Enough already with the plastic

The City Council of Baltimore might not be ready to ban single-use plastic shopping bags, but I am. I'm done. I don't know when this happened exactly, but I reached some sort of tipping point with plastic bags a few weeks ago. Now I can't stand them. Some people don't want to see Kyle Boller as the Ravens' quarterback anymore. I don't want to see plastic bags.

Of course, going cold turkey requires asking for paper at the supermarket - not a great option - or toting reusable bags into the store with you. A lot of people, especially males, struggle with this. It's a self-conscious guy thing - being oh-so-blatantly Earth-friendly, bringing your own bags, carrying them across the parking lot in plain sight of manly men eating salads in pickup trucks. But it's got to be.

The only other option I like is the one discovered at the Price Rite store on Queen Street in York, Pa. They sell heavy-duty, reusable plastic bags at the checkout for 10 cents each. They are meant to last, too large for lunch and too good for poop patrol. If more stores around here sold those - and if more guys would walk proudly into supermarkets with lovely cotton bags - we wouldn't need no stinking government ban.

Eco-commuter

David Schapiro, the Roland Park resident profiled in this space a few weeks ago because of his determination to take a bicycle to work in Hunt Valley, has inspired others - or, at least, one other.

After reading the July 6 column on Schapiro's healthy and eco-friendly commuting routine, a 43-year-old woman, who describes herself as "overweight, under-exercising [and] suburban-dwelling," decided to put more foot power into her trip to work at the Johns Hopkins University. "My trip consists of a ride on Light Rail, and then a two-mile walk to my office," she writes in an e-mail. "My whole commute takes about an hour one way. ... I should be walking four to seven miles every day, depending on whether I walk to and from Light Rail. I'll let you know whether it is a lifestyle change that, like David Schapiro's, takes hold!"

You go, woman.

Something gold

"Things change," my 94-year-old mother said, breaking a silence that had lasted several minutes. At the moment, we were sitting in the front seat of a car, waiting on a traffic light in Massachusetts.