The big news

This morning, as I made breakfasts and lunches, the kids were on the [3 season] porch, listening to the Curious George soundtrack. My favorite track from that album is the Schoolhouse Rock! cover of "Three is the Magic Number." My 3 y/o is singing along, saying "reduce, reuse, recycle! reduce, reuse, recycle!"

I talk to them about "the three R's" a lot. When I was in elementary school, this guy used to come every year and do a program for us. His name was Ray Cycle (tee hee) and his song went like this:
re-re-re-re-re-recycle
re-re-re-re-re-reuse it!
no! no! don't abuse it!
And I think it's safe to say, we ALL remember it! In fact, one of my best friends is a Kindergarten teacher and she went on this crazy mission to find Ray and have him come to her school.

Anyway, sometimes people get caught up in what looks good on paper- for example, I bought some new plastic plates (on clearance, of course) yesterday. The thought process was that if I had a few more plates, I could use them for parties instead of paper plates. (Again with the paper plates. The paper plate people are going to come after me). But honestly, what I really should have done was gone to Goodwill and bought some old plates. Or just used the 400 plates I have. I realize this, it's just hard to remember because I, like most people, am still wired to buy new things.

Speaking of wired, in this month's issue of Wired, there is an interesting article called Inconvenient Truths about Global Warming. On the cover of the mag, this is what it says:

Attention Environmentalists:
Keep your SUV.
Forget organics.
Go nuclear.
Screw the spotted owl.

If you're serious about global warming,
only one thing matters:
Cutting Carbon. That means facing
some inconvenient truths.

Huh. Wired gets a lot of cred with me ever since their Things That Suck list pointed out how public libraries don't suck, so I'm listening. ETA: If you click this link, check out the list of things people added that don't suck. I won't ruin it for you. Just read #1 very carefully.

What it comes down to, with this article, is that it costs energy to ship organic stuff to you, or to make a new Prius. There's a lot of arguing in the comments on this one, but I hear what they are saying. Now, that doesn't mean you should get a Hummer. But when you're looking at organic strawberries from California, and you live in Connecticut, maybe it's a better choice to wait until June and then go pick them at the strawberry farm a few towns from your house. Maybe.

I forgot to say the big news. I hired the lawyer and filed for divorce.