A Mother’s Journal

Well, I didn’t really go dumpster diving.  Not really.  Even though after I talked to my mom on the phone about it, she said, “Lynn, please don’t fall into a dumpster.”

“Mom, I won’t.  You cannot fall into these.”

Actually what I did, my dear readers, was swing by the huge recycle bins on the way home from taking Michaela to camp this morning.  It’s a fun outing, yessiree.  There’s actually a rack where people can place perfectly good books and magazines for others, rather than dumping them into the huge metal bins that are all closed up except for little rectanglar windows all around at about head height.  (A perfect size to get stuck in.)

Oh, I’ve been by there before and found magazines and books.  Today, however, I just felt a little more curious.   I felt like throwing caution to the wind!  And I was not the only one.   There was a lady already there, older than me, with a heavy steele crate for standing on and a garden rake for digging things out.  We had a time talking and looking!  The bin was full of unread Sunday newspapers.  Coupons.  Yes.  Free.  Yes.  I also got several July 2011 magazines (can you say free?) and an old magazine about the Blue Ridge Mountains that had a lot of pretty graphics inside.  I actually did want to get into the dumpster and go through the books and magazines and even the bin with just mixed paper.   There were some amazing-looking books at the bottom that even that lady’s garden rake couldn’t reach.  And some looked like they were written in Japanese.  (Mom, if I fall in, I won’t tell them my real name.)

It got me to thinking about all that we waste in this country.  I know from working in retail, especially in grocery retail, that a lot of food gets thrown out.  Employees are not allowed to touch it!  And people who could use it don’t know about it.  It’s sad. 

I will be sure and let you know if decide to become a professional dumpster diver.  I mean, it could happen.  Stranger things have happened right here on this blog.  For one, I recently moved away from The Little Wild Garden.

In other news, I carried a little spider out of the apartment and set him free in the shrubs.  I mean, I do love creatures after all.  (Forget about the thousand-legged thing we saw a few weeks ago.  Apparently a whole bunch of them live here because we have seen three more.  And they all met the same fate.  The are not in the creature category.  Sorry.  Anything that looks like a boat with 200 oars off of each side, moving really really fast and looking like it might sting or bite is not a creature.  It is a clear and present danger. )

I will close by saying that the day started out normally.

And then I had a conversation with a bun-bun.   Who knows what I might do tomorrow.