Fine Art

I'm very concerned about my carbon footprint.

If I'm not around to do it, I remind Tiffany to crawl under our desk and behind our TV to turn off our surge strips when we're not using all the things that are plugged into them. When our sink had a drip in one of our previous apartments, I kept a pitcher underneath it at all times and drank only that water. Sometimes I turn out the lights on Tiffany when she's still in a room.

But. I enabled an enormous waste of paper the other night when our friends Bobby and Teresa came over with their children, Julia, Peter, and Baby Sandro.

We didn't have time to pick up taste-treats or toys like we usually do. They had been waiting for us so long they were about to be kicked out of the Natural History Museum.

So when Tiffany and I got home, we ran around sweeping our clutter underneath things, looking for anything kid-friendly. I eyed a set of Left, Right, Center dice but decided they were too close to swallowable-size.

"Where are the crayons we bought?" I shrieked. "And paper! Lots of paper!"

Tiffany surfaced from somewhere deep in the closet with a plastic baggy of crayons. The box apparently had been destroyed when Peter and Julia last visited.

They're such good kids they don't need to be entertained, really. But when Peter started throwing our stability ball around the apartment, King-Kong style, we pulled out the crayons and a stack of brand-new printer paper.

"Can I have another piece?" Peter asked after a few swipes of blue.

I handed him one.

"And me too, please," Julia called, sing-song style, as she taped an abstract-style rainbow to our bathroom door.

"Maybe they should use the back of the paper," Tiffany whispered to me as I went for more sheets.

I gave her a half-hearted nod.

But when I suggested as much to Julia, she pointed out that when we hang the pictures on our walls, only one side can be seen.

And since she was exactly right, I kept passing out paper, without a second-thought, until all of our doors were covered in crayon-drawings.

Next time I'll be prepared, though. I'll tell Julia I have a better idea:

Reversible art.