Choice Forces Conservation

While traveling in our RV instead of always stopping at places to hook up to water, electric and sewer, we dry camp. We save money and think of environmental concerns. Our unit is self-contained and made for this specific purpose. Our RV has all the comforts of upholstered sofas, full kitchen and bathroom and a king size bed along with the basics of heat, lights and indoor plumbing.

Along with comfort though, the storage tanks for propane, fresh water, gray water (used bath and sink water) and black water (sewer) have limited capacity. We take extra care to monitor or use and stay in campgrounds once every week to empty, refill and do laundry.

The benefit we enjoy is the variety of backyards in the mountains, near lakes and rivers, in forests and in RV parks within city limits for the urban vibe enjoyed mostly by loft/high-end apartment dwellers.

A better awareness of how our choices affect the environment helps us be more careful. Critical effort breaks the use-withou-consequences mentality.

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Building a Boomerang

Our design date was a challenge to make a boomerang that will fly from scrap and trash. Having fund and environmental awareness can happily coexist especially when we can use items that often become trash for our projects.

My honey remarked, “This project would be easier if I could carve mine out of wood.” He made a good point and echoed some of the arguments against cleaning up our collective industrial act. Rethinking how we do things when old ways work efficiently takes time, effort and often money.

We vowed our project would only require our time and effort to have fun. We spread our materials across the living room floor: milk jugs, newspapers, pie tins, twigs and other assorted junk. Even though we were pretending this wasn’t a competition, we both knew we wanted to create a boomerang that would fly and return to us. Yes we want to win and therefore didn’t work together just observed and made occasional comments.

He worked on a design with layers of cardboard and plastic that looked like a traditional boomerang. My design is based on three blades that I hope will fly like a helicopter. We agreed I excelled at creative use of materials including a milk jug, yogurt cups, shiny-paper advertisements and a flour-water paste.

However I’m not sure my contraption will even fly; it ended up looking like a piñata, perhaps because I painted it purple with left-over paint. I expect extra kudos for using the paint because theoretically we should use up paint rather than discarding. I do have hope. I’ve watched videos of people playing with piñatas. They usually fly well and make a great weapon just like the boomerang was originally used.

What I like best about this type of date is that it happens in segments with extra time spent together. Tomorrow - the test flight.

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Concert in the Park

Parks were once a convivial place where people could meet, chat, buy trinkets and enjoy food. A festive occasion with music, kids running around dancing and the family pets sniffing around for abandoned morsels. Concerts in the park revive community spirit to rival the medieval square is sponsored by the cultural districts and other sponsors with. Some are more organized than others with more festivities and some focus on just just the concert.

This means bringing blankets, pillows, lawn chairs, a picnic lunch, perhaps a flying disk or ball to keep the kids and dogs busy and a crank-up flashlight to add magic to the darkness. People arrive early to stake out their territory by placing a blanket on the ground or lawn chairs and relying on the honor system to ensure the claimed space is saved for the concert.

On the last Friday in August, the climax and last breath of the concerts in the park season, one couple arrived with beach chairs, a table and a cooler filled with wine, cheese, crackers and fruit. A man set up a stand and strung a double hammock with pillows. My honey and I brought our folding loveseat and an extra large quilt.

I made a vegan Panini sandwich with almond spread, fresh tomatoes and basil, sautéed squash, onions and eggplant. To drink I put my mint limonada (think fresh squeezed limeade or a mojito sans alcohol) in a thermos. With cloth napkins and glass tumblers we could have been dining at a fine restaurant if that restaurant surrounded each table with live entertainment.

So maybe it wasn’t stare-into-each-others’-eyes and absorb glowing love romance; it was better with vibrant energy, the approval of the community and a chance to huddle (I mean snuggle) together under the quilt when the temperature dropped as soon as the sun slid behind the rocky crags presiding over the park. He put his arm around me. Romance benefits from a community for nurturing.

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