The past week was an interesting mix of The Good (Superbloom), The Bad (Kondo-ing by clearing out more accumulated STUFF) and The Ugly (learning that China is no longer taking any U.S. trash).
THE GOOD California’s unusual weather has yielded a cheering benefit just when we all needed it. After the devastating fire season of last Fall, hundreds of thousands of wildflowers are putting on a stunning show, beginning at the south end of the state and heading northward. Last week we drove 350 miles southeast to the Carrizo Plain, and here’s what we saw:
and for good measure we checked out the elephant seals on the coast.
THE BAD The Kondo-ing of American homes (named after Marie Kondo, author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and host of Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix) is spreading, at least among millennials. You can read about it in a previous blog here, or you can just remember that anything you keep around should “spark joy.” I like the idea of keeping belongings to a minimum but the idea of their sparking joy is a tough one. Toenail clippers? Pretty much a necessity but certainly not a joy-sparker! A secondary effect of Kondo-ing is that charities such as Goodwill are being inundated with clothing, furniture and knick-knacks to the point that they are turning donations away.
THE UGLY Apparently the Chinese have enough trash of their own and no longer find it useful or profitable to take ours. Until recently I recycled diligently, believing that someone somewhere would sort and repurpose our separated plastic, glass and paper. It turns out that, according this article in the New York Times, I may have been naïve.
Nevertheless, I believe it’s important to recycle and will continue to do so. Surely we have the ingenuity in this country (if not the priority) to turn trash into treasure.
But maybe more useful treasures.
Have a good week!
Unattributed photos by moi.
