Taking Ranting for Granted
Since I'm still sick, I'm kind of running out of blog fodder, at least material that doesn't require a dab of mental energy. Of course, I could write about yet more dining excursions, but writing about that is less appealing to someone who still can't really taste anything.
This must mean that it's time to rant about something. I think one of the major problems in this area, this country and perhaps the rest of the world is that we take things for granted. It's likely impossible not to and may even be a survival trait. If we spent all our time appreciating everything that was going right in our lives at every moment, then we would have all been run over by trucks a long time ago.
There are two things that are driving the point of this post. One is that, as I'm mentioned a couple of dozen times already, I'm sick and I know that no matter how hard I attempt to fully appreciate being healthy, it does happen occasionally. I do believe that I've said to people in the past, "nothing makes you appreciate living as almost dying." Well, the same is true if you've recently experienced a head cold, just to a lesser extent.
The other rant inducement is the drought. I've heard numerous people tell me recently that they were waiting to run the dishwasher until it was full, because of the drought. It shouldn't be because of the drought. The dishwasher shouldn't be run until it's full because it wastes water (and energy) if it's not full. It wastes just as much water whether you live in the desert or whether some hurricane has dumped twenty inches of rain the day before. The problem is that people take fresh water for granted, just as we do electricity, heat, clean air, food and the fact that we are currently unlikely to be shot on the way to work. Obviously, some people take different things for granted. Some people may take the cool crisp air of fall for granted, while I know that if it weren't for the drought most of my neighborhood would be so full of smoke that I'd have difficulty breathing even without a cold.
I'm not saying that I'm a saint here, because I'm sure I waste about as much water as most people in some fashion or another and I know I can be cranky at the best of times, but I just hope a few of you will think about what or who in your life is important and not take them for granted. Be sure to look for trucks first.
i hope you feel better soon :-)
ReplyDeleteNice rant. We always try to wait until the dishwasher is full to run it, but laundry is another story these days. Man, babies create a lot of laundry...
ReplyDeleteYour post caused the opposite effect for me. I thought of who has gone too far to conserve water, specifically Whole Foods, where you can no longer get tap water.
ReplyDeleteNo, Toastie, businesses who are doing that are also taking water for granted in that they (the Refectory is doing this, too) are wasting something like three times as much water to produce the bottle somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteThey are also taking for granted that the the revenue from the the extra bottles of water purchased will offset the lost revenue from the customers they piss off.
Given claims that dishwashers are more efficient than hand-washing I think it may make sense to run the dishwasher half empty, if that's what it takes to make you use the dishwasher.
ReplyDeleteWhen I cooked less, I refused to use a dishwasher because the dishes would get skanky in the time it took to accumulate a full load. In hindsight, I suspect that was a false economy. (These days I cook six meals a day, and run the dishwasher daily, and suffer no such dilemma. I also have a double sink and most evenings do a hand-wash batch of the items that don't go in the dishwasher well, the efficient way.)
Oh, I wouldn't dream of washing them by hand. I'm much too lazy for that. Aren't dirty dishes supposed to ripen? :)
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