Compost and Shit

Here I will quote myself, to my mother on the phone last night, in honor of Earth Day:

Composting is like flossing your teeth; once you start doing it, you realize how gross it is not to do it.

I am so right. Once you see the crap you pull out of your teeth, it becomes horrifying no to do it. But back to compost, we've been doing it since right around the time we moved/Januaryish and have reduced our garbage output dramatically. It also really reduces the guilt of letting fruits and veggie go bad. Plus we have a plastic storage bin full of rotting food in the backyard-- win-win!

The nerve . . .

This is my mom's story from yesterday, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did:

In early Spring, I put some old wooden window boxes out by the alley with a "FREE" sign. A woman came along while I was in the yard and took them, with my blessing. TONIGHT, at least five months later, she comes to the back door and explains that they didn't fit exactly right—a bit too wide, etc. I listen to her complaint about the fit. Put them out with the garbage, said I; I sure don't want them back.

Oh, she says, they're too big and the city garbage men won't take them, so I have them in my trunk, gesturing toward the alley – and she looks at me.

I am having a surreal moment. What would I do with them then?—I don't want them, I say. Oh, says batty lady, you could pay a private hauler I suppose.

No, said I – this is sort of like "tag, you're it." They became YOUR window boxes a long time ago.

So, I have to get rid of them," asks the woman who took them for free and now acts like I sold her a Lexus with a warranty …. I think so, said the nice lady in the yellow house.

**Other parts of the live-telling of the story include the woman looking at my mom as if to say, "I am never shopping here again!"

I guess I can't move quotes up... so here's a new one...

My professor told us this one at the end of our 4th, 5th, 6th Amendment Seminar last semester, wishing for us that we build cathedrals:

Years ago in Italy, a woman walked through the piazza on a sweltering summer day. As she made her way, she passed three stone carvers laboring in the hot sun, each working a on a separate stone. She stopped and asked the first man what he was doing. "I'm just trying to make a living, lady," he grunted. She went over to second man to asked the same thing. "Well, you see, I've got this blueprint," he said. "I'm trying to carve the stone to match the design," he explained. She then asked the third man what he was doing. He looked at the woman and said "I'm building a cathedral."