After years and years of thinking about it, I finally own a home. Of course, I could go on and on about the joys of homeownership, but that's been done (and overdone). What I didn't quite expect was the mad panic of owning a place... Now, instead of calling my landlord in the event of an annoyance, I have to think about things like:
1. Where on earth is the water main?
2. Why does the floor make that noise in that place when I step on it? Is the house caving in?
3. Where is that bloody draft coming from?
It's the latter that is most distressing... Fortunately, my realtor (Chris Bartle from Green Key Real Estate in SF) is getting me a "Green Up" from Sustainable Spaces as a housewarming gift. These guys will come into your place, check out all your duct work (not as racy as it sounds) and windows and systems, and give a top to bottom recommendation for how to green your home.
-Heather... off to wonder why the grout in the bathroom is really just dirt...
Like putting your elbows on the table and exposing the hair on your back, it's one of those things that's totally natural but is just not acceptable in most circumstances.
A few weeks ago, this dude let one rip during my yoga class. Yoga's all about being comfortable with your body, and nobody said anything. But I, for one, was thinking, "Dude, I commend you on breaking the rules by breaking wind - even though we're in this small, enclosed space." I really wish we lived in a world where it was OK to cut the cheese without shame - as long as we aim away from other people. Until then, there are natural gas relief tabs.
-Toshio... off to let one rip...
The one I remember most clearly is the case of a certain big bad awful company dumping toxic sludge from a PVC plant into a river. Their scientist supposedly tested the water all the time and it was just fine. But when a local non-profit did the test, they found levels of carcinogenic chems at 3000x the allowable level. When they put a fish in the water in a walled-off area, it only took him 5 minutes to start swimming side ways. Of course the true old-timers will tell you that they saw three-eyed fish in that there river before it was fenced off for health reasons. I believe them.
Humans are so damn clever, you know? But clever to a fault. We've figured out how to make things that can't be destroyed (genius if we actually kept a shower curtain for 1,000 years in our family). HOPEFULLY we will soon shift that cleverness to the right direction, like getting off oil and returning to what is really SMART...connections between land and people.
-Jen... off to drink a beer. That was intense, dude...
-Jenifer Morgan …off to shake it…on my veggies…
Now, I do NOT have the same philosophy with horse gear... The more the better. But I do get it used on eBay to try to minimize the amount of raw materials my habits extract from this earth.
Jen... off to ride My Pretty Pony (her barn color is PINK! Poor thing...I am making up for my lack of feminine leanings by shifting them onto her!)...
But then, I’m the daughter of a forester, so Old Woodsy’s words and ways were instilled in me at an early age. On family camping trips, my brother and I were responsible for picking up 10 individual pieces of trash on the campground before dinner. We’d shuffle through thickets and through the sooty fire pits of adjacent camp spaces, and then present our respective collections to Dad for counting. I’d sit through my brother’s presentation of trash or he’d sit through mine, and sometimes Dad would make a show of his own assortment of items.
Our reward? Eating dinner in the trees, rather than a heap of trash.
-Jenifer Morgan (the Bite’s trashy new senior editor)… off to assure Smokey the Bear he’s not fat, just fluffy…
In SF, you'll often see black vans driving around the city. I always wondered who was inside...FBI? CIA? ABBA? Actually, Google sends around carpool vans to pick up their employees and take them to their campus in Mountain View. How cool is that? Read about their other benefits initiatives here.
Last year, we also had a chance to chat with Diana Simmons, Sustainability Manager (yep, you read the title right) at Clif Bar, which is based in Berkeley. Then I read the book Raising the Bar, by the dude who started the company. They're also doing some really progressive things. Read the short version here.
OK, so I could live without these things, but I wouldn't want to. That said, I really could live without having to deal with different providers for each and every service I use.
On the fun scale, dealing with separate vendors ranks somewhere between picking up my housemate's floss off the floor and sterilizing my yoga mat, which is why I love the donation-linked service model - one company, more than one service. They're all 2-for-1 providers, since all donate to charity at the same time they give you the kind of service you'd get at the big guys anyway. Add to that the fact that they're green companies and you've got a service right up there with HBO in terms of "sheer genius" factor.
-Toshio... off to pay my bills (online)...
I really, really, really love the clean-cleaning options that are out there. Whether my favorite Caldrea sink scrub or Method shower spray or Ecover glass cleaner... I love the fact that the cleaning products of the world have jumped up and taken notice and offer us tons of alternatives to your basic, caustic faux-pine-scented versions.
As I type this, however, I am watching the Sundance Channel's new series, The Green, on tv. And I have to admit... I love what they are doing here. Every Tuesday night, they are running a documentary called Big Ideas for a Small Planet. It's just great stuff. Check it out. Fab, fun people, making you laugh as they explain how we need to change to save the world.
I like that - a little freak out, peppered with a lot of humor. Case in point - a quote from the inaugural episode:
"I feel as if we are in a giant car, heading into a brick wall at a hundred miles an hour, and everybody in the car is arguing about where they want to sit. It doesn't matter who's driving. Someone's gotta say 'For heaven's sakes, put the brakes on and turn the wheel.' A few of us are saying that... but we're locked in the trunk." - David Suzuki
Seriously - Tuesday nights. Give it a go...
-Heather... off to continue watching...
...all of us here in the San Francisco office are going to do our part in the little ways we can. We're killing lights, steering clear of the bottled water, and turning off our computers. But my personal favorite nod to greening our office space (since we can't afford to build our own, lovely, LEED-certified building like the lucky people at Hearst...)?
We have all taken an oath that we will only get company drinks within walking distance of our new offices so that we save on fuel costs in transporting us to our drinks. Fortunately, there are plenty of places to booze in our vicinity.
Aw come on... every little bit/bite, no? (OK, fine. We're doing a lot more than that. However, this is my personal favorite.)
;) - Heather... off to find out our exact move-in date to our new offices...
Do you remember when the internet first took off and not long after everyone was saying, "Soon we will have paperless offices!" In fact, the opposite happened.
I think it did for two reasons:
1) we are sending a TON more information around, so much information that people can't keep up with all the emails so they need to print them off for weekend or subway reading.
2) we don't trust e-data yet...we might lose it to cyberspace or something so we hit "print."
So are we paperless at Ideal Bite? Absolutely not. However, here's what we are able to do:
- Reuse paper by sending it back through on the other side when it is not sensitive info.
- Use the edit mode in Word like nobody's business. As just one example, our tips go through about 5 rounds of edits...imagine if we printed each of our 260+ tips a year at least 5 times.
- Ask that businesses send any info they want to get to us in e-form, so: "Instead of a brochure, just point us to your e-brochure," etc.
- And in the Bozeman office, we lug our paper that's been used on both sides up to the recycling center about once a month. In SF I think they have curb-side...
- We also use recycled paper for our printers and corporate materials. If anyone is interested in business printing services that are green and affordable, go to http://www.printingforless.com, and use the code for $25 off your first order: RP1SZY4SR.
-Jen... off to edit a week's worth of tips in Edit Mode...considering I just got back from a killer cattle drive I won't complain so much working a bit today.
Try as I might, I'm lacking in blogging inspiration at the moment. Every time I think about the fact that I pour my used water glasses into my watering can, I just start thinking about the M. Night Shyamalan movie "Signs." Hey, I mean water glasses were dead useful there. Apparently in the movies, water will off everything from wicked witches to aliens. But amongst us non-puce, earthbound folks, water is a bit more of a necessity for life.
In any case, since I'm finding it slightly difficult to find a blogging angle regarding saving your unsipped water for your houseplants, I figured I'd wax nostaligic about the days when my African violets would actually bloom...
Read more at:
http://www.idealbite.com/blog/comments/just_call_me_the_angelina_of_african_violets/
-Heather... off to sing some spirituals or something to convince the little pretties to flower...
My absolute favorite bulk food find?
Organic Mint Tea in teabags (seconded only my my mad love of bulk steel cut oats or granola)...
But I find myself more intrigued by those bulk items that are surprising - the shampoos and laundry detergents and honeys...
What's the most surprising bulk item you've found?
-Heather... flying back to SF...
A little insight into my advertiser-geek background...
In the world of groundbreaking campaigns, "Got Milk" takes the cake. Not only because we can all quote it, or because it's been copied every which way to Sunday... No, the campaign was groundbreaking, because it's such a perfect representation of the way that solid research can affect how an entire generation of people feel about a specific topic. In '93, milk sales had been in a 20 year slump. The CA Milk Processor Board hired Goodby (an ad agency) to help them revive lagging sales. Here's where it gets interesting:
When Goodby did focus group research into how people feel about and use milk, they discovered one overarching truth: no one ever thinks about milk until they need it and it's not there. Research showed that milk only became important when a person cooks, pours a bowl of cereal, or, yes, has a great, big mouthful of peanut butter (as in the first "Got Milk" ad), and they discover that they are out of milk. Thus, they created an entire ad campaign that focused on occasions when people "need" milk, and don't have any.
There are parallels to today's tip - not only because the tip was on milk... Seems to me that people's attitudes toward the planet are similar - we don't even think about things like clean air and water and forests until they're not there.
Wouldn't it be amazing if we could do the research and the work to come up with that one, singular, life-changing, slightly funny ad campaign that could ask an entire world if they "got green?"
OK, so that is a bad example and worse copy, but you get the idea.
-Heather... off to drink wine, not milk...
Cats are amazing... I have two. And as many of you know, I am not just a "cat person" - I have The Cricket, the Ideal Bite Mascot (mainly because Heather doesn't like dogs, but she like The Crick, and The Crick just LOVES being the product tester for all our all natural dog treats, beds, collars, etc.).
However, I wish I had taught them how to be potty trained... cleaning the litter box kind of just sucks. And with two cats, if you don't stay on it, it definitely emits a yuck odor.
However, life got better around the litter for two reasons:
1) I found ONE PLANET at the co-op... totally affordable, and works better than the other 3 eco varieties I have tried for multiple cats.
2) Spring is starting to show her pretty face, and so my cats are going outside a bit now. Now if only they'd stop digging up earthworms and placing them in the kitchen as little gifts.
-Jen... off to do my weekly changing out of the entire box... well, those snuggly funny little things are worth the 15 min a week dealing with the dirty aspects...
A few summers ago when I was an intern in DC, I had political aspirations. All of us interns were pretty ambitious, and whether our sights were set on a Nigerian ambassadorship, a seat in the Minnesota House, or the UN Secretary-Generalship, we knew that there were certain skills we were gonna need to get there, like the ability to match Senators' names with their states, and schmoozing.
I'm OK at making small talk - don't really enjoy it (I doubt I'm unique in that respect) - but in DC the schmooze factor was above and beyond anything I'd experienced growing up on the West Coast. The Intern Coordinator of the non-profit I was working for said that in order to make it as a schmoozer - and by extension, in politics - I'd need to become an expert on one of two things: wine or golf, neither of which sounded appealing at the time.
On the wine count: I've always been more of a beer drinker and I'm no good at spontaneously coming up with adjective-heavy verbiage to describe what I'm drinking ("harmonious aromatics hinting at ripe apricots, with a subtle trace of waxy botrytis," anyone?).
On the golf count: I'm not really into golf either, though I can appreciate the fact that without it, miniature golf, golf carts, and all those good times with my dad and uncle on the driving range wouldn't exist.
Thus, my desire to usurp Kofi Annan's position at the UN has been put on hold - for now. But as sustainability becomes more and more integral to the concept of political correctness, wannabe politicians are gonna have to start stepping it up from an eco-perspective and taking the environment into consideration in everything they do.
Lucky for them, when their Intern Coordinator asks, "Wine or golf?" they've now got their choice of schmoozing topics: biodynamic wine or eco-golf. Which would you choose?
-Toshio... off to Google mini-golf courses in the Bay Area...
My brother even wrote the name on it in permanent marker. A birthday present for my first double-digit birthday (which I remember thinking was so momentous), it was yellow and black and perfect.
Years later, my next bike was a Gary Fisher bright green mountain bike that never saw much of the mountains but was a killer ride to race up the beach from Santa Monica to Malibu, chasing the setting sun. Let me tell you - THAT bike has seen the world, traveling with me from LA to London, from London to San Jose, from San Jose to NYC, from NYC to SF. When I say that it has seen the world, I should clarify - it's seen my apartments and storage spaces - because in each of those places, it sat, collecting dust and rusting.
But all you Bikers here in SF are inspiring me, and I'm thinking that my trusty ol' Gary Fisher needs not only a name, but also a new chain and some tires. Just watch me dust it off and start to fly.
And if any of you are looking for a great city bike, check out Jorg and Olif - gorgeous bikes made in the Netherlands (and those people know their bikes). Just enter or say BITER during checkout and recieve a 5% discount during April.
-Heather... off to look up bicycle repair shops...
Because I don't have one. Like a very good green girl, I have a nylon liner and eco-curtain so I can wash everything up and never worry about mold or PVC offgassing. (Besides, the plastic ones are generally just plain ugly). Not yet quite perfect - nylon is better than PVC, but still not totally sustainable - but getting there...
Still, if you have one of those natty plastic ones with bright fish all over them, will you let me come over and sniff it sometime?
-Heather... off to shower after some killer yoga...
Not only am I completely addicted to the smell of fresh-cut grass, I also have a strange, childhood-nostalgic attachment to the taste of chewing on grass. As a kid, I'd sit on our lawn, book on my lap. reading away, aimlessly pulling blades of grass carefully, so that they would "squeak" out without breaking, and I could chew on the soft white end of the blade. Bizarre, but true. I couldn't get enough.
And god only knows what fertilizers were on that lawn I was eating...
So maybe I love Amazing Grass so much because it reminds me of being a kid - whether chewing the ends of barley grass on my grandparents' farm, or just eating our own lawn at home. In any case, it's nice to know that it's also good for me. Try out the powdered version in some apple juice with a little water...
-Heather... off to make an Amazing Grass nightcap...
So I have to admit to a fascination with all these alternative fabrics cropping up these days. From soy to bamboo to lyocell to organic version of your favorite cottons... clothes shopping has never been so varied. Sure, they are eco, but beyond that - they are also beautiful, soft, textured and fabulous.
Check 'em out.
-Heather... off to put on my bamboo jammies...
Next time I email my landlord, rather than (well, in addition to) mentioning how the heater is still making that horrible screeching noise, I'm going to give him this tip (minus the "crotchety" part). It's hard to argue with the cash savings, and who knows, maybe it'll buy my next band some leeway.
-Toshio... off to break out the maracas...
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