Water restrictions: what's a gal to do?

We haven't had much rain this year, like a lot of places. We're not on fire or anything, but we have been subject to water restrictions, and a lot of people are pretty upset that they can't wash their cars or water their lawns. I don't have a car, and my lawn is too small to bother watering, so my hands are clean in that regard, anyway. The rest of my yard is landscaped with ground cover and surprisingly drought-hardy shrubbery and trees. The guy who built this house was an expert gardener and obviously put a lot of effort into planning it. Given that I do so little to it, I gotta say it looks pretty good despite the lack of water.

But I have been making an effort to conserve water around the house, and feeling guilty about not doing more about this problem, even though I don't do any of the real high-intensity water-consuming activities. I was raised by hippies, see, and this just isn't the first time I've thought about water use around the house. According to one Bill Laxton of the N.C. Division of Environment and Natural Resources, quoted in the local paper, “Conservation must become a way of life, not a short-term fad.”

Which is exactly what my dad told me, back at the dawn of time, in the early 1970s, when we moved from the city to a house way out of town, on a lake, far from municipal water and sewer hookups. We had a well, and a septic tank, and were under strict instructions to flush only when necessary, don't run water while brushing teeth; and there were procedures to follow when washing dishes so as not to waste water nor overtax the rather delicate septic system. Bathing was perfunctory; bathwater was frequently shared. Once a week was plenty often to wash my waist-length hair (not that I minded; combing it out after washing was sheer torture). My mother did water her garden if there was insufficient rain, but that provided food, so it wasn't a problem. The woods came very close to the house; there was no lawn to speak of, and "watering the lawn" was not something we'd ever done, even in the city.

Except for a few months after he bought that Cadillac in about 1976, I don't think I ever saw my father wash a car in the driveway; he pointed out (correctly) that the drive-through carwashes used much less water, on average, than doing it at home. Sometimes, during dry years, our neighbors complained about the dried-up dead lawn. But they complained about the dandelions and weeds, too, when there was plenty of rain. You can't win with some people.

Even after moving back to the city, most of these household water-saving habits remained mandatory, or at least strongly encouraged. Showers? You wash your hair, put the conditioner in, then turn the water OFF while you soap up, shave, scrub, and then turn the water back on to rinse. Quickly. Of course, in a house with four people and one bathroom, that was as much about ensuring that everyone had hot water as anything else, but still.

Also, if you took a hot bath in the winter (which we all did from time to time, just to get warm, because the house was so freaking cold on account of we had to keep the thermostat down so low), you had to leave the hot water in the tub until it was cold. "We paid for that heat!" dad would say. "No sense letting it all go down the drain." Plus, you can use a bucketful of tub water to flush the toilet. Just pour it in the bowl with the handle held down & there you go. There are, of course, lots of ways to save water in the toilet department, if you're interested. See Toiletology 101 for more info.

I still do this, leaving the hot water in the tub. It also increases the humidity slightly in a dry, winter house. I don't do it in the summer. People think it's nuts, when they come over and the tub is still full, but there you go. And Ruby does like to carry things into the bathroom and put them into the tub and then bark at them: pencils, dishtowels, her toys, empty soda cans, magazines.

If the dishes really have to be rinsed before going in the dishwasher, I either dip them in a shallow basin of water or wipe them off with a paper towel before putting them in the dishwasher. Which, if you use dishwashers correctly and only run them when full, you save quite a lot of water compared to the way most people wash them by hand, according this fine article at Virginia Tech's Journal of Extension.

But still I feel guilty. I take more baths and showers than strictly necessary, sometimes two or even three a day, not counting the ones I take at the gym. I often fill my very deep old tub all the way up, even covering the drain vent with a heavy washcloth so that the water goes almost to the top when I get in and it doesn't make that horrid noise. And I stay in there so long that I have to add more hot water. I get in the tub or the shower when I'm too hot or too cold, after I walk the dog, after I run or ride my bike.

I confess I also have a hand-held orgasmatron shower massager in there, so I every once in a while I'll take a shower when I'm, you know, all tense or have a headache. Ahem. TMI, I know, but it's impossible to enjoy that sort of thing now, in the face of these water restrictions. Definitely wrecks it for me. Maybe I need something solar-powered. Or solar-powered and silly [note: these are adults only links - the Honeysuckle Shop, by the way, is an independently owned mail-order sex toy shop, operated by fellow blogger Flea at One Good Thing, if you're shopping for sex toys].

But there is some good news: beer may be better than water after a workout, according to an article on FoxNoise:

"The study results came from testing 25 college students asked to do strenous exercises in 104-degree temperatures. They were then split into two groups, one given beer and other water to help them recover. The tests were conducted over several months.

"The hydration effect in those who drank beer was 'slightly better' than those who drank water, said study leader, professor Manuel Garzon of Granada University."

At least one of my vices is safe, for the moment anyway.