Methane Gas and Daddy Dates

Yesterday was another Daddy date. Earlier in the week, I had seen a craigslist advertisement for “free furnishings in apartment” complete with about four photos of all kinds of stuff. The apartment was to be open from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., the address was given, along with the plea “no early birds.” I had shown this to Sandy, excitedly telling her that I could take the kids there and let them go shopping for free. Sandy “I-HATE-CLUTTER” Schwartz was petrified, and (theoretically) broke out in a cold sweat several times last week just thinking of us coming back with mounds of worthless treasures to clutter our apartment.

Despite Sandy’s trepidations I bundled our four young children into the van on Saturday morning and headed to Astoria en route to the New York Hall of Science in Elmhurst. It was not on the way, for those of you who care, but it sounds better to say that we “dropped by” to check out this apartment full of treasures “on our way to” the NY Hall of Science. It was raining quite heavily as I tried to corral the kids down the block and around the corner to the van. Our third-born had a demonstrative verbal application of the old man rising up in his flesh after our first-born took away an umbrella that the third-born felt belonged to him with all of its rights and privileges. I felt the old man rising up in my flesh in retaliation at this display of ungodly character I was seeing in my son, but fortunately I was able to quell any demonstrative applications of the sinful thoughts and just yelled at the top of my lungs “Come to the van, Benjamin, and stop yelling!” I looked around to see if any of my neighbors had heard my vociferous howling but the rain had probably kept them inside so I may have been safe. Lord, forgive me for those times I have lost it with these dear children and given in to anger.

So away we finally went, one hour later than planned. I had thought it would be cool to arrive at 10:00 a.m. and have first pickings. When we arrived at this apartment the rain had stopped. The sign on the apartment door read “Hi friends, please do not ring the doorbell before 10:00. Respect the house as if it was your own. Thank you.” The door was open, so we went up to the third floor and saw about ten people talking and laughing in what was a nearly bare apartment. The people in the apartment were almost in shock. They told me that the doorbell rang at 10:00 a.m. and about twenty people were lined up outside the door waiting to be let in. These people rushed into the apartment and proceeded to fight over the free stuff that was there. By the time we got there (55 minutes later), nearly everything was gone. The one woman from the apartment felt sorry for my four children so she took them into a room and found them four stuffed animals sort of like snowmen. Brianna said “Mommy’s not going to like these. We have enough stuffed animals.”

Well Benjamin was keen on these stuffed snowmen so he took about three of them, and then he got a little round orange wicker basket that had a face painted on it like a jack-o-lantern. Brianna whispered, “Uh….Daddy….I think that’s halloween stuff. Do you really want him to have it?” I told her “Hey, we came over here so we have to take something home, right?” I then found a hardcover novel that looked like it was in decent shape. We smiled and waved, and went down the steps and out to the van. On the way out, Benjamin tired of his stuffed snowmen, so I transported them back to the apartment. All told, our pillage count was the small orange basket that looked like a Kansas jack-o-lantern, and the novel that was likely not worth much. I consoled myself that I would give the novel to Dwight and Zonya for them to sell. (Dwight looked it up later and found that there are 693 used novels of that title for sale, and the 3 cheapest are listed for $0.01. One penny. Way to go, Rich.) Anyway, it was an adventure. Funny things that people do when the word “free” gets bandied about, eh?

That was the first leg of our journey. Now to the New York Hall of Science. We like to go there if it is raining outside, because they have a lot of great indoor activities. Yesterday was special as well, because there was a “Going Green in Queens” program directed by the NYC parks department that was going to have tables and workshops and environmental information. Since I am a closet member of an environmental group whose goal is to save Ridgewood Reservoir, I have been reading their excited plans to present their goals at this “Going Green in Queens” event, and I wanted to see what their table ended up looking like. Their emails would be like this “we need to have lots of pictures of birds and wildlife, but if we see the public are getting turned off by our pictures we can put them under the table.” “Shall we bring candy for the children?” “We need to educate the masses.” Etc. They were about as enthralled with their plans as NY meteorologists are at the prospect of reporting on an actual storm. Electrifying.

Some environmentalists are wackos, to be sure, but these people seem to be fairly even keel. I had read a quote recently from John Guillebaud, emeritus professor of family planning at University College London: “The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights…The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child.” That alerted me to the thoughts of some fringe tree-huggers that we humans should de-populate to save the planet, so when I walked into this “Going Green in Queens” event I had the uneasy feeling that some of these greenies were looking cross-eyed at this dude who was leading around four GIANT CARBON FOOTPRINTS, a/k/a children. Thankfully none of them expressed any negative sentiments about my four children, but there were certainly long looks and knowing glances exchanged. They probably have something to talk about now over their lentil soup and soy milk ice cream in the coming weeks.

Brianna heard that there were “refreshments served” so she and Avery took turns tugging my arm to lead me to the refreshment corner while I chit-chatted with my friends at the Ridgewood Reservoir group. I spoke several fleeting seconds with the Department of Parks Commissioner for Queens, New York, but had to apologize and take my leave, saying “Sorry, gotta go. My kids want to eat.” They had quite a spread there. Catered in food of all sorts. Wraps, sandwiches, fruit, vegetables, juice, soda, etc. My friend Sam helped me get this food for the children and we sat down to eat. It was actually a great time. I started feeling a little self-conscious when I realized I was the only one who had children there, and FOUR at that, but hey what ya gonna do? So we finished eating and walked around a bit. Avery collected a couple maps, since he is a budding cartographer, and I got a bag called “I love the earth” from a group of Chinese Buddhists who bowed to me and smiled a lot. Benjamin and Brianna collected candy. Corinne grinned at everyone and clapped her hands.

That group of Chinese Buddhists had a bunch of tips on saving the earth. The one tip is to not eat beef, because livestock contribute 18% of the methane gas that goes into the atmosphere. One cow alone contributes about 18 kilograms of methane per year. Wow. I’ll bet on a good month I contribute 1 kilogram of methane to the atmosphere. Ask Brian. Not that my gaseous emissions stink, but some say they are lethal and could be classified as germ warfare. Joe might know. So I got to thinking, “If cows are really that bad for the atmosphere, I suppose we should eat more of them so that more of them will be eliminated and fewer of them will contribute this bad methane gas, eh?”

What a day. I’m hungry for a hamburger right now, the hardcover novel has been thrown away, and Ben’s round little orange basket that looks like a Kansas jack-o-lantern is about the only tangible remains of our experiences, except the green “I Love the Earth” bag, which I may give away to Gary as a going away present, along with a few tips from the Tzu Chi Buddhists on how to save the earth.