The Power of One

Well, today is Mother's Day. It used to be my least favorite day of the year until I wised up and let go of my pre-meditated fantasies of being queen for a day. It just never happened and I accept that now. I'm a lot happier without those unrealistic, ricockulously commercialized expectations. Or chocolate. Or carnations. Or a crown. Seriously, I feel better about it all now.
So today I did this, an alternative to today's notions of what Mother's Day should be. (click it because I'm getting a nice, well deserved massage right now and I don't have time to explain) (yeah right) Now don't get me wrong. There are few things I hate more than mother's clubs and peace rallies, and that's not what this was. For me it was about getting away from the bullshit ideas of honoring women with calories and useless crap, and doing something with meaning and real emotion. And so for the second day in a row, all five of us spent some quality time together. We got picnic stuff from my favorite deli and walked the bike path down to the park to hear the story, "The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering," by Sharon Mehdi. It's about how two grandma's peacefully saved the world, at least for one day. Or something like that. Anyway, I was feeling all empowered when I got home, like I could actually change the world. So I decided to start right on my own street.
We have some new neighbors a few houses down, and every day the garbage pile in front of their house gets bigger and bigger. The picture above is not an actual picture of their house, but it's pretty similar. It really pisses me off when I turn down our cute little street, so happy to be home, and there, spread all the way to the middle of the road, are empty plastic bottles, cigarette packs, car parts, beer cans and more. We used to have the worst front yard on the block, but only because we have toys and dead flowers everywhere.
So today when we got home, I grabbed a garbage bag, walked straight down to their pit, and picked up all their fucking trash. Then I left it by an empty, double-sized can of Budweiser in their front yard.

I didn't really learn anything new today. I already know that littering is a cultural thing, and it's kind of the norm in certain neighborhoods around here. But today I put the wheels in motion for tomorrow, where hopefully I'll learn that my actions today were enough to teach these people about respect and the way we like to live here in California.