that director Jane Campion is one of only two women who have been nominated for an Oscar for directing, and that no woman has ever won? Whatever happened to the PHI ratio here?
You may know Campion's work: Sweetie, The Piano, Portrait of a Lady, and Holy Smoke.
She has another film coming out called "In the Cut." It's loosely based on Susanna Moore's 1995 novel of the same name.
Everybody has music they love. Some blogs have "currently listening to" sidebars, and others discuss the merits of their favorites. For the most part, what they have in common from my point of view is that I don't recognize a word of what they are talking about.
How could I be a trained musician, and have gotten so far removed from pop music?? I can't figure it out. What I find is that I recognize some music here and there, but I've missed most of the hits of the nineties, and I have NO idea who is popular in the new millennium.
This morning when I was out, I saw a headline in the Chicago Sun-Times which said something to the effect that if you want your child to read better, turn off the T.V. BRAVO!! Talk to your children. Have them read to you. Discuss what you've read. Limit the amount of time your children get to watch T.V. and you will have healthier, smarter children!
I had expected to be away just a day or so, and it's stretched out to four or five. Nothing earthshaking has happened here, I've just been caught up in my off-line life.
Sunday, we celebrated Dear Husband's birthday. Normally, the birthday person gets to determine what they do they day of their birthday, but DH had to give me a hand outside. I know it was at the bottom of a list of things he could have been doing, but I'm glad he bit the bullet and worked with me.
I'm likely to be away from the computer this weekend. I convinced my mother and DH to go to the last of the Farmer's Markets tomorrow morning, weather permitting. Then we'll do breakfast out, and stop at the cleaners and Office Max on the way home. I started making a list of about twenty other errands that need to be run, and it looks like the entire day could be wiped out. If it continues to rain, that might not be a bad idea, unless traffic is a mess.
Jo Ann Fabrics or Windmill City Quilts, getting Defer's nails clipped, and then giving him a bath, stopping at Babies R Us for a shower gift, getting a bag of vermiculite, ordering bird seed for delivery.....and I'd like to get DH to Restoration Hardware before their lighting sale ends.
I have a wonderful book I just started. It's the "Da Vinci Code." I'm barely 130 pages into the story and really wrapped up in it. I'll have to tell you more when I've finished it, but I can already recommend it.
Sunday, Mother has a meeting of Empty Nesters, and then we will go to dinner with the kids to celebrate DH's birthday. One of the kids has organized it, and made reservations. We'll be at a restaurant on a river, so we may get to enjoy the gathering wildlife.
My gardens still need me, and the leaves that have fallen are wet now. I can see that we will be raking one cold November. I'll have to get someone to take a picture. I'm sure none of you believe that I do any of this stuff! *G*
Well....I hope you all have a great weekend! Happy Fall!
Man, I LOVE Amazon.com. With a click you have the world at your fingertips!
I was placing an order for DH's birthday and remembered that I wanted to look up a Michael McDonald CD. I finally settled on "Greatest Hits of the Doobie Brothers." It arrived yesterday and sat on the kitchen counter while I finished up other things.
I popped it into the office CD player this afternoon and I'm having trouble concentrating on business. Instead, I'm dancing in my chair.....doing the backstroke and bopping along. I know that some of my readers were only TWO when this band started, but ya gotta love the Doobie Brothers! Great energy.
Now, if everybody would just quit interrupting me, I might perfect this chair dancin......(scooting the chair across the floor and back)
I had my annual physical today. I'm not terribly fond of going to the doctor, but I make several appointments in October for annual checkups. Last Thursday I had my mammogram, and today I got a tetanus shot and a flu shot. They drew blood for a chem panel, so I'll be hearing from the doc when the results come in. I had a Pap smear done, and peed in a cup.
I hope that you will take the time to get an annual physical. Even if you are well, it doesn't hurt to have baseline information for future treatment, and you can prevent a lot of woe if you discover things early. It doesn't take a lot of time, it's not terribly expensive, and it doesn't hurt (much).
Do something nice for a loved one....and something nice for yourself. Get a check up!
Do you suppose that everyone at some time in their life thinks about what they might like to name their children? I've always thought the tradition you tend to find on the East coast of using the mother's maiden name for a son's first name, was a cool idea. Obviously it works better with some names than others. Can you see a kid entering kindergarten with a moniker like Schwarzenegger Brown??
Isn't style fascinating? Each of us has a unique style about us. It's reflected in how we dress, whether we are day or night people, grasshoppers or ants. It shows up in the type of housing we choose, whether we have kids, what type of job is satisfying, whether we can let an old love go, our sense of humor, and if we have close ties to nature.
Style is on my mind because of the diversity of blogs I read. Since the day I first tripped over Billy's blog, he's been a daily read. He writes an amazing stream of consciousness, but in each essay he produces, there's likely to be a reflection that ties his past life into the one that's coming, something wildly funny, and something heartfelt. I never know what the subject matter will be, but I always know that I will have been given a snapshot of his life, a clear unobfuscated view.
the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the Courage to change the things I can, and
The Wisdom to know the difference.
That rates up there as one of my all time favorite prayers, ahead of
God, please grant me patience, NOW!
It certainly would be nice to experience wisdom sometime in my life.....
Or any of a thousand other names we use for marijuana, will do.
I was reading my copy of "The Herb Quarterly" (Winter, 2003) and came across an article on the use of marijuana for medical purposes.
Marijuana used for medical purposes has been met with resistance around the world. The Netherlands is probably the best known exception. However, some patients in Canada are now receiving small amounts of government grown marijuana.
What caught my eye was that the California State Supreme Court has ruled that patients with a doctor's note may use marijuana. However, federal law dictates that third parties may not supply people with the herb. Soooooo.....than means that Californians must grow their own marijuana.
I wonder if there are controls in place concering the potency of the plant? One of the stumbling blocks in Canada had to do with the potency of the crop that was being offered for medicial use. Can't you see people fine-tuning their farming techniques to develop the most potent strain of Cannabis ever created??
Every house in California will have it's own little herb garden. Marijuana plants will become a part of the landscaping! The Marijuana plant will become the State Plant!
Where else but in California???
We were walking this evening. Dear Husband asked if I would like to go, and I said...."Maybe after dinner." Well, the light fades fast these days, and even though we had an unusually early dinner tonight, the sun had dipped below the houses to the west as I changed my shoes. I try never to say no to an invitation to walk. We both need the exercise and I want to encourage this effort.
We got onto the path, and the first thing I noticed was that the black walnut trees were bare of leaves, but there were still clusters of nuts here and there. DH told me that I had to watch out for them. They hurt when they land on you. I had a vision of the scene from the "Wizard of Oz," where the trees are throwing their apples at the walkers. I could just see that black walnut tree sizing up the distances and waiting to bomb me.
Whew.......I made it past without an incident. Then we came to a patch where the nuts lay thick on the ground. You had to walk looking down or risk doing one of those Dick Van Dyke prat falls.
Our walk was uneventful despite the dangers along the way. It seems that it's a metaphor for my life. I've walked down the path, through the dangers, and made the trip safely so far. I hope the future will be as pleasant and safe as the past has been, and that there will be time for many more walks.
For some reason I chose this weekend to begin organizing both personal and company data. It might well have to do with the fact that the CPA's assistant will be here tomorrow, and I'll need to be able to find things. It could just be the "nesting" impulse that comes over me in the Fall. It could be that things have needed to be tidied up since the hard drive had to be reprogramed, or it could be that I have let months of filing slide because I HATE FILING!
Whatever the reason, I've sure gotten a LOT done this weekend. What worries me is that in the process, I blew off a gorgeous day when I could have been outside working on putting the gardens to bed. Saturday, I cleaned out half of the sidewalk gardens. I need to cover that area with compost and mulch. My biggest problem has been that the plants are still blooming, and I refuse to kill off living plants. I dug out the dahlias and readied them for storage, but the rest will have to wait until we get a killer frost.
I washed clothes, and emptied out the dishwasher, and washed dishes. I cleaned the kitchen counter and made the bed. I've organized some of the stuff that's come in from the Arr!! I have receipts organized for the first ten months of 2003, so tax season should be a lot easier. I might even get things cleaned out so that we have more space!
What is there about this kind of work that makes you feel self-righteous?? This is almost as bad as having to listen to a person who has given up cigarettes!
1. Name five things in your refrigerator.
Minced garlic, Cran-raspberry juice, lots of Romaine, green olive tapenade,
and herb-coated goat's cheese
2. Name five things in your freezer.
Blue plastic ice packs, pot roast, shrimp, Squirrel ice cream (vanilla fudge swirl), seven pounds of butter.
3. Name five things under your kitchen sink.
Canola oil, Lamp oil, dishwasher detergent, sponges, silver polish
4. Name five things around your computer.
An antique coffee grinder, two pictures of polar bears, three candles, a
picture of DH standing next to a stuffed Alaskan moose, a glass dish of
potpourri.
5. Name five things in your medicine cabinet.
I don't have a medicine cabinet. Most of our medicine cabinet "stuff" is kept
in drawers under the counter: Floss holder, Allegra, razor,
Aspirin, Q-tips.
Well.....perhaps a little joy...
I didn't intend to dress in black today, but I realized late in the morning that from head to toe, I was swathed in black. Black shoes and socks, black slacks, a black silk shirt....everything is black. It must have been because I felt the need to mourn.
I had such incredibly high hopes for the Cubs. They have had the most amazing year. We've been so used to them loosing that they set a fire under us and sparked the rush to rejoice: WE COULD WIN!!!
As true Cubs fans, we will now focus on the fact that we have a competitive team who brought us great joy this year. And we'll pat each other on the back and say....."There's always next year!
Congratulations CUBS! Thanks Dusty Baker for and incredible year! See you next Spring.
Do you have a keepsake that you keep near you, even when you travel? Is there something you need to have nearby at all times?
I haven't experienced this as an adult, but as a young child I had a blanket that had to be available to me or the uproar would be unbearable. It was a thin child's quilt that was a faded pink. I'd leave it on the floor until bedtime to chill it. I'd form a circle with my thumb and last three fingers and draw the blanket through the circle to chill my cheek, and I bent my index finger and sucked on it.
Mother says that I used to stand next to the washer and dryer when I was forced to give the blanket up to be washed. She couldn't pry me loose. I was probably about six when my father used Blankie as a rag. They tried to find all sorts of substitutes, but it was never the same. I could never get them to admit that it was a conspiracy to get me to stop sucking my index finger.
Today, I discovered what happens when your parents aren't successful in weaning you from your childhood talismen. You become a 25 year old who carries a blanket and a teddy everywhere you go. Can't you see having to explain about the blanket to your boss? Worse yet.....how to you tell your lover to "GET OFF MY BLANKIE!"?? Or when your four year old reaches for your teddy...."Touch my teddy and DIE!"
All I can say is......"Thanks, Mom and Dad, for helping me give it up!"
Yeah....who would have guessed they'd see ME talking about sports!? It's been a lifetime endeavor to avoid all things sporting, because most of the teams near me have been the pits!
I know....the Cubbies lost last night, but we're not out of the running yet. And to be a Cubs fan you have to take the "hope springs eternal" pledge. For years we have said "There's always next year." So the headline in the Trib a week ago was....."Next year is here." I have faith that the Cubs will go on to the World Series.
And that brings me to what I actually wanted to say. I assume that the World Series is played on the home fields of the competing teams. If that's the case, and if the Red Sox beat the Yankees to get to the World Series, we (The CUBS) need to get the field crew busy creating a kick-ass design for our infield!
Did you see how they mowed the infield where the Red Sox play?? It's a jazzed up version of a variable star....a pattern any quilter would recognize! I swear they must use GPS to guide the mowers! I'm really impressed, and feel that we need to prepare our own field so that we can stand the comparison.
Quilters, e-mail your suggestions to Ron Santo and Pat Huges at WGN, right away!
And while I have your attention, if you are a Sox or Yankees fan, plan to be on your best behavior when you come to Chicago. We want to win MORE than you do, but that doesn't mean fighting during the game is okay.
Here endeth the sports report for the day.
To rant, or not to rant, that is the question. Every now and then it just bursts out of me. Most times I can manage to maintain my cool. I believe it's healthy to rant, and I'm not sure why I don't rant more, since it feels Sooooo GOOD!
Defer and I were out walking this afternoon. Remember that tree that I described a week ago Sunday? I was sitting in the kitchen as the sun rose, and it set the top of the tree into a golden fire? Well, in just one short week the tree completely turned to flame and then dropped all it's leaves. All that is left is the skeleton.
Our lot is bordered by a walking path, and the path is edged with trees. There are a lot of black walnut trees that hang over the path. Usually in September they drop their leaves, and then you see the black walnuts ripening on the bare branches. This year the leaves and the walnuts fell about the same time, and the path is littered with husks and leaf trash.
The Cubs WON last night! They WON!!! WooooooooAhhhhhhhhhhh!
This is the first time in 58 years that the Cubs have played in a post season play off. There aren't a lot of people left who can remember them winning, so this feels like a miracle to most of us. Heck....the last time they made it all the way to the World Series was in 1908.
If you love the Cubs, you have learned to deal with disappointment, but that makes this season all the sweeter! Die-hard Cubs fans feel vindicated for their faith after a lifetime of loosing.
GO CUBS!!! GO CUBS!!! GO CUBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We were planning on going out to brunch this morning, as a late celebration of my birthday. One of my all time favorite restautants is Pappadeaux, a Cajun place that is part of the Pappas brother's chain. There are two in the Chicago area, and I'm relieved that none of them are any closer than 30 minutes, or I'd LIVE there.
We visited Jamie and Speedbump for New Years two years ago, and I discovered that they have ALL the Pappas restaurants in one place. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. There are at least six restaurants that feature seafood, barbeque, steak, Mexican, Cajun and Italian. Each restaurant features one cusine, and has "pappa" built into the name (Pappadeaux, Pappacitos, Pappas Brothers, etc.)
At any rate....we were supposed to go to brunch this morning, but it seems a cold has set in, and no one was up for it. That's a first! We've spent a quiet morning. DH has been watching the History and Sci-Fi channels, I've been reading mail and blogging and Mother has been knitting and watching HGTV.
One of the problems associated with a change of plans like this is always.....what will we do for dinner. Today, it seems we are in luck.
We are one of the legion of people who have cable TV. Our reception is so bad that we wouldn't bother to turn the TV on if we didn't have cable or dish reception.
About two weeks ago, DH turned the TV on and discovered there was absolutely no picture. We had a fuzzy gray screen and noisey static. So, he called to report that we were having a problem.
Have you ever thought about how we decide what a job is worth? To me, a buck a shirt at the cleaners is well worth not having to wash and iron shirts, and I'm at the stage in my life where I'd rather pay someone to wash the high windows and clean out the gutters.
"The Girls" on WGN were talking about how we set salaries. They felt that we should consider the following guidelines: If you love your job you get pennies to do it. If you have a dreadful job, you get $6,000,000 for it.
We have a plethora of Farmer's Markets in our area from late May to late October. Most of them carry products other than farm grown crops, and they are a delight to the senses.
Shrimp, crab, kale, pumpkins, glads, squash, lettuce, vinegars, honey, mushrooms, apples, bread, cheese, ears of dried corn, bales of straw, dried sunflower heads, the last tomatoes and corn of the year. You can make incredible meals from the bounty they sell.
I'll miss the giant garlic heads, and leeks, the tiny pickle cucumbers, the fresh green beans, and the raspberries, and the man who sharpens my knives.
We're blessed with abundance. The Farmer's Market is the best way I know to get food at it's freshest. Seven months, and they'll be back. I'll know that summer is almost upon us when the Market opens again.
Beauty salons and spas are being asked to watch for evidence of spousal abuse on their clients. It makes sense that people in the personal care industry would be among the first to see signs of abuse.
My understanding is that unless a woman asks for assistance, you can't do anything about spousal abuse. If a salon is willing to educate people about abuse, or will act as a clearinghouse for assistance information, then this might be a good idea. If the salon is merely reporting the abuse, but doing nothing to help the woman, then what's the purpose?
Did anyone else hear Paul Harvey today announce that France has vetoed proposed billboards showing bare female butts???
I need to surf some more to find out what that was all about....
I have TMJ. If I remember correctly, thats Temporal Mandibular Joint disease. It means I grit my teeth unintentionally. Unfortunately, it also means that I am breaking some of my teeth, so I have been undergoing one tooth renovation a year.
My dentist has brought me to the final stages for a new crown. Next week it should be cemented in place, hopefully for years to come. In the process, we did a root canal, a crown lengthening, repair of a molar next to it, and then creation of a post to hold the new crown. To protect the post, and to keep the tooth from shifting, I've been wearing a temporary crown for the past few weeks.
The night of the wedding rehearsal, it popped off. The dentist and I couldn't meet up, so I did without until Monday morning, when she glued it back in place. Last night.....
I love words. I'm always up to learn new ones. I thought I might learn a new one today when I was listening to WGN Radio. Judy Markey was talking about hearing a word that she had never heard before. She'd read it in a newspaper earlier this week, and then one of the sports announcers covering the Cubs game, Tuesday night, used it. The word was "scrum."
Dictionary.com defines scrum as:
A play in Rugby in which the two sets of forwards mass together around the ball and, with their heads down, struggle to gain possession of the ball.
Or: A disordered or confused situation involving a number of people.
I knew the sports definition for "scrum," but I didn't know it had a non-sports connotation. The announcer was describing the mob on Waveland Avenue outside Wrigley Field in Chicago. As a home run was hit over the walls of the field into their midst, he said a scrum of people reached for the ball.
DH says scrums are what you get when you eat crackers in bed. (rolling eyes) That might be the last time I read my blog to him.
The soybean fields around our home have been harvested this week. In place of the even rows of tobacco-colored plants we have biscuit-colored fields that have been buzz cut. The geese are busy gleaning beans that were dropped or left behind, readying themselves for the long commute to their winter homes.
We have seven fairly good sized ponds within half a mile of our house. As the subdivisions have been developed, the ponds have been increased in number and size to handle the run off during heavy storms. The ponds connect the bean fields and the forest preserve, so we tend to see a lot of wild life. The deer use our lot as a runway between Federal land and forest preserve.
We have a few geese around throughout the summer, but in October, it's like a tail gate party. This morning at 10:00, if I could have stepped from goose to goose, I could have made it around the last pond without ever touching the ground. We enjoy hearing them chatter amongst themselves, and watching them practice their flying wedges.
All too soon they'll be gone and the cold will settle. I love Indian Summer!
I have the Beatle's song about birthdays running through my head. Today's my birthday. We're not planning a rousing celebration; rather, it will be a laid back day.
One of my nieces and her boys have been coming to dinner every other week. We've been trying to get together for the last two weeks, but she has had a virus, and didn't want to share it with us as we prepared for the wedding last weekend. Soooooo....I think she is finally well enough to join us.
I plan to make lasagna, a big salad and garlic bread. And there's this package of devil's food cake mix, and some fudge frosting that's been calling to me......
Usually we celebrate our birthdays by going out for dinner, but this week is pretty tightly booked. A few years ago I started telling my mother that we should all fly down to New Orleans to have dinner at the Courtyard of the Two Sisters. I tease her about it every year, but I haven't gotten her to budge. Don't you think it would be wonderful to hop a plane for a candlight celebration?
Where would you go to celebrate?
I was reading my mail before getting the day started today, and came across a message from a friend, telling me to go to this site. An artist in Iowa has created a memorial to our military that you might like to see.
I was trying to sleep this morning around 6:30 when I heard this insistent beeping. Four short beeps and a pause, four short beeps and a pause, four short beeps..... You get the picture.
My first thought was that the smoke alarm went off. But the smoke alarm has one long high pitched scream of a sound. Then, I thought that Mother was listening to the messages on her answering machine.....or perhaps the answering machine was signaling that there were messages to be read. Just about the time I thought I should check on DH, he opened the door and said that the noise was his cell phone.
Did you know that in 2001, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission required a change in the manufacture of cords for window coverings in response to child-strangulation concerns?
This is another of those cases where my Mother asks, "How did we manage to raise you with all that danger around?" It seems to me that parents could have managed this all by themselves, rather than requiring the expense of an entire Federal Safety Commission.
If you have cords that were purchased prior to 2001, and feel that you need to protect your children from their threat, free retro-fit repair devices are available to you through the Window Covering Safetly Council. Go to www.windowcoverings.org for information.
For years, we've been told that we needed Downy Fresh softness in our wash, or the convenience of Bounce dryer sheets. Fabric softeners take away the scratchiness of towel, and, well.....soften them.
Unfortunately they also take away some of the absorbancy. Have you ever had to use a hotel towel, or perhaps one from a gym? Those scratchy towels are much more absorbant because they don't use any fabric softener in the wash.
There are two other reasons not to use fabric softener. As a quilter, I've found that cottons which will be used in quilts shouldn't be softened. The chemicals stay in the fabric longer, because quilts are not frequently washed, and they can deteriorate the fibers.
And, for those of you who have asthma, the perfume added to fabric softeners can be a problem. Years ago, we lived in an apartment building that had laundry facilities. I had to go down a flight of stairs, out the door, over to the next entry and down another flight of stairs to get to the washers. I noticed as I was reversing the trip that I was wheezing by the time I got back to my front door, and even started an exercise program to get into shape.
When the wheezing didn't go away, it finally dawned on me that I could add fabric softners to the list of materials that I was allergic to. Now, whites, are the only clothes that I use softener on. I wash and bleach them, rinse them, start the washer a second time with a quarter of a cap of softener, and then rinse them once more. The rest of our clothes go softener-less, and no one has complained!
Try giving it up. It will save you money, and might make your towels more functional!
It astounds me what you will find in the newspaper these days. On the front page of the October 5, 2003, Chicago Tribune "Q" section, the editor saw fit to post an article on a new product called The Flatulence Deodorizer, or the Flat-D.
The Flat-D is shaped like a flat light bulb, and contains a layer of activated charcoal. It's worn inside your underwear. It's a washable device which sells for $12.95.
I know there's a use for this product. I was thinking about getting some as stocking stuffers, or handing them out at Thanksgiving. The writer actually tested it so that he could give his personal opinion, and he found it to function well if you make sure there is a comfortable seal. (We're well past the TMI! limit...)
What astounded me about this was that it wasn't buried in the back of the section, but it was on the FRONT PAGE! Either flatulence has become epidemic in proportion, or editorial standards have slipped.
I've been getting ready for my niece's wedding this weekend. I was overjoyed when she asked me to be one of the readers for her wedding. I'm really looking forward to celebrating this milestone in her life.
But, like a lot of women, it's stressful for me to choose what I'm going to wear. I have four siblings who have superb taste in clothing. They always look exceptional. I am the one who is overweight, and I tend to lead a very casual lifestyle, so when it comes to a family celebration, I get a little crazy......well....a LOT crazy, about what to wear.
The news this morning was about studies which have been done in Finland, Sweden and the United States. It seems that women who opt for breast implants are three times more likely to commit suicide than women who have not had the surgery.
It's likely that women who choose to alter their shape surgically will be unhappy with how they look even after the surgery. They may be unable to see themselves in a positive light no matter how good they look.
It's a sad commentary on our society that we are unable to accept our bodies, and that we STILL prize a look that requires an anorexic life style.
It's way past my bed time, but I wanted a chance to blog before I call it a day. We have a guest tonight, so I spent part of my evening cleaning. I laid a fire and lit it before she arrived, along with some vanilla scented candles.
DH and I covered the plants at the front of the house with light plastic tarps. We are supposed to have temperatures drop to about 23, so we're expecting our first hard frost. I don't know if the plastic will be adequate protection, but the heat radiating off the bricks may sustain the plants for another night.
The dog and cat have been fed, and most of the dishes have been washed. The clothes have been folded, and the house is closed up for the night.
I like this time of day. I wish that I could find a compromise between having the quiet of the house to myself late at night, and having to get up early to get a start on my day. I particularly like that my phone stops ringing around 10:00. When you were a kid, did your parents teach you that you weren't to make phone calls after 9:00 unless it was an emergency? I tried to teach that to my stepchildren, and they thought I was crazy.
Tomorrow we have the last of the preparations for the wedding on Saturday. I have the last of my clothing shopping to do, and Mother and I have appointments for manicures.
The fire is starting to die down, and I'm just about out of tea. Time to toddle off. Good night all.
In 1991, the Great Wall of China became the second largest man-made structure in the world. The largest was the Fresh Kills Landfill, serving New York City. It is now the highest point on the east coast.
Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every HOUR! (Now you know how Fresh Kills outstripped the Great Wall.)
For every glass bottle recycled, we save enough energy to light a 100 watt light bulb for four hours. (That makes us just about even in our household.)
One pound of recycled steel saves enough energy to light a 60 watt bulb for 24 hours.
Recycling and reusing the material in "tin" cans reduces energy use by 74%, air pollution by 85%, solid waste by 95%, and water pollution by 76%.
