Going Green

I mentioned global warming in my previous post, and it's been weighing heavily on my mind the last few months. I've never seen Al Gore's little movie, but I've been touched by it and have decided to go green in my life.
The first step is to reduce use of such things as electricity and water. We used to be burning up lots of power by using the TV and X-Box, while someone else was running on the treadmill, and the kids were running wildly around the house. Now we've harnessed their power, by converting the the treadmill into a power generator and hooking it up to the TV. Now one of the kids just has to get the thing going for a minute or so and we can watch our favorite TV shows. We even let them take breaks during the commercials. Another benefit is that due to the extremely high power output required to run the TV and a video game console, we have the only kids in the neighborhood who can run a marathon of five minute miles.
We've also reduced water consumption by declaring the bushes in the back yard a uri... Wait, I was asked not to go into that.
Lastly, there's the vehicles we drive. A big gas burning truck has quite a large carbon footprint. I calculated it, and my drive to work is exactly the same carbon footprint that a common squirrel puts out in a year. Driving to work and back everyday for a week is the equivalent carbon footprint of a large dog. So to offset my emissions I either try to find a large dog early in the week, or a squirrel every day and just run them ov... Sorry, I was asked to discontinue that line of thought as well.
I guess I'll just keep emitting to my heart's content, even if it means less free meat.

The View Up Here

I like being on the roof. Maybe that could have been one of the things I listed about myself when I was tagged, but I don't like that game; I do, however, like the roof.
I was up there yesterday taking down the Christmas lights (72 degrees in January, thank you global warming) and enjoying the view. The roof is a solitary place, where you can be alone with your thoughts as you gain a new perspective that "street level" just doesn't give you. At night you can climb up and contemplate the cosmos seeing the whole horizon of stars, instead of just the half view that a front or back yard has to offer.
Yesterday, for the first time, the solitude of the roof was threatened. Morty Jr asked if he could go up on the roof with me to help remove the lights. I was hesitant as I considered his request. He's only 5, and apt to wander without being aware that he may be in a dangerous predicament, he also doesn't listen very well, only peeking interest as my yells become frantic. He's eager to help with the lights, which are right at the edges of the roof, and he'll probably want to peer over the edge, especially from the peak over the driveway. He also likes to yell and wave to people passing in the street, a guaranteed way to gain unwanted attention as over eager busy bodies with child services on speed dial look up in aghast at the unfit father who would allow his child to be placed in such a dangerous situation.
All of these thoughts passed my mind as I stood on the fence, grabbing him by one arm and swinging him up onto the roof. I decided to give him some stern instructions, and impart to him all the knowledge that I had gained by wandering around on rooftops. "Don't move."
Walking across a pitched roof with a 5 year old attached to your leg is exactly as unbalanced as you think it is. And so keeping him at arms reach, where I could hold him but he couldn't trip me, we worked our way to the apex and I sat him down at two converging angles where the chances of rolling off to one side or the other were minimized. There I shared the view with my son, who was awed to see the dog two streets down, the water tower a mile away, the shoes hanging on the power lines, and the missionaries riding their bikes in the next neighborhood over. There he sat, yelling at cars and kids passing, while I plucked the lights from their little plastic hooks, constantly yelling back at him to stop moving and sit down.
Alas, our adventure on the roof had to come to an end. The lights were all down and I needed to wrap them up and put them back in their boxes. Good thing Mrs. Morty can catch, made getting down a lot faster.