Going Green

I having all sorts of html-induced panic attacks because I'm trying to figure out how to make the Green in "Going Green" green. I know it's a pleasing aqua right now, but I would like it a big, bold, I'm-doing-my-part, emerald green. The root of the problem is that I don't really know html. But, I have successfully figured out how make my blog posts space attractively instead of smooshing all the lines together as blogger is want to do. Now that I've mastered that much html, I think I'm ready to create my own website. But clearly I can't change the font color on just one word in the title of just one blog post. Ego slowly deflating.

In sixth grade Megan Westlund and I were debate partners. Megan was one of the most beautiful people I have ever known personally--I'm sure she still is--something I considered a definite plus on my debate team. In Utah, elementary school debate is sponsored by some alternative fuel organization. Debates dating back to 1992 all center on the feasibility of mandating alternative fuels. Megan and I chose to be negative, proving with sixth grade logic that alternative fuels were not the answer, and that we should protect the environment by riding the bus.

I distinctly remember Megan and I taking first place in Granite School District Elementary Debate 1992 for the negative team.

Unfortunately, Tyler also remembers taking first place in the same tournament arguing the same side and he has the statue to prove it. However, this is my blog post and I can claim whatever I want, thanks to the validation of the internet.

Megan and I took first place in Granite School District Elementary Debate 1992 for the negative team.

Despite this victory of staggering (and maybe inaccurate. maybe.) proportions, I can count the number of times I have ridden Utah mass transit on one hand. Once when Kelly Shoeffler and I rode to the mall in sixth grade (it was the coolest grown-up thing I could imagine. I wore six jelly bracelets and my hair stood out from the side of my head hairsprayed into late 80s wings. Only it was the early 90s.). Another time when I was a hostess, excuse me, greeter, at Marie Callenders before I got my drivers' license (I didn't get my license until well into my junior year of high school). And once, soon after my mission, when Tyler and I tried out this new fangled Trax thing. We shyly snuggled.

Today I took Utah mass transit again. The price of gas has skyrocketed. Not like it skyrocketed five years ago when gas jumped all the way to $1.50 a gallon, but the 2008 skyrocket of $4.00 a gallon. Not that this is news to anyone reading this blog. But, what is news is that I've been inconvenienced enough to finally start taking care of the environment. Talmage, Stockton, and I (aged 2.5, 2.5, and almost 28 years, respectively) took Trax downtown. If you need two active toddlers to calm down, taking Trax is a pretty good way to do it. They sat mesmerized.

I've learned that if you accompany two mesmerized toddlers, strangers from every culture and every walk of life will stop to dote on the boys. One tall, skinny, mid-50s man with long stringy hair who was wearing an eyepatch Jack Sparrow style leaned over and whispered knowingly, "Don't you just love 'em at this age." And I knew that he wasn't just commenting on how well behaved they looked right then, like how cute they might be in a picture, but that he understood that either one of them might break out in a tantrum at any moment and that would just be part of their charm. And I smiled and said, "Sure do." Those pirates really know their stuff.

So I'm planning on riding mass transit a lot more. And it won't be because of the environment, though I wish it were. It will partially be for the money, but more for the children. Stop and say hi if you see me. I'll be the one with the abnormally well-behaved toddlers.