1. Cutting vegetables by candlelight.
2. Hand-washing dishes [by same].
3. Trying to read Macleans mag that I got for Christmas and forgot about — interview of Christopher Hitchins by Noah Richler. Much squinting involved. [Side note – cancer treatments have not slowed Hitchins arguments or wit, and he looks better bald than he did with hair, though I’m quite sure he’d rather it another way…]
4. Staring at fire in fireplace — a kind of counter-environmental action, to tell the truth. [The fire, not the staring…]
5. Eating small salad made up of bocconcini and cherry tomatoes, as late prep of dinner [previously noted vegetables] could not be roasted without use of electricity.
6. Staring longingly at my iPad, thinking Angry Bird-ish thoughts, but feeling it was too close to a cheat to rely on battery power, as it would have to be further charged later to make up for power usage. Much mental struggle over this one.
Fails:
1. Aformentioned fire. I have a wood-burning fireplace because I live in a place where when the power goes, it means it. One year we lost power for eight days. The fireplace is not too often used, but I do love it.
2. Someone tweeted me that candlelight is countraindicated, due to the fossil-fuel origins of many candles. Go beeswax, sez I!
3. As I was staring glumly out the window at my neighbour’s driveway lights, thinking dark thoughts about whether they were just oblivious or actually taking a stand against the arbitrary and largely symbolic nature of Earth Hour, I realized my driveway lights were also still on. [Both the neighbours and I have ridiculously-pitched mountainside driveways, and we’ve both had cars plummet off, so lights are a given as a rule.] I dashed out and unplugged at 8:37. Will leave ’em off the rest of the night as a penance.
4. I forgot that I’d put my bread machine on earlier and it was mid-cycle during the pivotal time. Wasn’t willing to ruin the bread.
A few final thoughts:
1. It’s interesting to wash dishes in candlelight. I haven’t used my dishwasher for a few months now — [does this make up for the breadmaker?] so it wasn’t an Earth Hour-related endeavour, but still will be intrigued to see just how thorough a job I did when the lights go back up.
2. I tried to work on my [mammoth, as usual] list of Things Wot Need Doing, but I couldn’t really read my own writing by candlelight. Hard enough with the lights on.
3. I haven’t looked at the results on-line yet, but I’m wondering if this event has progressed past the symbolic for anyone in the somewhere around five years it’s been happening. Has it changed anything about the way YOU use energy? I’d be very interested to hear. I tend to be a pretty crunchy granola kinda person anyway [recycle, compost, vegetarian etc] and I’m always thinking about this stuff…but not sure it makes a difference in the big picture.
Any thoughts you’d care to share?
More soon…
~kc
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