Sunday, September 14, 2008

Going Green

Another enjoyable weekend winding down. Andrea and I celebrated our anniversary (which was a couple of weeks ago) on Friday evening. We started with dinner at Chandelier's (our first visit there), which was impressive, with both food and service excellent. We then spent the night at the Hillcrest Inn Bed and Breakfast. We slept in a comfortable room with a lovely view over the city, and in the morning enjoyed a great breakfast and conversation with Daelene and Morris, our hosts, and with other guests. I highly recommend it as a way to enjoy a brief break without the hassle of traveling.

On our way home Saturday morning we stopped at Memorial Square to take in the Green Living Action Day (GLAD) Festival, put on by Tiger Lily Education and the Downtown Business Improvement District group - another successful partnership for Jayne Remenda and her team. We toured displays of environmentally friendly alternatives - housing, lighting, gardening, solar energy, a solar oven, recycling, food products, crafts, books - plenty to see and discuss. I'm looking forward to hearing more from Tiger Lily Education, and possibly attending some seminars which they're thinking of offering, on subjects such as reducing energy costs and building more sustainably.

We also made our usual weekend visit to the farmers' market - we have really enjoyed trying the various vegetables that are available there this summer. I'm not sure how long into the fall we'll be able to take advantage of the market - if you haven't been, either Wednesday or Saturday mornings, it's well worth a visit.

The GLAD festival reminded me of a couple of things. One is how events such as these show how lively the downtown is when people have a reason to go there, and what a good location Memorial Square is for these events. There was even a small wedding there in the afternoon, which seemed to fit well with the small and friendly attitude of the GLAD displayers. Another was how taking small steps to be more environmentally friendly is not difficult - it just takes a bit of thoughtfulness. I hope that city council can start to be more aware of the environmental impacts of our decisions, and build that awareness into our decision-making processes.

"There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew." - Marshall McLuhan

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