Tag: waste

A Road Trip Dream

I was setting out on a trip with three friends. Only one — Ron, an older man — translates to a current real-life person. Ron was just as he is in real life. The others, also males, were known.

One interesting note that emerged and wove throughout were two others, both female. They sometimes joined the journey, and Ron and I discussed whether they would be with us. The two women, both brunettes, one in a red top with black pants and the other wearing a bright blue top, would only appear and not speak directly to me.

We were riding in Ron’s truck. This was beige and big, with a four-door cab and a luxurious tan leather interior. Though Ron was driving, he was in the backseat. I was alongside him. He’d put the car on autopilot, so it was essentially driving itself with him just monitoring what was going on.

I kicked back beside him on the back seat. Stretching my legs out, my foot ended up hitting the steering wheel. That put us off course. Because of the way I was reclined, it took several seconds of jostling to get my foot out of the way. During that time, we went off the road and onto the shoulder but didn’t slow. Ron finally steered us back on course and returned the truck to autopilot, but now he was worried and concerned the police would pull us over.

We arrived at our destination — a huge furniture store. I’d never been to it. The floor was hard dirt. All furniture was antique white. Despite the floor and the limited offering, the store was very busy. The women showed up briefly. The others spoke with them while I went out to another section of store.

The next store section was filled with tables and chrome appliances. The appliances turned out to be food and drink dispensers. Needing to use a restaurant, I did some bowel business but discovered the toilet didn’t have any way to flush. Removing my fecal material with a wad of paper towels, I looked for a way to dispose of it. I found one but they wanted me to pay money to flush it away. I refused, angry and disgusted that they’d monetized flushing away our body functions. I instead found a small white bag, put the materials in there, and set it on a table, telling myself, it would be someone else’s problem.

I then reconnected with my friends. I told Ron that when we went back, I wanted to sit in the front and stretch out and sleep. He looked at me with confusion but didn’t reply. The two women came by. One said she had to go off and find her children.

My friends and I went to another section. People there were seated, waiting to pay for their selections. I stopped before one man and did a giddy tap dance. The man, overweight and big with swarthy skin and a white cowboy hat, ordered, “Stop that.” Laughing, I kept dancing but moved to another section. Another man who I didn’t see said, “Stop that,” but I laughed and danced away.

My friends met up with me again. All were surprised that I was tap dancing and thought it strange. They wondered how I learned it. I replied, “I’ve always known how to tap dance. Nobody ever needed to teach me. I just knew. I just don’t do it much.”

Dream end.

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Satyrdaz Wondering Thoughts

I’ve downsized my coffee shop drink. As a familiar there, the baristas are prone to making it as soon as they see me and likewise ringing it up while confirming that I’m getting ‘the usual’.

BTW, I’ve always liked the expression ‘to ring it up’. I’ve written about it before and how it seems so archaic. I haven’t been in a place where the cash register rings with a new purchase in a while.

Sidebar aside, I’ve been educating the baristas about my smaller drink size. Today’s barista said, “May I ask, is it caffeine or price..?”

I smiled. “Nope. It’s waste. I noticed I wasn’t finishing my drink. I’m a boomer and was raised not to waste.”

The twentyish barista said, “Oh, I totally get that. I don’t waste at home. I’m the only one who eats leftovers in my house. It’s crazy, but I don’t want to waste anything.”

“You might be an honorary boomer,” I said.

“Maybe.” She glanced around and leaned forward. “It sure doesn’t come from my family.”

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Munda’s Wandering Political Thoughts

Just a thought, but there should probably be a demonstration planned for June 14, 2025.

It is so funny in a haha not funny way, that as this nation wrestles with government cuts to save money, he wants to spend a huge amount of money to idolize himself.

That shows his true character. Those who cannot see it are deliberately blind.

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Food

Daily writing prompt
What bores you?
View all responses

OMG, I can tell you right now that thinking about food bores right through me. Like right now, I’m thinking about a quick snack to sustain me through my writing session. I carry a Kind bar in my computer case for that purpose. But I feel like the hunger is getting sort of urgent, as I can feel it boring through my thinking. I can only imagine how horrible it is for people living in food deserts, where food is not readily available, driving prices up beyond people’s means. How the thought of a good, healthy meal must bore through them. I can imagine them watching another person eat and find it boring through the center of their beings. That’s so sad in a world where so much waste is generated by inefficient distribution systems that depend on capitalism as the foundation to solve problems like starvation.

“Just how much food do Americans waste? Here’s some “food” for thought: While the world wastes about 2.5 billion tons of food every year, the United States discards more food than any other country in the world: nearly 60 million tons — 120 billion pounds — every year. That’s estimated to be almost 40 percent of the entire US food supply, and equates to 325 pounds of waste per person.” 

Yeah, food. It can be so boring. Something to think about as people complain about the price of eggs. Although many won’t.

They’ll find it too boring.

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The Great American Postal System

Warning: snark might be encountered ahead.

I want to give a shout out to the US Postal System. Rates went up again recently. We know that probably means systemic improvements…right?

Of course! Although, um, postal workers in my area are concerned with mail not being picked up. Thanks to the price increase and a new modernization effort, we’ve gone from having five trucks to collect the mail and start its journey. Now we’re down to one. Wow, that’s efficiency!

Except, ah, my Visa credit card people are often concerned, sending emails, reminding us to pay our bill because the due date is coming up. “They should have received it,” my wife and I agreed. She added, “It’s due the fifteenth and I mailed it before the first.” This was back in November. “Maybe weather delayed it,” I put in. But this had never happened before. Now it’s happened three times.

Jeremy Schilling, president of the American Postal Workers Union Local 342 here in the Rogue Valley may have given us the answer. Going from five trucks to one doesn’t work well, he asserts. “Talent and Phoenix are now on the same route as Ashland. As a larger population center, Ashland requires its own truck. That being the case, the one truck (for all three cities) is already full when it reaches its next stops. This is happening across the whole state right now,” Schilling said. (h/t to rv-times.com)

This is the plan that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s 10-year “Delivering for America” plan has delivered to us. Besides the one truck replacing five idea, his plan calls for dropping the second daily pickup. So instead of racing to the Post Office to get something into the mail before the early collection time, it’s just the one collection at five PM.

See what higher price stamps get us?

But it’ll save a lot of money, DeJoy asserts. Schilling’s response speaks for me. “With this new truck route that saves so much money, are they telling me the money saved is because they’re going to abandon mail every day because the truck is too full?” Schilling asked. Seems so from my vantage, but I’m only a customer, which makes me an outsider.

Reduced trucks and fewer collection times are just two of the improvements which DeJoy has imposed. Under his plan, there is consolidation in the name of efficiency. The Institute for Policy Studies asserts what this could mean for me and my mail in their study, The USPS Network Consolidation Plan: What’s at Stake for Southern Oregon. Among their findings are Potential slower delivery times and Risk of transportation disruptions, which you always want when you’ve established an improvement plan for your delivery system.

The study found that under DeJoy’s improvement plan are several nuggets.

Under the USPS plan for the Medford facility, mail and packages posted by local residents and business will travel to Portland for processing – even if the destination address is in the local tri-county area. The state of Oregon has just one major artery going north-south, Interstate highway 5. In normal conditions, the 280-mile route between Medford, which is near the California border, and the Portland regional distribution and processing center site at the northern edge of the state takes about 4 hours and 28 minutes, or 9 hours round-trip.

A First Class letter shipped from Klamath Falls in Oregon to Sacramento, California would today travel 387 miles and take 6 hours. Under the consolidation plan, that letter, passing through Portland, rather than Medford, would travel twice as many miles, and take twice as long to make the journey – 858 miles and 13 hours of travel time.

Wow, longer time and further distances for things to be delivered! That has to be better, right, because more is better, isn’t it? Apparently that’s how DeJoy thinks. And think of how this will affect traffic, air pollution, and additional costs in gas and wear and tear on vehicles. Win win win! Fortunately, they are moving to electric vehicles. Money has been commited, but the transition has been slowed by none other than DeJoy.

You might be thinking, where have I heard of Louis DeJoy before? Well, the man was put into position by President Donald J. Trump (but not appointed), and we know that Trump is all about efficiency (yes, that’s sarcasm) and has an eye for capable people (yes, more sarcasm, given how many positions in his A team turned over in his only term. Answer: 92%. President Biden’s is 71%). Likewise, Trump’s cabinet appointments turned over more than Presidents Obama, Dubya and his pops, and Reagan.

DeJoy advocates for privatizing the USPS. So he doesn’t really want it to excel as a government service. What better way to gain advocates for privatizing a government system that’s working than by sabotaging it?

DeJoy is also the guy who handicapped the USPS and its ability to support dealing with COVID-19 and ensuring mail-in ballots arrived as expected during the 2020 election.

So he’s doing a heckuva job, as President Bush told Brownie ten days before Brownie resigned because he hadn’t done a heckuva job at all.

Yep, heckuva job, DeJoy. Way he’s going, it’ll cost a dollar for a stamp and the mail will take a month to reach its destination. Such efficiency!

4

Obsolescence

8/31/2014

That’s the date on my laptop’s shipping box. I discarded it yesterday. The box, I mean. Cut it up and tossed it in recycle. The box, I mean.

Looking at that shipping date, my personal laptop is almost ten years old. Although state of art when purchased, it’s now considered a weary old piece. I should replace it but I don’t wanna. One, I’m used to its foibles. Two, it does everything which I need done. Three, waste. This machine works and I’d be forced to get rid of it and its materials, adding to the piles of consumer trash.

I don’t wanna do that. That’s why I have five old computers waiting for disposal. One is a tower bought in 1998 that I haven’t used in years. One is an old personal laptop. Two are my wife’s old Macs of different vintages. One is an old business laptop which they told me to keep when I left the company.

Getting rid of them is on my list of things to do. Pull the hard drives. Find somewhere which will scavenge whatever they can for repurposing, and responsibly dispose of the rest.

I absolutely hate this cycle. My laptop’s software has been updated as far as I can take it with its current hardware. Microsoft provides the OS. Yes, I’ve used others but I succumb to convenience. Yeah, shame on me. I’ll research what MS needs for its next OS and see if I can update my hardware to keep it working.

Ten years is just too early to get rid of something. Just look at my cars. Both are ICE. One is nine years old with 48K; the other is twenty years and 108K. Both run fine although the newer one needs rear brake maintenance. But both look good, run well, and live in a garage, so I’ll keep on keeping on with them.

Just like my ‘puter.

2

Waste

It was a lot of waste.

Morgan was uncomfortable. It felt unnatural. All these years of recycling and trying to reduce waste. Now he was piling it outside.

“There.” Grinning in delight, ogling their pile of junk, Joyce backed away from it. “That’s a pretty good pile of junk and garbage.”

His wife peered up into the sky. “When are they supposed to come?”

“Any time.” Exasperation frosted Morgan’s tone. This had been explained numerous times. “They know it’s here. They’ll come and get it.”

Joyce answered, “Why can’t they tell us when?”

That, too, had been gutted as a topic. “I don’t know.”

He and Joyce studied their pile. Old printers and laptops. Unused televisions. Rugs. Boxes of junk. Old paint. Bags of shredded personal papers. Joyce insisted they be shredded. She didn’t trust the aliens. Like, what did she think was going to happen? These extra terrestrials from another solar system had come to Earth to steal their personal information?

It was good that they’d come. First, they cleaned all the oceans, and then junkyards. They paid well for everything.

“This is a great place,” a leader, Galic, said in a televised press conference.

Galic was a gorgeous black woman. Every female alien he’d seen was eye-watering stunning. He’d not seen any males among the ET, formally known as Porqzens. R-Q-Z was pronounced as a hacking sound.

Galic said, “We love your junk. We’ll take all of it that you can give us.” They were also eager to tear down houses, buildings, and bridges not in use. They wanted it all. “We’ll you if you want. Gold, dollars, diamonds, crypto. Just name it.”

Not everyone liked it. “Why are they doing this? What do they want it?” Mostly conservatives were asking these questions because Galic told them, “We’ll reprocess it to create materials and energy. We’re already so efficient that we have no waste.”

Humans weren’t appeased. They had reasons behind their doubts. “How do we know they’re real?” GOP Presidential candidate asked. “What if they’re taking all these resources to build machines to take us over? What about the recycling and garbage disposal companies? They’ll all go out of business. That’ll put unemployment up.”

Others speculated, “This is a liberal trick. There are no aliens. They’re using these materials to secretly build death rays and disintegration guns. They’re gonna use the disintegration guns to take away all our guns.”

Yes, it was a pickle.

Flat-earthers were freaked. “The Porqzens are Underworlders. They’ve lived on the other side of the planet, the bottom. They’re coming to take us over.”

Morgan didn’t care. All he had to do was put his junk at his curb for pickup? Lot easier than loading it up, hauling it to the various places, and unloading it. And they were paying him, instead of him paying them? Groovy.

A Porqzen popped into the space in front of Morgan and Joyce. Gorgeous, of course. Tight dark red outfit. Looked like leather. Blonde. Smile like a billion watts.

“Hi, Morgan and Joyce. I’m Zugar. We’re taking your waste now.” She handed them dark goggles. “Most people want to see it happen, so we provide these goggles. Please cover your eyes so the light doesn’t hurt them.”

Morgan and Joyce did. Through the lens, Morgan witnessed a dull light cover his pile. Looked purplish under the lens. Stayed there for about five seconds.

“That’s it,” Zugar said. “All gone. You can take your goggles off. Those are yours to keep for future pickups.” She whipped out a slim wallet and counted paper money out. “One thousand dollars, as agreed. It’s the minimum, I’m afraid.” She sounded like she meant it.

Joyce took the money. She and Morgan stared at it.

Zugar said, “It is real U.S. currency.” She laughed. “We sold a bucket of leftover lithium to the U.S. government.” She handed Morgan a card. “Just call us when you’re ready for your next pickup. Any questions?”

The humans shook their heads.

“Then I’ll take my leave. You all have a great day.” With a small bow and a bright smile, Zugar disappeared.

“Well, that was easy,” Joyce said. “She looked like Farrah Fawcett, don’t you think?”

Morgan nodded. “Do you think we’ll ever go to their planet?”

0

Saturday’s Wandering Thought

Their household waste keeps declining. It’s a judgement he makes by observing how much is being rolled to the curb. Garbage collection is every week. They usually have less than a full bag to put in there. Recycling, done every two weeks, is typically less than a quarter full.

It’s like their waste is wasting away. It probably helps that they’re in their mid-sixties. They’re no longer inundated with mail inviting them to a new credit card, offering funeral or cremation services, hearing aids, living trusts, cable and satellite television connections, Internet deals, financial management services, or offers to join AARP. It’s just another way in which growing older pays off.

7

The Prisoner Dream

Sooo…I’m on a ship. Never see it, just know that I’m onboard something. It’s huge, apparently.

I’ve been captured and I’m being transported. Zip ties bind my hands, along with my two companions. Either via dream mechanics or I’ve forgotten what transpired, I’m then free of my ties, then lose the two people with me. I know my captors are tracking me. I sneak through this big vessel, going through sections housing people sitting in roads, following a washed-out dirt road, slipping through a jungle…

As I go, I observe the passengers. They’re also prisoners. None are bound in any way. It looks like they’re just taking a flight, traveling somewhere. I know better. Seeing a huge piece of cardboard, I realize that there’s a lot of waste and that we prisoners can utilize this waste to improve our situation. Food is hidden in different locations which we can eat, and there are materials we can use as clothing or to build shelters.

I try explaining to other prisoners what I’m thinking. Most don’t understand. Worse, they speak very loudly. One young woman finally understands me and tells the others. Going, “Oh, I see,” they lift a corner of the cardboard and see a pile of uneaten food. They all start passing food out and eating.

I hurry on because I know my captors are still after me. I come to a chute. In it, I find packaged food and help myself. Taking three of them with me, I move on.

I come to a sandy stretch. Not sure if it’s a desert or part of beach or something else. Briefly, I think, should I go through this? Am I going the right way?

I decide to go on because going back doesn’t seem feasible. As I trudge through the hot white sand, I became aware of small things fluttering around me. They’re on the sand and become airborne as I walk by them. They have wings, I see, and think that they look like very small, winged people about the size of ladybugs. All are white, in white clothing. As they fill the air around me, I see that all are females. They start landing on me, leaving small sand deposits. I start swatting them, trying to keep them away, and dust the sand off, and then I ‘know’ that they’re actually treating illnesses in me. I go still, because that will help them. The sand is gone. I’m instead in green water. The little fairy women are still treating me.

Dream end.

0

Dandelions

I was eating some dandelions the other day. It wasn’t quite a whim. It’d begun with yard work.

We have lawns. We don’t pesticides or fertilizers on them, except some fertilizer from our compost barrels. We compost a lot of kitchen waste.

I used to pull the weeds from my lawn. We stopped doing that as we read about the bee decline and witnessed how the bees enjoyed our dandelions. Butterflies, too. But, for fire reasons, we cut the grass back to four inches high. That height also protects the roots so watering the lawn isn’t required often. In the even of drought or water shortages, of course, the first thing I do to save water is to stop watering the grass.

While I was doing the back yard cutting the other day, I was taking stock of all the dandelions we had. I knew that people used to eat dandelions as part of a basic diet and wondered about dandelions’ health impact and their taste. To the Google! Sites claim that dandelions are tremendously healthy. Here’s an excerpt from Nutrition-and-You.com:

  • Certain chemical compounds in fresh dandelion greens, flower tops, and roots are known to have antioxidant, disease preventing, and health promoting properties.
  • Fresh dandelion leaves carry 10,161 IU of vitamin-A per 100 g (about 338% of daily recommended intake), one of the highest source of vitamin-A among culinary herbs. Vitamin-A is an essential fat-soluble vitamin and antioxidant, required for maintaining healthy mucosa and skin.
  • Its leaves packed with numerous health benefiting flavonoids such as carotene-ß, carotene-α, lutein, cryptoxanthin, and zeaxanthin. Consumption of natural foods rich in vitamin-A and flavonoids (carotenes) help the human body protect from lung and oral cavity cancers. Zeaxanthin supposed to possess photo-filtering functions and therefore, may help protect the retina from harmful UV rays.
  • The herb is an ideal source of minerals like potassium, calcium, manganese, iron, and magnesium. Potassium is an important component of cell and body fluids which helps regulate heart rate and blood pressure. Iron is essential for red blood cell production.The human body uses manganese as a co-factor for the antioxidant enzyme, superoxide dismutase.
  • It is also rich in many vital vitamins including folic acid, riboflavin, pyridoxine, niacin, vitamin-E and vitamin-C that are essential for optimum health. Vitamin-C is a powerful natural antioxidant. Dandelion greens provide 58% of daily recommended levels of vitamin-C.
  • Dandelion is probably the richest herbal sources of vitamin-K; provides about 650% of DRI. Vitamin-K has a potential role in bone strengthening by promoting osteoblastic activity in the bones. It also has established role in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease patients by limiting neuronal damage in the brain.

Sounds impressive. Curious about how they taste, I went out in the morning, harvested some fresh dandelions from the yard, and chowed down on the raw leaves and flowers.

Turns out that they taste like mildly-bitter Romaine lettuce to me. Super, I thought. I liked being able to eat it because. It’s a great added bonus to helping the bees, and it helps reduce our yard waste. I guess I have a new pastime this year, harvesting dandelions and trying new recipes. Bet they’d be pretty tasty on a grilled pizza.

I’ll let you know.

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