meet mia

Today marks one month (four weeks, perhaps not quite an exact lunar month) since I brought home our rescued cat. We are already quite used to having her around, and making the transition from loners to pet owners has been more seamless than I imagined. The most difficult part has been choosing and sticking to a name.

After my last post about the cat, I got great feedback on names from the general public, but everyone had a different favorite name option. That's what I get for putting forth too many choices. I had hoped there would be a clear winner and we would be able to name our cat via democratic majority. That didn't work out the way I had planned.

We've been calling the cat multiple names over the past 4 weeks; we tried Neko, as in Neko Case one of our favorite musicians, but that didn't feel right coming off the tongue. Then I tried Pixie for a few days, and after that I tried Freckle. None of the names we tried seemed to match the cat's personality and presence. She is a mature 2-year-old, don't you know, so none of the kitten-y names seemed right. Every morning when I get up to feed her I call her Meow-ers, because that's what she's doing, but that doesn't cut it as a proper name in my book. It's not what I'd want to put on an ID tag or on her file at the vet's office.

One of the name possibilities that got a few votes was Maeby. This name was on our list mostly because it makes us chuckle, referencing Alia Shawkat's character on the TV show Arrested Development. Plus, it represents perfectly the process we've been going through - maybe we'll call her this, maybe we'll call her that, maybe we'll call her Maeby! And we did try calling her that for about 4 days. But it felt like I was calling out to grammatical modifiers instead of a pet: "Come here, Probably;" "Here Somewhat, Somewhat, Somewhat;" "Where are you, Kind-of-Sort-of?!" Maeby was just a little too non-committal.

So I think we've settled on Mia. It's been 3 days so far, and it doesn't yet seem like a ridiculous name. Or far-fetched, over-serious, old-lady, or arcane. Plus, in French the onomatopoeic word for what a cat says is "Miaou," and that is definitely what this cat says a lot. In an effort to finally commit to a name, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you our cat, Mia.

world centric ecotainer

I've been making an effort to brew my coffee at home in the morning as a way to not only avoid the expense of picking up coffee on the go but also to avoid producing the surplus waste of paper cup and plastic lid. My track record is getting better all the time, but one morning last week I gave the husband a ride to his 8:00 class and was unable to fortify myself with a cup of homebrew. So I stopped off at a local cafe to pick up some coffee on the way to work.

Our neighborhood is home to many small, independent restaurants and coffee shops and one of my favorites is the Birchwood Cafe. They are a cafeteria-style restaurant featuring baked goods, multiple vegetarian options, and locally roasted and bike-delivered Peace Coffee. So I already felt good about my purchasing choice having not gone to Starbucks or another international chain. But then, my morning coffee got even better. When I inspected my to-go cup, I saw the words "World Centric" stamped onto the lid, and "ecotainer" printed on the side of the cup. Both cup and lid were compostable, so I didn't have to throw either into the trash can at work. Happy day!

Instead, I brought them home and put them in my outdoor compost bin. When we had our house-warming party a year and a half ago, I set up a special trash system where people had only two options: recycle or compost. We had bought compostable paper plates and provided people with real silverware rather than plastic. Then there were either bottles or cans for beverages. Our low-waste house party was a success, and I've been watching those paper plates break down in the bin over the past year. Now they're pretty much disintegrated and mixed in to the pile of humus-soil-foodwaste accumulating in our back yard.

I am a huge supporter of compostable take-out supplies, so I just wanted to give a shout-out to the Birchwood for making the move to compostable coffee cups. And if you're interested in world centric ecotainers yourself, check out their manufacturers' websites here and here. For me, that little bit of good news for the environment totally made my day!