I'm on my way back home after a work trip in and around Rome. We wrapped up yesterday afternoon and the jolly fellas heading to London, the Spaniard and the man residing in Paris, promptly hopped on their flights and were home last night. When you live in northern Sweden, Europe is a lot further away than when you live right smack in the middle of it.

Anyways, I was pondering ideas for this week’s Teddy post. I always am, more or less. The process goes like this: I start out early week with airy and vague thoughts and ideas, then I narrow it down, throw it all out, get desperate. Ask Dylan if he can’t post something instead. Realize it’s Friday, write something. Think I’ll write something better and more sustainability related next week. Repeat. I have been given good tips and ideas on what to write about, but I never have time to do the research. So I have to go with what’s already in my head and fingers.

What’s in my head right now is that Dylan successfully defended his dissertation yesterday. In the eleventh hour, for sure. During this Italy trip we’ve been given an agenda every day, with times and topics (much like any agenda) but the scheduled times have had very little correlation with the actual time of these events. It felt like South America all over again, where I always felt like if you asked for a time, they’d give you one, just cause that’s what you asked for. But no one ever intended to do anything at that specific time.

- What time are we meeting this afternoon?
- I don’t know, sometime after lunch. Maybe.
- Yeah but what time?
- How about…. 2 o’clock?
- Great, see you then!
- See you, bye!

I’m happy because I have a time to plan my day around and they are happy because they managed to give me what I wanted, a number, and now I’m quiet. Needless to say, we don’t meet at 2 o’clock.

On Wednesday, our agenda called for lunch at noon. It was after 1:30 when we headed for the restaurant. There had been plenty of coffee and treats so nobody was starving and none of the Italians seemed at all aware of the time. Whereas the Swede and the Englishmen couldn’t help ourselves, almost compulsively, to point it out. But in the end, we were served a delicious meal and all was good.

(You’re waiting for the connection? here it comes)
Dylan’s dissertation process has been something like that. An Italian agenda with a deadline like the horizon on a cloudy day. You know it’s there but you can’t see it. Until finally, only a few months ago, the clouds were swept away and the horizon suddenly five feet in front of him. But he did it. I am proud of him and I am proud of myself. If his dissertation was a book to be published and actually red by people the first page would read

To my wife, for not losing her shit.

He messaged me after the defense yesterday, and then he sent me a video (of himself saying good morning to the kids, for me to forward to my mom since she doesn’t have messenger). I woke up at 2 am and saw the message and that there was an attached video, and fell back asleep and dreamed that I watched the video and it was of Dylan in a white robe singing in front of a gospel choir praising Jesus that he had finally finished his dissertation. So maybe I am losing it a little bit.

But I will leave you with the image of Dylan singing gospel in a white robe. Hopefully that puts a smile on your face.

Have a great weekend.

No time to write too much this week. I am getting ready to head back to Idaho to try and finish my disseration. We also rented our apartment out on home exchange and so are busy chasing the kids around the in-laws house.

I have been conducting interviews with people about land access issues in Idaho. I will leave you with one of the best quotes so far . . .

“We have to stand together as recreationalists, frankly we have to stand together as public land users” to keep public lands open and accessible. Get involved. Stay active. Keep them clean.

There are efforts to close public access, privatize lands, and put them into hands of people who want to make money. Idaho is an amazing place because of all the accessible undeveloped land. It will only remain that way if people stay active, engaged, and voice their opinions that this is the way the land should remain.

The plastic bag. The mother of all things evil. The nucleus of the waste epidemic. The symbol of the lazy, ignorant consumer. When Dylan first formed the Theodores and decided to focus on trash, it was because it’s one of the issues that’s fairly black and white. You can argue that controlled, organic meat consumption is good for the planet. You can argue that electric cars are actually worse for the environment than diesel. You can argue about everything.
But when it comes to trash, garbage, waste… whatever you chose to call it, most people will agree on what it is and where it should not be. Which is important when you’re building something. People may not get onboard and pick up trash, but the Theodores has yet to encounter resistance in form of garbage activists arguing trash should be allowed to remain on the ground.

Keeping it simple is key if you want people to listen and pay attention. People scrolling through Facebook looking for ways to pimp their karma like to be told what to do, they don’t like lengthy arguments of pros and cons and having to make up their own mind. Garbage is bad. Easy. Plastic bags are bad. Anyone disagree? Didn’t think so.

In Sweden you, as a consumer, have to pay for plastic bags. Right now they’re like 40 cents at the grocery store. Beginning next year, they are going to be closer to a dollar. It’s definitely an incentive to bring your own, reusable bag. When I think of reusable bags I picture the fabric totes. I have plenty. I’m not great at remembering to bring them when I grocery shop. But when I do I definitely give myself mental green points.

So I was surprised to learn that the plastic bag was actually invented (by a Swede no less!) to save trees and help reduce waste, and that the beloved cotton tote is not as good as I like to think. Watch this video to see what I’m talking about. And if you’re not into watching videos and just want to be told what to do… this is it: use what you already have and don’t get new stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQW5w9yAWgE&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR...