Erica in DC's Profile

@rebeldress - that is such a good point! We get a ton of rabbits every year a few weeks after Easter. People think it is cute to give their child a baby bunny for Easter and neglect to think through all the care and time that animal will require. Rabbits can easily live to be 12 years old! There is a campaign called Make Mine Chocolate (http://www.makeminechocolate.org/) to educate people and discourage that practice.

On a similar vein, I would hope that everyone reading here knows enough to realize that domesticated animals should never be "released into the wild". Our rescue and local shelters often find domesticated rabbits running loose. They are usually filthy and starving because they don't have the necessary skills to live in the wild. I grew up in the country, and we regularly found dogs and cats that were likely driven out there and dumped by neglectful owners. My mom would take them in, clean them up, and find them homes. I am pretty sure this started both my sister and I on the path of rescuing animals ourselves :-)

I foster rabbits with the House Rabbit Society and my sister runs a pug rescue in Austin.

There are so many ways to help animals in need! You have a great list up there. I love fostering and haven't had any trouble when my foster rabbits go to their forever home. Some people will be tempted to keep them all, so for them, donating time at a shelter or rescue organization may be a better idea. There is always something to do, but please remember that many rescue groups are run by volunteers who are very busy. If you have emailed or called and haven't heard back, then I recommend just trying again. Sometimes prospective volunteers get frustrated if they don't get an immediate reply.

Our local vets often have "giving trees" for local shelter and rescue animals. If your vet doesn't have such a thing, I'm sure that you could contact a local group about making up a gift basket for them. Many groups have wish lists posted on their websites.

Staying in town this month? Maybe you can try fostering a lonely pet just for the holidays. See if there are local groups participating in this program here - http://www.petfinder.com/foster-a-lonely-pet

I'm mostly vegan. I have 2 cats and 2 rabbits plus foster rabbits (sometimes only 1, sometimes 2 or 3). The rabbits are easy to feed in a way that seems ethical to me because I buy them the same veggies that I eat myself.

The cats are another story. I have them on a grain-free diet, but like you, I doubt the meat used to make their food is ethically raised. I think it would be cruel to feed obligate carnivores a vegetarian diet, but I do hope to move to a raw diet for them once I live near my sister. She is a vegetarian as well, but she feeds her dogs raw meat that she gets from a butcher. The health of her dogs improved greatly when she put them on a raw diet.

I always advocate that vegetarians who don't already have pets consider getting something other than a dog or a cat. Rabbits, birds, hamsters, guinea pigs etc. can make great pets and there are organizations that rescue them all so don't go to a pet store!

I don't have a car because public transit is good where I live. I started needing to use ZipCar almost 2 years ago for once a month trips for volunteer work, but I try to carpool when I can.

I don't have a land line at this apartment and don't miss it.

I have a washer and dryer in my apartment. I line dry as much as I can but it gets challenging because I have a small apartment and many pets. It can be frustrating to have clean clothes that are already covered in fur by the time that they dry :-)

I have a window A/C unit in my bedroom that I run for maybe 30 minutes to an hour a day during the summer right when I go to sleep. My electric bill isn't any higher in the summer, so I think that I must balance it out with using the dryer and stove less whenever I need the A/C. I am curious if I will still "need" A/C once I stop working in an office job that is so cold in the summers that I wear 2 sweaters and still freeze. I think that keeps my body from tolerating the heat as much.

I have a TV and cable. My TV was purchased used in 2002 and isn't a flat screen or anything fancy. I don't plan to replace it because the newer TVs actually use more energy. I'll do more research if it ever breaks, but I hope that it lasts many more years. My internet is through my cable company and the cable is only $15. My internet would be $10 more per month if I didn't have cable, so I figure that $5 a month is an okay expense. I did get rid of the TV that was in my bedroom last year because it was finally breaking after 12 years.

I also have a microwave. Since my stove is electric, it can be very inefficient to heat up water using the stovetop. I unplug it whenever I'm not using it though, and I have been surprised how much electricity that seems to save. Again, I might make a different choice should this microwave break. I don't see any need to get rid of something useful that is in fine working condition though.

I don't have a dishwasher but would love one if I lived in a place with the space. Washing dishes is my least favorite chore.

My portable music player isn't an iPod, but I have looked into getting one eventually so that I can have a dock and listen to music instead of always having the TV playing. The constant noise from my neighbors is upsetting if there isn't something to drown it out.

My home computer is a used one that I got from my last job. I am in IT, so I'm good at making computer equipment last a long time.

I would be interested in finding out what happens to the male calves. Part of why I gave up dairy is because the dairy industry is intrinsically tied to the veal industry.

I made this soup with the first batch of okra that I got from my CSA and it was very tasty. Basically, (like tallsarah says) you fry or saute the okra first to minimize the snotty texture that jamjaree mentions.

I look forward to making this again with my latest batch of okra.

http://food.lizsteinberg.com/2009/08/21/tangy-tomato-okra-soup/

I bought those PVC dryer balls for myself and as gifts before I realized that they were made of PVC. I stopped using them when I realized and noticed no problems as a result. I guess that I just don't need anything to prevent static. I do try to line dry as much as I can, but I have a small apartment so I do still use my dryer. I thought only synthetic fibers got static anyway, does anyone know if that is correct?

I'm sensitive to a lot of fragrances (including some essential oils), so I prefer to not add any to my laundry anyway. I don't notice my clothes taking any longer to dry, but I haven't sat down and measured it to verify.

Regarding PVC, I really started avoiding it after seeing Blue Vinyl and realizing how the production and disposal of it were so problematic and dangerous. I don't just care about my own safety but also the safety of the people who make the products and materials I use in a day.

Personally, I hated that article. Pollan is no feminism expert, and he should learn a little something before trying to blame this huge problem on feminism. Processed food was coming into favor in this country long before women were in the work-force in great numbers.

I think he also misses the point of how other factors in our lives have changed the way we eat. We work more and commute more every single day, and at the end of that, who wants to come home and cook a meal first thing? I ate a box of cookies last night just to work up the energy to cook myself dinner. I can't even imagine what it is like for working parents with kids to schlep around.

Regarding the discussion point raised here, I don't watch cooking shows but I do cook. I'm vegetarian, and I cook gluten-free, corn-free vegan. That means that almost nothing I would see in a cooking show would be something I would either cook or eat.

I will say that I didn't like to cook at all until I realized that I am a born vegetarian. I have always disliked meat and the societal pressure to eat it meant that the thought of cooking sounded disgusting to me. Once I cut out meat and dairy, I discovered that I love to cook.

I sold my car after moving to DC too. My only parking option was street parking and that got old fast with moving the car for street cleaning along with them changing the street cleaning days with no notice. I prefer the metro, walking, and buses to get around town anyway.

I did the math and just owning the car and paying for insurance cost me over $10 per day. I sold the car on craigslist and got a ZipCar membership for when I need to drive. I only used it a couple of times a year until I started volunteering with a rabbit rescue that meets outside of the city for adoption days once a month. Even using it once a month is still much cheaper than owning a car.

The biggest relief for me is that I don't have these unexpected expenses for damage to the car. Periodically, we get reports that someone has gone down a block and bashed in the windows of every car on the street. I shudder to think of how many hundreds of dollars that I would have spent on such things.

If I had a job that paid more and had the option to park in a garage, then I might feel differently about owning a car. In my current life, it would be more hassle and expense than I want.

I think the situation is more complicated than the author of the Atlantic article allows. I purchased a number of furniture items when I lived in Dallas then moved them to my current home in DC. They all survived the move just fine. This includes 4 pieces which are all made of solid pine - tv stand, cd/dvd unit, gateleg table, and large corner curio. I avoid particleboard furniture no matter who makes it.

My apartment in DC being much smaller than my house in Dallas, I eventually sold most of what I brought here so that I could buy pieces that were more suited to the space. I was able to get a decent price for most items. I also ended up purchasing used Ikea pieces in some cases. Buying them used saves the trip out to Ikea and saves the hassle of putting everything together plus the environmental factors like saving the cost of new materials and preventing items from being trashed.

I am planning another cross-country move in the next few years, and I plan to sell most of my furniture before I do. I want to transport less and then pick out new (if only new to me) items that are suited to my new living space. It doesn't make sense to me to invest in high-end furniture designed to last a lifetime until I have a better idea of where I will be living long-term. I don't want to be a slave to my things.

I wouldn't say that Ikea is green, and I certainly think that it is good to encourage all mass manufacturers like this to improve where they can. But it seems like this article is setting up some false dichotomies.

FSC certified wood is still not common in any low end furniture that I have seen, but given the size of Ikea, it would certainly be a boon to encourage them to do at least some purchasing of it.

All Ikeas that I have visited have been set adjacent to a city, but I know people who travel hundreds of miles to shop there. That means that they probably only make that trip once which is a difference from people buying from Target or Wal-mart who are more likely to make frequent trips due to proximity. I suspect that could significantly skew the average number of miles traveled.

Regarding "designed but not crafted", I would say again that this is a false dichotomy since I doubt people are choosing between Ikea and Eames.

I've rambled on here long enough, so I'm cutting myself off now!