorse
of a bike. It was a great model that was an awesome long term investment, and
during the time that I had it, it saved me a hell of a lot more money than it
cost. I remember paying a few dollars more for some high quality features, like
its frame, at this specialty store. But those few extra dollars bought me
twice the bike which outlasted any cheaper model by several years. However, the
teeth on the front sprockets on it now are so worn down that they barely catch
the drive chain. It needs new brake pads, and no doubt replacement brake and shifting
cables as well. The cost of parts and labour to fix the old relic would probably
be more than one and a half times the cost of the same style of this old model were
it bought new (at the price back in the day when I bought it new, I didn’t
account for inflation). I needed something more reliable, clean-shifting, speedy,
and even more utilitarian than the old guy. I returned to the same place to get
my new one. Again, I did spend extra money to get the new one, but to an
optimal degree. I got one of better quality for an extra few dollars over the
cheaper utility model in a big box store like Walmart or Canadian Tire, but like
the last case, I’m sure have one that would last three times longer, plus this
dealer offers an extended service package that the big box stores don’t. As for
my old one, I’m making provisions to donate it to a local charity that fixes up
used bikes and sends them to the needy in Africa.
Today, I took my dog out for her morning constitutional, and
just like during this time of the year when I lived in the old district, I
found lots of evidence of the adolescent shenanigans in the neighbourhood with
this start of the Easter spring break. It’s so predictable: to see them abusing
themselves in a public park or school playground at night (just to be extra
rebellious). I live close to both such kinds of places now, just as I did back
in Nutana. They congregate, they drink illicitly, and they fuck around.
Thankfully, there weren’t any syringes or any other evidence of hardcore drug
use about. They’re still at that age where they are so naïve and stupid as to
think they won’t get caught. Along with the empties I found and collected, I
also found the remaining full bottles of beer from an abandoned twelve pack,
which tells me the cops were doing a focused patrol of the area. They, of
course, were well acquainted with this cycle; expecting these rascals to be
there as well. The police must have appeared and the kids scattered, and
perhaps there was even a pursuit. The bottles were apparently ditched as they
left in haste, and no one came back for them. It was cheap, sissy-boy, Yankee
piss water beer that they left behind: the only kind that those with little
money, and uninitiated and unrefined taste, would tend to get around here. I
found a couple more unopened bottles of Corona, in some juniper bushes. The
Corona had turned skunky (I can’t believe they dared to themselves to try drink
this stuff); and even though I knew they were fresh, I didn’t bother with
testing the Miller Lite. It went straight down the sink*.
It’s getting to be like my own private Good Friday morning tradition:
the collecting of the empties from the Maundy Thursday night outdoor high
school party/screw-fests** around the neighbourhood park areas. Maundy Thursday and
Good Friday are occasions that stem off well from the weird theme of my entries
from this past while, involving some sort of consideration for healthy
chiropody: on the day prior to his crucifixion, Jesus washed and anointed the
feet of his disciples; on Good Friday, I lessen the risk of having to wash and
treat my own (or Ella’s) bleeding feet, which could be shredded from the shards
of glass that came from any of the extra beer and liquor bottles lying around. Spring
is generally the beginning of what I call Operation
Green Justice. Through the snow free
months, as I walk the dog in the morning, I find and collect any empty bottles
and cans left by the idiots trooping around the neighbour who leave them in the
parks, schoolyards, alleys, and streets***. I recycle them at SARCAN, and use
the funds for my own planting/gardening projects. Since this I took on this initiative
and balancing the numbers, I can honestly say that I never had to spend a
single dime of my own money for tending my yard/green space, and purchasing
garden plants and seedlings. I can always rely on the stupidity of others to
fund this stuff for me. Yes, there is no shortage of stupid and mindless
people around to allow me to do this. I take garbage/waste
energy and, in a roundabout way, I try to convert it into life energy that
suits my needs. If I’m already obligated by city bylaw to pick up my dog’s crap
(something with no value) off the sidewalk, having to stoop down, collect it,
and dispose of it to “protect the civic environment” is it really a big crazy deal to
take the time to stoop down and collect a piece of refuse that can be exchanged
for money and be reused, again for the benefit of the environment? A disgusting
example I know, but the rhetoric holds logic. Whether or not there is some great karmic
reward for me for doing this isn’t important, or significant to me.
All I know is that I hate litter and waste, and this is one way I use my energy
to be a better environmental steward. It’s taking lemons and turning them into lemonade:
an effort to take a result of idiotic delinquency that peeves me and actively
reversing or rectifying it into an advantage or benefit, instead of sitting
around bitching about the problem. I’m no David Suzuki; but at the very least, I
try to not be one more asshole who is indifferent to the decay and destruction of
our urban green spaces.
Living without an actual yard space in the past few years,
and doing more outdoor running, has made me much more appreciative of my local
parks, the river trails, and other public green spaces. Seeing them being senselessly vandalized,
used for untamed public debauchery, and being left strewn with litter, annoys
me more so now than it ever did. Having a more pristine natural spaces to calm
me, free of cans and trash to slip on, and no smashed glass bottles around to
slash open my feet or bike tires, is even more important to me now. I remember that
was a major issue of culture shock for me to get used to during my brief season
of living in South America. I was very revolted and disgusted as I watched
people nonchalantly throw their garbage right on the street and walk away. I
remember escorting a couple of visitors who came from the region I stayed
in, and were visiting my city here, and their reaction of a combination of both
shock and surprise at how relatively cleaner the streets were here; and the
noticeable shame they sort of felt, knowing that the “poorer” areas here were cleaner than
their own “upper class” neighbourhood that they came from in their city.
Operation Green Justice will be a little different this
year, as I realized back in my Gardenscape entry that my growing space will be
compromised pending this summer’s renovations, therefore no need to bother with
buying plants. I’ll still turn it into an experiment in frugality and
self-sufficiency. I do have an ideal yeast growing environment remaining. Just
for this year, I think I’ll see if the recycling receipts could yield enough to
fund another favourite home economics hobby: brewing. I’ll exchange the bottles
and cans I find for a brew kit to refill my own bottles at home. I think those
costs could easily be covered by this. Come to think of it, home brewing, as it is for me, is an even more environmentally
friendly and economically efficient system of recycling than gardening, at
least fuel-wise, for the fact that one is only reusing and cleaning a limited personal
set of bottles that one has at home, thereby avoiding the usage the extra fuel
to haul them to a recycling centre, and the shipping involved in reprocessing,
refilling, and back and forth redistribution. In terms of water use, the plants
I’d have on my balcony would use much more in the three weeks than it takes
during that same period to make a 23 litre carboy full of beer.****
Now that I’ve exposed my penchant for frugality, I freely confess
that I’m one who believes that the best hobbies shouldn’t be expensive, and I
think I’d enjoy them even more after considering that they are financed by a
means and strategy that takes public stupidity and converts it to something
that profits me and the environment I’d prefer to live in.
*- I know I
hate waste, but more appropriately, I should have dumped the American beer in
the toilet instead, treating it like the piss that it is. Ordinarily, when I
come across unopened, untainted, abandoned beer this way, I do treat it as sort
of a windfall. My best score (so far) was one season was three bottles of
Heineken during one morning while walking the dog. They were no doubt previously
stolen from some poor Daddy’s liquor stash.
**- I think
it’s fair and accurate to call it a screw-fest when there are discarded condom
packages (plus other stuff I’d rather not step on) along with the bottles and
fast-food containers littered all over a public park. I see we have the makings
of a really classy next generation of adults in a few years <sarcasm>. Oh
well, at least they are using protection. God help the future human race if
people with this combination of impulsivity and stupidity become the dominant “breeders”.
***- It’s certainly not
a new career. I generally stick to only collecting recyclables that we find along
our walking route, when I have a big enough bag for them. I’m not so gross as
to make any special effort to crawl into a dumpster, or wade through garbage to
collect a couple of stupid bottles. I’ll let the bums without a real job do
that.
****- One
could argue that it would be even more environmentally friendly to not brew at
all . . . but hey, that’s starting to sound like crazy talk.
