It’s not often that I quote movies…ok, that’s bullshit. Seriously it’s like every day. Surely you can’t be serious, you might ask. I am serious…and don’t call me Shirley.
One of my faves was Pretty Woman. A love story about a sexually philanthropic woman, a corporate vulture who pays for sex and Hector Elizondo. It has it all, and it also has a super-random quote from “Happy Man” as described by IMDB.
“Welcome to Hollywood! What’s your dream? Everybody comes here; this is Hollywood, land of dreams. Some dreams come true, some don’t; but keep on dreamin’ – this is Hollywood. Always time to dream, so keep on dreamin’.”
We’ve all got dreams. I’ve had dreams where I would uncontrollably poop eggs that smell like banana flavored sex-lube and there was a marching band that followed me around with a skillet and would start making omelettes. I had another dream that I somehow grew super-hairy balls and one of them talked with a Canadian accent and said his name was Clarence and kept yelling “Viva La France!” and singing “Be Our Guest!” I had another dream that I was a real life poop emoji and Bruce Springsteen was chasing me around a dairy farm with a loaf of bread singing a song about a turd sandwich.
You know, the usual kinds of dreams.
But my real dream…my dreamiest dream (not my McSteamiest dream, that’s another article and the batteries are not included)…is that one day I would be the greatest most powerful eco-warrior in all the land!!! I would be like the love child of Ed Begley Jr and Wonder Woman (although that has the potential to be a disaster, and hopefully that conception would be immaculate). Well, about 7 years ago my dreams took a another leap forward and my eco-warrior status reached new heights, and as it turned out that height was about 25 feet from the ground. Eminem knew how to raise a roof but I don’t think he ever thought about putting 42 magnificent sun-guzzling solar panels on it.
My BFF, who shall remain nameless, doesn’t even recycle…can you imagine? I say to her all the time “Allison (that’s with 2 Ls) it takes all of us working together to save the Earth.” To which she will respond “you’re right Ellen, feel free to recycle all of the soda cans in my car”. And that’s why she’s my pal. She calls me “Mother Superior” because I love the planet and I love for everyone to know it, I’m sure it has nothing to do with that being the nickname of my strap-on that I keep threatening my husband with (man, that guy can run fast).
She loves me but thinks I act all superior about my reducing, recycling and reusing but I’m not (well, maybe just a little)…I just love helping others find their inner eco-warrior. I do more than your average bear, but I know I can’t stop climate change alone. In the opening of Knight Rider they say “one man can make a difference”. Now I may not be a man with a sweet perm and a talking car, but I am an Earth-loving mama who drives a hybrid and loves saving money and the Earth, not always in that order. You may have read an earlier article about my hate-hate relationship with the sun and how I go from pasty white to crimson burn in no time flat but thanks to the magic of solar panels I fell in love with the sun all over again.
I grew up with a dad who would scream, “Turn the lights off, we don’t own LILCO.” (For those of you who didn’t grow up on Long Island it’s the equivalent to “We don’t own the electric company!” And I mean the company who supplies power to your house, not the oddly psychedelic kids show from the 70s which featured such inspiring icons like Bill Cosby, Morgan Freeman and Woody Allen). My father was a great man, but not what you would call an eco-warrior, he was more of an econo-warrior…finding ways to save money was his passion. He hated paying high electric bills and nobody was prouder than he was when my electric bills started to drastically go down faster than Kevin Spacey’s career.
The ancient Greeks, Romans and Chinese used glass and mirrors to harness the power of the sun, the 1950s saw the introduction of solar cells using silicon, and in the 1990s the government started offering grants and incentives for solar while efficiency continued to rise. For years, I watched, waited and researched if solar was right for us. After living in our home for about a year, the stars and the moon (and the sun) aligned and the time was right to give my family the gift of solar. I’m pretty sure my girls would have preferred the gift of a pony and my husband would’ve preferred that first edition printing of “How to master the male multiple orgasm” that he’s been on the hunt for, but in the long run I feel I made the right choice. Back in 2011 when we installed solar, you couldn’t rent panels or add them to your house for no money down. Putting solar panels on your roof was reserved for die hard Earth lovers with money to burn…sun-burn if you will. Sure, you got half your money back from tax incentives but you still had a big nut to put down or take a loan for the other half; and if there’s one thing I learned about big nuts from my dreams…they tend to be oddly hairy and possibly Canadian which isn’t awesome. Fortunately, now going solar is not just reserved for people with extra money in the bank, ANYONE can go solar. ANYONE can lower their electric bills.
Sounds great, right? I’m sure you have the same question that everyone else asks me…were those three guys really on the Electric Company? The answer is yes. And usually the follow up question is “How much money am I really going to save by going solar?” To give you an idea, my husband likes our house like a freezer in the summer. Aside from the obvious NHOs (nipple hard ons) he thinks it adds an air of authenticity when we play “Mortician and Cadaver” what I like to refer to as the original 50 Shades of Gray. As soon as the temperature hits the high 60s outside our AC is now officially on until it snows. He’s got that thing working harder than the mop-boy at a peep show. We’re now about a month into “hubby-summer” as we call it and with the AC blasting we just paid our electric bill of $13.02. It would be lower if he wasn’t secretly planning to hang his jacket on one of my nipples and possibly sculpting ice dildos in the living room. But regardless of his penchant for water based sex toys and keeping his favorite “corpse” fresh, our system has paid for itself in roughly 7 years (which was early because our system performed better than we projected) and we’re looking at 20+ more years of minimal electric bills.
I had never been happier to have something finish earlier than expected.
