earth day

I did a service project today with my most awesome buds from church, Rebecca, Julianne, Jacque, Emma, and Myia. We cleaned three playgrounds (sort of, maybe like 1.75 playgrounds) in a neighborhood in Everett. We had this spray degreaser stuff that got all the grime and graffiti off the playground equipment -- it was like magic! -- while simultaneously melting our plastic latex gloves. We sprayed the plastic equipment with this stuff, scrubbed and scrubbed, then rinsed with a hose. The playground equipment still looked um, well loved, but it looked A LOT better when we were done with it.

Rebecca and I were on trash duty. Here is a partial list of some of the more interesting things we found canvassing:

• three pennies (I'm rich!)
• three chicken bones
• leg of a plastic bell-bottomed cowboy action figure (or maybe it was Shaggy)
• piece of a broken neon green teeny tennis racket, and then an almost identical piece of a broken royal purple teeny tennis racket
• a gold star! (actually it was more like orange), and a pink star (we think they were stickers, but we're not sure)
• two fake leaves (for a moment, we thought they belonged; but no, they were fabric, not real) and a silk hibiscus
• potato peels
• banana peels
• half chewed radish
• decomposing pitted lime half
• broken pencils
• broken pens
• many many many many many cigarette butts

People! Take care of the environment! Put this junk in the trash! It just makes me crazy sometimes. Shaner and I did an "adopt a highway" a couple years ago and basically all we picked up were cigarette butts. The organization we worked for then even had these cool "pincer sticks" that you could hold while standing to pick up the cigarette butts and place them trash in a bag, without bending. Oooh that would have been nice today. But alas, my core muscles got a workout. Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.

Regardless of the effort, it felt good to get out there and do some service and take care of the Earth a bit. This week was Earth Day, and honestly, I didn't even think about it. It was just another busy Wednesday. But I think it's important to think about it every once in awhile. Getting outside and picking up trash for an hour or two or cleaning a public park of some sort really puts things in perspective and helps you (me at least) want to be a better person and better steward of the Earth.

So, mission accomplished for 2009. I even got a gold star to prove it.