Secondhand Nation

A Green Year: Going Green In Every Season

 

If you've got "Go!Green!" overload, but still feel the need to make some positive environmental changes, then I've got just the book for you.

Don't bother with green craft books or organic cook books or any other nonsense. 

Just get Jodi Helmer's The Green Year:  365 Small Things You Can Do To Make a Big Difference.

It's the simplest concept, really.  A daily almanac, organized by seasons, of small steps you can take to tread lighter on the earth.

Similar to a daily devotional, and in a easy-to-carry size, The Green Year is a really good intro for people thinking about getting greener, for whatever reason.  There are energy-saving techniques, cooking and housekeeping tips, consumer product information, transportation and travel recommendations and outdoors and garden ideas.

Here are few samples: 

May 10:  Toss lemon peels in your garden to keep cats from using your soil as a litter box.

October 28:  Stock your bathroom with bars of soap.  The scented body wash in your shower is packaged in a plastic container made of non-renewable, petroleum-based sources and uses a lot more packaging than a bar of soap.  If every household in the United States replaced one bottle of body wash with a bar of soap, it would save almost 2. 5 million pounds of plastic containers from going to the landfill. 

December 21:  Pay a teenager to shovel your driveway.  You could go outside and do it yourself or you could help one of the teenagers in your neighborhood earn some spending money.  Shoveling the driveway by hand is also better for the environment.  Research shows that small gasoline engines, like those used in snow blowers, produce the same amount of pollution as a car. 

Not high-faluting stuff, no technical science, nothing requiring insane levels of carpentry or that you live in a Geodesic Dome home.   But good, daily reminders of the steps you can take for a better world.

Because I'm always interested in the thrift side of the green movement, I asked Jodi Helmer where she found herself in the whole dilemma of thrift stores being simultaneously a "green choice" and an unfortunate by-product of our nation's unrelenting lust for consumerism.

"I fall somewhere in the middle, and here’s why," Helmer explained.  "We do need to evaluate our consumption habits.  We spend a lot of money on things we don’t need or and we don’t know their origins.  We spend less money on things that are expendable – we buy something really cheap and then use it for a year and no longer have a use for it."

She continued.  "We can’t change the fact that once somebody has purchased something, it’s out there.  I think the best place to get it is a GoodWill or a consignment.  Do we need to stop accumulating things and participating in mass consumption of goods? Yes.  But because so many of us have accumulated things, there’s nothing wrong with giving those products a second life." 

Helmer used an example from her own life.  She had been a career counselor at one point and had accumulated a wardrobe of work wear that she found herself no longer needing.  

"The suits already existed," she says.  "I needed them at a point in my life.   I could have tossed them in a trash bag.  I could have given them to Good Will.  I donated them to Dress for Success.  It’s a choice we can make.  It’s a great organization. "

Helmer also points out the obvious appeal of reuse. 

"Somebody was telling me this the other day, about donating newspapers and blankets to animal shelters," she recalls.  "Or pots and pans that are falling apart - you can donate them for food and water dishes for the dogs.  We can’t get away from needing new things.  But what we are going to do with the things we can no longer use?"  

According to Helmer,  about 4 billion tons of clothing every year get thrown away,  4% of which goes into the landfills. 

"We can’t feel guilty about buying the things that we need and want," Helmer says.  "It's  part of our culture.  But we need to reevaluate our idea of need.  And we need to rethink some of our wants."

I think I'm digging Jodi Helmer.  Check her more of her writing here.  

The Green Year makes a great housewarming or wedding gift, and it's ideal for anyone who is reticent about going green and just needs some simple encouragement. 

Lazy-E Boy: Josh Dorfman's Fun, Sexy & Cool Guide to Saving the Planet!

Again with his bullshit. 

I know, I've said it before, but ugh.   The hipster glasses, the use of the phrase "totally cool, fun and sexy" when it comes to environmental concerns, the interviewing of Martha Stewart - it all makes me want to upchuck.

I'm with the fearmongering Rovians here, something I'd never imagine I'd say, but I'm not sure how much more grave the situation must get before the "self-interested" realize that they are destroying their own human habitat when they refuse to learn how to live using appropriate resources in appropriate measure. 

Dorfman talks about semantics - how telling the unmoved masses how much more fun life will be if they go green is better than talking dire forecasts of shortage and destruction.

Sorry, but the aw-shucks, anti-science, booze cruisers have had their turn.  We need to use the language of science - carbon counting, food miles, bio-regions - in an effort to explain to people their role in the problem.  It's boring and yes, there's math involved.   And there's no vacant-eyed Swedish blond giving you a handjob while it's happening.  But this rebranding of sustainability/green living/environmental awareness/ is just more marketing to make new companies a buck before the ride stops. 

Grim Retail Christmas Sales, My Ass

Oh, poor dear old baby Jesus.  He might not sleep easy in his manger this holiday season - the retail forecast is so bad.   He might have to get a job as a night stocker in Best Buy - which apparently is wishful thinking if you read this.

Or that.

How about this? 

More of depressing dismal economic blah blah.

AHHH!  Stop it!

Look, I went to an outlet mall this weekend, in the hopes of finding some new shoes - combing my local thrifts has not yielded a thing lately - and also to do some Christmas shopping.  And what I found was hordes of people huffing around in their puffy winter coats, dragging their screaming, fed-up children into the Gap where they commenced to blitzing a display of folded jewel-tone sweaters like a starving mob in waiting for a food aid dump.   There were people circling in cars for good spots.  The local food shops were full of slobbering post-shopping lunchers.   Even the frickin Waterford Crystal/Wedgewood outlet was jammed to the hilt - come on!

People are still gonna shop for the damn holidays.  Feeling cheap and guilty around one's immediate families is worse than feeling broke. 

Every year, the local news outlets do the same "on the scene" report at a nearby mall, standing by an escalator as shoppers toting multiple bags gawk or hustle past, with the thrust of the story somehow becoming how sales are down, stores are hurting, poor little Bob Cratchit is going to be lucky if he scores a few packs of ramen, never mind chestnuts, black puddings and ham. 

If you watch the news or read the papers, you'd think that scads of harassed store managers would be falling en masse from the nearest skyscraper.   But somehow, whenever I go to shop retail during November-December, the stores are packed, the "doorbuster"  deals abound, the staff seem exhausted, there's no place to park and I'm as crabby about holiday consumerism as ever. 

Secondhand Pets, Part II

First, there was the heinous Basenji.

Then there was Gonzo.

Then from the people at the CARES shelter in Wyoming, MN, came our very own Pablo:

 

Rescuing a mutt is never a wrong move.

Thrift Stores: Consumerist Graveyards or Working People's Salvation?

Great article in by Judith Freeman from the L.A. Times that got me thinking.

Are thrift stores a sign of our noxious consumerist culture?  Am I doing the retail version of dumpster diving?  Are we thrift fanatics inadvertently making a statement about the absurdity of an economy built on novelty and competitive envy?

I can't decide. 

For one thing, shopping at a thrift stores for me is really about shopping, nothing more.  I like thrift stores because I can perform the act of shopping more frequently with less financial detriment.  I like looking at things.  I like imagining my life reinvented by some unexpected find I discover hidden in a pile of junk on a shelf.  I like buying clothes because I don't want to be out of style.  Dressed in vintage rags as they may be, my intentions are the same as any mall rat or lady who lunches at Neiman Marcus. 

Uncomfortable thoughts.  Makes me wonder if I should be proud to be citizen of the Secondhand Nation after all.

Hair-Raising: Searching for Eco-Conscious School Fundraisers

 

Figure 1:  Time to learn cursive, kids!  Because in another 70 years, everyone will be typing and that swoopy, unreadable script will be just perfect for giving your wrist a mighty, useless cramp.   But it'll be great for writing anonymous poetry-filled, sachet-ridden loveletters.

Because my daughter started kindergarten this year, I decided to stick my big toe in the volunteer pond and go to a PTA meeting. 

Whoa, mama. 

I thought I'd just blend into the woodwork of our super-70's media center and take my notes and get my info and blast outta there. 

Clearly our PTA is short on help.  I made a few comments and bam!  They nominated me for a officer position.  Ho Lee Shit.

Well, it seems I can handle being Secretary - writing being my calling and all - but among some of the to-dos I was given (write bilingual flyer, sort Campbells soup labels, etc.) was to research fundraising that was more ecologically-minded and less consumerist.   

So I google a few things and come up with a couple of ideas. 

There's Greenraising, which is basically the same kinda catalog you pass to your friends and relatives concept;  your loved ones get to choose from a bunch of magazine subscriptions, refrigerator magnets, and quirky kitchen gadgets like Taco Propers.   

Except in the Greenraising catalog,  instead of chili pepper-themed oven mitts and porcelain dolphins jumping over mirrors, you get a slough of SIGG water bottles and gift wrap made from recycled paper.  Great.  My idea of eco-consciousness isn't buying recycled paper gift wrap.  I already have recycled paper giftwrap.  It's called yesterday's newspaper. 

Along these same lines falls One Planet Fundraising, whose clunky-looking Web 1.0-style  site gleefully promises "40% profits!"  in large glaring blue 20 pt font, as well as "KLEEN KANTEEN" water bottles, CFLs, reusable tote bags and...wha?  What was I talking about?  I got all dizzy with the abundance of "K's" in KLEEN KANTEEN and then fell asleep after "totebags." 

Finally, there's Greenspark, which is like an eco-minded Happenings book.   Being that I HATE coupons (all the beggary, pain-in-the-ass fussy clipping fritters away my life, I feel) the less said the better.

Unless my readers can point me to another source, it looks like it's magazine subscriptions and tankards of cookie dough as far as the eye can see around my house this year. 

Photo:   Elementary school children standing and watching teacher write at blackboard, Washington, D.C. by Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1899, via Library of Congress digital collection.

Mobile Abattoirs Coming to a Farm Near You?

Figure 1: Lititz, Pennsylvania. Butchering a steer in Lutz's slaughterhouse by Marjory Collins. Photo via Library of Congress website.

Since I'm a Michael Pollan groupie and think about the Balding & Bespectacled One nearly every day, whether I'm crunching into an Oreo or riding high on a local food bender at my farmer's market, this recent article in the Wall Street Journal provoked me. 

Remember how in The Book, Joel Salatin, the Polyface Farm and grass-fed "beyond organic" farmer, is having problems finding a way to make more money on his meat because of all the bullshit regulations from the USDA concerning slaughtering the animals and butchering them.

Perhaps these mobile abattoirs are the answer to local, small-operations farms that want to provide butchered products direct to the customer without having to build a costly, regulation-minding facility?

Or will these traveling units just spread disease as they go from place to place?  I can't help but wonder what old Michael Pollan or Joel Salatin have to say about this.  I wish one of them would blog already so I can know what's in their minds at any given moment. 

The Biffy of Forest Drive: Can You Recycle Dog Poop?

 

Compost This? has no suggestions.  Neither does its companion site Recycle This?

What's a girl to do when her yard has been designated official rest stop of shitting dogs in the vicinity for the past eleventy years?

When I recognize the poop that comes from my neighbor's ugly Basenji - filled with bits of string and plastic is the main tip-off - I use the plastic bag my newspaper comes in and fling the offending poo over into her yard or front step, usually in an area where my own child will not step on it.

Like, right in front of my door?  Which is where I find dog poop on a regular basis?

But sometimes I get random logs left nearer to the street, which lets me imagine that loose dogs or random walkers-of-dogs are choosing to relieve themselves on my property, using the subtle techniques reserved to ninjas, I'd imagine.  (I'm home alot.  And I'm outside alot.  How am I missing this?)

So, please, recycling-minded, sympathetic readers -  is there any use for dog shit beyond pranks involving flaming bags?  Because I have, so to speak, a shit-ton of it. 

News Round-up! The Best of What I Happen To Like

I have never done a links round-up. 

Probably because I blow right past posts like that on other blogs.  But lately there have been some cool stories and a general lack of time/willingness on my part to comment on them.  Thus, the scales fell from my eyes and I came to understand the reasoning behind this popular blogging gimmick. 

So, dear readers, feel free to blow past my informative links.  At least I have a cool peeeekture, though.

First.  Our favorite green toy-making artist Beeper Bebe has a great interview on Plush You.  Comment on the blog with your contact info for a chance to win one of her recycled materials creations.    (Our interview with Beeper Bebe, including photos,  is available here;  check out her Etsy shop for more beautiful goodies!) 

Second.  The Minneapolis Star Tribune did a cool profile of Jim Ritter, an artist who makes junk-drawer collage and assemblage art.    Junk drawer art used to be an idea I wanted to make into a reality, only it turns out that I suck at it and glue guns burning the hell out of my fingertips make me fly into a wordless rage. 

Third.  Is your kitchen a nasty butthole like mine?  Wanna clean it without toxic chemicals that will give your unborn children gills?  Check out Mamalu's eHow article on how to efficiently green-clean next time you get stuck with KT duty. 

Fourth.  This is just wonderful.  And by "wonderful" I mean nipply and horrifying.  I have to get my ass to Yard Sale Bloodbath more often.  These folks get around, in a most pleasing, envy-inspiring way. 

All right.  That's all for my edifying round-up. 

As for me?   I'm plowing through a book  review on carbon footprints, teaching writing classes, painting my godforsaken house and generally trying to single mother while my Husband is in Asia for work.  And no, he's not an Olympian.   Oh, wait.  Did I mention neglecting my garden and watering duties?   The tomatoes are splitting from lack of agua and the rest of the yard looks like a fucking Georgia O'Keefe painting.  Around this time of year I come to the conclusion that summer can suck it. 

And you?  What's the latest roundup of your life and times?

Image Source:  Colorado. "Round up" in the corral.  Library of Congress, LOT 13923, no. 64  

Book Review: Eco-Friendly Families by Helen Coronato

The rapid rise in popularity of eco-chic trends has resulted in an algal bloom of handbooks for consumers on how to "go green."

Couple this with the hip mothering set that seeks to baby-wear, breast-feed and otherwise develop an optimum beginning for their kids, and naturally, you wouldn't be surprised to see Helen Coronato's Eco-Friendly Families, (Penguin 2008), available for publication August 5th.

I admit I feared the book might have nothing more to offer than the basic green prescriptions found in banal women's magazines ("Ride your beach cruisers together to the farmer's market!"  "Pack lunches in tupperwear!")

But this book is packed with good ideas, many of which I found myself jotting down to do for myself. 

For example:  How can I remember to bring reuseable bags to the grocery store?

Assign a kid to carry them, Coronato suggests, creating a habit that a 6-year-old can handle, a simple task that a child can remember when a frazzled parent might not.  Or simply start every grocery list with the reminder "Remember bags!"

Yeah, yeah, the cynical mom might think.  My kid doesn't care about anything unless it's a plastic-wrapped Happy Meal toy.  How am I supposed to interest my 10 year old in taking care of the planet?

Take away toys or belongings that don't get played with, Coronato suggests.  Put them away in a clear-plastic storage tote, where they can see what they are missing.  Teach them a basic environmental premise:  "When you don't take care of your things, you lose them."

There's also a great discussion on packaging, and ways families can reduce their consumption of one-use packaging, as well as a primer on recycling - a practice that gets a lot of lip service, but not a lot of follow-through.  As I am constantly challenged by Micheal Pollan  and always seek  to "vote with my fork", I also appreciated the section on food choices and the rationale for eating locally and organically. 

Even if you've got the enviro-speak down, this book is a nice source for kid-friendly activities that are also planet-conscious.  Coronato has a wide array of things to do with kids to teach them about gardening or reusing materials, broken down by season and by age-group.   She also goes through an entire house, room-by-room, with suggestions for making green changes, from everything to decorating to appliance selections.  The green homeschooling set will want to have this book on hand and it would also make a nice gift for the earthy mother-to-be. 

A few quibbles, of course. 

One is the mention of Arbonne International, a direct-selling natural beauty products company, including a website for a specific vendor, leaves me cold, especially after reading Fuss Bucket editor Stacey Schultz's recent cover story in Brain, Child magazine about the sketchy practices of companies like Arbonne.  Such an intimate product pitch seemed out-of-place for a book.

Another worrisome part about the eco-trend is that it is clearly marketed toward a middle-class demographic, and Eco-Friendly Families reflects this.  While one might argue that the work of entities like Majora Carter's Sustainable South Bronx organization break the socioeconomic stereotype of what the environmental movement is, Coronato's book is definitely a resource that moms with time and money to spare will seek out.  Discussions of allowances, "greening" projects that include lawn, garden and garage, and exhortations to "live simpler" by donating excess possessions to thrift stores or charity overtly remind us what population is being targeted here.  Considering making home-made cleaners, while a great idea, does assume a luxury of time and a level of privilege that many families do not enjoy.  And while targeting the bloated suburban ideal - a model within which I currently live - is certainly the best place to start, I think that if the eco-trend hopes to flourish, it will find ways to make itself matter to all socioeconomic populations. 

The final issue I had about the book is that while packed with great activities and recipes and lists of organizations and websites and projects that are wonderful sources for families wishing to go green, the text lacked a bit of oomph.  The green movement does suffer from being preachy, and the tone of Coronato's writing feels a bit too wholesome, leaving me to fret that going green will turn us all into Ned Flanders. While I'm not averse to planting seeds and making homemade gifts, the cumulative effect of all these well-meaning projects gave me a bit of a curmudgeonly allergic reaction.  Here is where I would have appreciated a more personal touch from the author, not necessarily a warts-and-all view, but perhaps a few personal anecdotes on the struggle to go green.  For example:  How do you deal with having a kid with a Big Mac attack?  How do you explain to your toddler that throwing litter out of a car window is terrible idea?  How does it feel to try to implement these changes and have your teenaged, brand-obsessed daughter glare at you?  What do you do when your efforts back-fire? 

This last concern is quite minor, because, as I've stated before, being one of the hip, "Lazy Environmentalists" which is largely nothing more than a vapid marketing shill, is much worse.  Eco-Friendly Families has nothing of that glib, too-cool-for-school tone.  Instead, Eco-Friendly Families is a solution-packed book that seeks to roll up its sleeves and inspire the modern middle class to change their wasteful ways.  

Helen Coronato is the kind of environmentalist unafraid of the hard work that real change demands - namely, the kind our planet's predicament sorely needs.   

What Would Granny Do?: Reviving the Lost Arts of the Past to Preserve Our Future

Figure 1:  Old Tyme Washing!  I'm not going this far.  But you get the idea.

Forget Jesus or Joan Jett or Scooby Doo. 

When it comes to being green, ask yourself W.hat W.ould G.ranny D.o?

The Daily Green has a great article that will both connect you to your roots and get you thinking sustainably, called 7 Lost Household Arts.  I'm somewhat of a hater when it comes to facile articles full of "tips" but this one was very well done.

Doing it granny style has been on my mind since my boyfriend Micheal Pollan advised in The Omnivore's Dilemma:

"Don't eat anything that your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." 

In my case, it would be my great-grandmother.  My grandmother was a candy freak who couldn't boil water and who regularly bought us cupboards full of sugar cereal and shopped for groceries at Wal-Greens.

I'm happy to say that I scored a book on root cellaring from my library and am going to see if I can manage a plan to save some of my farmer's market bounty this summer.  Aside from the wood stove, I'm smug enough to report that I'm progressing well on the other five (although our rain barrel cracked over the winter - duh - empty it out before it thaws, I'm an idiot).

Grandmotherly inspiration is a good guideline for green living.  Although, I don't plan on wearing dresses, can't sew and feel no affinity for the whole patriarchy thing, I'm rather eager to recover these lost skills, as with food and fuel costs soaring, it feels a bit too close to Civilization Collapse for comfort. 

Image:  Zelina & Florence Richards, 12 and 13 years old doing the family wash. Lewis W. Hine. See 4409. Location: Nicholas County, Kentucky, Library of Congress Digital Collection, LOT 7475, v. 2, no. 4414.

 

Locavores Delight: Farmer's Markets in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area

Here are two great features from that dead tree behemoth, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, that will come in handy while you try to hit local farmer's markets during our cruelly short produce season:

Interactive Map of Farmer's Markets

Day-by-Day List of Farmer's Markets

Yes, I am partial to my local readers, but aren't we supposed to be doing everything locally these days?

For those folks who don't live in glorious MN, I'll throw you a bone, too.

Local Harvest

Secondhand Sighs: Sales of Yesteryear

Man, I pine for those days when I had but my hot-off-the-press, highly worthless college diploma and just a few boxes of books and dishes to my name!  Whee!  I was 21, with a pickup truck that I could fill up with my worldly possessions and jet about the world, looking for cheap rents and even cheaper thrills.

I recall with fondness my first post-college apartment situation.   My friend Heather and I both had crappy jobs - she managed an unstable group home of raucous, mentally challenged young men, while I passed deathless, substance-free hours in a cube farm for a Large Boring Financial Company - and our weekends were given to long drawn-out breakfasts full of cigarettes and newspapers and trawling for the unusual, whether we found it in bars, restaurants, in the sack with various No Good Men, or, our most reliable outlet, thrift stores.

While we had received some mercy donations from family and friends - a couch, a bed, a chipped formica table in that awful faux bois that seems to be coming back - much time was spent haunting the Salvation Army, hunting for various random items that, we, New Women in the World, did not currently own.

Cookie sheets.  Book shelves.  Objets d' art.  Ceramic fruit bowls.  Ice cream spades.

I remember most especially one of those warm June days where we garage saled aimlessly and stumbled upon one of those sales you think so fondly of later, in frosty, backlit tones and pricing that tends to decrease with each recall.

It was held in the alley, using the garage and the backyard of an older home in Minneapolis.  There was the usual household stuff, with not a whiff of children's junk or plastic.  The couple running it were older and greyer than Heather and I, but certainly not pitiable or depressing.  In fact, I remember thinking they were dashing and snappy, for people their age.  This probably had much to do with my own youth as well as the merchandise they sold.

It appeared this couple was divesting themselves of all their entertainment ware.  Underneath a pergola trailed with a flowering vine (okay, it might have been a carport, but my nostalgia makes everything seem like Tennesse Williams) I recall many types of corks and wine and bottle openers.  Several glass pickle and relish dishes, an array of specialty silverware like shrimp forks and sugar cube tongs, and all sorts of liquor and wine glassware.  Wine goblets, brandy snifters, champagne flutes.  Glasses for margaritas, martinis, high balls, aperitifs and shots.  Ashtrays, pipes, serving trays, crystal decanters.  These people had LIVED. Or at least accumulated like folks who had lived. 

Though I was just graduating from cans of Busch Light Draft, I decided to buy a copper band that looked like cuff bracelet for gauging directly the temperature of wine.  They apparently are still sold, but I haven't been able to find the particular one that I had, which was copper and had grape vines twining along the number scale. 

This never-used item accompanied me on several moves until I decided that it seemed highly unlikely that a) this item would continue to work or b) its reading would give me information I was educated enough to do anything about. 

Still, I remember this wine cuff, now long gone, in someone else's drawer, perhaps languishing on a thrift store shelf, reminding me, in a hazy soft focus, of how garage sales can be so romantic and full of promise. 

Get Yer Sale On: Rummage Sales in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Area

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has a pdf link to many community and church rummage sales here.

I'm thinking of going to many of them this year, as it's hard to justify wasting time and gas navigating around to random sales. 

(Short Rambling Aside:  Any sale that's in my neighborhood, on local cross streets or accessible by bicycle?  Fair game, baby!  I'm just saying that plotting a course with the classified section is not my future, yanno?)

So any locals, if you go?  Keep your hands off any of the following:

Stainless steel pressure cookers (from modern era)

Blue / Green retro couches (not overstuffed icky kind)

Coconut or lava Hawaiiana tchotkes

French bread pans

Oaxacan tin work

Local y Deliciosa: El Burrito Mercado

I am all about local food.  I love food and I love having power over big companies that are trying to get my food dollar.

That's why I was thrilled that my local Cub Foods has started carrying Authentic Chips and Salsa from the premiere Latino grocery store and restaurant, El Burrito Mercado. 

The chips are crunchy and thick, with just a hint of salt.  The ingredients involve the following:

Stone ground corn, white corn, corn oil, salt, trace of calcium hydroxide.

Wow.  A corn chip that's mostly corn.  Flabbergasting how something that simple is also highly delicious.

The mild salsa isn't that tomato-y mush that most Midwesterners seem to slobber for; it's a spicy blend of peppers and tomatillos - and yes, tomatoes - that has real punch.  Perfect for chips or dousing your hashbrowns and eggs.

Hooray for Cub Foods!  They are my favorite local food provider, with great emphasis on Minnesota Grown products.

For more information on what's good in Minnesota, check out the Minnesota Grown page from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.

To find out about what's good locally where you live, go to Local Harvest.

The Church Rummage Sale Blues

Figure 1:  Sign for another church rummage sale, not the one I discuss in this post.  No need to be snotty, I suppose.

Last year, I was singing the praises of the church rummage sale.  Sadly, this year's cherry-popper sale has me a bit bereft. 

It started when my neighbor John tipped me off to a rummage sale his church was holding. 

Sweet, I thought.  My daughter would be at preschool and the church was just a few blocks north of her school.  I envisioned spending my morning blissfully pawing through tons of under-priced merchandise, sans begging child, lavishly pausing to finger old baking tins or rifle through piles of folded linens.  The church was also selling plants, and though I hit the Friends School of Minnesota's Annual Plant Sale already, who can resist a cheap bedding plant?

So I'm all charged up about this sale.  Holding off on other purchases just in case there's a cheaper deal to be had.

I had such a great experience a few weeks back at a local rummage sale held by the boosters of a high school marching band so I was inflating this other church sale in my head.

(That sale had yielded coconut and seashell windchimes, Oaxacan tinwork Christmas decorations and a lovely set of rubbermaid teaspoons, among other things. Tingles!)

As I walked from the parking lot (great looking annuals!  but not at prices that mattered! and I hate annuals anyway!) into the church, I was greeted by a slough of elderly white guys, welcoming me and pointing out the way to the sale room.

I was also assaulted by the cloying, barf-tastic smell of Manwich.  A tagboard sign highlighted in shaking, Sharpie pen strokes, "Sloppie Joe and chips, 1.00."

Agh.  It was the kind of odor that makes pregnant women gasp and hork into their purses. 

The sale was held in the cafeteria, making it convenient for shoppers to buy their things and then sit down at one of the chipped formica banquet tables and tuck into a plate of fresh-from-the-slow-cooker Manwich, a clutch of greasy Old Dutch potato chips and a cup of industrial decaf.   Around the tables and the kitchen serving area, more clusters of old people, some in wheelchairs or pushing walkers with tennis ball pads, milling about fussing with serving trays and the tackle box full of money.

My neighbor was nowhere to be seen and though he's retired, compared to the crew manning this sale, he was fucking Jack LaLanne.

The sale was okay.  Lots of clothes, which are generally a waste of time for me to flip through (how many gold-button women's blazers does a body need?) and lots of dirty, scuffed up plastic kids' toys and a whole array of baby items (bottles, wipe warmers, pacifers - yuk). 

There were lots of plastic blinds and Christmas ornaments (blecch) and scurvy-looking bed sheets and one of those Ye Olde pressure cookers that used to kill people way back when.  Stuff that belongs in the trash, really.   

I bought a cheesecake tin, a cake whip, a food mill and a linen dishtowel  for $1.70.  All things I needed and liked, but still.  The cashier was a friendly woman with an oxgen tank plugged into her nose, whom I was glad had a big button calculator at her disposal.

This spring in Minnesota has been highly disappointing already, in terms of weather.  Can't we get some good cheap stuff to offset the dreariness?

I'm trying to keep chipper, though the aroma of Manwich still clings to my noseholes.

Get Mobile and Stay Home

Figure 1: Boring. Beige.  Business Wear. 

One big reason I have resisted working in a traditional job is that I hate dressing up.  Especially if the word "appropriately" enters the conversation. 

Business casual, skirt suits, hosiery, shoes that clack?  I can't stand them.  I feel like I'm wearing a costume.

It's one of the many reasons I relish working from home.  And why I'm so glad to live in an age when wireless connectivity makes it possible for me to wear thrift store rags 7 days a week.

The Economist has a special report on The New Nomadism, and how people are increasingly leaving the traditional workplace and flying out on wings made of wi-fi. 

The report goes into great detail about how our gadgetry does threaten some social linkages that are important, but I could only think of the bright side when it comes to staying at home:

* eating your own home-cooked meal, from food sources you are aware of, that involves less packaging

* not driving (and at upwards of 3 bucks a gallon, the planet AND your wallet will breathe a sigh of relief)

* not sitting in traffic, which is a huge, boring time-waster

* taking refreshing breaks in your own garden or neighborhood

* being able to maintain home tasks like switching loads of laundry and or rising bread

* spending less on cubicle couture and wearing consignment rags or jammies to your heart's content

Some of us won't be able to work like this.  If you work in a restaurant, retail store or factory, you kinda gotta be there.  But for those of us in the knowledge-based industries, spending even one day at home reduces your consumption and stress level both.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Reader Requests: Spring Fever Edition

It's hitting 30 degrees here in Minnesota.  Which means I'm infected with spring fever and am fitting to burn all my wretched foul weather gear in a witches' pyre on my front lawn. 

A couple of requests, though.  Send me an email or leave a comment about any of the following:

Seed Starters!  I'm extremely interested in hearing from people who are starting seeds indoors.  What's your process and methods?  What kinds of plants do you start indoors?  What equipment do you use, if any?  And what have been the results?

Home Yogurt Makers!  Bring it!  Which model do you use?  Do you use an appliance or a different set of equipment?  Any recipes you'd like to share?

Thrifters!  What's the best thing you've ever bought secondhand? Send me the story of the item and photos if you've got them.

Thanks in advance!

Thrift Store Employee Burnout, Part II: Coping

 

This is my fourth tour as a thrift store employee.  I have worked, on and off, for the same nonprofit store since 2001.  I have been a cashier and floor clerk, a supervisor, a donations processor and a specialty donations processor (books).

I have come to the store willingly three times, seeking work.  Except for my current tenure, when my help was solicited.  Their book pricer had quit and they found themselves swamped to the ceiling with books. 

Would I, could I, for 9 bucks a hour, for 10 hours a week, work for them again?

I ask you - what lover of books would turn this opportunity down, arising, as it did, during a particularly arid time in my writing career?  You get to paw through books, throw away all the brittle, yellowed Leon Uris and James Michener paperbacks, run your mitts over the latest and greatest volumes, come home every shift laden with books for everyone in the family. 

No customer service.  No cleaning the bathroom.  No counting cash.  Just you and the books and an unheated storage bin, sorting, pricing, and keeping a mental inventory of how many copies of the more popular and nauseating titles we have on hand (The Left Behind series, Jan Karon, everything Oprah ever breathed on).

What's not to love, huh?

This freelance shit has ruined me for working retail.  Much like thrift stores have ruined me for shopping retail.  I don't want to work 20 hours to make what I can make in two hours. 

Yes, I understand that writing isn't as reliable.  But I'm in the throes of planning my break-up, and this my friend, is the key to surviving any uncomfortable job situation you find yourself in:  plotting your eventual departure provides a deep and cozy nook for your sanity to rest while you total up all the financial mis-steps doing such work creates.

As a professional writer with a passion for thrift culture, I told myself this job was my hands-on research, my behind-the-scenes, first-hand reporting. 

Unfortunately, it has become, like most jobs, a boring commute and a piddly paycheck. 

So I'm telling myself that once I snag a copy of Sally Schneider's The Improvisational Cook, Hertzberg & Francois' Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, and the latest Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach (have I mentioned how much I adored Atonement?  It utterly destroys your soul, in a good way), I am so putting in my notice.

Reuseable Shopping Totes Now at My Target

FINALLY.

I dunno how long they've been available where you live, but I just found these charming little bags, tucked behind the dollar junk display at my local Target, so I picked up three of them.  Apparently they are being disseminated across the country from the West Coast, where they debuted in response to laws in California banning plastic bags.   

How long have I been bitching about this, here and in those customer surveys printed on the receipts?

Of course, my critique of Target won't stop.  I love shopping there too much to quit my petty carping.  Whether it's complaining about their phony "farm" or their lack of information regarding the origins of their "organic" fruit or how they stink up their store with a nasty Starbucks - like any good naggy spouse, I'll be there to grind them down with constant reminders of how they could improve, if they really really wanted to. 

That's really a good model for consumers.  Instead of an entitled, glossy-handbag-wielding princess, perhaps the face we present to Target should be more of a grouchy old wife, ready to poke the produce and sniff at the meat and clout them over the head with our pocketbooks if they try any funny stuff, like trying to take our money, which of course, they are.