Green Living with Janet Marchant: Your Wonderful Green Bin!

Every Monday evening, my hubby has gone through the chore of dragging our family's Gray Bin, Blue Bin, and Green Bin to the sidewalk. I am thankful that I have him to do this onerous task because they are too big and heavy for me to pull!

As I watched him out the window last week, I thought to myself how nice it was to have a green bin, but that we've got to do something about those other ones. Yes, I'm always thinking about how to be more green!

And then it struck me — Let's just stop using the Blue and Gray bins!
If we put all of our weekly "output" into the green bin, we'll be a greener family for it!

I called up ACI the next morning and I explained my idea. The nice man who answered the phone didn't really understand what I was saying, but he finally caught on when I told him that I wanted to cancel the service for our Gray and Blue bins, and upgrade our Green bin to the EXTRA large size. I think then he finally got what I was talking about, and was glad to help adjust our service. A truck came just a couple of days later to do the exchange.

So now our family is doing Green-only waste management, and it feels great! I encourage all other Alamedans to do the same.

Just to give you a sense of what it's like, I've kept track of what we put into our green bin for the last few days since we started. Here is a list:

- Kitchen scraps: banana peels, egg shells, coffee grounds, orange peels, moldy fruit, chicken bones, pork chops that we left in the refrigerator too long, and so on. I double-bagged these in some heavy- weight "Hefty Bags" so that it wouldn't stink up the bin while it waited to be picked up.

- 3 or 4 hefty-bag-fulls of styrofoam packing peanuts that came with all the stuff we ordered from Wal-Mart.com, our favorite online store! (No need to double-bag these; they don't smell bad at all!)

- Our daughter's old bicycle. (Now that she's going to be a kindergartner, she's getting too old to be riding a bike; I don't think she'll miss it since I've been driving her to all her "summer camp" activities.) Fortunately the bike is small enough to fit into the XL-size bin!

- A couple of hefty bags full of empty containers like juice boxes, cereal boxes/bags, milk cartons, coke cans, and so on.

- Our last old-style "tube" TV. (Yipee! We've finally finished the transition to flat-screen now!)

- A big box of books and magazines that I'm done reading

- A whole bunch of mystery junk that I found under Chad's bed when I finally got around to hauling out his room.

Anyhoo, all of this went into the Green Bin. It's almost full and we have a few more days until pick-up, so I might have to order a second one. That's OK - the more we put into the Green Bin, the more we are helping our Planet!

Agenda-Driven "Newspaper" Tries to Force Us All to Like Squirrels

Editor,

You won't believe the outrageous thing I saw in that crummy excuse for a "newspaper" that I never read! Right there in the July 28th edition, those lousy editors had the nerve to publish something about how wonderful Squirrels are when they are eavesdropping in public. Eavesdropping? Hah! More like collecting intelligence to use against us in the Global War on Squirrels.

By quoting someone saying that Squirrels are wonderful, those agenda-driven "journalists" are trying to force us all to like Squirrels, which is ridiculous. We all know that Squirrels are the opposite of wonderful, and that they are trying to destroy Alameda. Well, I guess they just found another ally for that effort. That "newspaper" must have completely sold out to Big Acorn. I think I'll cancel my subscription, even though it won't be the same opening my door in the morning and not seeing a two-bit "newspaper" that I can kick aside and refuse to read.

Frieda Bellows

Fwd: This Just Makes No Sense

Dear Friends, Editor:

I just happened across an online letter that really has me scratching my head in disbelief. Can anyone tell me if the writer is really serious about this ridiculous claim that Mayor Beverly Johnson wasn't born in Alameda? I mean, I went to school with her from early on, so I know she grew up here, and her family lived here, and I don't see why she wouldn't have been born at Alameda Hospital. Why would anyone make up a story about her having been born outside Alameda, when there isn't even one tiny piece of evidence to suggest that's true?

It doesn't really matter to me whether Mayor Johnson was technically born in Alameda or not, but I'm really puzzled about why someone would think it's so important. If you have any ideas about that, I'd like to know. If you know anyone else who might be able to explain this whole thing, feel free to forward my message to them, but please don't send it in to the news media or blogs or anything like that. I don't want to be responsible for any public fuss over something this silly.

Have a good day,

Chris

Editor's Comments:

The Alameda Daily Noose and I understand that the kids these days sometimes send their letters to the editor to us through the "gee mail" instead of the postal service, but we wish they would at least have the courtesy to use the proper salutation. We understand that every Right-Thinking Alamedan would like to be our friend, but given our tens of thousands of visitors* to our soon-to-be-award-winning daily noosepaper, the logistics are simply impossible. We have corrected the error this time, but next time you may not be so lucky. Oh, by the way, you're welcome.

Jimmy Ward Asks, "Why Do My Parents Hate Ice Cream So Much?"

Dear Mr. Grumbel,

My parents are mean. They say because we are in a bad a conomy, we cant always have five cartons of ice cream in the freezer. I demanded that they always keep all my favrite flavors in the freezer, but they said to stop talking about it all the time, because that much ice cream doesnt fit in our family budget. They are wrong though because it has nothing to do with the budget.

I don't even know how much ice cream costs so how can they say that I'm trying to tell them how much money to spend on it? They should just get the ice cream and then figure out how to pay for it. They'd better not take it out of my allowance though because I need that money. Oh and they better not cancel our cable TV or stop bying Super Golden Crispy Sugar Smacks either cause those are neccessecities.

They won't listen to me which is mean. Why do my parents hate ice cream so much? Ice cream has milk kids need for strong bones so I guess they want my growth to be stunned and break both my legs, but I guess theyd like that cause they probly hate kids too. Mister Grumbel will you tell them that they have to get five cartons of ice cream every week no matter what?

Sencerely,

Jimmy Ward

Editor's Comments:

The Alameda Daily Noose and I think little Jimmy makes some very good points in his hard-hitting grumpy letter to the editor. Isn't it about time Right-Thinking Alamedans started gathering signatures for a ballot measure to mandate minimum ice-cream stocking levels? After all, healthy bones and teeth are too valuable to let crumble away.

Concerned Alamedans: "What Are You Trying to Hide, Mayor Johnson?"

Dear Roger,

As you know, a group of concerned Alamedans has been investigating claims that Beverly Johnson is not eligible to be mayor of Alameda because she is not "a natural born citizen" of our fair Island. We believe that Johnson has been concealing the fact that she was actually born in Oakland. Whether her parents were Alameda citizens at the time is irrelevant—she was born across the estuary, which means she is not legally suited to govern our Fair Isle according to the City Charter!

Due to our pressure, Johnson finally issued her birth certificate, as well as an "It's A Girl!" announcement that appeared in the Alameda Puppy Trainer on Oct. 3, 1958. However, anyone looking at the attached "document" can see that it is a cheap forgery!

What are you trying to hide, Mayor Johnson? It would be so easy to clear up this confusion—just show us your REAL long form birth certificate! If left festering and unanswered, this situation possesses the potential to send our city into a time of great peril, and our group will have no choice but to file suit to challenge each and every one of Johnson's actions as mayor.

Morly T. Aitz

Green Living by Janet Marchant: Dealing with Pesky Bugs and Weeds in the Garden

Here in Alameda we are graced with wonderful weather, and one of the advantages of our temperate climate is that it's a perfect place to have a little garden in your back yard. Of course I wouldn't dare eat any home-grown vegetables or fruits—I'll leave that to the professionals to put dinner on my table, thank you very much—but it's a great place for decorative flowers and bushes to show off your "green" thumb.

Alas, there's always a dark lining around every silver cloud: Our climate also makes it a haven for weeds and insects. These are definitely not part of the plan that God wrote down in the Bible! Did you read about bugs and weeds infesting the Garden of Eden? Of course not!

My least favorite weeds are those little grasses that look like clover—even though they most assuredly are not clover. And my least favorite insects are spiders and, even though they are popular in children's stories, ladybugs. They just give me the creeps.

But this column wouldn't be here unless there was a solution! Now with new eco-friendly pest control from Raid—"kills bugs dead"—and the ever-popular Roundup, you can destroy all weeds and bugs in your garden—in fact, in your entire yard—for generations to come.

So stop by your local nursery or hardware store to stock up on the new "Green" varieties of Raid and Roundup. I recommend one spray can of Raid and one extra-large bottle of Roundup per square yard. Be sure to apply to your entire yard (including any trees) and if you don't mind sneaking into your neighbor's back yard while they are on summer vacation, you can do them a favor by a thorough application there as well!

Roger Rates Recent Interwebcasts

Roger's ratings of meetings initially interwebcast in the past 28 days, with the most recent shown in green:


Corica Have Mercy:




This Is an Outrage:

Regular Meeting of the Alameda City Council
July 21, 2009

Editor's Comments:

There was only one truly nooseworthy event at this meeting, and the Alameda Daily Noose and I have already covered it thoroughly, although it may become necessary to rehash it on a slow noose day in the future.



So Many Things to Get Annoyed About:

Regular Meeting of the Alameda City Council
July 7, 2009


Run-of-the-Mill Shenanigans:

Regular Meeting of the Planning Board
July 13, 2009


Nothing Worth Complaining About: