No car day

This is harder than it sounds.

At the last "Cool Moms for a Hot Planet" meeting, the group leader (Abby, fabulous woman!) suggested that we each try to park our car for one full day.

I thought, "Ha! No problem! I'm already a big proponent of walking - this is a piece of cake!"

Hubris always brings down the hero in the stories. I remembered that a bit late.

It turns out, upon further analysis, that I have cut out lots of little car trips, but I still do lots of little car trips.

Yesterday, I wanted to take the water taxi to meet Ryan for lunch (with Tessa), then walk to Madison (a reasonable distance for Tessa, less than a mile) and catch the 12 bus to go to the hospital, and then do it in reverse to come home. EXCEPT....Trader Joe's is a mile or so past the hospital, and I wanted to do some (cheap) grocery shopping. I was not willing to add two more bus trips to my trip, and as it was I was trying to squish grocery shopping in between the lunch with Ryan at 11 and the oncologist appt at 12:40. I drove, and was just barely on time as it was.

Today, Tessa and I spent the morning at home. Then, we walked to preschool (this is not unusual) and stopped to share a burrito (veggie burrito with carrots, zuchinni, potatoes, spinach, tomatoes....YUM!) at Taquaria Guayamos (sp?) on the way. We had Shep with us (tied him up outside for lunch), and so after I dropped Tessa off at school Shep and I went for a walk/run, with a little stop at Michele's house along the way for a spontaneous visit on her front stoop.

Chores at home, then time to get Tessa, and I knew she wouldn't want to walk the mile home. Sooo, I loaded up the bike with the kid-trailer, and for the first time in about five years, I got on a bike and went to meet her.

Riding along California, trying to share the road, terrified me. I do not have bike skills (did I mention it had been five years?) and I've never towed the trailer - ack. It was okay but nerve wracking.

My running pants (which look more like yoga pants) got caught in the chain somewhere in the junction. I yanked them out, apparently no damage, but I was not thrilled with that development. And I don't want to wear spandex bike pants...sigh.

When I go to preschool, I went down the five or so steps to her classroom, and I thought my legs would collapse under me (which made me laugh).

But I bravely put my helmet back on, put Tessa's helmet on her, and said, "Let's go to PCC!" which is about a mile further (two miles from our house). A couple blocks later, I heard "swish, swish" every time the wheel on the trailer went round. Sure enough, a flat.

Not to be stymied, I set to fixing it. I pulled out the pump, and pumped my little heart out with the hand pump (smashing the knuckle of my index finger quite impressively in the process).

I worked and worked at it, getting quite the UPPER body workout (never knew bicycling could work that part of me), but to little avail....it wasn't going to fully inflate no matter what I did.

So we limped home along the sidewalk. Tessa cheerfully reminded me that Daddy knew how to fix flats and maybe I should learn. (Not today, kiddo. Today I'm fried!)

I did not go to PCC, and to stick to my no-driving day, I'll go tomorrow. Tessa has preschool at 8:45am tomorrow and I find it very unlikely that she'll be up for a walk that early (we are usually rushing on Fridays), so I'll drive, and then just loop up to PCC.

Anyway, I'm finally having one day of success with the no driving thing. Tomorrow I will drive, but today, my car is off the road, and my carbon footprint is a bit smaller, and I'm quite proud of myself.

(I will not mention, then, that our grass out back was a jungle, and since it's nice out and the Landahls are coming to visit tomorrow and the kids might want to play out there, I mowed it. With our gas mower. No, I don't want to mention that as I'm reveling in my lowered carbon footprint from not driving. Okay, so since I DID mention it, I'll also mention that Ryan got a free push-mower -the people powered kind, not the gas kind - that needs sharpening, and so soon we'll mow our lawn carbon free. But not today.

But I'm still going to revel in the not driving for a day thing.)

Not driving for a day is largely symbolic for me - the real trick is to cut back driving a lot, and I'm doing that, even though I do a couple miles here and there most days. I'm carpooling more than ever before, walking more than ever before, bussing more than ever before. Bit by bit, it's coming together.

But I'll take the symbol, too!