News From Hawkhill Acres

Geekdaddy is an early adopter. If it’s technical and it’s available, even in Beta - especially in Beta - he’s gotta have it. So when compact fluorescent bulbs came out, the geek was first in line at the power company giveaway where you could get four bulbs free. He got ‘em and loved ‘em. I hated ‘em.

They buzzed. They flickered. I complained. “That’s a problem for you?” the geek said, not understanding why anyone would object to a buzz that he can’t hear anyway with his hearing or a flicker mighty like the one of his beloved computer monitor. After all, this is the man who willingly closes the door on a room that houses “The Smilodon”, a computer case that smells like Love Canal used to smell on a hot August day. It gives the rest of us a headache and we’re on a campaign to make him get rid of it, but in the meantime, we insist that he close the door.

He’s fine with that. Just like he was fine with the buzzing, flickering CFLs that he purchased in quantity and stuck into every light in the house. I thought it was ironic that I, the green maven chez Hawkins, was asking him to stop using something that everyone from Al Gore to the EPA endorsed.

So, we compromised. We put them into some of the lights, but not the lamp next to my chair, the kitchen light or the bathroom. For them, we use long-lasting bulbs while we wait for LED technology to be ready for prime time. Apparently, that’ll be a very good thing, because those environmentally-friendly CFLs contain mercury, a heavy metal group that I’m not a fan of.

Unfortunately, I DID get involved a few nights ago when the geek knocked over his bedside lamp, thereby breaking the compact fluorescent bulb which strewed mercury impregnated shards of glass all over our bedroom floor. I have to admit that Geekdaddy cleaned it up immediately and did a very thorough job of disposing of it in the approved manner, but I was still not sanguine with having mercury-bearing bulbs in my vicinity.

Then, yesterday, as I went to open a window so that I could lean out and shake my fist at the heat wave that is inflicting itself upon our usually-cool corner of Maine, I stepped on something very sharp. It was a u-shaped shard of CFL and it was wedged into my foot so tightly that I had trouble removing it and bled profusely even after it was out.

I washed my foot, applied antiseptic and then googled mercury to see if I should be worried. I found this link to a fact sheet on Mercury and CFLs, but it didn’t say a mumbling word about what to do if you step on a piece of the glass. Deuced remiss of them, I think. Don’t they know any geeks?

So, I emailed a friend who’s up on scientific things and I also found a place where I can get a cheap test to find out how much mercury I have circulating in my blood and brain. Considering all the fish I’ve eaten over the years and the fact that my brother and I used to play with mercury “snakes” from broken thermometers when we were young, I’m afraid the results might be high.

You know, it’s interesting that when the planet Mercury is retrograde, as it is now, astrologers say that there will be communication difficulties, because Mercury is the planet of communication, writing and speaking. While, if you get too much mercury, you may have trouble communicating because of cognitive problems and mental confusion. I can understand that mercury, also known as quicksilver, was named for the swift messenger god, Mercury. But how is it that the effects of the planet appearing to stand still in the heavens has the same effect as ingesting or absorbing the metal that’s named after it?

I’m not dissing the geek’s attempts to be Green. At least he’s not trying to be frugal like he was when he used old motorcycle batteries for a battery-backup for his computer. That time, they started to smoke and sizzle and spark after about a week and we were treated to the spectacle of the geek dashing madly back and forth from the four batteries to the back door until he’d thrown all of them out into the snow. This time, at least, there were no flames or smoke, only toxic chemicals, so I guess I should count my blessings.