Decorating Bird

A friend sent me this in reference to my recent yurt decorating frenzy. I had to share the photo, follow the link to read more about the Bower Bird- an actual avifauna who builds these nests unaided.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2010/07/14/128520554/bowerbirds

CFL: Not a bright idea

I have a bone to pick with Al Gore. Yes, I saw his movie, yes I was scared, yes I've been doing my part to solve climate change every since. Just like any other green tinged American I took his number one advice, and began to use compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs in my home. Until now.

Last Friday, I was unscrewing one of those modern looking twisty CFL lightbulbs when it did what many lightbulbs have done before. It broke. In my hand. Over my head. It was at this point that some distant memory of a news story flashed through my brain- mercury my brain murmured to me. Mercury, I thought as I stopped breathing, doing my best to hold my breath until I could exit the room.

My news savvy instincts proved correct and sure enough, and after a quick Google search- mercury was all I thought of for days. You see, those new CFL lightbulbs Al and his climate friendly buddies are pushing onto the public have vaporized mercury suspended within them, and when the bulbs break these odorless colorless invisible droplets of heavy metal burst into the environment and settle, tainting whatever they land on. Now picture me with my hand holding the lightbulb- over my head.

I wanted to share a few cheery highlights I found from the EPA website entitled "Cleaning Up A Broken CFL" http://www.epa.gov/cfl/cflcleanup.html.

#1 Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more. Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.

# 2 Have people and pets leave the room, and don't let anyone walk through the breakage area on their way out.

# 3 If clothing or bedding materials come in direct contact with broken glass or mercury-containing powder from inside the bulb that may stick to the fabric, the clothing or bedding should be thrown away. Do not wash such clothing or bedding because mercury fragments in the clothing may contaminate the machine and/or pollute sewage.

Now, if these tidbits aren't a sell on why you should keep CFLs near your women and children, I don't know what is! I realized as I read this website, that in my choosing to use CFL lightbulbs, I purposely put myself in harms way. Sure, CFL lightbulbs are better for climate change, but what about my unborn children? Mercury, like other heavy metals, is stored in your fatty tissue- and never, that's right never goes away. Aside from the gore of mercury poisoning after sufficient accumulation, there is also the possibility of serious birth defects due to high amounts of mercury in the mother's body.

So, Al, were you weighing the possibility that someday, one of those lightbulbs might break? Or, more practically, that many of them would indeed break, putting millions of people at serious risk in their own home? My major question is to you- why, when there are so many ways to save energy, would you push this one, dangerous alternative as the first thing people should do to stop climate change? Because of your advice, my partner and I spent the weekend calculating how to clean our space without further contaminating other areas. Because of your advice I threw out some of my favorite cloths that, when the bulb exploded in my hand, were irreparably laced with mercury. Because of your advice I now further worry that if I do choose to have kids (a hard enough choice in and of itself) they have a higher chance of a major birth defect due to my body's exposure to mercury.

Al, I will never buy another CFL until there is nothing to fear about them except the minor chance of some innocuous broken glass. Until that day, I'm going to fight climate change the old fashion- by simply turning my lights off more often.

The ladies are back.

Our Dahlias are back... and their too flamboyant not to share!

A Femivore's Future

In two recent conversations I've had with women I consider my elders- people who've been around the block, seen it all, a common theme is emerging. It usually begins with the benign question- So how about you and you're future? What is next, post grad school? This question would have been all well and good a few years ago, when the footloose young twenty-something version of myself would answer confidently- career- of course.

However, something recently has changed. There's a softer edge in my voice. Perhaps it's all of this writing and thinking I've done about how the personal is political, how the individual choices that we make in our lives can affect change as in the case with activism or advocacy. Perhaps it's hormones, growing older, the awareness that at some point I may have to decide if children and family are in my future.

In one of the conversations, my friend was sure that the first wave feminist ideal that women can do everything, be super-moms, have amazing careers and be mothers too- was baloney. She was convinced that her generation had attempted to make that dream a reality and they had ended up with careers that fell short of glass ceilings, and children that had learning disabilities and resented their parents for not spending enough time with them. I've since heard this sentiment echoed from other women of the same generation.

I feel this question is my femivores dilemma. To be a feminist and a food activist. To be someone who truly values the assets the women bring into the world as mothers and home-makers, and who craves to embody many of those qualities. And on the other hand to be someone who has climbed the ladder high enough to know I can affect real change in the world if I'm willing to lend the cause my time.

I've decided that there should be a fourth place in this debate- not pigeon holing women into categories: (those who play traditional feminine roles, those who choose career, or those who attempt career and children) by creating new opportunities instead of forcing women to choose between several flawed paradigms. What about changing the expectations for women who choose to have kids, like honoring child rearing as a skill building activity- not hole in their resume? What about creating the social agreement that co-parenting should be the norm? What about a social safety net that supports working families? We have to reverse the rhetoric, the pressure that's put on women that have to 'choose' between one sad choice and the next.

In short, I didn't have, nor do I have an answer to their question. I do believe however, that my generation will create the answer.