Tag: green living

Another local shop closes

Posted on by Suki

Support Santa Cruz’s quirky businesses!

I suppose it’s inevitable that as real estate prices rise, a town becomes less funky and quirky. I saw it happen in Palo Alto in the 80s and 90s. When I arrived, the town boasted a diner with ancient (working) telephones on the tables and a dim sum place where the only thing on the extensive menu that you could actually buy were the potstickers.

Things have changed.

Rebecka in her element. Yes, she’s got lots of Santa hats on sale!

I happened in to Closet Capers (next to the Rio Theater) the other day, having heard that it was closing and they were selling off their merchandise.

I ended up chatting with the owner of the 37-year-old Santa Cruz landmark, Rebecka Hawkins.

“I’m only crying once a day at this point,” she said in describing her feelings about closing what she describes as her “obsession.”

Hawkins has outfitted many of us locals as we attended theme parties, needed an extra prop for a production, or had a last-minute freakout about Halloween. She says one school group has been coming to her for many years to supply costumes for an annual outing and production in Yosemite.

Hawkins says that the store survived so many years through the loving support of her husband and the understanding of her longtime landlord.

Some of the quirkiest residents of Santa Cruz reside on Rebecka’s shelves.

But it was her landlord who suggested, gently, that it was time to retire.

The tiny shop with its cavernous ceiling and winding aisles is crammed full of goodies. I went in to do some quirky holiday shopping, and was tantalized by jester hats, beaded dresses, and medieval capes.

Please support Rebecka’s retirement by purchasing one of her lovingly collected items. As I discussed last week on KSQD with the founders of Sellhound.com, a reused item is the greenest of gifts!

If you are an experienced eBay seller and would like to help her sell some of the pricier items, please contact her at 831-251-8700.

Happy Holidays, everyone. Let’s try our best to keep what’s quirky and wonderful alive in Santa Cruz.

Living intentionally with power

Posted on by Suki

On the radio yesterday, Brad Kava and I interviewed Cale Garamendi, a project developer at a local solar company, Sandbar Solar. We had a great, wide-ranging conversation about solar power, which you can access in this archive for a short time. (Click on the Nov. 11 episode.)

My favorite part of the conversation was when we veered into the philosophical (not surprisingly): Having solar power not only frees you somewhat from dependence on the grid, but also reminds you to use power intentionally.

Image courtesy of the Washington Post

Like anyone who is paying attention, I cycle through various emotions when it comes to our environmental problems. I have moments of pure grief. When I am on my morning walk in November wearing light clothing, it’s hard to keep away from thinking terrible things like whether there will even be redwood trees for our future grandchildren to enjoy.

I’m not holding myself up as a great example of virtuously green living: I do drive a car; I do use my clothing dryer; I do love a hot shower. But something that gives me great peace is a focus on intentional living.

Our solar panels aren’t up yet, but we’re already thinking about how we use power, and it’s not too far away from how people might have considered their power usage in the 19th century. Then, they likely heated with coal or wood, two things that needed to be procured. If they were in a city, it would be delivered, probably on a schedule. Use it up too fast, freeze for a few days. If they lived in the country, they likely used a local power source such as wood.

Illustration courtesy of the US Military

In any case, people used to have to consume power intentionally. Every time they lit a lamp in the evening, they had to think: Do I need to burn this oil?

We’ve gotten away from that. Although my family is really good about keeping lights that we don’t need off, I do know that we have been incredibly cavalier about those lights always coming on when we need them.

Intentional living has shown to make people happier because they are more engaged. Certainly, my solar panels, short showers, green napkins, and electric car are not going to save our planet. But if they help me feel more energized and hopeful—and if everyone feels more energized and hopeful—we have a little bit more of a chance of figuring this all out.

Yummy Green Kombucha

Posted on by Suki

Another step on my goal to live a more sustainable lifestyle is to stop using so many products that come in disposable packaging. As a major consumer of kombucha (a fermented Chinese tea, for those of you who haven’t yet come across it), I have consoled myself that at least the drink comes in glass bottles.

But those glass bottles have plastic tops and take huge amounts of energy to create and transport. And then, in the end, you still have a heavy, well-made glass bottle that you toss in the recycling.

…I will avoid moaning about what’s happening, or rather not happening, with our recycling these days!

So here you have it: my second attempt at creating a low-waste solution to my kombucha habit. (I realize that there’s a no-waste solution, but that’s not an option!)

My first bottle from my growing batch of kombucha. You can see the half-sunk scoby in there. A new one will form on the top.

Making kombucha is a natural process. Now that I have my setup—a jar and a bunch of high-quality beer bottles—the only waste will be the packaging that the tea comes in. Since we shop in Chinese tea stores and buy in large quantities, one glass tea jar will last for months.

And since the heating pad will be run on our forthcoming solar system, I don’t even feel bad about that.

I realize that these attempts, like my Homely Green Napkins project, are small things. But I feel that what we need to do is turn back cultural change that happened as a result of the push for convenience and mass production in the 50s. If enough of us push back on our culture-bred tendency to consume and discard, we can shift our weight enough to change course.

Dead scoby…ew! I’m sorry for any mistreatment you received at my hands, dear, departed friend.

A note about failure: Why is this my second attempt? Let’s just say that a dying scoby (a.k.a. kombucha mother) is not a pretty sight! But I am determined to nurture my new scoby by feeding it and supporting its health, which in turn will feed me and support my health.

All of life is a cycle, and like it or not, what we do on a day-to-day basis influences the path.

The tale of the homely green napkins

Posted on by Suki

They’re not actually green, and they don’t really have to be homely, but this is how I came to be in possession of my homely green napkins.

I’ve made a personal goal to identify all the low-hanging fruit in our lifestyle, trying to identify all the easy things we could do to consume less and create less garbage.

Costco was a big help.

Yes, Costco, the store we love to hate that sells 12-packs of plastic-wrapped bundles that contain 24 independently plastic-wrapped items encased in plastic-coated, non-recycled chipboard.

Some time ago, they stopped selling the big dinner napkins we liked. I know all about those big dinner napkins we liked: They are made from virgin wood pulp using all sorts of nasty chemicals. They were beautifully white due to the bleach used in the process. They’re part of what’s killing this world.

But…I liked those napkins. I kept justifying them till one day, they were gone. And they haven’t returned.

I have always liked the idea of using reusable napkins. We always did when I was a child. In the first half of the twentieth century, everyone used reusable napkins. It would have been weird to suggest replacing such a practical thing with a single-use item.

But here was the problem:

I don’t iron.

My mom irons. She says it’s relaxing. I don’t iron.

That’s partly why we were sticking with the environmentally unfriendly napkins. They came out of the package looking nice.

The other reason was probably more important: it was easy. Until it wasn’t. I kept waiting for Costco to restock, but they didn’t. So thanks to Costco, one more piece of the low-hanging fruit in my earth-unfriendly lifestyle has been chipped off and fixed.

I realize that there are many reasons why this change is not earth-shaking, or even earth-saving.

I went out and did what I knew I should do. I bought 100% cotton, washable napkins. But in my head, I could hear the voices: The cotton industry is horribly polluting. Also, I live in California and we have to conserve water so why not buy paper products that were made in a location with ample water? Finally, what makes you think that little changes like this aren’t just wasted effort?

Those objections are worth considering. There’s always a trade-off. The way I am thinking about it, step by little step, low-hanging fruit get picked off and fixed. My family is generating less garbage. We are consuming less paper. The napkins go into wash loads that I would have done anyway so I’m not using extra water.

Back to the future…

One of the ironies of the choices we are making is that families are going backwards. My napkins are washable, just like my mom’s. Like my grandmother’s.

I am sure, however, that my grandmother’s napkins, like my mom’s, were always beautifully ironed. The concession I have made to modern life is that heck, we’ll just have to live with ugly napkins.

My napkins are wrinkled.

Goodbye to double-plastic-wrapped disposable napkins!

And homely.

And burgundy-colored.

But to me, they’re green.

Living the California paradox

Posted on by Suki

The San Francisco Chronicle thinks I’m a paradox, but I think I’m just being sensible.

The Chronicle reported that California has a “split personality” when it comes to car buying habits. On the one hand, Californians are buying SUVs. On the other, Californians are buying electric and hybrid cars.

What Californians aren’t buying is old-fashioned, gas-powered passenger vehicles.

Excuse me, but I don’t see the paradox. Take my family, for instance.

Three years ago, we decided to shuck off the old paradigm—”his car” and “her car”—for a family-based car-buying approach. We wanted an electric car for in-town driving, and a gas car for long distance and for doing things like moving the kid into his college dorm. We leased a VW eGolf which had a range of 90 miles, and in three years, we only drove our van on longer trips.

We also hardly ever had to charge our car during the day.

It’s really not a paradox: when people actually consider their driving needs and habits, they respond to choices that fit those needs. And sometimes they change their habits.

Having a limited range electric vehicle changed my approach to driving. When we bought the car, we went to a PG&E plan that rewards nighttime use of electricity over daytime use. Our major concern was planning our driving so we didn’t have to recharge the car during the day. Also, we came to love the electric car so much, we started to plan our days so that our driving times wouldn’t overlap or we’d plan joint trips out in the car.

This summer we decided that the old van had done its service to the family, so we replaced it…with an SUV. Yes, the family that tries only to drive our electric car got an SUV. We did get the most fuel-efficient one on the market, but we recognize that we got this big car not for daily driving, but for specific functions: hauling a bike, moving a piece of furniture, or driving a bunch of people comfortably.

The lease on our eGolf came up, and because the available electric cars didn’t suit our needs (inexplicably, VW isn’t planning to put out the new eGolf until the end of the year), we got a plug-in hybrid. In the few months we’ve owned it, we’ve used the gas engine once.

I don’t call our family a paradox; I call us the new paradigm. Americans had a good, long love affair with the gas engine, and that’s coming to an end. We used to think of driving as entertainment, and that, too, is coming to an end. What starts in California almost always hits the rest of the country eventually, and I have no doubt that this wave will eventually make its way into the heartland as well.

Now available