Secondhand Nation

Reuseable Shopping Totes Now at My Target

FINALLY.

I dunno how long they've been available where you live, but I just found these charming little bags, tucked behind the dollar junk display at my local Target, so I picked up three of them.  Apparently they are being disseminated across the country from the West Coast, where they debuted in response to laws in California banning plastic bags.   

How long have I been bitching about this, here and in those customer surveys printed on the receipts?

Of course, my critique of Target won't stop.  I love shopping there too much to quit my petty carping.  Whether it's complaining about their phony "farm" or their lack of information regarding the origins of their "organic" fruit or how they stink up their store with a nasty Starbucks - like any good naggy spouse, I'll be there to grind them down with constant reminders of how they could improve, if they really really wanted to. 

That's really a good model for consumers.  Instead of an entitled, glossy-handbag-wielding princess, perhaps the face we present to Target should be more of a grouchy old wife, ready to poke the produce and sniff at the meat and clout them over the head with our pocketbooks if they try any funny stuff, like trying to take our money, which of course, they are.   

I'm Not a Marketing Ploy...Am I?

Why civilized folk decided to make books and bags out of paper completely confounds me.

Why in the holy hell would you want these two things - things you need to LAST, mind you - to be constructed from a flimsy, disintegrating material that is neither waterproof or nor nonflammable?  Did a chimp take the wheel at that point in history or what?

Anyway, my favorite blog of beauty/fashion inanity, SheFinds, had a recent blip on the whole craze for designer handbag-maker Anya Hindmarch and her sold-out "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" bag that the whole world has been clamoring for.   Apparently, there's some charity auction for the coveted Hindmarch bag and blah blah blah, who cares, you're not reading anymore.

Because guess what?  Reusing bags for shopping doesn't involve spending 800 bucks on a piece of contorted canvas!  Apparently, this is news if you're an 80 lb. cokehead supermodel, but for the rest of us, finding a way to conveniently tote about our non-couture wares needn't be so costly or dangerous;  remember, you could be trampled by a excited mob during the launch of these "non-plastic" bags at an Anya Hindmarch boutique, thus the cancellation of the launch of the product itself.  Boo hoo, Darwin in action.

Though I had been laboring to reuse my paper sacks at Target and the grocery store, after about the fifth use, the stupid things start to break and tear.  Well, no shit.  It's not like we couldn't see that coming.

That is why I was thrilled to see my local Cub Foods carrying reusable bags.  Made by Earthwise Reusable Bags, these sacks appromixate the size of a normal grocery bag, but you can fill them up to the gills and they won't rip and send your groceries tumbling down the driveway.

I totally love them!  My sister bought a set of 10 for 10 bucks and we now trade them back and forth when we grocery shop.  (We often shop together because it saves the other gas.  Also, because we're nerds who can't be apart for more than 15 minutes.

(Long Rambling Aside: I've been bitching at Target to get similar bags whenever they give me a feedback survey.  Can't you just see a lovely red bag, with the Target logo?) 

I fear stores not wanting to give up their disposable paper or plastic bags, though - too much marketing might be lost in that sense.  However, I think it's a huge win-win-win.  You get good bags, and which you pay the store for and then the store saves cash on providing paper or plastic .  Granted, that's two wins on the side of the store, but I'm on the side of the planet and if that means giving over to the short-term minded store, so be it. 

However, in the end, I'm with William McDonough.  Make books (and bags) out of plastic or other materials that will last.  If you must throw it away, at least paper is biodegradable, right? 

Book image by David Monniaux via Wikipedia

It's Your Dick in a (Recycled) Box!

Figure 1:  A cardboard box.  Helpful when you have to move, but can't fit all your stuff in your pants pockets.  

Doubtless most of our transient student population has already settled in to their new digs, but in case you're finding yourself on the business end of an eviction order and don't want to skulk around grocery store dumpsters or liquor stores looking for boxes to store your hotpot and Pink Floyd posters in, Lifehacker's got it all dialed in for you already.

It's a bitch to break down cardboard and many communities won't recycle it.  Why not use boxes with a circular destiny involving many stressed-out, disorganized people who are moving to new places and rueing how much crap they've accumulated?

Check the direct links to U-Haul's recycled boxes program and Used Cardboard Boxes for more information on greening your next move.

P.S. Pink Floyd sucks!

Image via Wikipedia.    

Reuseable Babies*

Photo credit:   Lee Russell:  Baby at a picnic, Fourth of July, Vale, Oregon.  Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, LC-USF35-1326 

What crafty mommas with empty wallets all know is how to stretch a buck when it comes to clothing and other accoutrement for their beloved spawn. Even though babies and toddlers don't give a damn about what they wear, they tend to constantly need bigger sizes. (The turds.)  Sure, outfitting your wee ones can be a hoot, but you need to save that extra scratch. Motherhood often requires a lot of booze and they don’t sell that at garage sales. (Oh, if they did!)

Why is it that we can often score rad garments for the drooling set that are cheap and still in good condition?

Four reasons.

DUMB OLD PEER PRESSURE. People who go to baby showers are only concerned that their gift look cute enough to elicit "oohs" and "ahhs" from the other guests. What could be more precious than a little jammie set from Baby Gap? Or a tiny terry cloth robe with matching slippers emblazoned with a duck motif? You get tons of this stuff as a new mom and what can you do if it never gets worn and goes out of season or size?

INFANTS BABY THEIR CLOTHES. Infants aren't too terribly hard on clothing. Sure, they can crap it up and spit on it, but babies don't generally change the oil or mow the lawn in their onesies. They spend most of their time on receiving blankets or in someone's arms.

ONLY THE BEST FOR MY KID. New moms feel (quite naturally so!) that their baby should have "all new". So unless there are huge financial constraints, moms will seek out retail vs. resale.

WHAT IF IT’S DEFECTIVE? Remedy this worry by asking yourself the following:

Are you able to see and feel the product?

Does it feel like it’s made from flammable hazardous material?

Is it dripping with gasoline?

Does it look rickety and crappy?

Is it a crib that can fit an entire sixpack of cans between the bars?

Does it look like it’s missing straps, plugs, screws or caps?

Do you have a brain inside your skull?

If you can clearly see a dangerous defect, don't buy it and take time to point it out to the staff.

   

Photo Credit:  Jack Delano. Chicago, Illinois. Provident Hospital. Newborn babies. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, LC-USF35-1326

Thrift Smarter for Baby

DOUBLE UP, YO. Though you can't blame parents for wanting the very best for their babies, consider thrifting for almost all the superfluous gear. We've all been at depressing yard sales when all the pilly baby shirts and grubby baby strollers have left us with visions of orphans and waifs. But really, consider the possibilities in a little stain treatment and washing and you might be saving extra money for a night out or other necessities. Further, this is a great way to outfit the grandparents' house with all the proper gear that will make visits that much easier (no packing!)

USE A LITTLE ELBOW GREASE.  Sure, car seats can be tricky but most companies will send you the instructions at no cost if you email their website. Crib guidelines are quite simple to follow and you can rule out products that won't work for you. And strollers are easily dismissed as looking homely and dirty, but they are probably the most easily brought back to life. My mother-in-law has refurbished and washed some second-hand strollers with awesome results. She unsnapped the cotton padding and while it was in the wash, she hosed down the plastic skeleton and went nuts with some spray cleaner. Remember, though strollers can look cruddy used, think about where they are used -- on the ground, hello. Even the brand-new Eddie Bauer edition with the flannel padding is going to get cruddy looking as it barrels down the street and the mall so getting too hoity-toity about it is sorta stupid.

Photo Credit:  Lee Russell.  Mother and her twin babies in the trailer-clinic at the FSA (Farm Security Administration) migratory labor camp mobile unit. Wilder, Idaho.  Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection,  LC-USF35-1326

PRACTICALITY RULES.  Though it’s a precious miracle and all that crap, your baby will not care what the hell it’s wearing for probably the first 3 years. But you will care what you are wearing, especially post-partum. The money you save by being thrifty with your baby will only serve to outfit you – the Momma, the one who understands the concept of fashion – soon enough your kid will be a trend-crazed 8^th grader straining your budget.  These are the salad days. 

Photo Credit:  poster by Erik Hans Krause for the WPA Federal Art Project, 1938

More Thrifting for Baby Tips:

• check crotches (‘nuff said)
• hold necklines up to light to check for yellow milk barf stains
• resist buying cute things that might be difficult to put on (e.g. too many buttons v. snaps, difficult construction is a good reason to donate something, right?)
• diaper covers are often stuck in the boys and girls underpants section because staff thinks they are training pants, making the price LOW
• wash before you wear - once I put a little halter top on my daughter without washing and it made her reek of cigars.  Eww. 

Recycle This: A Blog for Eco-Obsessed

Last month, between the dark lows of Post-Potter Depression and the giddy highs of That Hottie Daniel Radcliffe is finally Legal Age?! Euphoria, I started wondering if I was going totally mental.* 

For one thing, I began wondering what I might do with my used Q-tip/cotton swabs so as to keep them out of landfills.

These types of twilight-hour considerations are not pleasant.  I wavered between thinking that I was becoming an acoustic-guitar brandishing, deodorant-eschewing hippie and the more reasonable idea that I was perhaps merely rising to the challenge that our new green consciousness is raising, which might soon become the standard in everyday life.   

Radical?  Mediocre?  Pervy?  Nuttier than squirrel shit? 

Well, like the fine ladies of Le Tigre once said, it turns out that mediocrity rules.  Apparently, I am not alone in my late-night musings on the rehabiliation of the humble Q-tip.  I should of have known. 

These days, if it ails you, there's a blog that'll cure it.

Next time these pressing recycling dilemmas attack, there'll be no need to flounder and waste time, because I'll just toddle over to Recycle This, a British blog dedicated to finding creative ways for people to re-use or recycle everyday items.

Wallah!  The answer:  How To Recycle/Re-Use Q-Tips...

With the current glut of green blogs, the simple format of Recycle This is refreshing, as well as genius.  The blog itself doesn't deign to have all the answers but merely poses questions for readers on how to recycle or reuse things like old swimming costumes, tyres - wasn't kidding about the British thing, was I? - old jumpers (that's "old sweaters" in American), medication blister packs and used staples.  Then interested readers comment with their suggestions and solutions.  Truly interactive and a godsend for for anyone perseverating over the fate of their manky old hot water bottle.

So far, August finds me feeling much more stable, thank you, now that I need not spend the wee hours speculating on the plight of my empty dental floss container.  May it be so with you as well. 

Now, if I can just get up the nerve to ask that dreamy Daniel Radcliffe to the prom...

*Check out my spoiler-laden review of the last Harry Potter book at Prose Matters.

Daughter of Invention: Vintage Make-up Cases

Kids are the best at improvising.  Here, a couple of phonebooks and an old make-up case make perfect booster seats.  Take that, Babies 'R Us!

I LOVE old make-up cases, or train cases, as some like to call them.  Every time my Grandma visited us, I remember my grandfather hauling in their light blue hardside Samsonite luggage set on wheels, including the make-up case.  I would always offer to carry up the make-up case, because then sometimes my grandma would let us play beauty shop with her.

These days, all my make-up fits into a tiny zippered pouch the size of a paperback book. I can't really feature myself getting so vain that I'd require that make space for all my beauty potions.  Still, when I see make-up cases in thrift shops, I always pause to check them out.  Usually they have really luxe features like satiny ruffled linings with mirrors, removable, compartment trays, and locks with little keys. So fancy!

These days, I like to shove magazines in 'em (especially nice for the your toity):

Or I use them to organize those aggravating little bits of toys my daughter is always perseverating over, like those ridiculously eensty Polly Pockets and Littlest Tiniest Weeniest Pet Shop - a pox on your wee little houses:

Unusual Potting Benches

Check out SimplyGreen's take on the impromptu potting bench!

I'm no longer a voice in the wilderness for eschewing ready-made potting benches!

(P.S. I spotted another kitchen cabinet in someone's trash stash a few nights ago and had the husband spirit it away.  I might set it up to its companion or let Adrian put it in his garage lair.  More later.)

FREE! The Curb Cache Dilemma

What happens to you when you see a sign like this? 

Do you slam on the brakes and gawk?  Flip a u-turn and screech backwards while simultaneously popping open the trunk?  Jump out and check for animal hair or cat piss and cigarette odors? 

(Long Rambling Aside:  Some people - I'm not saying WHO - like to send young children out of the car to inspect the item, thus preserving their personal adult dignity about giving curbside cast-offs the once-over.  Such people are entirely within their right to utilize children's lack of shame in this way and no one, including 11 year old boys named Sid and 7 year old boys named Owen, needs to give their loving, amazing aunts any type of shit for such behavior in the past.)

While it's one thing to see a FREE sign and hit the brakes for a closer look if you are in a strange neighborhood, it's quite another situation if the items are being offered by one's neighbors. 

This happened to me a few weeks ago after we first moved into our house.  The people across the street, whom I had not met formally, left a bent-wood rocking chair at the end of the driveway, with a hand-scrawled "FREE" sign on it.

At the time, my living room had one loveseat and an armchair, both mercy donations from friends.  While I thought the rocking chair would make a great addition to our spartan living room, I still felt shy about walking across the street and scooping it up.  What if these people - and they are elderly and retired - were watching through the blinds?  Would they feel weird about me helping myself to their chair and having it travel not the globe but just a short hop across the street?  Worse still, did they leave the chair out there purposefully, after noticing our empty living room through our curtainless picture window?  Oh, the embarrassment!  I could imagine their conversation:

"Whaddya think, Marge?  Those young kids, they don't have anything in their living room.  Why don't we leave out the old bentwood rocker?  You and I don't use it anymore."

"Yeah, you're right, Gordie.  We've got our matching Barcaloungers.  And we only use those to when Dateline's on.  We really don't need the bentwood anymore"

"Should I ask them if they need it?"

"Oh, let's not make them feel like they're getting handouts.  Just put it at the end of the driveway with a sign that says "FREE."  That'll let them keep their pride."

"Yup, pride's important to the younger generation...After my nap, I'll go roll it down the driveway.  Should I put the cushion out, too?  It's awful dirty."

"Oh, heaven's yes, they'll need that cushion.  That caning'll bust through if they don't use it.  Maybe you should write that on the note..."

What ended up happening is that the actual snatch-up of the rocker was done by someone else.  My brother-in-law Jeff came over to chat and while we stood on my front step talking, I pointed out the rocker and asked him what he thought.

What he thought was not spoken, since he immediately ran across the street, sat in it and then shuttled it back to my house. 

"It's fantastic," he said.  "You'd be stupid not to take it."

N.B. - There is no shame in letting other, more gregarious types snatch up your "FREE" curb caches for you.  It's either that or go in the dead of night.   

The Recycling Ranger has a funny post about what he calls "curb crawlin" or "duckin" down alleys here that includes some ways to deal with people who catch you while you're pawing through a trash stash.  These practices are not limited to crusty freegans, the poor and the homeless - check out  the Suburban Scavenger's blog for more trash-hunting stories. 

(Long Rambling Aside:  I have never dug through anyone's trash or recycling bins - hello, identity theft freakouts - but will admit to grabbing a piece of furniture or shelving or something that's sitting beside the bins if I like it.  I'm not convinced vigorous treasure hunting through someone's bins and bags is worth the effort or risks - both legal and to one's human dignity.  Actually, I'm pretty sure ripping through trash bags on your own turf won't win you any home-baked brownies from your neighbors.  Instead, you're likely to become That Weirdo on the Block.  Like the Childless Assholes Who Always Yell at Kids and their bucket of confiscated kickballs, and the Denizens of the House of Ill-Repute where the music blasts at all hours and nobody mows the lawn, being the Weirdo isn't one of my personal goals. One ought to strive to be a Brownie-Getter, in my view.)

The Bentwood Rocker, with its new family: