In other news...

They say that turning into our mothers is inevitable...



... I'm ok with that.

Happy birthday, Mom!

It's not easy being green (or is it?)

Last week I wrote a column on getting used to the new local mandate that garbage bags must be clear, or they will not be collected. The rule, which has stirred up plenty of controversy and resentment, has been put in place to ensure that people aren't throwing recyclables in the trash.

In my column I poked fun at myself for being so set in my garbage bag ways that I resented having to eliminate kitchen catcher bags from the equation and just toss everything in one large clear bag. I talked about how quickly I will undoubtedly get used to the change and how if we were all a little more willing to let go of some of our habits, such as the use of disposable plastic water bottles, to form new ones, we could have a huge environmental impact, a positive one for once.

This week, the negative response, arguing that the blame for excess trash should be put on manufacturers, and that we poor little citizens should bear no responsibility, being printed in our paper comes from none other than my editor. She also argues against the fact that we have to pay for garbage tags, and the fact that we have to sort our recycling.

I don't fit in here.

But then, I'm used to it.

Growing up I was one of two kids who brought their lunch to school in reusable containers and depending on the meal, a cloth napkin, and stainless steel cutlery. I'm not sure what elementary school is like now in that regard but at the time it was so unusual that I received an environmental award.

We were hardly a radical environmentalist family. We lived on the grid and played with plastic toys. But compared to my peers, it seemed I was always having to sacrifice more for the sake of the environment.

I remember whining to my mom that it wasn't fair when she refused to use the car to take us places we could walk or ride our bikes. "Why does it always have to be us? Why can't someone else ride their bike so that we can have a turn doing what's easy?" I asked. "Why can't I bring plastic packed lunchables and fruit snacks to school and let some other kid try to remember to bring home her damn tupperware in her backpack?"

I get it now. For too long people have been leaving custody of our planet and our resources up to someone else. We just choose not to think about it, so we don't have to take responsibility. We've taken the easy and shortsighted route almost every time we were offered a choice.

You don't have to look far to see the impact of our refusal to think beyond ourselves. Don't believe in Global Warming? Here's something you can see with your own two eyes.

It's easy enough being green. It's not so easy being the pain in the ass who brings up issues that no one wants to think about and even has the audacity to suggest that we all have a responsibility to deal with them.

For my part, this week I'll be continuing my one-woman crusade to get the local post office to quit throwing thousands of flyers a week into the trash instead of recycling them.

It's not easy when you don't fit in. But, depending on your surroundings, sometimes it's kind of awesome when you stand out.


This is my entry for the March Blog Carnival over at 20-something bloggers!

Out of my depth

The other night I was invited to head out with some people from the town I'm living in. The woman (whom I'll call Lisa), who invited me very kindly offered to come and pick me up so I could ride to another nearby down where she, her boyfriend and some other locals were going for dinner and drinks.

While I'm always hesitant to turn down any offer that might result in some kind of actual social life here, I was reluctant to put myself in a position where I was in any way dependant on people I don't know for getting home. While I like this woman, from what she had told me, I really wasn't sure if the people she hangs out with are ones I would be able to tolerate completely sober.

So I took a rain check.

As it turns out, I couldn't have picked a better night to follow my instincts.

Apparently, the person who ended up driving was a friend of Lisa's boyfriend. Once upon a time, when this guy was over at Lisa's house, he hit her 5-year-old son. He has since not been welcome in her house, so don't ask me what she was doing double dating with this guy.

He had brought along his new girlfriend, who he was horrible and rude to all evening. They had just started to drive home, when Lisa decided to tell him he shouldn't be talking to his girlfriend like that. So naturally, he pulled over and made Lisa get out of the car, leaving her to walk the 20kms of midnight country highway, where drinking and driving seems to be a given, home.

Her boyfriend? Stayed in the car.

Lisa started hitching and was picked up by a car of high school boys who decided to take her on a tour of some backroads instead of driving her home until she insisted they let her out of the car. Fortunately they did let her out and she was free to walk the 10 or so kilometres home.

When she finally arrived what must have been close to three hours later, her boyfriend was asleep in bed. When she woke him up to confront him, he just held up her cel phone, which he broke recently when he was mad at her, and said "See, this is the kind of thing that happens when you act like that."

I heard all of this secondhand, but it falls completely in line with other stories she's told me about problems with her boyfriend. From what I can tell he's a real prize who sponges off her, lives in her house for practically nothing while she struggles to pay her mortgage and feed her kids. Oh, and of course, he frequently threatens to leave her and makes her feel stupid or crazy any time she gets up the courage to ask him for anything.

Every time she says his name it makes me feel ill. I'm at the point where the next time she brings up something horrible he has done, I'm ready to tell her that as much as I want to support her, unless she's ready to seek some counseling (in which case, i will happily drive her/watch her kids/pull her there in a little red wagon) or leave him, I just can't hear about it anymore. I can't know what a creep he is and then have to smile and act like I have no idea the next time I run into the two of them. There's a reason I didn't go to theatre school. I'm just not that good.

I don't know how it could be any clearer. If he leaves you to your fate alone on the side of the highway and goes home to sleep? He does not love you. Oh, and as a bonus? He has no idea how to treat a fellow human being.