I'm Not Walking! And don't you dare call me a hypocrite

So today I opted for a name change. I think when I started this blog I had intended a few minor green changes and BAM! I have saved the world...but this is not the case and I am finding that to attain "green" status is more work then I ever dreamed. I had listed previously in this blog some of the changes I have made over the last few years, but lately it seems I can't shake the 'green' bug no matter how hard I try.

I worry if I'm not buying the right food, I worry that me wanting to keep my ears free of debris by use of a Q-Tip will melt a glacier faster than ever. And what about my refrigerator. Dare I unplug it and let my children grow up on pasta and jar sauces for the sake of saving the earth. There is so much unexpected criteria that goes along with being green, stuff I couldn't even imagine. What is a girl to do?

I have been talking about this book Sleeping Naked is Green, about a girl who decided to make one change every day for 365 days to green up her life. Yesterday I sat down and read a good chunk of the book and on page 78 I was astounded at what I read.

In fact I was slightly LIVID at what I read.... let me recite it for you here:

"....its beyond hypocritical to call yourself an environmentalist and drive to work everyday."

RICH GIRL SAID WHAT NOW? Honestly, I do consider myself an environmentalist. But not a psycho name calling activist...as our little Vanessa has seemingly become. This same girl who is calling me a hypocrite ~ and is considering herself an environmentalist just pages earlier recanted an itinerary six weeks long, involving more than 5 flights she would be taking on a minisabbatical (not to mention flying off to visit a friend with her mother a few pages after that...but don't worry kids, her mom bought that trip for her so maybe when its someone else's treat it doesn't count). I can't even begin to imagine the number of carbon offsets she was forced to purchase in an attempt to make herself feel better and somehow justify her much needed trip.

So back to the topic, I wont sell my car and I refuse to walk to work...this in her mind makes me a hypocrite and somehow, not an environmentalist.

Lets take a look at my life for just a brief moment.... I am married, have three children, three dogs, two cats, and two chickens (hm, I'm betting my environmentalist friend Vanessa doesn't have chickens in her big city apartment to lay eggs). I need to be to work at 9am in the morning. During the school year I must get three...count em...one two three children onto their school buses prior to me getting to work. My youngest gets on his bus at 8:20am. I work approximately 9 miles away from where I live. Now, I'm no math magician...but I am willing to be that me walking that 9 miles is going to take far longer than the 40 minutes she is allowing me.

NOOOOT to mention the trip home. I leave work at 3:30pm (yes, I'm spoiled I have a nice short work day to contend with) and imagine, taking into account all the hills I would have to trek up, that a trip back home would equal approximately 2 hours...and that's without a rest.

Which puts me home exactly at the right moment in time to get dinner started. Phew, I'm tired thinking about it.

In theory, yes I could walk home...in theory! But in reality...it ain't going to happen.

We don't eat out....as Vanessa has taken to doing since she has unplugged her stove and fridge... as you can imagine the cost associated with feeding three growing kids and one hungry husband (oh and I should mention that I don't have the high profile job and chunky salary our "sleeping naked" author most certainly has) when one is forced to eat out two or three meals a day 7 days a week!

So to expect me to walk nine miles home and then be expected to conjure up some hopeless fridgeless stoveless dinner...its ludicrous. Really.

I will be sensitive to the fact that Vanessa has nothing, nothing to rush home to but her poor cat Sophie, and bathroom toilet full of piss. She has no reason to need to be home in a hurry, no one is waiting for her to make dinner, no one is standing in the doorway hoping she will get there sooner--rather than later simply because they miss her.

Vanessa can make her quick remarks about hypocrisy but really we all know who the hypocrite is here. And all the carbon offsetting in the world wont erase all those flights. If I had no reason to rush home, then maybe I would walk...but until then, I will DRIVE!

Certainly I invite her to walk a mile in my shoes, before she goes calling those of us who are really trying and making it ON OUR OWN (without the assistance of our jobs or payment of service and/or free green items if she name drops here or there) in an impossibly UNGREEN society.

The lesson here: every little bit counts, and while some of us can have chickens that lay their own eggs, a garden to provide fresh veggies, and public transportation others do not have the possibility of such luxuries and they should not be called hypocrites for at the very least giving it a shot!