Queries for Carrie

	Questions of greens, greenbacks

Query: I live in a condo now, only 25 minutes from work. I like the layout and view, but I miss having a garden and I’m still keeping a compost container on the counter. I try to bury it here and there in the borders around the building, but there has to be a better solution. Any leads?

—Green Thumb on New Hampshire

Carrie: You might check out Takoma Park Middle School. They have an ongoing gardening project there, and may always be in need of compostables. You might also have a go at one of the vendors at the Farmers’ Market. Organic truck gardening takes a lot of soil building on a regular basis, and you may find a vendor who’d be happy to trade your weekly bucket of compost for a discount on super-seasonal produce, i.e. whatever s/he’s got a sure surplus of. You might even find yourself a garden plot of your own to plant and feed and water year in and year out, or a community service agriculture organization that encourages participation at this basic level.

You could, and this would mean a lot of work initially but might give you the most satisfaction in the long run, work with your governance committee and the City of Takoma Park to see if they might incorpor-ate compost pick-up in approximately the same way that they handle yard waste removal. If your entire condo building had a large bucket for compost matter that would be emptied once a week, the quality of the city mulch might improve even more. That would be a win-win situation for everyone, and might even spread to the other condos and apartment buildings locally. What a reduction in solid waste at the landfills!

Query: We married in haste and now my husband and I have lawyered up almost as quickly as we married. His parents gifted us at the time of our wedding with a very generous amount of money. The check was handed to my husband, and made out in his name. But he encouraged me to help him spend it on those first few halcyon months together. Now he’s implying that I should help him to pay them back, as that money had been intended to go towards a down payment on a house. I don’t believe I’m legally obligated to do any such thing. But I wonder if I owe my soon to be former in-laws anything due to etiquette, as the marriage certainly didn’t last as long as any of us had hoped and planned.

—Separated on Sherman

Carrie: The answer with no varnish on it amounts to “No you don’t owe them anything.” If the marriage lasted less than a year however, you may wish to return any wedding gifts that were in the form of durable goods: toasters, silver, vases, homes and such. Include a note regretting that your associations with the object are so colored by your present frame of mind that you feel it would be ignoble, and possibly deleterious to your mental health, to continue to claim possession of their very kind gifts.

Money is different. In this instance, it doesn’t sound like it was your money to begin with. Their son chose to spend his parents’ supplement to his resources, not you. I’m sure you’ll have lots of other, legitimate money matters to go through with your nearly former husband. This one is a non-starter.

Do send a note to your in-laws indicating that it was lovely to know them, and that you’re sorry about knowing them for such a short time. If it’s true, state that you would enjoy continuing your acquaintance with them should they find your offer agreeable.

If you have a baby started, then you have a built-in future with them as one half of the baby’s grandparents. Send a note saying you look forward to them spending many happy hours with the latest addition to their family and you hope to be a part of that.

Query: Do I have to be thankful for creamed broccoli? I’m thankful for everything else at Thanksgiving. But not broccoli. OK. I’m not so thankful for my little sister either. She smells bad and cries a lot.

—Opposed to Broccoli on Oswego

Carrie: You could be thankful for the good growing season that allowed all the farmers to bring the bounty of nature to your harvest table. That would include broccoli, but wouldn’t include a direct falsehood about your relationship with broccoli.

You should, however, practice finding things about your little sister for which you can be grateful. Maybe she makes so much of a mess that no one nags you to clean up your much smaller mess. Maybe she’s so fussy at bedtime that you have a few extra minutes every night before lights out. These are things to be thankful for that come from her.