Men & Bathrooms

Ok for those of you who don't know I work in an old mansion that has offices for a couple of local environmental groups. My actual office is upstairs and is an old linen closet and while its not that big, its very cute and the cabinets are painted and designed beautifully. Its got a large window that looks out onto trees and is a pretty view. Overall the office is alright.

The building itself is quite beautiful, as are the grounds. I do have some sanitary issues however with this place. The kitchen has many issues but thats really a story for another day..... today the bathrooms. There is a bathroom directly across from my office, its a one person bathroom thats its good shape. Mainly the people who use it are myself, a couple of men who work in the office next to me and the occasional visitor. Being that they really only have a cleaning crew come through once a week (and some weeks not at all) I like knowing the bathroom is shared by few people. Even when there are weddings here only the bridal party is allowed upstairs all the other guests must use the downstairs bathroom. And then they usually have a cleaning crew.

Anyways being the main woman that uses the bathroom, really puts me in charge of making sure there is enough toilet paper, soap, paper towels etc. Because if I dont keep up with these things they would never be taken care of. Despite the fact that the men that use the bathroom are in their 50s or older, these are not tasks they are capable of accomplishing. I dont really mind keeping up with these things, and I prefer that its done and things are kept as sanitary as possible.

I have been working out of this building for about a year now and the men that I share the bathroom with are really pretty considerate. They always put the seat down, they dont pee on the seat, they wash their hands. In the last couple of months there has been a new guy who has started working out of here. This week he seems to be having some kind of problem- while he is not peeing on the seat, he is dribbling on the rim of the toilet. Now if this happens once, you forgive it, he was zipping up too quickly. He was in a hurry- these things can happen. But it has happened every day this week, and more than once a day. And now I’m really aggravated and disgusted. How difficult is it to ensure you pee in the toilet bowl? Women dont have this problem. And he knows he is sharing a bathroom with a woman.

There is another bathroom, a womens bathroom, downstairs, that has two stalls. Occasionally if I am down there I use it, but one stall doesnt lock and tons of people use this bathroom. Once summer camp starts it is the main bathroom for the kids. I went down there today to use because I was grossed out about having to wipe the toilet yet again and that bathroom was a mess. One stall had no toilet paper and there was toilet paper all over the floor. So maybe its not just men, but at least no one had peed on the toilet bowls. Nobody upkeeps this bathroom, which is more of a problem with the whole building in general.

Its just not as convenient to have to go downstairs everytime I have to pee and once the kids start coming it will really be a sanitary mess down there. And I shouldnt have to do that, I should be able to go to the bathroom in the one across the hall from me that is shared by adults and not have to worry about who is peeing on the toilet. Im not asking for brain surgery just watch it when your zipping up and if you dribble a little wipe it up yourself, you're a grown ass 50 yr old man. How does his wife live with him? Maybe they have separate bathrooms.

Unfortunately there really is no way to bring this up to him. Maybe as Im passing him in the hall one day I can say hey asshole stop peeing on the toilet. But thats probably not a good solution. If anyone has an idea on how to tell a grown man to pee in a toilet let me know.

The good news is I posted a blog two days in a row and Im working out of the office on Friday so he can pee on the toilet all he wants that day.

Worm Poop

It's been a while since I posted on here, I always say I will do better with keeping up with posting but then other things take priority or nothing particularly interesting is happening. It has been an exciting couple of months, filled with a lot of campaigning, conventions, busy weeks at work, a trip home, a cousins graduation, and my plants.

A couple of months ago I started growing strawberries from seeds at home. For quite some time I didn’t think anything was going to grow and I had somehow messed them up (despite diligently watering them every day), until finally little seedlings popped up. Now I have 4 plants that are growing pretty strongly, in fact I need to re-pot them into their own pots this week and 1 brand new seedling that just popped up last week. Very exciting! I am not sure how long it will take them to actually produce strawberries. Some people say that strawberry plants do not produce fruit the first year but the package of seeds I bought said they were the forever producing kind, so I think they should.

I also have 2 tomato plants that are doing extremely well. One is Amish style tomatoes that are the size of grape tomatoes. This plant is doing really well and already has several baby green tomatoes on it. The other will produce larger heirloom tomatoes that are yellow and red. That one has the flowers but not the baby tomatoes yet. I have them in pots on my deck, so no large garden (unfortunately!) this year. But my tomatoes and strawberries keep me busy every morning.

I found the best fertilizer for my tomatoes and plants- Worm Poop. It’s by a company called TerraCycle. A friend and I were looking for organic fertilizer for our tomato plants and surprisingly I found this right at Home Depot. Basically worms are fed organic matter or compost and their poop is turned into fertilizer. And the company sells it in recycled soda bottles, so its cutting down on waste too. They have a special fertilizer for tomato plants and then others for other types of plants too. The whole idea of worm poop is really very amusing but it actually does work! And when I went to visit Liz, I spotted a lot of worm farms in her area, something I had never noticed before. So if you are growing anything this season you should seriously look into getting some worm poop for your garden.