What a difference having a large recycling bin makes! It’s trash day today, and instead of taking out the kitchen trash and having to smash that one last bag into the regular trash bin, it was, in fact, the only bag of trash in the trash bin. If we hadn’t had shrimp the last two nights, and thus had stinky shrimp trash, I might not have even bothered wheeling the bin to the curb. So putting everything that can go into the recycling into the recycling bin definitely means we can downsize our regular trash bin. Or we can keep the one we have, and I’ll never again have to freak out about forgetting to put out the trash one week now that two or more weeks of trash will fit into it.

What’s in the recycling bin that’s been taking up so much room in the regular bin all these years? Mostly liter soda bottles, cans, and junk mail. Loads and loads of junk mail, in fact. I have never seen two weeks worth of our junk mail stacked up before. My gods, that’s a lot of wasted paper!

In other morning news, there’s been some sort of crazy shootout a few miles away involving assault rifles. A bunch of schools are closed for the day and the cops are telling anyone in a half-mile radius of Berkman and 290 to stay in their homes until further notice. They have caught two of the five involved, but the other three are to be considered armed and dangerous. So far the only death is that of one of the guys who took a shot at the police. Crazy stuff!