The Hippiest Place on Earth

I *heart* recycling.

I like to imagine all the happy little elves situated somewhere in the bowels of Calgary, whistling joyfully whilst they sort through my recycling, which I can now - perhaps even more joyfully! - simply dump unsorted into my personal Blue Behemoth and wheel out to the curb on Wednesdays. And they're not just sorting my recycling, but everyone's recycling! Vast mountains of recycling! It's one of those things where you sortof wish you could see how it was actually done, but it might just spoil the magic. Like Disneyland. Or sweatshops.

So I stick to imagining. However, in my view it would be stingy of me not to share all my fun imaginatings with all those happy elves/sad children. But how to effectively pay the joy forward? I mean, a big shout out to 'em and all, but there's so much recycling to do that I doubt they have time to read my blog.

My opportunity presented itself while canning yet another batch of jelly. (Cherry-rhubarb, if you really want to know.) The problem: DH and I don't own a funnel, which makes pouring boiling cauldrons of syrup into weensy little half-pint jars a real bitch. So, because we a) didn't have time to go out and buy a funnel, b) are incredibly enterprising, and c) used to smoke a lot of pot, we created what we like to call a "jam bong" to fill the funnel void.

Pop quiz: How many of you immediately deduced what a jam bong would consist of?

Answer: Frankly, I'm so confident in my friends' sordid pasts that I'm not even going to bother detailing my construction methods.

Anyways, our jam bong eventually came to the end of its useful life, and the question of what to do with the component parts arose. Call me paranoid, but what might people think if they found it in the recycling? (And since we're talking green here, you know it's not even a question of throwing it in the trash.) But then I got to thinking - if I were employed as a sorter of recycled goods, even if the job paid alright and kept me out of the Nike factories or whatever, I might find myself substantially bored and longing for a little something to tweak my imagination. Seeing the occasional recycled makeshift bong would probably make my day. Possibly even my month.

So there it was - and here it is. My message in a bottle, as it were, to all you variously happy, always hard-working elves out there. Keep up the good work.