I Just Went Green All of a Sudden!

Sorry. Once again, false advertising in the title. But I just couldn't help myself in paraphrasing one of the great movie quotes of all time, Cary Grant's, "I just went gay all of a sudden!"

I'm not that green. Well, sometimes when I wake up in the morning after a wicked night with the Sauerkraut Band, or if I go for a third martini instead of my normal two, but that's about as green as I get.

Which stinks.

Here I am, a mature woman old enough to vote and drive a car and buy liquor and everything, and I know what's good for the environment and what's not, and I love our planet just like you all do, and I find I'm not doing much about it. I had an interesting conversation with Mr M and the DeepFatFriar some years ago. They were quizzing me on the fact that I, this person who proclaims to "hate the outdoors," was a member of the Nature Conservancy. I replied, "Well, I love nature, I just don't particularly want to be out in it."

Sure, I don't litter up the landscape, but I consider that an act of politeness more than anything. I don't drive a behemoth vehicle that gets 8 mpg on the highway and blocks everyone's view, but that's common sense. Those vehicles are useless, and I don't care if you live at the top of Mt McKinley, you don't need one. I haven't clogged up the world's resources by having 6 kids, but let's face it, I'm not exactly the person one looks for to have 6 kids with. So let's just say I'm not consciously green.

NBC, for some reason, and don't ask me what it is for I do not know, has decided to go green all of a sudden this week. It's everywhere you look when you turn on your TeeVee and start wasting energy by watching, the world's energy and your own. This started for me on Sunday night, when I turned on our local station to catch the 11:00 news (our local news is more entertaining than newsworthy), and instead got the end of a football game.

Imagine my surprise when they went to the studio afterwards, and there sat Bob Costas, Tiki Barber, and Chris Collingsworth in a dimly lit room. It was so dimly lit you could barely see the faces of the three. It was then they announced how they were sitting in this half-lit studio because it was Green Week at NBC, and they were saving electricity by not using the normal amount of light it would take to, oh, say, to see them sitting there. And so these three shadowy figures went on to do the post-game wrap up, all while sitting in a dark room. While - there was a huge screen behind them, lit at full face value, showing the NBC Green logo. And also while - there was a running crawl above the fully lit logo, with letters in lights moving about telling us how NBC had gone green all of a sudden.

And that, folks, is just dumb.

They could have been sitting there in full light had they dropped their self-promoting logo and lettering. Or they could have been really smart and dropped the post-game wrap up in the studio altogether. Because, let's face it, if you've just watched a 4 hour football game and you need three men in shadowy light to tell you what just happened, well, you'll not only not understand the going green all of a sudden, you'll probably also not understand how to turn off your TeeVee and go to bed.

As you know, I watch the Today program, even though I loathe it and yell things at my television set when it's on. I'm like that. They're having a very special Green Week there at the Today program. They've sent Matt Lauer to Greenland, Al Roker to the Equator, and Ann Curry to Antarctica, which I'm very surprised they haven't re-dubbed "Ann-arctica" for the occasion. They sent them all there in big jet planes with large gas-guzzling engines and they took many cameramen who plug lots of TV equipment into electrical jacks, and on and on. The fourth member of the Today Team, the inexplicable Meredith Vieira, stayed at home in New York, because as I explained in an earlier blog, she refuses to work past 10:00 am on the show, and I guess she wanted to be in New York so she could go wherever it is she goes when she leaves work early every single rotten day of her stinkin' life.

So Matt's there in Greenland, talking about snow and the melting icecaps and how the polar bears are going hungry lately, and Ann's down in Antarctica wearing sunglasses and talking about how it never gets dark there, and she's smiling way too big so I have a feeling she's getting pretty cranky because of it. And Al's there at the Equator - doing the weather. Yes, when it's time for the weather, they go to Al at the Equator and he tells us what the weather is where we live. I personally would like to have seen Willard Scott in a small hut in Siberia saying hello to 100 year olds, but I guess that was too much to ask.

Anyway, back in the studio in New York, where Meredith is interviewing people and looking at her watch waiting for 10:00 to come, they've had experts, I mean some really green people, these people are just chartreuse with knowledge, and they're telling us how we can all make our own damn lives a little greener without stepping on huge airplanes and spending $50,000 to go to Ann-arctica.

One couple this morning was telling us about all the things that are recyclable that we probably didn't realize were. Like CDs and DVDs. And they proceeded to pull out this huge cardboard box with a slit in the top of it, and tell us there's a company that will send one of these to you, and when it's filled up with discs you can send it back to the company and they'll recycle them. And that's a capital idea, I like the idea a lot. However, the box is about four feet high, and when it's filled with four feet of CDs and DVDs.... Well, I can just imagine going to the post office to mail that one back to the recycling company. Postage is probably $250.

Apparently, your mattress is recyclable, too. You know how? When you're through with your current mattress, you - put an ad in the paper offering to give it away! Which proves that one man's trash is definitely another man's treasure, and I don't even want to think about where some of those 15-year old mattresses end up, especially when I'm getting a hotel room in a strange town.

However, yesterday there was a green little fellow there in the studio with Meredith, and before she kicked him off the air at 9:55 (OK, that was for effect, it was 8:55), he gave us seven tips for a greener everyman. One week, seven days, and you too can go green all of a sudden. They were:

1 (or Monday): Turn down the heat. Just two degrees can make all the difference in the world. Well, hell, maybe I was greener than I thought. I keep my house temperature at about 65 degrees. So I'm good on that one. However, in the summer I also keep my temperature at 65 degrees, which I guess makes me somewhere in the reddish-brown area. But I get bonus points for greening Mr M's house, because every time I'm there I turn his heat down a few degrees as well. Without him knowing it.

2 (or Tuesday): Unplug gadgets. Apparently having them turned off isn't enough, they're still sucking energy by being plugged in. OK, this one, well.... I guess I need to worry at this stage about turning off lights in rooms I'm not in (though I'm getting better at that one) and sleeping with the TV on (I'm not getting better at that one). But in the kitchen, I tend to do this. I don't plug in the coffeemaker, can opener, microwave, or blender unless I'm using them. The computer, TV, DVD, stereo? Damn, that's a task. Mainly because all the plugs are hidden away where I have to stand on my head to plug or unplug them, and curse when I have to do so for any reason. I'll get back to you on that one, Green Man.

3 (or Wednesday): Wash clothes efficiently. This comes in two parts, washing in cold water, and washing in full loads. I'm good about the first, horrible about the second. I separate into whites, towels, white underwear, colored underwear, jeans, reds, blues, and pastels. And socks. I have an unnatural fear of fading. The only thing I wash in warm water (I wash nothing in hot) is towels, for I just don't think they'll be really clean washed in cold. Green Man says this is untrue, and last night I washed my first-ever cold towels. We'll see when I take them out of the dryer, which I guess I'm not really supposed to use, but do anyway.

4 (or Thursday): Eat less meat. Now, I admire vegetarians, as long as they don't look at me as a meat-eater and hack and gag. I wish I could go meatless. But I came to the stark realization long ago that I like meat. And since I'm supposed to get so many grams of protein into this system of mine now and can't live on Orange Crapius protein drink, it's not going to happen. Sorry, Green Man. I'll go meatless on Thursdays, if you like, but that's it. (By the way, I'm a little confused on this one, anyway. The theory is livestock push up greenhouse gas effect, but if we don't eat the darling creatures, won't there be more of them, therefore pushing the greenhouse gas effect even higher? My head hurts, or I'm dumb. Or both.)

5 (or Friday): Leave your car at home for one day. I've often said I could walk to work and back if I weren't so lazy. This is doable, though I doubt I ever will. And why did you ask that of me on a Friday? Friday's my errands-after-work day! Am I expected to walk to the bank, to the grocery, to the liquor store, then carry all that home on my back? You're a mean one, Mr Green Man.

6 (or Saturday): Go green in the home. They say pick one project on this day that will cut energy usage in your house. Like setting the water heater down several degrees. Or replacing your light bulbs with the flourescent kind that save energy. Or going to a low-flow shower head. I'll take the light bulbs, please. I've been thinking about doing that anyway. The water heater and shower head? Forget it. My shower is sacred, not even Green Man messes with it.

7 (or Sunday): Write a letter. "Dear Mom, thanks for having me and taking the time to change my diapers and all...." Oh, they don't mean to just anyone. They mean to a manufacturer or store to thank them for being greener, or I guess chide them for not being so. "Dear Wendy, thanks for turning off your giant Wendy's sign when you close. Not only does it save energy, but it keeps me from sitting at the drive-thru for 30 minutes wondering why I'm not getting waited on. PS - Could you, in addition to turning off your giant Wendy's sign, also please turn off your fucking store and drive-thru lights when you're closed? Thanks again, Bet." (I guess sending an email takes more energy.)

So, there's your own personal guide to going green all of a sudden. I'll let you know about the cleanliness of my cold towels, and I really have been trying harder with the room lights, even though the kitchen light's on right now and I'm in the dennette. And if you hear I've had a stroke, it was probably from trying to stand on my head and unplug my televisions. Next trip to the Wally World I'll check out those light bulbs, and if you'll pardon me, I have to go now to write a letter to Wendy. And her giant sign.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners. So, tell me about my food rainbow, and why it's just as good as Mother Nature's.
- Honorable Mention goes to Mr M, who didn't enter, but likes being on the winner board, and since no one else volunteered an acro, I'll stick him here.
- Runner-Up goes to LilyG, with her, "The extreme dining zone! Divine!" I like my recipes being known as "the extreme dining zone." Can I patent that, Lily?
- And this week's winner is the DeepFatFriar, with his, "They each disturb Zeus's digestion." Which doesn't make mine better than Mother Nature's, but certainly no worse, and it made me giggle.
- Thanks to all who played (and didn't)! You've all done very well!