Mar 12 2021 [MLK Drive]

Weather	overcast
Temperature	41F / 5C
Mood	cold winter weather, but trying to keep a routine
Restoring nature	1.5 hours

Hello folks. Welcome to another of my gabbing about garbage stories where every day is Earth Day. I am so fortunate to have the time to commit to helping out our rock. It’s great I can stop when I need to too. I worn out fast today. Three in a row may be tic tac toe, but my body is telling me… hey, take a break tomorrow!

Today I had in my mind what I wanted to finish, but I failed. My green compostable trash bag ripped. It took me a lot of clever fanigalling using the remains of my trash bag to move my trash about 800 meters (half mile) to the trash can zone. Sadly, I broke and lost my green trash grabber handle in the process. After getting my captured litter contained in trash can #0, I went back on a search and rescue mission. I scanned the area that I could have lost the green handle three times. I am sure it probably looked funny to people as a guy riding around with a blue trash can lid attached to his backpack, ignoring litter, but looking at it closely. Eventually I started searching my trash can #0 to see if maybe my green handle fell into the bag of my captured rubbish. Sadly, I failed in my search. I gave up. Unlike several of my body parts that no longer work well, the plastic grip handle is replaceable. Money and time will fix the handle… time, hope, and lots of concentrated power of will might help my struggling body parts.

It is kind of fun to hear the out loud thoughts of passerby’s. Some of the cyclists talk about their extraordinary biking mileage feats. One guy biked all over Gloucester County, New Jersey the day before. Another guy was out there putting in the miles since sunrise. Someone guy was grousing that the city should be cleaning up the park, not volunteers. One cycling woman said “Good on you!” with loud enthusiasm and I thanked her with sincerity. I don’t hear that expression much in the United States. It’s like “Give it a go,” another one of my favorite expressions I heard a bit in Australia.

This weekend is our United States daylight savings time. I love it. It means one more hour of sunlight in the evening. I feel our city streets are safer in the daylight. Plus, I want all the hard working people of the world to have a chance to decompress outdoors after a hard day’s work. I was one of those people and I relished daylight savings time. I miss working. I miss eating. I miss feeling viable. I saw my barber this week for the first time since the covid-19 pandemic hit. She reminded me that my vagus nerve could start working normally again (if that’s really my problem). I forget that sometimes. I gotta have hope. For now, I will keep collecting litter and trying to do a little to help our mother earth and its inhabitants. Thanks for sharing your time with me today.