Potluck: 6/25/11

Here's today's take--as usual, largely food-related: Butterfinger, Mountain Dew, drink lids, napkins, AND ...

Because if you're gonna be a REAL American, forget that meat-and-potatoes stuff.  I mean, that's half vegetarian, and 50% vegetarian is nearly as bad as 50% Communist. Patriots go for full-on animal products, or byproducts, like this vacu-sealed "beef" and "cheese" combo. Not sure where this type of thing would fit on the scale of food-mile impact, but I'm betting it's not pretty. (Thanks to Dave at 365 Days of Trash for drawing my attention to that handy infograph.) But that's certainly not the biggest meal that's been eaten in front of my house lately ...

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I'm guessing lasagna, too. And to give you a sense of scale, I'd say this is the equivalent of three Stouffer's Family Size. I can't even begin to imagine the dinner scenario here, though a friend suggested maybe it was a pedestrian, rather than a driver/passenger, who polished this off, possibly while wearing it on a strap around his/her neck like a marching-band drummer.  It must have been delicious.  All they left me was some dried sauce and a few onions.

Well, the culprit is clear in this one.  I'm sure this down-the-street neighbor didn't mean for this to end up in my yard, though I doubt they went around town scrupulously removing all their signs once the sale was over, either.  I kind of admire the artistry here. All those colors, and the flirty little face.  And the call-to-action doesn't get much clearer than this:  "Come buy our junk!"  So take a lesson from a (probable) 6th-grader, ad-men. When I saw this, I immediately recollected the smell of fruit-scented magic markers. Did ya'll have those, too?  Mmmm ...

In another direct appeal, this CTA is just "Call."  The period is the key; I like how it makes things much more imperative than just flowing the verb straight in to the number.  "Yes, Chris, I have been undeniably engaged by your succinct message and I will call you now." Again, I like the aesthetic effect.  Ink-jet printer plus rainshower = psychedelia. But if you really cared about my lawn, you wouldn't stick these flyers where they can blow all around and litter things up.

Lawnmower Confetti: 6/12/11

Since my husband mowed a few days ago, some of our latest litter is in convenient party-ready form:

That's a shredded Cool Ranch Doritos bag that was scattered over most of the lawn, plus some cigar and cigarette cellophane bits, a blue plastic wire, a Sonic totbox, a Super Bubble wrapper, a beer bottle bottom, etc. A few items of interest:

I know I'm not the first to ask the question ... there's even a Facebook page devoted to it.  But I still want to know--where can I get some regular old ketchup? If McDonald's is serving the fancy kind, how bad do the fries have to be to warrant a commoner's condiment?

In automotive news: Somebody bought a $3.29 fuse at AutoZone and paid with a $20.

These were found across the yard from each other and are, I suspect, evidence of a recent ninja skirmish.

"To ____ / In 600 CE, / wish pilgrim / paid their / First..." Don't you wish I'd found more of whatever THAT was? Maybe next time.

From what I can tell on the Aplicare website (it's "a market leader in the formulation, production, and packaging of topical antiseptic and personal care products for use in today's professional health care setting," BTW) the purple label apparently indicates just plain old isopropyl alcohol, which is of course quite useful for hyperalimentation trays and hand scrubs. Maybe next time you can toss me an unopened one, guys, so I can decontaminate after I do my trash collecting?

Support Your Local Bakery: 5/15/11

Today's finds, other than a metal doohickey and a WeatherZone tag left over, I assume, from someone's winter coat, are pretty much all evidence of local snacking patterns: a water bottle (the lone indicator of any kind of healthy eating), a BK cup, styrofoam package bits, a Toastchee wrapper (note to my husband: yes, I said TOASTCHEE, not NABS), and a Saltine sleeve.

The aforementioned metal doohickey. Looks a bit like the business end of our air compressor (which reminds me, I haven't checked the air pressure in my tires in waaaaay too long).

But this stuff is what I'm more interested in. I've always wondered if there could be a less-appealing brand name for baked goods than "Otis Spunkmeyer."  Guess maybe they were trying to hitch a ride on the tweed coattails of snackmaster Orville Redenbacher.  But I, for one, don't think they succeeded.  I mean, c'mon:  "Otis," the Mayberry town drunk, and "Spunkmeyer," which may as well just be "Spunkmeister."  Curiosity finally piqued beyond the OK-I'll-Google-it tipping point, I just looked up the story behind the name.  I was hoping it wasn't a real guy, and no, the name was made up by the founder's 12-year-old kid.  Think I would've hired an agency.  But the real problem is just a blueberry muffin that comes packaged in cellophane. How good can that be?

As I was saying. Want to know the saddest thing about this Lance honeybun wrapper, which someone obviously ripped into with great zeal? The best bakery around, the Graham Tasty Bakery, is like two blocks from here. You could've gotten a fresh, life-alteringly delicious honeybun the size of your head for about the same price you paid to get this one from the Stop-N-Shop. The only possible excuse: It was Sunday and the good folks who run the bakery were enjoying their well-deserved day of rest.

Supersize Litter: 4/10/11

This week's collection:

Cheetos, scraps from local newspapers, a menthol smoker's refuse, a spread from Parade "magazine," landscaping tags, napkins, styrofoam, etc. 

I assume this box belonged to some folks moving in down the street earlier this week.  It was pretty windy, and you never know when I might need to borrow a Big Spoon (or some knives...), so I tried not to grumble as I detangled this from our azaleas to put into recycling. (And yes, new flats from TJ Maxx...cute, huh?)  That, alas, wasn't the biggest piece of sh*t in our yard this week.

This was. Storms here earlier in the week downed trees and power lines all over, so I guess we were lucky that this chunk o' tree only took out a gutter, a shutter, and a few shingles. And yes, it was that Bradford pear I was just disparaging a few weeks ago... Another one squashed my parents' car. Are those trees out to get us or what? Just checked Wikipedia, and apparently the species is known more for its "weak crotches" than for its evil plotting to overthrow humanity, but I'm still suspicious. Hope everybody else fared OK!

Today's Trash: 4/2/11

As promised, I finished my coffee and headed out to the yard, while the husband's in the garage performing some organ transplants on the lawnmower. Here's what I turned up in those shin-high weeds (with a few tufts of grass mixed in):

Drink lids, creamsicle wrappers (mmmm....), Snickers, styrofoam, cellophane, you get the idea. A few standouts:

If you're like me, you have so many galvanized carriage bolt packages lying around the interior of your car (or in your truck bed) that you really just can't help when they start flying out the window.

Only the finest cigars/cigarillos will do in my neighborhood.  Who DOESN'T like to smoke things that come in fruit-candy flavors like white grape? Get a feel for the brand's clientele at this Facebook page. "Hell yeah your [sic] the bomb," and indeed, "them r tha shizzzzz." 

This reminds me of why I dislike the modifier "award-winning." Here we have the winner of Pastry of the Year--5 years in a row. The Big Texas Cinnamon Roll from Cloverhill. I'm assuming that's Gas Station Pastry of the Year? I can't read the full label. Or who knows--maybe this did beat out all the namby-pamby macarons and the so-five-years-ago fancy cupcakes. Oh wait, I just looked it up: It's the Pastry of the Year as designated by Automatic Merchandiser.  So it's the best pastry in your local vending machine. A true honor. I will definitely try one next time, IF I have more than 55 cents (I'm expecting this is on the upper end of the vending machine price point).

I'll just need to remind myself NOT to look at the ingredients list before I eat it.

And now, for the littering cusshole who keeps busting beer bottles in the same spot on the sidewalk along the edge of our yard: You've downgraded, I see, from last week's Corona to this week's Bud. I do hope, regardless, that it's you--returning from your no shirt, no shoes stroll to the Mystic Mart one warm spring day in the near future--and not one of the kids who use that sidewalk to get to their school down the road, who gets a big shard of this accident-waiting-to-happen embedded in your foot. There's no way I'm ever going to be able to get it all picked up and extracted from the grass.

Seeing the Sun: 4/2/11

Hooray for the good weather today, after a week of rain (and snow)! That means that colleague Wes Isley and friends are outside in Greensboro doing a litter clean-up that he organizes each year. What a guy! That also means that (after I've finished my coffee), I need to get out in my yard and see what kind of flotsam has been moistening out there all week, before my other half chops it all into particles once he finishes fixing the lawnmower.

For those who might be keen to hear more from the author of Moby-Duck, he was on Fresh Air last week.

Today's Haul: 3/19/11

So while I was outside cleaning the cat's litterbox, I decided I may as well brave the pollen for an extra 10 minutes and see if any intriguing human-generated litter had been added to my yard.  Yes, I really know how to live it up on the weekend. Here's what I scooped from the yard (nothing interesting in the catbox):

Sorry for the shadow. I haven't been awake that long so my eyes hadn't quite adjusted to the sun enough to understand the problem. In case you need some help with the ID, we've got one large plastic bag (This is NOT a toy; it's a suffocation danger), some Pall Mall and Newport detritus, a sprinkling of styrofoam, a landscaping tag from some manner of "mounding" flowers planted by someone with more energy/time on their hands than I have, and a shattered Corona bottle. That cerveza is not so "mas fina" when you've gotta extract shards of its container from your grass, so I hope the consumer enjoyed it, at least.  No wedge of lime found in the vicinity.  A few things of particular interest:

No baked-fresh cookie for ME?  Rude. Go ahead and hog that Sweet Life all for yourself and just rub my nose in it.

We've got two cemeteries within walking distance, so I suspect this chunk of faux poinsettia was just carried over by the wind. Though you never know.

Now, call me paranoid, but I believe this next item is no mere evidence of random littering, but constitutes an act of emotional terrorism, specifically targeting my husband and me. Here's the back:

3-13-11, last Sunday, not a happy day in our household. Note the apparent bloodstain at the bottom.  But that's not the truly offensive part. You have to flip it over for that:

Yes, that's right. It's a photo somebody took of their TELEVISION screen, with a Dookie cutting down the basket after they took the ACC championship game from our Heels.  Hmph. Considering the high-class factor of taking a photo (and printing it out on nice Canon paper) of your TV screen, this just adds to my puzzlement as to why folks who NEVER could have gotten into or afforded to attend Duke and probably don't know anyone who has ever attended Duke and certainly would be looked down upon with scorn by the spoiled out-of-state teenagers who DO attend Duke would actually be Duke fans.  But regardless, I do count this litter as an act of aggression.