Seething Lamentations of a Failed Off-the-Gridder

I'd just like to begin this post with a proclamation to write more! Everyday and often.

The Tears for Fears throwback in the title is not an accident folks, I'm just one of thousands of young, idealistic, overeducated post-Gen X Canadians bursting to gripe about my environmental woes online. Maybe I want to stand out or maybe I just have more gripes than most. Or, maybe I'm tired of hearing about people who can squeeze book-deals out of the documentation of a year without Walmart, new shoes or plastic bags. Here I am, toiling away in warm-fridge slush, up to my bamboo sports bra in worm castings, boiling my diva cup reading Wendell Berry essays by the light of a beeswax candle, seven devoted people (if that) reading my dubious blog and not a book-deal in sight. I'm no patron saint of environmental ethics but I'm giving it a valiant effort and might as well blog about it.

About an hour ago it happened, I caved into the pressure being hurdled at me by the strange smells being emitted from my kitchen, and my fridge is now back in the loving arms of Hyrdo Ottawa. While this accoustic fridge train has been a great ride, I just got off at the last station. My friend Bedford says that after 21 days of doing something everyday, it can either turn into a really good, or a really bad habit. This experiment lasted about that long, with similar results.

I don't want to leave it on a sad note, so I'll begin with what were the lows of this unplugged session of my life:
1) Far Too Many New Roommates-if any of you can fathom the particularities of the tiny granny flat that I exist in, you'll know it's not big enough for one human, hundreds of contained, compost-eating red wrigglers, and several dozen large ants. Three is a definite crowd and one of those parties needed to move on. (me being the sole bread-winner and rent-payer, I was not going anywhere) Although I cannot be certain that it was my powerless fridge situation that caused the precocious little creatures to move in on my turf, the timing sure was uncanny. What was a self-proclaimed all-creature-lover to do? At first I welcomed the little buggers, but when it seemed like they were reacting famous battles on my ceiling I had had enough, and the bloodshed began. I was stomping ants like it was harvest time. How had my little power-saving endeavour come to end in such gore? Did these ants deserve to die because I wanted to proclaim myself an uber-environmentalist preparing for life back on the land? Those ants, environmental martyrs, every last one of them. May they rest in peace as new matter for my worms to decompose.

Ok I'm pretty sure this blog was never intended to be so graphic, but it is a well-known fact that everybody poops, especially red wrigglers hopped up on old red-thai curry. I must press on.

2) Simply put, my veggies were starting to taste like the compost smells. Combine this with a cramped space in the middle of winter and my litte house has begun to smell less like patchouli and more like a bum. A powerful motor pumping cold air into the fridge all the time will fix that. Farmer's market fresh.

What good could have come from this experiment?
1) Hello? Obviously the impetus for this blog, which you will now subscribe to. And love every minute of it. (uh...)

2)A happy exercise in life-shake-ups. I needed a little boost of how things once were (modern refrigeration is less than a century old) Plus I realized how dependent on this device we have all become. I do admit, it keeps veggies and yogurt delightfully more fresh than warm ziplocked-ice-blobs. Think about all the houses on your street, and all the shops and grocery stores nearby, the motors running refrigerators are endlessly humming, using up resources to keep our veggies(which were trucked in on a refrigeratorated flatbed from a gazillion food miles away spewing fossil fuels along the way) fresh-tasting and ant-free! That is a lottta motors, folks. It was a great learning journey, more exciting than having the entire BBC Planet Earth series on hold at the public library, and I'm glad I went on it.


Well I must get back to my fridge re-organization before the almond milk I begrudgingly purchased freezes (future book-deal: my year without tetra-paks). I'll be back to shake up your life and gross you out tomorrow!