January 11, 2020
Original Poem by Mr. Plastic Picker
This is Mr. Plastic Picker’s response to seeing some of the destruction that tourism causes on the mountains and the Aspen trees. Also after the perilous drive from Snow Bird to Park City in one of the worst snowstorms he has ever driven through.
To enjoy me
You have to destroy me
I am your Pachamama
Not your plaything
January 11, 2020
by drplasticpicker
It’s difficult to be a child especially a teenager right now. I am trying to do everything we need to do as parents to ensure our kids’ future, and bring this decade’s work of rewilding the world with joy. Parents especially mothers have been mobilized because our children became activist. I have always been environmentally aware, but seeing the young including my own children strike for the climate – awoke me. But as they have been awoken, they are anxious. We actually don’t talk about the climate too much but they know why we are making the changes that we are making, and the donations Mr. Plastic Picker and I do for their sakes.
Our high-school son told me about the above figure EarthChan who is an anime-style anthropomorphic representation of planet Earth. She is a young girl and when you look at her from above, her hair is blue and green and covered with clouds and resembles the planet Earth. Initially when our son told us about Earth Chan and that many youngsters were being activated to help the earth due to her, I was dismissive. But then, I began to realize that just like the ancient Inca civilization and the present day Quechuan speak of the Pachamama – Earth Chan may be the current generation’s planet Earth – their Pachamama.
January 10, 2020
by drplasticpicker
Today was one of those days that was beautiful. Today was like that day in December when our meeting was cancelled and I wandered around the hospital talking about plastic and my blogging and got my Fit-Mask test done with one of the most powerful physicians in our group https://drplasticpicker.com/a-meeting-was-cancelled-and-drplastipicker-meanders-around-the-hospital-convincing-the-1/. I had so many adventures that day, and I made tentative plans to have a plastic picking meet-up with said physician and her family. She wants to teach her children responsibility for the earth as well. Well today, our middle management meeting was not cancelled but I still had a wonderful day.
January 9, 2020
by drplasticpicker
It has been four months of this journey. And this journey will last 10-12 years. That is about how long we have to avert catastrophic climate change. I have boasted before that I am determined and hyper-focused, but yesterday I admit to feeling somewhat lost. I am on my 122nd bag of ocean bound plastic and 540th salvaged item recovered from the half-mile stretch of beach I clean – and I wonder, is it enough? The ocean plastic picking has been incorporated into my life. The brisk evening wind yesterday and the clean packed sand I now need as much as I need my cup of coffee at 5am. So for that I will forever be grateful for this journey, because going to the beach and cleaning let me regain my wellness back.
Janaury 8, 2020
by drplasticpicker
It’s 11pm and Mr. Plastic Picker woke me up. He was putting away the folded laundry very martyrish. Please know dear readers that it is his parents that do the laundry, not him. Then our daughter could not find her PE shorts, and between Mr. Plastic Picker’s antics and wanting to make sure my daughter had her shorts – I got my drplasticpicker body up out of REM stage 3 sleep and went to her room. I turned on the lights and the bright light shocked my cortisol up and my melatonin plummetted and I cleaned out her whole closet in 7 minutes and found her shorts.
January 8, 2020
by drplasticpicker
I am writing this post actually Janaury 7, 2020. Even though it is Tuesday, and this blogpost is a Wednesday series – I will publish today because it will be wonderful to have our blog’s 100th blogpost be a Hopeful Post. Again, this continues to be a joyful blog-post series and such an uplifting part of my week. This marks the 100th blogpost and that is something to be super hopeful about. Usually I get 200-300 pageviews a day, so that is 200-300 plastic picking posts people are reading a day. Who is reading? I am not really sure but folks are reading. And that might encourage someone to remember their reusable water bottle, refuse a plastic fork, donate to the Rainforest Trust or pick up a few pieces of plastic when they go to the beach. So this week, we have Eight Reasons to be Hopeful.
January 6, 2020
by drplasticpicker
It is Monday, January 6, 2020. It is the first full work day back after the 2-week stretch of the holiday break. The holiday break is when staffing is the most difficult at work, as nurses and pediatricians want and need to be off with their families. This year the 2-week holiday break went on a crash-course with influenzae season. Trying to predict how well the influenzae vaccine will work and how bad or not so bad the influenzae season will be is impossible until April of each year.
January 6, 2020
An Original Poem by drplasticpicker
I walk from the Pier to the Protected Beach
The Protected Beach where the Surfer’s go
And beyond that Protected Beach and the Parking Lot, I travel further
until I reach the soaring cliffs of beauty and life
Sand cliffs that may crumble at any moment
Posted signs warn “Unstable Cliffs, Stay Back.”
But there are Marbled Godwits there, a flock of friends feeding
There is a black shoe sole, alone and abandoned
There is a bag of mammalian waste with an aluminum can wedged inside
There is a jagged rigid piece of white plastic, there is a small rectangle of blue
I bend over to pick up the pieces, unafraid of the cliffs
I am cleaning the cliffs, picking up bits and pieces
The cliffs may crumble. The house above may collapse. Milliions of human dollars may be lost.
But the earth will warm. Our eco-system will collapse, and generations of birds will die – if I don’t pick up the plastic.
The Marbled Godwits will eat the plastic
So I am fearless and I clean the sand
A handsome man, so handsome with a leashed mannerly dog asks, “What are you doing?”
I think of Mr. Plastic Picker, and I smile openly and say, “I am picking up Plastic for my trash art. I love the blues.”
The handsome man says, “You are doing two good things, cleaning the earth and making art?” He smiles.
I think of Mr. Plastic Picker and I smile with openness and love for the earth, my husband and this fellow human being. “It makes me happy. There are Marbled Godwits over there.” I point to the North Shore. “They are endangered shore birds with sharp needle-point black beaks.”
The man smiles kindly and walks with his leashed handsome dog to the North.
An unleashed Pekginese walks by. I think, please don’t chase the Godwits. Those Marbled Godwits are my friends.
I walk within the soaring sand cliffs, the cliffs of beauty and I walk with life.
January 5, 2020
by drplasticpicker
If you have reached this post, you are either a real new patient of drplasticpicker or a sentinent being out there in the internet universe looking for inspiration, free entertainment or were mistakenly directed during an Ecosia (not Google) search on Dr. Pimple Popper. Yes, Dr. Plastic Picker’s name was chosen trying to direct traffic from Dr. Pimple Popper. She picks zits under sterile technique. I pick ocean bound plastic using old bread bags as gloves. We are all doing a service.
January 4, 2020
by drplasticpicker
Instagram’s loss is Chirp Chirp’s gain. I have no idea why I have been banned from instagram but I am going with it https://drplasticpicker.com/trashy-art-poor-chirp-chirp-the-joy-of-the-unexpected/. I am taking it as a sign to refocus on the blog and actually again advocate for reducing plastic pollution in the real world. Without my Instagram friends and the virtual Instagram world, drplasticpicker decided to return to the physical dimension. I have returned to Chirp Chirp.