The Tree Hugger in Me

Maybe if I close my eyes tight enough I can pretend that it isn’t cold and dreary outside.  I hate winter.  Let me reiterate that…I HATE WINTER.  Every moment and every second I count down until spring.  This year has been the worst year yet because of how badly the inversion was, even drifting down to little old Nephi making my lungs feel like someone had put a vice grip on them and clamped down hard.  Ridiculous that the thought of a storm brought absolute joy to my heart, because remember I HATE WINTER…but that meant the alleviating of the inversion and the freedom of my lungs.

Now I have several thoughts on why I hate winter so much, the main one being that when I was fourteen our youth group went cross country skiing in Beaver’s mountains and got caught in a freak blizzard resulting in me nearly losing my fingers on my left hand followed by months and months of physical therapy and rubbing the dead skin off resulting in me finally getting feeling back in those said fingers about 6 months later to only be haunted by tingly fingers every day of my life henceforth not to mention since that time I shiver so hard in the cold that my back and legs charlie horse and my core temp never seems to be able to rise back up even when I get warm again.

Yes I would think that would be a very good reason for me to hate winter, but in reality I think that it’s the fact that it is so sad and gloomy when the sun doesn’t shine and the roads are black and dirty covered in salt.  And perhaps all of this I could live through if I thought that in some way winter was helping the ever present drought that seems to live and breathe and thrive in Utah.  But I can’t think that, not this year.

Why is water so important, you ask?  Other than the fact that we can’t drink it without it this summer my lawn will be very crispy and my garden will die and my kids will have no sprinklers to run through and quite frankly our poor farmers will go bankrupt resulting in less food for us and thus increasing grocery prices on produce.  Grain and hay prices will skyrocket resulting in an immense increase in the cost of meat…etc. etc. etc.  Get my point.  We need snow and lots of it.  Those mountains above me need to be floating in it and the water table below me needs to be filled to brimming.

The other day I was at a restroom in a McDonalds in Beaver.  I was taking care of my business in my own little stall listening to a mother by the sink talking to her little girl who was about two while she washed her hands.

“Make sure you wash them good, sweetie…” or something along those lines.

“I am Mommy.”

“Sing your ABC’s.  Remember?  Like I taught you.”

On comes the water.

“Abcdef…is that enough, Mommy.”

“No sing the whole song.”

Water still running.

“Abcdefghi…how bout that.  That enough, Mommy.”

“No, the whole song, gotta get those germs away.”

Water still pouring full blast.

“I gotta start again.  Can’t do it otherwise.  Abcdefghijk…what comes next, Mommy?”

Water still running.  At this point the tree hugger that Jason says I am wanted to say, “Turn off that water.  I know germs are scary and all but teach her another way to learn that song.  Slather her hands with all of the antibacterial soap in that dispenser and let her learn the ABC’s to sloshing the soap around instead of the water.  Jeez man, we are in a drought and water doesn’t grow on trees.”

But instead I just finished my business and washed my hands while I watched the little girl (cute as can be by the way) and very high maintenance mommy dry their hands.  You know what she said to her little girl as I washed my hands?  “See, watch this nice lady, I bet she knows the proper way to wash her hands so the germs won’t get her.” 

And you know what I did?  I slathered those hands with soap, no water at this point, and with exaggerated effort rubbed it between every nook and cranny, every joint and under every nail and then after an exaggerated amount of time I very quickly washed it off with as little water as possible.

Then she said, “See, look how good she did that.  No germs are going to get her.”

And I wanted to say, “It’s antibacterial soap, lady.  Your daughter is as sterile as they come.  Lay off the water all ready.”  But of course I didn’t.

At this point I would have explained the whole process of properly washing my hands that my Medical Biology teacher taught me all those years ago had those two people been my daughters, but of course I didn’t.  But this is what my girls have heard a million times.  Put the soap on first before the water coats your hands so that the water doesn’t cause a thin microscopic barrier between your skin and the soap therefore thwarting the whole process.  Then, add the water to distribute it and rinse away.  See even science says soap first, soap good, then rinse away.  Science is water conscious.

What has this got to do with anything, you ask?  I’m not real sure.  Just that twigs and berries, hippy kind of gal that Jason says I am coming out on a rant again.  Probably time for me to go dehydrate something or make yogurt in my crockpot again.  Anything to calm my tree hugger rants.