So there's my smiling face, just to your left and above. Actually in the pic my mouth's full of food as we sit down late last winter, I think, for a bite to eat at Elbow Falls in Kananaskis Country. It was the only good head shot I could find of myself when I signed up as a "follower" of another blog, thereby causing the Blogger system to cause the pic to pop up here as well...

Got up early to do stuff today. Usually I linger in the sack and then lounge about with coffee and toast on Saturdays. But today I felt motivated so went forth to the local Superstore where I made a beeline for marked-down baked goods. Found what I was looking for: three loaves of decent, half-price whole grain bread for the freezer. I then bought other stuff (always tons more than one intends) and brought it home.

Then I made my first visit to a Calgary "bottle depot." They don't have blue bins in this city yet, so rely on people taking back two-litre pop bottles (at 25 cents a piece) and the like to commercially-run depots. (In June, milk jugs will be included.) The city also has bin stations for dropping off other recyclables if they feel so inclined.

The Bottle Depot reminded me the Stouffville Recycling Depot in the 70's. We served as volunteers, receiving people's cans and bottles and papers on some pretty cold winter days. (The shed was unheated.) The concept of recycling was pretty much brand new. We also attended (once) the Stouffville Recycling Depot dance. Weird memory.

In those days we were into environmentalism; it was before it had become associated with the far left. To us it seemed the Christian, not the liberal, or the conservative, thing to do: caring for the creation and all that. (Actually in those days I was quite passionate and remember walking around a neighborhood at Christmastime one year, thinking irately about all the people wasting energy with their massive light displays.)

Strange how we change. Today the issue concerns me, but mildly. I seem to have my own personal dwindling energy supply so that getting hepped up about "green" concerns seems beyond me.

We do, actually, live simply, relatively speaking, as it happens, and try to recycle when it's not too much trouble. One of us drives a subcompact three miles to work while the other of us walks.

Fact is, when I think about it (I warm now to the subject) I do, I do, like simplicity of life. I don't, I don't, like waste and it does, it does, bother me to see people wasting fuel. A city not having the political will to set up a proper public transportation system or to have wise urban planning instead of sprawling strip development--these things do still have some resonance deep within, I find (as I pause to think about it). But I still don't see these issues as left-right issues. They're moral--just as somebody living wastefully on a personal level is, according to Proverbs wrong. What's wrong personally and is wrong collectively.

So there still is, somewhere down there, that 22-year-old idealist who felt ticked off at blazing Christmas lights. (Depending on who you are, this, of course, either raises or lowers me in your eyes.)

And now I go forth to do more stuff (this time around the house).