Drink responsibly EVERY DAY! You go to meetings, coffee breaks, PTA functions, and soccer matches, accompanied by the ever-present cup of coffee or bottle of water. You stop at Starbucks or 7-11 for coffee. You jog with a bottle of water. So, care for our planet by lessening the amount of Styrofoam and plastic on the roadsides and in the landfill. Keep a coffee cup at your desk at work and a commuter mug in your car for use at meetings or filling at Peet’s. Fill a water bottle on your way out to a game or run. Keep a couple filled, in the refrigerator or freezer (great for a hot day at an arts festival). Just be sure to rotate your cups and bottles often, bringing them home for a thorough cleaning to avoid bacteria growth. This keeps both you and the Earth healthier.
Tag Archive for drink
Drink Beer & Help the Environment
Even if you aren’t a Corona or other beer drinker, this is good news. Six-pack rings have always been a hazard to wildlife, killing and choking them, and drink industries–beer and soft drink–have been slow to adopt the technology that’s been around for years that can solve the problem. That is, biodegradable, non-plastic 6-pack rings.
Kudos to Corona for finally doing that. It’s only a pilot program, but it’s an important start. Read about it at Corona Beer to Ditch Plastic Packaging by Using Biodegradable 6-Pack Rings. Then, contact Corona and congratulate them on their enlightened action. (If you want, lift a beer in a toast to them.) And ask your favorite beer and soft-drink manufacturers why they aren’t doing the same thing.
Why Men Paint the Town Red
One theory is that the phrase “paint the town red,” meaning to celebrate wildly, often with drinking involved, came from an incident in 1837. That’s when the Marquis of Waterford, known for his love of drink and mischief, took his friends on a wild night on the English town of Melton Mowbray. The night included vandalism on homes and public buildings, including painting a tollgate, the statue of a swan, and people’s doors red. They did compensate their victims later on, though.
Another, more American, possibility is that, during the Wild West era, men visited brothels, where they drank heavily, raised hell, and carried on activities the brothels were set up for. They did this so often that they were acting as though the whole town was one large red-light district.
If either is true (or both), the phrase grew out of men acting like, er, donkeys.
Help for Holiday Horrors
We’re entering the season of get-togethers with family, friends, and co-workers. There’s always at least one person who wants to “celebrate” by using the occasion to fight political or personal battles. All you want to do is relax and share good food, drink, and company.
Amy Keller Laird, editor-in-chief at Women’s Health Magazine, offered (December edition of the magazine) five ways to avoid conflict during holiday gatherings. I hope they make the next month or so more enjoyable for you.
- Agree to disagree. Not everything is a challenge of you personally. Walk away from the argument.
- Keep your emotions in check. As emotions rise in the other person, our own emotions rise in response. Keep yourself calm.
- Use humor. Humor (not the sarcastic or demeaning kind) helps diffuse most prickly situations.
- Just say NO. If someone asks you a personal question or tries to draw you into an uncomfortable conversation, simply tell them you don’t want to talk about it. That’s a perfectly okay thing to say.
- Remember what’s important, why you’re at the gathering to begin with. Keep in mind what you want out of being where you are. Make HAPPY memories for yourself and your kids.
Yes, these are all steps that depend on you. But isn’t it nice that you actually do have the power to control the situation?
By the way, I think that these five suggestions are just as good for non-holidays too.
Vegan or Not–A Great New Drink
TO MY VEGAN FRIENDS (and other lovers of Bailey’s Irish Cream): Bailey’s has decided to, as they say, “get with the times” and offer a vegan liqueur. Their dairy-free drink is made with the essence of crushed almonds and almond oil. They want to appeal to consumers by offering a healthier option that is also eco-friendly.
Why is it eco-friendly? Consider this–it takes 220 liters of milk to make Bailey’s each year, and 38,000 cows to produce that milk. Those cows have to keep having calves–imagine being pregnant most of your life! Those calves are taken from their moms right after birth so the milk can go to cream for Bailey’s rather than to the new-borns. It’s a cruel process. In addition, cows are harmful to the environment (e.g., emitting methane gas and odors and causing water pollution).
So, vegan Bailey’s? I’ll drink to that!
Retreats? What a Drag!
The weekend retreat I just came back from was a drag. All we did was eat, listen to some presentations (kept short and done with humor), hear some questions to think about, eat, be sent out to think or talk about those questions, wander the grounds of beautiful El Retiro Jesuit Retreat House in Los Altos, eat, watch the long-overdue rain mixed with glorious rainbows and shifting clouds, meet new people and get to know old friends better, eat, meditate/pray, and have two restful night’s sleep. It was all so…calm. It dragged me down…down to the place where I could relax and slow down for three days. It caused me to remember that there’s more to me than just what I manage to get done during any given day.
If you’ve never been on a retreat, I highly recommend you go. I’m NOT talking about the typical corporate “retreat,” where you drink too much, play uncomfortable games in the name of “team building,” and carry on business while pretending not to. Find a retreat, religious or not, where you can take some time to be with the person you are inside. Take some deep breaths. Participate in the discussions and activities, if that’s what you feel like doing. Leave behind the tension, rush, pressure, responsibilities, and expectations (from you and from others). Take what you need from the retreat, and carry it back home with you. As you ease back into THE WORLD, keep the retreat experience in your mind, available to be recalled and relived when you realize that you’re being dragged down rather than up.