Saving gas for the extremist

It's Wednesday. Time for my small attempt to save the planet. You're gonna love these. You all know the big ideas to get the best gas mileage. Well here are a few obscure suggestions.

Here are tips that will save you pennies:

1. Know where you are going/if it's in stock/if they are open. Don't waste gas driving all over town trying to find the last purple sparkle hairbrush in the city. Call ahead and confirm. Know where you are going first. There is nothing more frustrating or gas-eating than driving up and down streets for 45 minutes.

2. Hold out to run errands in off peak times. You will spend less time in traffic and waiting at lights.

3. Try not to travel on dirt of gravel. It reduces your gas mileage up to 30% (I don't think you have a choice in this, but maybe you do)

4. Remove luggage, bike, and ski racks from your car. They only cause drag.

5. Remove any unnecessary weight from your trunk.

6. Freeze. Your car does not need to warm up for its benefit, it's only your benefit. Tough it out to save a dime or better yet, park it in the garage.

7. Drive steadily. Speed up and slow down gradually.

8. Don't weave. Drive in a straight line. It's the most efficient.

9. Turn your AC off 10 minutes before you get there. It's still cold for those 10 minutes and you are using less gas.

10. Don't accelerate uphill. Build speed up before the incline, maintain it on the way up, then coast down.

11. In stop and go traffic, don't use the AC and roll down the windows.

12. If you are idle for more than 30 seconds, turn your car off.

Yes, some of there are extreme, but some are small choices you can make to save a dime. It's sad to say, but trust me, they actually work. There is a time and a place for all of them, just use your judgement.

Happy Wednesday!

Good luck.

What's your take?

I love pizza. It is a great piece of food. I will take it almost any way I can get it. I will have it everyday. A party of flavors baked into a convenient hand-held meal (which I also enjoy, eating without utensils).
What makes or breaks a pizza for me is tomato sauce. I am not a fan of the sauce. With all of the major delivery chains, I have to remove the cheese, wipe the sauce off and then replace the cheese. It's too much sauce and the flavor overpowers the entire meal. Not satisfying.
Imo's. While it's really not much on pizza, being a St. Louis girl, I do enjoy it. The best part of Imo's? The sauce. It is delicious. I could eat it straight. It is sweet and tangy and cuts the strong, thick cheese nicely. Mmmm.
I love California Pizza Kitchen because they offer so many options that do not include tomato sauce, along with Three Monkeys. Dewey's does a good job of keeping the sauce in it's place: small and insignificant. Keep up the good job, Dew.
Needless to say, Chicago pizza is not my cup of tea. The soup of sauce is too much, along with the cornmeal crust is just too much for me to handle.
Toppings are also important, but won't ruin it for me like the sauce. I am eternally grateful to CPK for the return of their pear & gorgonzola. Dewey's is my friend for their Socrates and Edgar Allan Poe. I had a fig and goat cheese pizza in Paducah this summer and have been dreaming of it ever since.
The place place in St. Louis to get pizza is Dewey's (even though a small national chain), Pirrone's, and Cecil Whittaker's. As for chains: California Pizza Kitchen.

What makes the pizza for you and why? Where is the best place to get pizza?

Like this quote...

"It is every person's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he/she takes out." Albert Einstein

This is what it's all about.

No bodily fluids at the dinner table

Where do I start? Tara asked me to be part of a dinner club with her friend Kara. Dinner? Restaurants? I am in.

I arrive at Sage armed with random topics of small talk (I just finished 2 great books, saw some good movies and there is always the opportunity to spread the gospel of How I Met Your Mother). It is a hodge podge of girls, all about my age that all know each other through a certain degree of separation, most of us are all meeting for the first time. As it is to be expected, most of the women are pregnant or have recently birthed. As it is to be expected, children were heavily the topic of conversation. Here are the some of the topics we touched on last night:

birth; bloody nipples; babies ingesting your blood; needing to sit on a pillow for 2 months; dilating; throwing up; throwing up at the kitchen table while eating dinner; diarrhea; the rancid smell of farts when you are sick; trying to nurse when you are full and it shooting everywhere (and the hand motion of liquid shooting out your boobs).

I understand that when you are a mom, it is all-consuming. There is no time for anything else and this is your life. You deserve to talk and tell your stories, please do not mistake me for criticizing people for talking about something I am not interested in. This just went a little too far.

I don't understand when a women gets pregnant, her private parts become open news. Do not share what your vagina is doing to total strangers. It is not appropriate. I am also one that believes there are some private issues in your house that should stay private. If it happens in the bathroom, let it stay. There is a reason bathrooms are so small: it is meant for just one person (unless you live in Sarah's bathroom, but that is meant for film equipment, but I digress). Then women become mothers and they don't think of what they are actually saying sometimes. Rancid farts as dinner conversation? No. Then they gross out if the skin is left on the fish. Seriously, you just went into detail about your three year old's digestion issues and fish skin pushes you over the edge? Take off the mommy blinders.

As I am listening to the bloody nipple story I am trying to add to the conversation. But what do I say? Do I ask for more detail about the bloody nipple? No, I don't want to encourage this. Do I tell a sister-in-law's birth story? No because who wants to hear about a stranger's birth story? Not me.

I see that there is no point in introducing a new topic. These women have not read a book or have seen a movie in years. There are moms. The are too busy cleaning up vomit and chasing naked kids (again, not criticizing, this is what they are suppose to be doing). I choose to just sit, listen, and look forward to my nice quiet house.

I know I don't understand the neanderthal method of the parasite/host relationship in gestation and I don't understand why anyone would freely choose to enter it. I also don't understand how women give themselves up entirely when they have children. I understand that kids are consuming, but if I was in the situation, I honestly believe that I would still watch CNN. I would make an effort to turn on NPR during the day to learn something and have something else to consume my mind and my conversation. There are moms that are out there that can have other conversations outside their children or tell a story that doesn't involve bodily fluids.

I know many of you are moms or going-to-be moms and I have put you a little on the defensive. I want to hear about your children. I do. Honestly. Please just edit before you open your mouth, just as I do. I do not talk about doctor's appointments, womanly issues, fluids, etc. I did not go into detail what what was oozing out of the shingles because it was not appropriate or needed. Please just edit.

Tara and Kara, you do a great job at editing. OK, never mind, Kara, you do a great job of editing. Thank you. Tara, you are good at talking about kids and then moving on.

My question is: how do I drive the conversation next month? I need to find mom-friendly topics. I realize movies and books are out. TV is probably out because I don't watch The Disney Channel. Current events? Usually too tragic (no bodily fluids at the dinner table). What else is there?

Golden Movies

I was very happy with the Golden Globe nominations and winners overall. I have only seen a small number of films that were nominated, but hopefully I will see more before Oscar time.

This weekend I saw 2 of the nominated films. Slumdog Millionaire and Rachel Getting Married. Wow. 2 AMAZING films.

I was happy to see Slumdog Millionaire get the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Score, & Best Screenplay. All were well deserved. Walking out of the movie, the immediate reaction was Danny Boyle is much more of a director that I gave him credit for and the score of the film was a much a part of the film as the 3 main characters. I am not going to give you the plot, you all can look it up. I am jusy going to say that the film is well done on every level. There are some parts that you chalk up to movie magic and that is to be expected. It's a little over the top on the love story, but again, it's a movie. If you want a discussion on the movie, call me, I am not going to bore you with the details. I give the movie an A. Go see it.

Rachel Getting Married. This one was hard. Very heavy. I am a little surprised that Anne Hathaway did not win for Best Actress, but I am reserving my judgement until I see Revolutionary Road in a couple of weeks. The movie is about Kim (Anne) who is an addict and has really done some bad things due to her addictions. She comes home for her sister's wedding and you go through an emotional roller coaster. You feel for the addict; you want the addict to grow up; you see the power of addiction; you see how addiction affects everyone in the family; you see the wounds and scars; you see recovery; you see what it really is. It is sad, hopeful, determined, and depressing. It was powerful. I am very very thankful that no one in my family deals with addictions like that. Great movie. Go see it.

I have also seen Frost/Nixon. Good movie. Frank Langella did a fantastic job. I am not a fan of movies about real people. That's what A&E is for. I understand their stories are interesting and deserve to be told, but Hollywood takes too much creative license and it becomes a work of fiction, not a movie on someone's life. It may be a good movie, but I do not trust the American public to make the separation. If you want to make a biographical movie and take a leap from the facts, just say it's a movie. Frost/Nixon did a decent job of seeming to tell it truthfully. It may be because the actual even happened on tape so it would have been hard to deviate.

My loathing of biographical movies came about with Catch Me If You Can. Good movie, great true life story. If you research it though, only half of the movie is true. Which is unfortunate because the true story is an amazing story in itself, but it gets muddied up through Hollywood magic.

Go see Slumdog Millionaire before the Oscars, you won't regret it.

Concrete Jungle

In St. Louis we have been dealing with a major highway construction project. Fortunately, only my social life and shopping habits have suffered. Right before Christmas, the first half of the job was completed and opened up to much fanfare and celebration. I think the pope even showed up to congratulate MoDOT in this feat. Of course within the week, I took The Fock-is and we had our inaugural dive down the new I-64.

As I drive down the road, it feels roomy and luxurious. The overpasses look good. A few freshly-planted trees dot the way. As I try to convince myself that this is good, something is holding me back. There is something not comfortable about the ride.

Then it hits me. Concrete.

Not literally. I am fine. The car is safe.

Lining both sides of the highway are monstrous concrete sound barriers. Suddenly I feel like a rat in a maze searching for my cheese. Dave Matthews "Ants Marching" begins to play in my head. I feel trapped. All the ambiance, all the character are gone. The few trees they planted within the sterile land look nice, but compared to all the trees that are now blocked out, it's a sad attempt. Not too mention the business that have been now blocked by these walls. I am sure they will suffer too.

Now it's time for the excuses: "It is the home owner's request for the sound barriers to be installed." These home owner's moved in to an existing highway. They knew the situation. I have experienced it, it's not that loud. It's white noise except for the occasional semi or ambulance. If you don't like it, don't move to that location. If I was a home owner, I would prefer to look out and see a distance of cars, trees, life, and goings-on rather than a 25 foot peach concrete wall on my property line. It's very oppressive. It is also very unsettling to hear noise and not detect the source. I am concerned for these people's mental well-being.

I was perusing the real estate market this weekend when I saw a house for sale in dog town. It is VERY close to the highway, but it's also part of the charm (I know, it was Greg's neighbor when he lived in dog town). I was sad to see that in the ad it mention sound barriers will be put up in the next year. Great, block out the traffic, but create an amplifier for all the neighborhood dogs.

I have written two letters to MoDOT, but I am sure they won't get read. I am not sure what to do. We can't have the stretch of 64 between 170 and Kingshighway turned into a soulless road that can be placed anywhere in America. Why do builders today make it their prime objective to remove an individuality and uniqueness from their ultimate result? We are St. Louis. We should show it off, not hide it.

I feel a real sense of urgency to stop this process, but I have no idea how to go about it. I have googled to see if any web sites have started up, but I have found none. I feel that I won't get the voice to be heard because I am just a "suburbanite" and it doesn't affect me. It does. I drive down the highway, I deserve to see St. Louis and St. Louis deserves to be seen. Again, I don't think these city people know what they are getting into. They may block some sound out, but they are only amplifying it on the other side.

My cross to bear

I have shingles...again. This is ridiculous. This the second time I have had it confirmed, but now I realize that I have had it 2 other times. Yes, that makes 4 times in all. I will state that I have had very mild cases every time, but still, I am the lucky 1-5% that get recurring episodes.

This outbreak (along with 2 other outbreaks before) is located under my chin. It is oh so attractive.

As I sit here typing, my face is on fire and it feels like hundreds of needles are being stabbed into an open wound.

Sorry for the description, but I am crabby and need to vent. This sucks.

I am signing off until happier times. I will post next week.