April 24, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Our crazy black puppy was barking at 3am and woke us up. She once woke us up to lead us to Mr. Plastic Picker’s mother who was febrile to 105, vomiting and looked really really bad. Grandfather was later diagnosed with urosepsis after a dramatic ambulance ride to our hospital. The crazy black puppy saved grandma’s life that day, so we take her barking seriously. But this morning’s 3am barking, I am not sure what that was about. She barks when there is going to be thunder, and when there are minor earthquakes we don’t notice. We discovered the backyard barking is due to the neighbors who regularly walk the back alley way. The frontyard barking is due to the racoon that lives in a neighbor’s palm tree. But at 3am, I am not sure. I think it may have been because Mr. Plastic Picker’s father was up early downstairs. I think she barks at any ghosts as well. Do you believe in ghosts? Nonetheless I am up, and it felt like the right time to blog.

Mr. Plastic Picker finally downloaded my iPhone pictures. I also take very short videos of the children and the crazy black puppy. Two days ago he was downloading the pictures and it was taking a long time. Mr. Plastic Picker was irritated at me because it was taking so long. He asked me why I took so many videos. We have been together for 23 years. We met as college premed students and were biology lab partners. Anyway, I looked at my husband who I find incredibly handsome and endearing and said, “I was documenting the life of our children.” He sat there incredibly annoyed for the rest of the night. It ended up being an iPhone and PC known incompatibility issues after his did a Google (unfortunately not Ecosia) search. Again I was right, and he was wrong. We have tried to decrease our overconsumption lifestyle and not buy frivolous things. But because of a minor slowness of downloading some pictures – he decided to buy a new Mac desktop computer.

Being together for 23 years and married now 18 years, I have learned that some things you just let go. We have five lap tops and 1 desktop, and a new desktop is coming. Why any family needs that many computers, I have no idea. But other than his electronic shopping habits, Mr. Plastic Picker is on board with our environmental journey.

Getting back to the iPhone pictures and the new computer. It was time to delete 6 months worth of pictures from the iPhone. It has been seven weeks of quarantine life and it’s hard to look at those pre-covid19 pictures when we were all out and about and interacting freely. But it felt cathartic to delete those pictures and those expectations of what life was like. I have come to accept that for the next year, we do not know what will happen. We will not know when we will open up again. We do not know what will happen next winter come flu season. We simply do not know. Deleting those pictures was an act of acceptance of that uncertainty, and my giving in to what life will bring us. We ride this together, every painful moment of this historic pandemic. I believe in my heart that we will emerge from this a stronger society, with a clearer path especially in terms of the environment. It takes great times of hardship to force us to become a better society. There is a God and I believe that is his plan.

But purging those pictures brought back also happy memories and my interesting finds on the beach! So I thought I would write a short and happy post about the most interesting things I have found. I expect to be able to return to the beach and begin cleaning maybe in a month or so! I am so excited.

5 Most Interesting Things I Have Found Plastic Picking

1. A Brand New Volvo: I have proof in a few photos and I told my parents about it. I was walking one day to the beach on my usual path. As I descended onto the downward path toward the beach and past the shower heads, there were two millenials and a Brand New Volvo stuck in the sand. They were just sitting there and looking sad. I asked them if they were okay, and they nodded yes. The next morning they were not there. I assume someone helped them. But that was likely the most interesting thing I have found.
2. A Wallet From an Arizona Student Staying at a Local Air Bnb: This was early on in my plastic picking adventures. Yes I found a brown/tan wallet hidden in the kelp. It had everything in it including ID, credit cards and cash. I had a great adventure with the police who returned it to it’s owner. I wrote an entire blog about it. The young student was very grateful that a random pediatrician picked it up. It was interesting that the police offier asked me if I took the cash, as he was standing in front of our large newly built modern beach house. I did not take the cash LOL https://drplasticpicker.com/drplasticpicker-finds-a-lost-wallet-and-had-an-adventure/
3. Beenie Boo Pug Shown Above: The stuffed animal above I found almost in the exact position it is pictured. It was just looking at me. I picked it up and washed it twice. I gave it to my mom. I have a funny blog post about it I wrote at some point. I’ve written over 170 blog post, but I’ll try to find it and link it. Anyway, my mom still has the beenie boo and it is so cute.
4. A Handsome Man Walking with crutches and A Missing Right Leg: A ran into this other human twice. I am pretty sure he was a veteran. He was about my age and I remember that moment. Just two humans chance meeting early in the morning, I was looking for plastic and he was walking along the shore. I am sure there is a story there.
5. Eight Dollars in Cash! I always find money at the beach. Yes I found $8 dollars and I made a big deal about taking our daughter to Food4Less to buy food for the homeless population. I even wrote a blog about it. https://drplasticpicker.com/drplasticpicker-found-8-cash-on-the-beach/ I made a big to-do of intending to donate the food, and I had the crate of sphaghetti and pasta sauce in our garage. It got so busy I hadn’t had time to drop off the donation, and then COVID-19 happened. I will admit that we ended up keeping the pasta and have gone through about half of it, and instead I just donated $50 on line to the San Diego Food Bank which had a matching grant with Mission Federal so resulted in 500 meals. It seemed to make much more sense since we needed the pasta.

I was going to write 10 Top Interesting Things, but I think 5 is enough! Then next week maybe I’ll write another 5 things. I think our readers have shorter attention spans these days. Initially when I started blogging the blog analytics showed the average time readers spent on the blog was 5 minutes, but now it is 2 minutes. Maybe you all have ADHD? it is actually not uncommon.

I am so grateful to have taken on this persona of Dr. Plastic Picker 9 months ago. Plastic Picking has slowed down due to COVID-19 but I am at 180 bags of ocean bound plastic and 650 salvaged items. I have now written 172 blog posts, 61 regular Facebook Readers and 712 Instagram Followers. And this blogging keeps me focused. Next week I will do my two summary posts for the month which are the monthly Plastic Picking Totals and Secondary Net Environmental Positives for the month.

It is 623am and the puppy woke up again and is barking! Mr. Plastic Picker said he would go for a walk with me while I litter picked this morning before a virtual meeting. Signing off, your local ocean plastic picking pediatrician!