Nom de Plume

Merge means that you’re supposed to merge, not that I am supposed to slam on my brakes to let you in while you flip me off.

“He stinks,” Dave said, burying his nose in Harry’s fur.

“Yep,” I said. “It’s a pug thing.”

He took a deeper sniff. “No, he really stinks.

“You get used to it.”

Sniff. “No, I mean he REEKS.”

“Then why don’t you stop smelling him?”

“I can’t.”

Charlotte’s excellent Green Meme.

1. What do you for the birds and the bees? According to the report, we need to plant a pollinator garden to counteract the effect pollution, pesticides and habitat destruction are having on birds, bees and insects. Bees, for instance, like yellow, blue and purple flowers. I attempt to do things, but I kill plants. Steve, on the other hand, has a lot of stuff in the garden that qualifies. I think.

2. Household products. Chemical or organic? Household chemicals contribute to indoor and outdoor pollution.
Whatever’s convenient, to be honest. However, my soapmaking has yielded a lot of green stuff to clean with. I use soap scraps and the soaps I don’t like to wash dishes, counters, the bathroom, and so on. Sadly, organic laundry and dishwasher detergents don’t work as well as their chemical counterparts. I keep trying, but end up going back to the polluting kind.

3. Do you junk?
I really hate all the junk mail we get. I’ve taken us off credit card offers, and as much junk mail as possible, but I really don’t think the “remove me from the list” services work all that well. We still get stuff.

4. Air-dry or tumble-dry? Line-drying saves money and stops carbon emissions.
Tumble, all the way. But I hate doing laundry and do my part by doing it as infrequently as possible.

5. Old gadgets. Recycle or toss ‘em? According to the report, we have to find a way not to fill up landfills with electronic objects. Charlotte says, “Here’s my current solution: fill up the cellar instead.” I concur wholeheartedly. I have good intentions.

6. Lightbulbs – incandescent or fluorescent? Fluorescent light bulbs use 70% less power and last ten times as long.I hate to admit this, but incandescent. I hate the light produced by fluorescent bulbs.

7. Meat or veg? Meat production is energy inefficient. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat. After about seven years of being a vegetarian, I’m a wholehearted meat eater now. My concession is that I try to buy meat that comes from local sources.

8. Loo paper. Virgin or recycled? The paper industry is the third largest contributor to global warming. If every U.S. household replaced one toilet-paper roll with a roll made from recycled paper, 424,000 trees would be saved. Recycled. Though it’s still bleached and all that. I do wish all those recycled TP companies would skip the bleach.

9. Tap or bottled water? According to Newsweek, it takes a lot of oil to make and ship water bottles, and most end up in landfills. Tap. This whole bottled water craze is one of my pet peeves. First, the materials and transportation that go into it. Second, the fact that most tap water is cleaner. Just get a Nalgene bottle and you’re good to do. And if you must distill, get a Britta. The exception is fizzy mineral water. We usually have a case of that stuff around.

10. Dating – metrosexual or ecosexual? Newsweek says two recyclers are better than one. Dating? What’s that?

Yesterday, Dave ripped out the tub, prepped the subfloor, put in insulation, and added a couple of water shutoffs because we only had one. It’s amazing how fast it goes. Dave’s kind of fun to have around. He was talking to his girlfriend the other night, and saying, “Don’t let the dogs in the bed.” Pause. “No. No dogs in the bed while I’m gone. I know you.” Pause and big sigh. “Okay, just keep him off my pillows. I hate that.” Steve, meanwhile, was laughing out loud because we have this exact same conversation pretty much every day.

But this morning, I asked Steve where Harry was.

Sleeping with Dave, that’s where.

Shamefaced, Dave explained that Harry looked so lonely and pathetic alone on the couch last night that he scooped him up and plonked him on his bed. He was quick to add that Harry’s a bed hog and snores to boot.

Yet Harry stayed there. All night. On the bed.

Reminds me of Steve, saying he hates the dog.

This was one of my lovely bookmooch finds, and I have this to say:

1. The first is the best, by far. Everything else pales in comparison.

2. Anne becomes more irritating the older she grows.

3. Paul Irving is a smarmy little pansy. Davy, on the other hand, rocks.

4. Marilla tells it like it is when it comes to Miss Lavendar.

5. I am really tired of kindred spirits.

6. Gilbert is like no man alive.

7. And finally, as pertains to this particular edition: What happened to the volume where she’s in college? There was a mighty jump there.

Remember the bathroom saga? That has been restarted forty bazillion times? It’s actually going to be finished–within the next week.

Steve’s brother was laid off. He doesn’t seem overly concerned about it, so we’re not either. But Steve flew him out here and is paying him to finish the bathroom for us. The boys have left for Home Depot and it’s going to be a flurry of activity around here. Not only is Dave doing the bathroom, but he’s also replacing my leaking skylight.

For those of you not in Seattle, we were positively deluged with snow a few days ago.

I’ve missed snow, and it has been fun frolicking around in it. However, our street runs downhill and is a solid sheet of ice. I can’t drive my car down it. (We won’t get into the effects of the neighbor running his sump pump into the street.) And, as a result, I’m feeling a little housebound.

In other words, waking up to more snow this morning was NOT a good thing.

What do you mean, play some more?

No, thanks. We need to sleep now.

Another pug movie.