Thanks for the photo!

Oh, and thanks to my good friend Pietro for the new title bar photo.

Bike Log

Biked three days to work this week. Stayed home one day, but ordered pizza, since too sick to shop/cook. So I won't count that fourth day. So we did better this week than the previous two.

Tag saled this a.m. Problem is, once something is junk to me, it pretty much is by everyone else's definition, too. Made enough to pay for the pizza we had earlier in the week. But, we haven't made much progress in decluttering, although our catsitter for last weekend reflected that the place seemed cleaner than it had in a while. If only it were still as clean now as it was then! Guests are coming tomorrow, and I still don't really have much energy to put into spiffying up the place. Sitting out in the sun at the tag sale was about my speed for today.

LP did get the trash out this morning, and did some dishes, but it's still pretty grim here. If only my mental level of acceptable clean matched what we are willing to do on a regular basis. Unfortunately, some of my mom's mad cleaning skills rubbed off on me, at least enough for me to feel ashamed when people actually see how we live. Not enough to really do the weekly cleaning to avoid that feeling, though. Sad.

Have been enjoying a book discussion on CHE recently, and now have a short list of books to look for next time at library. Am looking forward to having some leisure reading time this fall.

Cyber Car Trials in UK

How cool is this?
"A driverless car which is controlled by computer and uses lasers to avoid obstacles is being demonstrated in a Northamptonshire town.

Daventry is investigating ways to increase the use of public transport and reduce reliance on cars.

The town council believes the Cybercars, which are called by pressing a button on the route and go direct to their destination, could be the answer."

Also, have a look at this site if you are interested in supporting renewable energy and changing your lifestyle to prove it.

" Begin by learning about our four key action areas. Then use our MyWatts^TM Renewables Estimator to evaluate your own renewable energy potential. Finally, take action by changing behavior and adopting renewable energy technology."

Lastly, if you blog, think about how you might contribute to Blog Action Day on October 15.
"On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future."

Spread the word!

Sunday cat blogging

Hi. I have an important question. Sorry, no fun pictures. We are trying to be green, as you may have guessed with my recent posts on biking and car use. We also have cats. Two for now, maybe outsourcing one soonish. I just cleaned out the litter boxes. We have resolved to try to do this more often (we often make this resolution).

In any case, here's the deal: currently we use plastic bags from the market, but sometimes recently we get low on these, as we are trying to bring our own reusable bags. Someone recently suggested on CAP that folks use smaller bags from grocery purchases for this: bags from bread or other products, not the bag you put groceries in at the checkout. I like this idea, and I think it will work for us as we do unfortunately buy a number of processed foods that come in a plastic bag of one sort or another. And, it seems to me that if we clean the litter boxes more often, the size of the bags is less of an issue.

We have friends who use something like a diaper genie for cats to control odors once the box has been scooped. This seems like a great idea for apartment living, and hey, even in a house, who wants the place to smell like cat? But it doesn't seem very green. Currently our back porch is the stinky poop warehouse where scooped, bagged litter waits for the biweekly trash pick up. ew. So, we are going to try bagging the prizes and putting them in a big plastic container while they wait. But, I am still looking for a better way: less stinky, and greener. We currently use Arm and Hammer, which comes in a big, heavy weight cardboard box. We have tried greener litter, and the cats don't like it, plus the odor control is an issue, even with frequent scooping.

a) Is there a litter that is similar to Arm & Hammer Multi Cat, but that comes in a paper bag?
b) What do you know about other options for cat waste? I like the idea of the cat learning to use the toilet, but I've heard that in some states (CA?) this is illegal, for environmental reasons. What are those reasons? Is it better to go this route and thereby avoid the good/bad litter debate? Or would we just be polluting the sewage system by doing this?

Seems to me that training the cat to use the toilet would help us avoid having to use the plastic bags at all, help with the odor problem, help with the never-ending resolution to keep the boxes nicer for the cats. But. I don't want to be the person putting something toxic into the system, if it won't work with current sewage treatment methods....

Oh. yeah.

Rode my bike two days last week, one day this week. Driving too much this weekend. I suck.

The Princess and the Goblin

Recently on CHE forums, folks were discussing appropriate ages for reading certain types of books. Someone was asking whether they should tell a fairly conservative neighbor what exactly was in the book their 6th? grader was reading, and the general consensus was STFU. But, it got me thinking about stuff I read at various ages, and whether or not I felt I had been scarred. And, I generally thought 'not.' For example, I remember reading "Sophie's Choice" when my mom had, which must have been around fourth grade. There were just a lot of parts for which I had no reference, and therefore read through in a bit of a haze. Not the concentration camp part. I had been to Dachau with my family when I was 7. I knew about that. But, the sex and drugs? Not a clue what was happening there. And, although it's a terrible story, I don't think it hurt me to read it then. Although, and this was a point some folks made, I certainly didn't get out of it what I might have if I read it at a later age.

So, even more recently, I was browsing through a localish library site, and came upon some links to books you can check out digitally. I clicked through, and browsed for a while to see what type of books were available in ebook, audio book, etc., formats. And I came upon this.

Which is a book I must have read in 1st or 2nd grade, since I had recurring, well, not really nightmares, more like stress/anxiety dreams based on it for the next 6 or 7 years. Until about 7th grade, when I told someone out loud about it and they laughed. Okay, I told the story to my entire class after prompting from the teacher, and the teacher laughed and made several pointed jokes about it... but that's another story about a whole different kind of scarring. Maybe for another time. I knew the dreams were based on a book I had read, but I had long forgotten (even by 7th grade) which book that was, although I remembered the basic storyline. Now I know.

So, I am now re-reading it. Read along if you like. Beats me how the entire text can be online, and yet if you check out the digital book, there's DRM to deal with.... Mysteries of the technological age!

This just in...

Heat? Makes people cranky. Honestly. And, no. No, that is _not_ what crosswalks are _for_. (re: crossing traffic on a bike.) Really. Crosswalks are for teh pedestrians.

To do list update, since I know you are dying to know:
Biked over to the libraries (both) to return DVDs, and was able to carry maybe a third of the give-away books with me. Was yelled at by cranky lady as making a left turn in hairy traffic (well, ok, hairy for this town). Oh, wait, that wasn't on my to do list. huh. Well, I want credit for it anyway. Subtract health points for the ice cream I stopped for since it was so darned hot, and hey, I wouldn't want to get cranky, right? Called friend en route to stop by and take care of internet thingy, and friend-spouse put the kabosh on those plans, so we rescheduled.

Figured I had some extra time to burn, so rode down to the hardware store to see if they had any of these. They didn't, but said hey, the other hardware store (the one that is like 20 miles away) has them. Ughh, guess that project is not for today, as I was already farther out than I had planned. Picked up some allergy and headache medicine at the nearby drugstore, hit the bike shop on the way to the grocery store to see if they had a nut for my fender, which has been rattling around. They did. Yay, bike shop. Was screamed at by rowdy younguns out of passing car on way to store. (darn near had a heart attack, too. /shakes fist at bad young drivers/ Kids these days!) Stopped at grocery store for milk, veggies, yogurt and some quick fix basic dinner-like fare. Bumped into a friend who was surprised we were back in town (We _have_ been. For months. How sad a commentary is that on how low profile we have been this year?)

Oh, and did I mention that I 'found' a cool little doohickey/set of hooks on my back bike rack that means I can use a freebie bag I got recently as a sorta kinda pannier? Cool. Except I think I hurt the zipper on the bag by stuffing it so full at the store. Bummer.

Folks, please be nice to people on the road. Yelling makes it more dangerous for everyone involved. I know you're just frustrated/young & stupid, but I assume you would be even more inconvenienced if I ended up under your tires.

And so would I.

Bike v. car

Oh, forgot to say: biked to work 3 days out of 5 last week. (Trying to keep myself accountable here.) This weekend, drove a couple of hours (each way) for family visit, so 'undid' all the good biking I've done, and probably then some. On the up side, the car does get much better mileage long distance than on short in-town drives. Still.

Back in town with a summer cold (boo) as of Tuesday, home sleeping it away since then. Off this afternoon to go do errands on bike. Well, I'm hesitating.... could I get the extra books to a donation site today if I took the car? Well, maybe I'll set out on bike to do the first few items on my list, and then see. I'm not really sure how fit I feel after sleeping two days straight, anyhow. To do: help friend uninstall internet service; return DVDs to library; pick up milk and maybe something good to eat for dinner; take stacks of unwanted books to other library for book sale.

Mmmm, brownies!

Vacation, yay! Visited with family last weekend to kick things off. We had watermelon, an afternoon at the lake, general hanging out, and..... brownies! We brought brownies to the cookout, and since I thought one pan wouldn't be enough, we made two.

So I got to experiment. One made according to the recipe on the box. (You didn't think I'd make them from scratch, did you?) One made substituting apple sauce for the oil. Interesting. The applesauce not only changes the texture (rubbery), but affects the taste (less chocolatey). Too bad. So we were trying to imagine what would fix this. I think, cooking less long than the directions suggest would be a good start. And, I would add some chocolate/cacao to compensate.

So I stopped at the store on the way home and picked up two more boxes of the same mix. I'm such a scientist at heart, really. Has nothing to do with chocolate. And I made a batch two days ago. Not very brownie-like, but a yummy dessert! I put in a full cup of applesauce (that's 1/3 cup more than the oil required), about two cups of cocoa mix (a high end version, with cane sugar, cinnamon and a bit of chile), and cooked it at the same temp, but for only 21 minutes in a 9x11 pan. The body of the brownie has a better texture, and the very top layer is sticky, almost fondant-like. Very chocolatey! We ate them with a thick Greek yogurt that tastes a bit like fromage blanc. A little sugar on top of the yogurt made it even better the second night. So, not a great solution for a healthy brownie! But, a pretty yummy variant.