Hydrophobia's new meaning: Fear of water use

Water, water everywhere … Are you feeling overwhelmed by watery problems? We are.

Where will Cambria get the extra water we all need? Will any of us be able to afford it?

How to use less of it so we don’t get clobbered by surcharges … and because conserving it is the right thing to do?

Not only is my work filled with stories about Cambria’s watery problems, so, it seems, is my life.

How long a shower can I afford this morning?

Is my ice-maker wasteful?

What about our water filtering system?

Should we turn our hot-water recirculating system off or leave it on? It supposedly uses less water when we try to get warmth out of the tap. But in the past, a couple of pipe seams have blown apart, and our plumber says that’s because of the constant heat and pressure in the pipes.

Of course, some water-conserving methods are no-brainers.

We leave our cars dirty or clean them at a car wash that recirculates the water.

We don’t wash down sidewalks or what little pavement we have.

We wash windows with a bucket and squeegee and save shower water in buckets for watering potted plants.

We avoid using the garbage disposal (maybe we’ll start donating our veggie waste to a neighbor’s composter).

We only wash full loads of anything.

We flush … oh, never mind.

Our house has a large yard (I won’t dignify it by calling it a garden) paved with African daisies that are, quite frankly, looking scruffy. We have a basic drip-irrigation system, but we use it rarely. Some plants have died from lack of water and attention.

So be it.

But when I start obsessing about other people wasting water in other towns, then I figure I’ve gone over the edge.

Recently in San Francisco, I saw a woman turn on the faucet in a public restroom, and then she left it running while she wandered away to get her child.

I almost went ballistic.

That said, mastering the art of water conserving in a public restroom is … tricky.

To prevent illness, public health folks urge us to wash our hands frequently, thoroughly. They say that, when we’re done, we must dry our hands, rather than using a blower which can recirculate germs, but we shouldn’t touch handles or buttons that others have touched.

Awkward, isn’t it?

I finally figured it out.

First, I pull off two sets of paper towels, and stick one under each armpit (probably not sanitary, but at least the germs there are MY germs. And fortunately, I’m fully clothed, because this is in public, right?).

At the sink, I turn on the water, dampen my hands and turn the water off.

I soap and lather my hands, silently singing the "Happy Birthday to me" song twice to make sure I’ve washed long enough. I take one paper towel from under my arm, use it to turn on the water long enough to rinse my hands and to turn off the water. I throw that towel away.

I use the other towel to dry my hands and open the restroom door, after which I fling the paper into a nearby (we hope) trash can.

Paper basketball is not my strong suit, so sometimes the plan falls apart there.

Of course, there are other problems … when blowers are the only hand-drying option, other than the slacks covering my own rump … when the restroom only has those awful, germ-filled cloth towels that go ‘round and ‘round in a metal container on the wall … when the paper-towel dispenser is empty.

And then there are the soap dispensers. I wish manufacturers would get together and decide where the soap is supposed to come out, in front or near the wall.

Unless I bend over and peer under the dispenser, I don’t know where to put my hand to catch the soap. And if I make the wrong choice, I wind up with soap on the floor or the sink … goo I have to clean up before I leave, which means I have to start over again because my hands aren’t clean any more.

Grrr.

The Purell and Handi-Wipes in my purse and car are looking better and better — and they don’t require water.

E-mail Kathe Tanner at ktanner@thetribunenews.com.

BEST OF: You have to Pik your spot

This column ran in The Cambrian on Aug. 18, 2005.

Our dentist maintains if we're dedicated about using our “dental irrigator,” we might keep our teeth a little longer.

(Did you ever notice that medical types always spout cryptic equations like that? For instance, my doctor tells me if I exercise more, I'll live longer. So, check this with me: By exercising for weeks and months now, when I feel relatively good, I might add more hours to the end of my life when I'm feeling crummy. I'm bad at math, but there's something wacky about those calculations.)

Anyhow, if a dental irrigator sounds like I'm hooking my mouth up to a power washer, you're not too far off. Water blended with a bit of bleach flows from a plastic reservoir through a pump to a tube that has a spray nozzle on the end. The resulting strong stream of water should buff each tooth clean, massage your gums and blast every little leftover piece of spinach or Snickers bar from between your molars.

It's like trying to chew gum and gargle at the same time.

And have you tasted Clorox lately?

To learn how to use our dental irrigator — which we nicknamed “Pik” — I opened the manual. Now I know better than to do that, having learned the drill from having two computers, a laptop, a PDA (personal digital assistant, a hand-held computer gizmo), three cell phones and two digital cameras, none of which I've even begun to understand.

Of course, the manuals just make things worse. I can do basic things with the electronics — find an address, write a story, take a picture or make a call (if I'm in range, but that's another problem). But the exotic stuff? To me, a “Blackberry” still is something that that bites back if you try to pick it and eventually evolves into jam or a pie filling ... not a trendy pager/e-mail/web browser that fits in the palm of your hand.

Even my new $89 microwave is smarter than I am.

So there I was with Pik and absolutely no idea how to use it. I stood at the sink and pondered.

I have a tooth or two that already are somewhat annoyed with me. I'm supposed to take something that could launch a small satellite, put the device into my mouth and turn it on.

Riiiiight.

I looked up at my reflection in the mirror, and my face reminded me of that wonderful old ad for rectal thermometers. You remember — a darling baby with a horrified expression and the headline, “You're going to put that thermometer WHERE?”

I sighed and went back to where Pik's manual showed the little tip firmly planted in the handle. But the booklet never showed exactly how I was supposed to connect them.

After several tries — during which I chased the tip around the bathroom like a manic grasshopper playing handball — I finally figured out it was a pushme-pullme and got the diabolical devices connected.

The manual also shows a sliding bar that controls the water's velocity, but didn't explain that, when you slide the bar while Pik is pumping water into your mouth, the pressure changes instantly from tickle to sandblast. It's like getting acupuncture from the inside out.

The manual also forgot to mention how tightly or loosely I should keep my lips closed once I turned on the spray. In my usual mode, I learned the hard way.

Using Pik with my mouth sort of open, I managed to spray down the sink, the mirror, the shower, the tub, the windows and the flower basket in the next room.

With my mouth slammed shut (a position with which I'm basically unfamiliar anyway), I almost drowned.

Finally, I learned the half-and-half lip-pursing move that is the requisite balance between blast and glub. Some water has to dribble and drip out of your mouth as Pik is blasting more in. It is not a Kodak moment.

Having semi-mastered the routine, here's some advice:
1) Don't wear nice clothes while you're Pik-ing.
2) Don't try to talk, either.
3) Laughing can be purely hazardous.
4) Clorox water tastes like old socks.
5) Be careful where you aim. Do not, repeat, not point the super sprayer at the back of your throat, especially right after breakfast.
6) And don't bother with the manual.

BEST OF: You've got to pik your spot

This column ran in The Cambrian on Aug. 18, 2005.

Our dentist maintains if we're dedicated about using our “dental irrigator,” we might keep our teeth a little longer.

(Did you ever notice that medical types always spout cryptic equations like that? For instance, my doctor tells me if I exercise more, I'll live longer. So, check this with me: By exercising for weeks and months now, when I feel relatively good, I might add more hours to the end of my life when I'm feeling crummy. I'm bad at math, but there's something wacky about those calculations.)

Anyhow, if a dental irrigator sounds like I'm hooking my mouth up to a power washer, you're not too far off.

Water blended with a bit of bleach flows from a plastic reservoir through a pump to a tube that has a spray nozzle on the end. The resulting strong stream of water should buff each tooth clean, massage your gums and blast every little leftover piece of spinach or Snickers bar from between your molars.

It's like trying to chew gum and gargle at the same time.

And have you tasted Clorox lately?

To learn how to use our dental irrigator — which we nicknamed “Pik” — I opened the manual.

Now I know better than to do that, having learned the drill from having two computers, a laptop, a PDA (personal digital assistant, a hand-held computer gizmo), three cell phones and two digital cameras, none of which I've even begun to understand.

Of course, the manuals just make things worse.

I can do basic things with the electronics — find an address, write a story, take a picture or make a call (if I'm in range, but that's another problem).

But the exotic stuff? To me, a “Blackberry” still is something that that bites back if you try to pick it and eventually evolves into jam or a pie filling ... not a trendy pager/e-mail/web browser that fits in the palm of your hand.

Even my new $89 microwave is smarter than I am.

So there I was with Pik and absolutely no idea how to use it.

I stood at the sink and pondered. I have a tooth or two that already are somewhat annoyed with me. I'm supposed to take something that could launch a small satellite, put the device into my mouth and turn it on.

Riiiiight.

I looked up at my reflection in the mirror, and my face reminded me of that wonderful old ad for rectal thermometers. You remember — a darling baby with a horrified expression and the headline, “You're going to put that thermometer WHERE?”

I sighed and went back to where Pik's manual showed the little tip firmly planted in the handle. But the booklet never showed exactly how I was supposed to connect them.

After several tries — during which I chased the tip around the bathroom like a manic grasshopper playing handball — I finally figured out it was a pushme-pullme and got the diabolical devices connected.

The manual also shows a sliding bar that controls the water's velocity, but didn't explain that, when you slide the bar while Pik is pumping water into your mouth, the pressure changes instantly from tickle to sandblast.

It's like getting acupuncture from the inside out.

The manual also forgot to mention how tightly or loosely I should keep my lips closed once I turned on the spray.

In my usual mode, I learned the hard way.

Using Pik with my mouth sort of open, I managed to spray down the sink, the mirror, the shower, the tub, the windows and the flower basket in the next room.

With my mouth slammed shut (a position with which I'm basically unfamiliar anyway), I almost drowned.

Finally, I learned the half-and-half lip-pursing move that is the requisite balance between blast and glub. Some water has to dribble and drip out of your mouth as Pik is blasting more in.

It is not a Kodak moment.

Having semi-mastered the routine, here's some advice:

1) Don't wear nice clothes while you're Pik-ing.
2) Don't try to talk, either.
3) Laughing can be purely hazardous.
4) Clorox water tastes like old socks.
5) Be careful where you aim. Do not, repeat, not point the super sprayer at the back of your throat, especially right after breakfast.
6) And don't bother with the manual.

BEST OF: "Stick to your ribs" has new meaning

It’s a Friday afternoon. We’re tired from the long week, and we’ve shopped at the grocery stores and farmers market. We unload and put away all that food and then are too weary to fix and eat it.

It’s a familiar syndrome: “I just bought $200 worth of food, and there’s nothing to eat.”

Planning ahead on a recent Friday, we bought take-out from Linn’s barbecue booth and then ate our meal at the Cambria Community Cemetery.

It’s a peaceful, fairly private place in which to immerse ourselves in a delightfully gooey meal of glazed chicken and the sticky, saucy barbecued pork. (Get thee behind us, Satan — with a cardiologist-triggered guilty conscience, we took the leftovers home and froze them for another indulgence.)

Bless Handi Wipes.

As I mopped barbecue sauce off far-flung sections of my body (how did I get it on my ankle?), I wondered what makes sticky foods so special, so decadent.

Yum. Toffee apples and grilled cheese sandwiches, caramel-marshmallow sundaes and chocolate fondue, and yes, the barbecues of many nations. There’s even a highly celebrated breakfast roll called a sticky bun.

My teeth and hips may pay the tariff, but all that goo enriches my soul somehow. Must be a throwback to our cave-person days. Maybe fire-glazed mastodon was sticky, too.

Making gooey things at home has its hazards, as anyone who has ever fast-flipped a pan of fresh-out-of-the-oven sticky buns can attest.

While pastries, cakes and breads require some precision in measuring and following recipes, other sticky recipes often do not. Toss together a dab of this, a splash of that. If it’s not exactly as the recipe laid out, it’ll probably taste just fine anyway.

A few successes at such culinary improv can do wonders for a cook’s confidence. From there, it’s dangerously easy to jump over that fine line between capable and cocky.

The results of such self-assurance can join the ranks of other family food disasters, like Aunt Maude’s oven-forged pot roast or the too-liquid cake that boiled merrily in the oven, instead of baking.

At this stage in this report, the unkind in our family would nod knowingly and recall my infamous Chinese-style sticky ribs.

These lusciously sticky baby backs simmer in an ever-reducing sweet/salty liquid, rather than baking in an oven or being barbecued on a hot grill. The soy/sugar/chili flavor steeps into the meat during the course of a half-hour or more on the stove, eventually forming a spicy, caramel-like glaze on the outside of the ribs.

The process requires a stirring schedule that dawdles along for what seems like forever, and then accelerates from zero to 60 mph in the frenzied twist of an overworked wrist.

When the ribs are done, the glaze is thickly gooey like no other food. It’s sticky enough to fill cavities — or cause them. It’s slightly spicy, dark and richly laced with thick soy sauce, not the wimpy supermarket stuff.

For our party, I couldn’t find the recipe, but felt I remembered it well enough to wing it.

Bad move.

Everything smelled and felt right until the too-late-to-switch, critical-mass stage of the last five minutes, when the stirring regime is like Irish step dancing for the arms.

By then, all our guests were hanging around the kitchen, watching my frenzy.

I thought the rib mixture felt denser than usual, but mentally wrote it off to some weather condition rather than my own stupidity.

One of our friends grabbed a rib as soon as I took them off the stove, said “It smells wonderful!” and bit off a big bite.

His eyes widened a little, and then I noticed he wasn’t chewing. He wasn’t swallowing. He was … stuck.

“Cnnnnttttoppppppnnnnnnnmmmmtttttttttthhh,” he said, hands waving around, but teeth firmly clenched together.

In fact, firmly doesn’t begin to describe it.

Once we translated (“I can’t open my mouth”), we frantically started dreaming up remedies, none of which were workable.

Prying his jaw open wasn’t an option, as he had some pricey implants and bridgework.

Sipping hot tea through a straw sounded good, but anything hot enough to dislodge the stickum would have burned his mouth AND melted the straw.

Other ideas — like using my kitchen torch, dynamite or chisels — seemed a tad over the top.

In the end, we let time and saliva work their magic on the culinary Super Glue. The molars stayed put ... but the ribs went into the garbage.

Dinner was a little late. Thank heavens the rest of the menu was soft stuff.

I’m assuming that wasn’t the end of the incident. I can, however, only imagine what happened a night or two later, when neighborhood raccoons raided the trashcan.

This column was published March 6, 2003, in The Cambrian.

Hearst's Monarch was a real bear

After our recent five-hour stroll through the San Francisco Zoo, husband Richard practically skipped out to the car. Granddaughter, Alyssa, 8, however, was dragging.

She whimpered, “Mommy, my knee pits hurt."

But that was at the end of our story.

Our latest family adventure was triggered by a wonderful 1889 tale about William Randolph Hearst’s stubborn streak, a California grizzly bear and a how-to for starting a zoo.

According to historians, media magnate Hearst and reporter Allen Kelly had a prolonged argument over the status of California grizzlies in the wild.

Hearst was convinced the bears were gone and challenged the reporter to find a grizzly in the state’s mountains. But to prove the point, Kelly had to bring the bear back alive.

Five months later, a triumphant Kelly returned to the city with an enormous caged grizzly, enchanting more than 20,000 people waiting at the train station.

There’s no record of Hearst’s reaction.

But what do you do with a big bear in San Francisco? If you’re banker Herbert Fleishhacker, you start a zoo.

Monarch the grizzly captivated the city for 16 years, but never made it to the zoo’s present location.

Husband Richard and I did, however, with Alyssa, her sister Caitlyn and their mother, Lori Tanner.

But first, there was the electric scooter. Now, Richard has no trouble walking, but long sessions of standing and gazing at this or that really magnify his aches and twinges into full-fledged pains in the … whatever.

Honoring his dignity surely would cut short the zoo visit. The scooter could embarrass him, but would also help him enjoy a longer day. No contest, honey. Swallow that pride.

I certainly wasn’t going to push a wheelchair up those hills, and the zoo only has two scooters to rent. So we arrived early. Side benefit: We got a good parking spot for our tailgate lunch.

Quickly, we learned how much the zoo has changed! Serpentine paths wind among spacious natural habitats laced with animals, plants, trees and ponds.

But it sure is easy to get lost. Distracted people constantly bumped into us and others, because each person had a camera in one hand, mandatory site map in the other, and a puzzled expression.

Lori said she was “surprised that the zoo was so hilly, so green and big, and that there were so many habitats rather than cages. The animals didn’t seem at all stressed out.”

Our favorites?

The stately giraffes posed for glamour shots. You could almost hear them say, “Get my good side, now. Focus, girlfriend.”

Ever watched a giraffe get up? From a spread-eagle position at the pond’s edge, the animal literally had to jump up and pull in all his legs at once.

From an elevated path, we were within a few feet of a giraffe’s head as he used a tiny branch for dental floss and, as Caitlyn put it, “picked his nose with his tongue.”

And we loved the Hearst Grizzly Gulch, funded by the Hearst Foundation.

Stephen Hearst, vice president/general manager of the Hearst Corp. and W.R.’s grandson, told the San Francisco Chronicle it was “the fastest million-dollar grant that ever went through the foundation,” taking a mere three weeks to arrange. “I called the president of the gift committee, who happens to be my father,” George R. Hearst, Jr., chairman of the corporation board.

Monarch would be so proud.

During our visit, grizzly sisters Kiona and Kachina wrestled, romped and chased each other around, climbing on a rocky, waterfall-enhanced hill.

Kachina frolicked in the pool like an otter, then cuddled up in the water near a glassed-in patio where we stood. At one point, she leaned her paw up against the glass, close enough so we could inspect her manicure!

Grandpa Richard frolicked, too. On that unusually sunny and warm day, he scooted around, giggling, taking pictures, quacking like an aoogah horn and captivating every other little boy in the place.

We left the zoo with overworked tootsies, sunburned noses and lovely memories of another family escapade.

A great day? You bet. After all, whether you’re writing about a grizzly bear named Monarch, a scooter ride or aching “knee pits,” every good story needs a good ending.

E-mail Kathe Tanner at ktanner@thetribunenews.com.