Happy Friday — we’re back with more Hot Bones and the briefest inkling of a sock tan from this week’s sunshine. 

Last edition showcased the symbiotic relationship between email clipping and drywall repair at my house. The good news is if you ever receive a Hot Bones email that’s been cut off mid moment of brilliance, you can always access the full post in the top right corner (where it says “Read Online”).

This week, we’re keeping things to a tight 5 min runtime to get you back to the first official Friday afternoon of spring.

We’re smack in the middle of the warm-by-day, cold-by-night season, and there is no better way to solve this than by stealing someone else’s fleece from the closet on your way out the door — spouse’s, sibling’s, roommate’s, parent’s, anyone’s but yours. Ideally, it’s the purple “this was made from plastic bottles” fleece that has technically been my mom’s for 30 years but let’s be honest is 100% mine. 

That’s because nearly 30 years ago, it saved me on a to-hell-with-all-this kind of hike. 

This was in the mid ’90s, when my brother and I were in elementary school, “Rookie of the Year” was the movie, and bowl cuts were peak style. My parents took us on a weekend camping trip in Fort Valley not far from Charlottesville. We hiked for a few miles in the early October sunshine before setting up camp in a clearing with a stream nearby.

As a kid, discovering there’s a swimming pool at your hotel was a gift from god — by extension, discovering there’s a creek by your tent was like becoming a god yourself.

We built dams and little wading pools and probably just threw a lot of rocks around for hours. It was awesome. 

Eventually my brother got tired and wandered off. I kept goofing off in the stream until statistics caught up with me and I fell in. 

One pair of sweatpants down. Two dry pairs to go.

Back to the creek I went, manifesting that inner crawfish, jumping between rocks and, again, throwing a lot of them. Water being water, I slipped in.

Two pairs down.

This is when my mom intervened — it was getting dark, the air was cooling off fast, and there was only one pair of clean dry sweatpants left in my backpack. No more creek adventures, but I was allowed to wear the highly coveted purple fleece to get warm.

We ate dinner (off the same plastic plates we used at home it looks like? love that for us). We told ghost stories around the campfire, and I’m sure no one slept at all.

But who needs sleep when in the morning you can play in the stream. That’s where you could find me after breakfast, while everyone else was packing up and getting ready to hike out — more splashing and scampering and yes that’s right falling directly into a huge pool I’d built the day before.

No more dry sweatpants.

A lot of one’s childhood is scattered images and false memories and weird smells. But I remember this hike distinctly. It’s probably the first time I had to accept the consequences of my actions. 

Backpack full of heavy wet cotton sweatpants, Tims laced and double knotted, toasty purple fleece totally dry and zipped up tight like a talisman to ward off bad vibes. And that’s it. Little Chardog hiking back to the car — passing plenty of other hikers — in her underwear. And not a care in the world.

All photos have since been burned. Or tossed in the nearest creek.

I wish I still was that badass. But the other thing that sticks with me is that, while most of that weekend camping trip is just loose photos by this point, the purple fleece is still around to this day — in my parent’s closet, in the back, definitely not washed since that trip. Objectively speaking it’s just a damn good fleece, and a lot of that has to do with the fact it’s upcycled. 

“Upcycling” is the solution we didn’t know we needed. In fact you’re probably already doing it. 

It’s a super vague term that’s basically just when you take an item you’d normally have thrown away (ex: a plastic bottle) and turn it into something new and of higher value (like the world’s best purple fleece). You’re not just giving something a second life, you’re giving it a better second life.

You could also call it “repurposing” or even just “recycling” since we’re all relatively clear on that concept. But upcycling does sound a little bit better.

A lot of upcycling is DIY stuff you’ve already done around the house, like turning your grandma’s old chest of drawers into a vintage at-home bar or buying an old gumball machine and turning it into a beautiful vase. What, you guys haven’t done those things?

You can also buy some cool upcycled things. For example: 

And if you’re in the market for an upcycled fleece…

Outdoor retailer Cotopaxi (the middle child between Patagonia and Outdoor Voices) has a full product line made from leftover high-quality “deadstock” fabric from other companies’ production runs (men’s featured on the right above, women’s version here but the colors weren’t as good). According to the company, these have an estimated 30% smaller carbon footprint than if they were made with new fabric.

And if you’re looking to avoid microplastics altogether, I’d recommend either washing my mom’s purple fleece one million times over 30 years — or checking out this new brand Driftless Goods (featured on the left). They use literal fleece, as in from sheep in Oregon (and fyi it’s not upcycled, just plastic free).

These fleeces cost an ungodly sum (and I even picked the on-sale option). Grateful that summer is coming and I don’t have to continually rationalize myself into not buying this, although I bet you that in three two one G is going to text me saying “hey dreams are free and I love this -- let’s get it?”

Upcycling clothing, furniture, and life jackets makes pretty good sense. Nothing too out there conceptually — you’re reducing waste + creating cool stuff in the process. What’s not to love. 

Oddly enough, though, one area where upcycling has been around forever but is virtually never talked about is food. The classic examples: 

Reusing scrap food is a huge way to lower the amount of food we waste in the U.S. (which is around 40 percent). Plus, these scraps and byproducts still have tons of nutritional value to add — boosting products like pasta sauces, baking mixes, even veggie chips and beer.

But leading with “upcycled” is a tricky dance for food brands. Upcycled foods don’t have the sexy mysterious past that an heirloom dining room table might have before you upcycle it into a whitewashed desk. No self respecting Stacy’s Bagel Chips bag is going to add a blurb that says “hey dumb dumb this is just crusty bread we made even crustier!” With a little sub-blurb saying “Also has anyone mentioned your highly noxious garlic breath?”

The good news is a lot of companies are either already upcycling and just not telling us about it — or they’re leading with the nutritional and taste aspects of their products first. There’s a great Guardian article highlighting a batch of startups approaching upcycled food from creative angles if you’re interested. 

As for us consumers, the whole “eating food waste” thing is, in the words of Succession’s Cousin Greg as he puts cookies in an unused dog refuse bag, “just a mental barrier.” These foods are nutritious, better for the planet, and often cheaper — aka they hit the Climate Trifecta.

So if you’re interested in some salty and savory upcycled snacks…

Plantain chips and banana bites from Barnana — the former I found at the Hydraulic Road Whole Foods, the latter at Harris Teeter. The company uses bananas and plantains from small organic farms in the Amazon that are too ripe for shipping overseas, and upcycles them into my new favorite snack. 

Although quick PSA to all my dairy allergy best friends: the banana bites do have milk in them, which is probably what makes them so good.