Re-visioning

Is it just my house that believes in the Recycling Fairy??? It's part of the eco-lifestyle, but falls into the repetitive/thankless/invisible work that I seem to have so much to do and so little help. Despite all those well-intentioned Earth Day lectures at school, the kids have no interest in taking on this chore, which usually becomes a frantic race with the recycling truck in the early morning. Bob has adopted the really sloppy not well-sorted tactic which results in the shaming notices and outright refusal from the (apparently) all-powerful recycling guys. It's a cost of competency (mine) and a payoff to the obtuse (his) but somehow it's my job and it sneaks up on me, every time.

We had the motherlode of recycling yesterday, partly because I was out of town for the last one, and since my Dad is visiting we have an awful lot of beer bottles underfoot. It was a truly impressive pile that screams "Intervention!", right from the curb. Charming.

Too bad it didn't stay at the curb.

I was leaving for work and all of the sudden this gust of wind comes up and sends plastic bottles and aluminum cans bouncing merrily down our street. A chase ensues. The air is blue with swearing as I track down every last item. I stack the piles again, with more thought to ballast and loft than previously.

En route to work I was spaced out and late - not a good combo for driving - and then I find my usual trusty route 94 is in fact closed for construction. So I find an alternate route, less familiar. I take the one way street by the onramp, and notice it's a one way WRONG WAY and go flying into an alley just in time. Brain is not functioning, and I left my coffee on the counter where it's doing me no good whatsoever.

I'm muttering about the crappy start to my day when I look up at a railroad overpass which did not have the usual configurations of box cars etc. There were these long, tapered giant white metal shapes on extra-long rail cars and I'm confused at first. And then I get it: blades for wind turbines.

The windy start of my day looks more fortuitous in the big picture.