Welcome to My World

So I had a really craptastic day this week. I took the kiddos and we went to a ribbon-cutting ceremony for one of hubby's buildings. It must have been about 100 degrees with 80% humidity and we were melting in the sun as speaker after speaker droned on and on about how wonderful the new facilities were and how they signal great things for the economy and the state and blah, blah, blah, blah.

We're hot. Cut the tape and get on with it. Daphne, all 35 sweaty pounds of her, is climbing up me like a spider monkey and Ethan keeps telling me it's too hot and he wants to go swimming.

No shit, kid. Me too.

But this wasn't actually the bad part. This was tolerable. It was nice to get to see hubby up on the speaker's platform receiving kudos for a job very well done. He even had the honor of being one of the people to cut the ceremonial ribbon. I'm very proud of all the hard work he put in on that project.

But here's why the ceremony sucked:

The whole time the speakers were talking (half an hour), they had the front doors of the building propped wide open, letting all the air conditioning out. Perhaps it was to keep the speakers, who were parked directly in front of the doors, from getting too hot. Bad idea. Maybe if they'd been as uncomfortable as the rest of us, they'd have sped things up a bit.

Once the ribbon was cut, everyone went inside for a peek at the new digs. They were gorgeous, of course, but I cringed every time someone would turn on a faucet just to see if it worked, or open a fridge door to see what the inside looked like. Um, yeah. Don't you have faucets and fridges at home, people? They're pretty much all the same. It's not like red wine's gonna flow out the tap and an elephant's hiding in the fridge.

But it gets worse.

After the tour was over we all headed over to the gymnasium for refreshments. As ribbon cuttings go, it was a pretty decent set up. White linens draped over tall tables that were adorned with fresh cut flowers. A bounty was laid out that included fresh fruits, mini-sandwiches, roast beef, pasta salads, cheese platters and the obligatory tower of Pepperidge Farms cookies.

I could handle all of this. Sure, there were some fruits that weren't in season. And the beef was most likely factory farmed. The cheese was not local and the PF cookies are chock full of corn syrup. I know these things exist. I see them every week in the grocery store, sometimes some of them even hitches a ride home in my cart.

But what made my day suck? What made my heart fall? The plastic. The crazy, insane amount of plastic. Plastic plates, plastic forks, plastic cups, plastic water bottles. Just so much f'ing plastic it made me sick. And not a recycling bin in sight.

I don't understand why someone would go to so much trouble to coordinate such beautiful table settings and then serve the food with plastic? They have a cafeteria on site, so I know they have real plates and silverware. Would it have been so hard to use them and have the tables bussed?

And those mini-water bottles? Really? Wouldn't carafes of nice cold ice water on each table have lent a classier look than disposable Aquafina bottles? And why do we need the plastic cups to pour our plastic water in? So much crazy waste.

So I'm sitting there, looking around at everyone else. And no one seemed bothered. No one even seemed to bat an eye. Everyone was having a great time and I was the only one who looked like she was trapped in a room with Freddy Kruger.

I felt very, very small and insignificant. And even a little silly.

Silly for doing so much at home. For recycling, composting, buying local and organic, for flushing less and line drying more. For worrying about every drop of water I use. For planting tomatoes on my patio. For carpooling. For choosing pencils over pens. For using a coffee carafe and shampoo bars. Silly for all of it. It all seemed futile in the face of all this waste. I am working my ass off to be a better steward and in one afternoon, this small gathering created more waste than I could avoid in a year.

Why bother? There's too many of them and too few of us. Fuck it.

And then I get home and hop online. And I have an email from Green Bean, asking me if she can send her Kill-A-Watt out to the people on the Yahoo! Group waiting list. And Beth is pestering me to log on to Twitter so I can chat with all the other eco-chicks. And Arduous is making feel better about being a dweeby Tweeter. And the green guide book Rob sent me is in my mailbox. And Organic Needle's tea bag has brewed me a perfect quart of iced tea. And IBMommy got the Kill-A-Watt I sent her. And Leslie is writing puns for me. And Just Ducky is finally back online. And Crunchy has just crushed my dream of a new food processor by once again reminding us all that buying new carries a high environmental cost.

And I realize I am not alone. Not by a long shot.

There's a FANTASTIC eco-minded community here in the blogosphere and there are so many ways to feel part of it. Join the APLS Carnival. Sign the Take Back the Filter Petition. Donate to Goods 4 Girls. Sign up for a Challenge. Read some different blogs. Leave comments. Join a Group.

Get. In. Volved.

Because sitting in our small towns or even big cities, our voices seem small - even to ourselves. But together, we have amazing power. The power to build, to change, to help. And most of all, the power to keep each other buoyed when the waters are rough.

Thanks to everyone who makes this community a great place to be.


Oh yeah. The daily change? Help build this community.