green jeans

I was catching up on all my Lucky magazines last night—talk about addictive. That rag is like bootleg hooch. You know it'll kill you but you just keep swigging out of that jelly jar like a sad ole rummy.

One thing I kept seeing amidst all the shameless pimping of Gwynnie's must-have macrobiotic pimple cream and Posh's favored $10,000 handbags was something those fashionistas call "green jeans." As far as I can tell, this term refers loosely to a variety of products, from jeans made of American-made organic cotton to jeans made of regular old cotton processed in ecologically responsible mills; jeans made by folks who donate profits to orphanages in India to jeans made by decent people who turn out the lights when they leave the room.

I don't know. Jeans are really hard to get right on a good day. I mean, how many times have you been tricked by those sneaky dressing room mirrors into buying a pair of jeans that seem to promise youth and passion and the open road, only to catch a glimpse of yourself later in a sidewalk window and realize that they make you look like an angry piece of chorizo sausage. A whole lotta times, right?

So how does adding the green to the lifelong search for the perfect jeans make it better for me? It doesn't. In fact, the green requirement pointedly decreases my chances of ever seeing myself in the Jeans That Will Change My Life. So as much as I'd like to play along, doing my part to shop this economy back into fighting shape and save the earth, I'm not going green on this one.

Besides, by my account, Greenjeans was that nice fella who mixed Captain Kangaroo's martinis and provided the home-grown delivery system that fed Bun-Bun's own nasty little Vitamin A dependency. I just don't think you should mess with that brand.

Earth Day is for suckaz

Earlier this week I was getting ready for my Earth Day party. You know, downloading all those "green" recipes from Rachael Ray's website—what an environmentalist that gal is, eh? She's an inspiration. Then I was gathering my earth-friendly party gear—cocktail umbrellas made out of Kleenex and bobby pins; cocktail stirrers ne unfurled paperclips...those festive stripey kinds, preferably; cocktail napkins made out all those big sticky notes you write your grocery list on. I got some of those Sun Chips that now come in profoundly biodegradable packages. And I called all my eco-conscious friends and asked them to bring something "sustainable" to my party.

Here's why Earth Day is for suckaz. Worst party I ever had. All that stuff like disintigrated in people's hands and they were all, "Ew." The food tasted like packing popcorn. And the music just bit. I mean, what do you play at an Earth Day party that will make people unbutton their shirts to their underpants and dance dirty? Clearly I have no idea. No one danced and people just looked bummed about how screwed up the earth is. Oh, sorry, the Earth is.

So as soon as someone started a whisper rumor that global warming was a hoax, my guests got pissy and, you know, left. And then I was stuck with all those sustainable snax I had to package up in plastic containers that'll poison my family tomorrow in the microwave. But we'll eat 'em, dammit, because sustainable snax are a terrible thing to waste.

The worst part of my Earth Day was when my son told me I was his primary source of environmental news. And then he made those teenage-cruel quotation marks with his fingers, meaning, I guess, I'm NOT his primary source of environmental news. That really hurt my feelings.

Anyway, for me—which is pretty much what this is all about in the auto-environmentalism movement—today was a total bust. No good grub, no grinding, no buzz, my kid meanly humoring me, and no one saying inappropriate stuff they ask me the next day to help them "reposition." For me, a party ain't great unless I'm horrified by a few things that happened, not the least one or two of my own things. This time, je ne regrette rien. See what I mean? So sad.

the G-20 and me

You know, I really wanted to do that Lights Out America thing last night, but even if I used my CSI flashlight, I wouldn't have been able to pick out a cute outfit to wear to the G-20 Summit in the dark. I know this meeting is supposed to be all about money and global economic stimulus and what have you. But you can be sure at some point, some snivelly European country or Brazil is going to bring up the environment and then people will start throwing shoes and stuff at the Americans and I just want to be there to back up my homey, our President Obama.

He's taking alot of crap stateside right now from Rush and Glenn and Ann and Paul Krugman. He doesn't need those G-20 punks making him look bad, too. You know those crunchy, European Union hairy-legs will be marching around outside where we're having our big meeting (sorry, I can't tell you where it is....top secret government stuff) and there'll probably be some PETA freaks there, too, what with all the scrumptious fur coats people were wearing around at our President's inauguration. That's where I come in. My kid taught me how to do a smokin' roundhouse this weekend, so I'm going to put on a pair of yoga pants and run interference for our Commander-in-Chief on the street. It's the least I can do.

After that party breaks up, I'll make a quick stop at Boots to stock up on important items, then I'll head straight back from London. When I get home, I'm going to be super-busy doing all my Earth Day cooking. More on that later!

feeling lucky

I love contests. Not the kind that involve skill, the kind that involve chance. Crazy, lovable, random chance. So I enter contests to win a new kitchen, new luggage, trips to warm places, Mario Batali cookware, a year's worth of Alpine Lace cheese, batteries, 25 gallons of paint, and Greenie dog chews, to name just a few choice prizes I've pursued.

I recently entered a contest every single day for 48 days hoping to win a dream house in Sonoma (that's it above). I was so sure I was going to win that one. Every time I closed my eyes I could see myself wearing a cute outfit, sitting in a comfy chair on the porch of my shiny new $2 million Victorian-style farm house, admiring the shiny new GMC Acadia Crossover that came with it, soaking up the California sunshine and sipping the yummy wine that flowed straight out of my kitchen faucet. I'm pretty sure the wine comes out of the faucet there. Instead some lady named Cheryl in Lakeland, Florida won it and now she's going to be drinking all my yummy wine. I hate Cheryl.

I've won just two contests so far in my life. When I was in the second grade I won a plastic set of golf clubs that made me pee in my pants with happiness. And about fifteen years ago, I won a Timex Indiglo watch, though that had less to do with chance than the inspiring essay I wrote about how as an insomniac, I would die without my Indiglo. It would have brought a tear to your eye, man.

You'd think I'd lose hope, after entering all those contests and receiving so little reward. Not that those golf clubs weren't The Best Ever. But I don't give up, I never give up. Every day, I get back on that horse and enter a new contest because every day—any day—could be my lucky day. So this morning, for example, I entered a contest for an awesome product called SelectAFlush, which is a nifty doohickey that will retrofit my existing water-hog of a toilet into a dual flush wonder that will save thousands of gallons of water a year! As I understand it, the SelectAFlush allows me to choose just how big a flush I need every time I, you know, visit the library. I'm not at all clear if I have to actually touch something every time I make this choice. Ew. Still, this baby is American made and I can install it myself!

I figure winning the SelectAFlush will allow me to postpone my plan to install an anaerobic digester in the backyard so my family will get their keisters off the couch and take care of their business in the Great Outdoors. I've been saving up for the digester by charging for toilet paper. You know how those Englishers have to drop a shilling in the meter for a half hour of heat? They usually just put on another sweater. I promise, when your gang is paying a nickel a square, their days of clogging up the loo with wads of Charmin are over.

Anyway, I'm feeling lucky about this SelectAFlush. Fingers crossed for me!

no, I never wondered

This article in the Times food section yesterday cracked me up. A fellow known as Harold McGee, who refers to himself as "The Curious Cook," prattled on and on about whether we really need to use so much water when we cook pasta. He earnestly suggested that using less water than the typical 4 to 6 quarts per pot of pasta would save several trillion BTUs at the stovetop, which translates to a half a million barrels of oil. Give or take. Now I'm already not buying his obviously drunken cocktail napkin math, mostly because it sounds ridiculous and improbable. And because he sounds way too much like Andy Rooney whining, "Didja ever wonder why we use so much water to cook our noodles?" If this article was 60 Minutes, I'd have already clicked away to a MacGyver rerun. (Didja ever wonder why they won't sack that miserable goober Andy Rooney already?)

Anyhow, I decided to keep reading, primarily because Mr. McGee indicated he was going to pester the Big Mama Mias of Italian cooking, Marcella Hazan and Lidia Bastianich, about his little egghead theory and I reckoned Lidia would smack him upside the head for me. Instead, both Lidia and Marcella agreed to experiment with using less water, even though you and I both know they had much better things to do. Upshot? Marcella reported that yes, you can do it, but you have to spend all your time stirring the pasta so it doesn't stick, so you're using less water but expending more effort. And Lidia said, "Yeah, sure, I guess you can do it. Now beat it, buster." Hardly ringing endorsements of his brainy less-pasta-water technique.

Bottom line: When we saved Italy's bacon in WWII we were promised we could use all the cool, clean water we want to cook those piles of tasty pasta we brought home with us. And if God wanted us to use less water to cook our spaghetti, He wouldn't have given us those awesome pots the nice kids at Williams Sonoma will sell you. One of those babies can cook three pounds of pasta at a time, you know! This is America. More is better. And less is almost always, well, less.

my CSI flashlight

A few nights ago, we woke up in the middle of the night to discover that our power was off. Normally no big deal but it's 17 degrees out and you don't want your pipes bursting while you're waiting for the ConEd guys keeping the seats warm at Dunkin Donuts to figure out that the power is down for five square miles, you know?

So I got out the awesome CSI flashlight Santa gave me for Christmas, found my cellphone, and called the electric company. As promised, a truck was there in 20 minutes and the power was back on within a couple of hours. Before I went back to sleep, I took back my mean thoughts about the ConEd guys goldbricking at Dunkin Donuts.

In the morning, I saw that the utility pole at the end of our driveway had been broken just about in half by a wayward dark green Acura. This I knew because my handy CSI flashlight (which we all know solves crimes best in broad daylight) revealed the various telltale car parts the driver had left behind in his hurry not to be arrested by the cops who NEVER patrol our neighborhood looking for those fun-loving kids who spend every Friday night knocking over mailboxes with a baseball bat. Of which the driver of this dark green Acura was one, I easily ascertained with a quick look up and down my street. More than half of the mailboxes were dangling from their posts like a first-grader's loose tooth.

Well, well, the little turd had missed my mailbox and destroyed his car. Yeehaw, surburban justice! I mean, gee, I hope he's okay. Of course, the taxpayers or ConEd or, more likely, little ole me gets stuck paying to replace that handsome utility pole. Still, I like to think of this as a little lesson his mommy and daddy forgot to teach him. Tee-hee.

Anyway, back to my neat flashlight. Sometimes, to conserve electricity, I like to watch CSI in the dark. With those kickass flashlights they're all carrying and those glowy forensic substances they use to find fingerprints and blood and other Vegas-style bodily fluids, it's like sitting in front of a cozy fire—who needs lights! It makes me want to put on my fuzzy slippers and make a nice cup of hot cocoa. When I'm feeling extra conservy, I carry around my CSI flashlight 24/7 so I only have to switch on the lights when I can't find the TV clicker! And playing a friendly game of flashlight tag with a CSI-style weapon? Shock and awe, baby, shock and awe.

To get one for yourself, go to www.csiflashlights.com. You can also get a professional grade crime scene investigation kit for a cool $4895. Sweet.

clotheslines

We had a few 60-degree days last week, here in the land of endless winter. It was such a good thaw that the four inches of ice that has covered my driveway for three weeks finally disappeared. Ice? Oh, you know, the ice from that one snowstorm when SOMEONE neglected to shovel the driveway and then it rained and the snow turned to ice so thick you couldn't bust it up with a pile-driver. I have fallen on that ice five times, bruising my tailbone, bonking the back of my head, and twice sliding into a homeplate of fresh dog poop SOMEONE ELSE neglected to pick up, even though it's HIS dog. But I digress.

This warm spell got me feeling cheery, hopeful, ambitious in a home-makery kind of way. So I got out my old clothesline, strung it up between two big trees in my back yard and dried a load of towels. Oh, pioneer!

I love everything about drying laundry on the line. I love the old cotton rope, the faded wooden clothespins (the ones that look like little soldiers, not the ones that look like binder clips), the saggy old clothespin bag, the creaky old pulleys. I'm sure there are all kinds of new-fangled, eco-friendly outdoor drying systems on the market right now, probably made of recycled plastic grocery bags or old duct-tape wallets or something. But that stuff's just not for me. My clothesline has to be the real thing, banging and squeaking like an old screen door.

Everyone knows that sheets dried on the line smell approximately like heaven will smell, if we somehow manage to get there. And because of that good-smelling factor—and, of course, the dozen or so BTUs we're saving for the folks who really need them—we can forgive the fact that towels dry so rough outside that they can draw blood when you're wiping down after a shower.

My favorite part about drying clothes on the line is how deeply therapeutic it is. Hauling that heavy, wet load up from the basement, dragging it outside all by yourself because SOMEONE won't help you, clipping each piece up on the line one by one for what seems like an hour but is probably only 55 minutes, trying not to be mortified by how dingy and miserable all your stuff looks when you see it in broad daylight. I wonder, is there anything sadder than the sight of your own underwear drying on the line? Still, the whole experience is like a Zen koan. Really.

So I encourage you to give this a try. It may seem like alot of trouble, especially when your nifty dryer is right there next to your washing machine, just begging to do the job the Good Lord meant it to do. But the real benefit—knowing you've done a little something right by this planet—truly outweighs all the effort. Plus, if you put the kids to work hanging laundry, it gives them something better to do with their hands than texting their creepy friends all day.