Why hauling trash by bike is difficult in New England in late Dec – let me count the ways:
1. extra holiday trash: Amazon boxes, Amazon prime boxes, Amazon boxes. glossy gift boxes, toy boxes, tool boxes, wrapping paper, unflattened cardboard, boxes that won’t compact, and pop out of the recycling tubs on your trailer like a spring. Boxes that are icy and slippery.
2. working in mittens (i.e. paws)
3. wind, wind that blows away your boxes when they pop out of your tub. trying to pick up little slips of paper off the icy ground with mittens. Wind that freezes your eyeballs so you can’t see. of if you wear goggles, goggles that fog up so you can’t see. but yay for vaseline, shea butter, bees wax, whale blubber, or whatever you can smear your exposed skin with.
4. ice under your wheels, ice under your feet
5. Xmas and New Years are on Mondays, so all of Monday’s pickups are delayed til Tuesday. backlog of trash and work.
6. Coworkers out of town for the holidays, so the ones at home covering extra shifts.
7. Shortest days of the year, daylight runs out at 4pm.
8. snow. snow that falls and is followed by sub-zero temps that turn the treated snow on the roads/bike path to a sandy,frozen-slushy consistency that packs up in your trailer fenders and causes constant drag. don’t bother knocking it off, it will pack back up in there within 15 feet. you’ll just have to stand up to pedal through what you’d be able to coast through in summer.
9. temps from 10 below to 10 above, causing increased rolling resistance. (is it the energy needed for tire deformation as that part of the tire hits the pavement? frozen grease in all rolling surfaces? ice in you cables and chain and brakes? denser air? lower air pressure in tires b/c you can’t pump them up b/c all the pumps are frozen? all the layers of clothing and boots you’re working through?)
10. compost that is frozen in buckets. pound and whack just the right amount to coax it out without cracking the bucket.
okay, 10 complaints is enough whining.
let’s enjoy the show:
8:40 min: Lunchmoney Lewis with “Bills” (work work work!)
15 min: Poking Pokey, my fears around giving a chicken a shot
19:30 min: Buffy St Marie
23 min: a special story from my dad Jim Woodring who has taken to answering the 8pm telemarketer calls with “Domestic Violence Hotline, Can I help you?” Someone needed help.
28: Kwanzaa song
32: Jasmine, poem about trees, shared at Int’s Women’s Day march 2017
36: Mark Guglielmo (local musician) sings “Algiers Point”
46: Jerry and Sylvia Johnson and Higher Help, will be performing at MLKDay event Jan 15th at Anchor House of Artists on Pleasant St.
52: Cyndi Lauper sings True Colors