mad mom

today i am not the softie, the fantasy filled mom flying around the room in her imaginary cape and wand. today i made ricotta cheese and i am high. actually i am probably just feeling my chocolate and coffee in combination with my miraculously sleeping kids, while alas, i am not cleaning or cooking or asleep myself.

i am thankful that i have found motivation to live the slow food life. (next, fresh pasta to go with the fresh ricotta.) attempting to avoid the evil plastic drives me to be more creative. i just wish that i didn’t feel so strongly when plastic tubs or wrappings enter our lives, because, of course, there is no avoiding them. well there is, but i am not so severe, strict, or disciplined to say no to chinese food takeout when we pass by and my kids are hungry, or my mother-in-law kindly offers chicken soup for my flu-besieged hubby (and she certainly isn’t making it herself...). no to lollipops or cheese i can't yet make myself (i haven't made it that far yet) and sadly, the list goes on. so many times a day, it seems, i touch the devil's resin.

now many must think i am crazy and here is the sort of rant that my humor was hiding before:

according to Elizabeth Royte’s, Garbage Land, plastic is “toxic both to make and to dispose of. on the front end, says the EPA, the production of plastic emits the toxins tichloroethane, acetone, methylene chloride, methyl ethyl ketone, styrene, toluene, and I, I, I trichlorethane, as well as sulfur oxides, nitrous oxides, methanol, ethylene oxide, and volatile organic compounds. plastic manufacturers use copious quantities of benzene and vnyl chloride, which are known to cause cancer in humans. ingesting other ingredients of plastic production can lead to birth defects and damage the nervous system, blood, kidneys, and immune system. many of these chemicals are gases and liquid hydrocarbons that readily vaporize and pollute the air; many can cause damage to ecosystems. in an EPA ranking of the twenty chemicals whose production generates the most total hazardous waste, five of the top six are chemicals commonly used by the plastics industry. not surprisingly, plastic resin factories tend to be clustered in low-income communities of color (mostly in the Gulf States, which have easier access to gas lines). OHSA health studies have shown that people who work in and live near plants that manufacture plastics and the chemicals used to make them experience higher incidences of some kinds of cancer than other populations.” pp.190-191.

wowowowowow ow ow ow ow.......

it is rare that reading something changes my life anymore. there is so much wrong with the world, and i have felt that am contributing to it all by continuing to live without serious protest, without words against it all, but worse, without action. so much of it i feel is bigger than me. but the evil of plastic i touch and feel all the time. and it gives me the creeps. every time i throw a plastic wrapping away i think of the growing sea of plastic in the pacific ocean, or the time bombs of landfills that my waste will be going to. for there is no good end of plastic; it can’t be food for anything. toxic to make and toxic to waste. why is it ok to make it? because people make money from it? (the creed of the 80's, greed is good, plasticizes the world) are people amenable because more products can be sold ever more “safely?” ironically, we seem to need ever smaller packages to counter our "super-sized" world. in our quest for an ever more perfect world we will find immortality in our plastic embalmed world. me thinks for halloween i should be the world covered in plastic. hmmmmm ..... maybe next time i will be in the mood to joke about it.

a note to my readers: as i said, it is rare that i read something and it changes my life. i don’t think that i would have taken all this to heart for so long (and this is only the beginning) if it wasn’t for actually writing about doing it, because my intention to try to reduce my contribution to plastic proliferation would probably have faded with so many other grand ideas if it weren't for actually writing this blog and knowing, dear reader, that there is at least another human being out there reading this. You help to give me the power to drudge on...