Shabby Chic Bees

Sunday was Earth Day, and I made a very important decision. I was going to Do Something Earth-friendly-ish.

There are lots of choices, including changing regular lightbulbs to incandescents, planting trees, hanging the laundry out to dry instead of using the dryer, and turning off the T.V. But none of those really appealed to me as much as the idea of reducing our paper towel usage.

Paper towel usage reduction is appealing because it means converting to cloth napkins. Cloth napkins that you just use and then throw in the wash that you were going to do anyway, and then use them again. That is fabulous because, since we do not currently own any, it means:

I get to buy something pretty. For Me.

Oh, and also: the Earth.

As a material girl, I believe deeply in retail therapy. As an unemployed girl, I have been trying very hard to avoid any sort of retail outlet at all costs, because I do not posses the willpower to Not Buy Things. (See above: material girl.)

And I've been doing o.k. I've avoided clothes all together, and stayed away from bookstores. (Except for the gift certificate I got for my birthday. It was like a little piece of plastic heaven.) I only go to the gas station (where, what can I really splurge on? Super unleaded? No thanks.) and the grocery store. And even at the grocery store I've avoided the gourmet cheese and ice cream aisles. I poo-poo magazines, and play mind games with myself to bypass the cards. With varying degrees of success.

But once I decided that it would be good for the Earth to go to Target and buy some cute cloth napkins, I was a girl possessed. I was up at the crack of notreallydawnmorelike8:30, hustled my way over to Target, and found some fabulous shabby chic cotton napkins. (Which I couldn't find a link for, but here are some cute, pink, flowery ones!) And it was quite the rush for $1.99 a piece. That's much better than my average sundress!

On a sadder, Earthly-conscious note, have you all heard about the bees and cell phones? Apparently some scientist somewhere says that the reason the bee populations are dwindling rapidly (and this is important because bees are a good barometer of the overall environmental well-being, according to NPR, which, yes, I listen to, mostly for Car Talk, but also for commercial breaks between hip-hop songs on KS 107.5 [and I don't care that I'm whiter than a dead fish, I can still appreciate some milkshakes being brought to the yard, by gosh!]) is because cell phones muck with their internal navigation system. Or something.

In any case, the more you talk on your cell phone, the more bees you kill.

And I have an unusual fondness for bees. For the most part, I dislike bugs. I do not care for them in my house, I care for them even less than I care for a mouse. I do not want them near or far, I especially freak when they're in my car.

I am done being Dr. Seuss on crack, now.

So anyway, I like bees. I toy with the idea of urban beekeeping, sometimes. And so, after hearing that it MIGHT hurt a bee somewhere for me to open my adorable little pink phone, I've been in quite a conundrum. I love chatting... but think of the bees! So I've been avoiding my phone all day, and keeping conversations to a minimum. I think my friends think I'm mad at them. I'm not! Hey, you! The one friend of mine who reads this! See! I'm not mad! I'm just thinking of the bees.

Think of the bees, man.

And buy some cute napkins. Do your part. Otherwise, you can also invest in a cute grocery bag. A reusable one. That saves on plastic bag production. And also lets you carry salad-in-a-bag and vitamins home in style.

Peace, love, and shop, yo'.