Today is Duncan’s birthday — his 3rd! He is a wonderful dog. Sweet, relatively obedient, and incredibly lovable.
The Birthday Boy!
But I went a bit overboard with doggie treats for this good boy this year. So I figured I’d share them with his friends at the park. In a way that would be good for the earth. In a way that positively shouts “DOG!” I made doggie goodie bags!
OK, in the stupidest way possible. I used biodegradable dog poop bags, and filled them full of delicious brown dog treats. That way, if I missed any of the morning friends Duncan and I usually walk with, I could leave one on their car.
A dog poop bag filled with brown stuff, left on a car. What could possibly go wrong?
Luckily for me, we saw his friends, and they and their parents were delighted by the goodie bags. They didn’t think me weird for
Making doggie goodie bags,
Using poop bags for party bags; or
Expecting that if they found one of these on their car that they would open it up and feed it to their dog.
Earth Day. The Science March (which I sadly can’t attend until Science gets around to curing my damn Crohn’s Disease). My late sister Judy’s birthday. So I’m reposting this. Hey – Jude believed firmly in recycling!
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She’s been gone now for 17 years, Jude. Not a day has gone by since that I haven’t wanted to talk with her, laugh with her, or, alternatively because she was my sister, smack her. There really isn’t a relationship like you have with a sister. Even long after they are gone.
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Today, April 22, is Earth Day! It’s the Anniversary of the very first Earth Day. Here is Walter Cronkite’s report on the first Earth Day, 1970:
It would also be my late sister Judy’s 65th birthday.
Whoever made the decision to turn Judy’s birthday into Earth Day chose wisely. Judy was a born environmentalist and recycler.
On the first Earth Day, Judy was a new, very young mother who believed in saving the planet. She was the first “environmentalist” I ever knew personally, and well, I thought she was nuts. There was a recycling bin in her kitchen for as long as I can remember. And this was back when recycling took effort. She believed in gardens, not garbage, and she made life bloom wherever she was.
“I’ve got kids,” she’d say. “It’s their planet too!”
But years later, Judy took recycling to a whole different level when she helped people recycle themselves. In the 1990s, Jude, who was then living in Florida, began working with the Homeless, assisting at shelters. Then she actively began trying to help homeless vets food, shelter and work — to enable them to jump-start their lives.
When she died in early 2000, the American Legion awarded her honorary membership for her services to homeless vets. A homeless shelter was named in her honor. So she’s still doing good works, my sister is. That would make her wildly happy.
Jude also gave me the Beatles. So it is very appropriate that they wrote a song for her.
You see, the night the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, it was MY turn to choose what we were going to watch. And we were going to watch the second part of The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh starring Patrick McGoohan on the Wonderful Wide World of Disney. My four (all older and MUCH cooler) siblings were furious with me. But I was quite insistent. You might even say that I threw a Class I temper tantrum over it, but I wouldn’t admit to that. Hey, I was seven. And it was my turn to choose. Fair is fair, especially in a big family with only one TV.
Somehow, Judy talked me out of my turn. She was always very persuasive. Thanks Jude.
FiftyFourandAHalf 