I never know how to tell whether the issues I'm passionate about have suddenly become popular and thus I see them everywhere, or whether I feel like I'm seeing them everywhere just because I am already aware and passionate about them. Two of my biggies have popped up on my radar screen a lot lately, and I don't know which of the above is more true for them. I've spoken a bit about how much I'm learning about gut bacteria, but the broader microbiome that surrounds us is equally fascinating to me. Slowly but surely, the word is getting out how much damage we have done with our over-reliance on hand sanitizers, antibiotic everything, and a desperate need to sterilize everything we come in contact with. My children were babies when I was climbing on that bandwagon, insisting that it was important to let them play in the dirt and get a little grubby, as children love to do. Okay, yes, some of that was a soupcon of laziness, when the man and I just didn't feel like keeping our indoor environment squeaky clean. But there was intention there. I wanted my kids to test their immune systems, to exercise it and make it work, and I said so often. I had a friend in North Carolina who exemplified everything I thought was wrong about over-sterilization. She had a reputation at the medical clinics and emergency rooms in town. She claimed she didn't have time to waste on putting her kids on namby-pamby antibiotics like amoxicillin when they came down with the sniffles. She demanded the hard stuff, like zithromax, right away. She was so well known to the local doctors, from her insistence on giving these big gun antibiotics to her seven and eight year old daughters, that when her six month old son came in with his first ear infection, they didn't fight her and gave him his first Z-pack. I was horrified. Tonight, I just read an opinion piece from an author calling for a return to the good old days, when kids weren't squeaky clean, when they played in mud, wore clothes that were a little dirty, and ate boogers. I don't know that the last is going to be easy to watch, but if some combination of all of his advice adds up to a leveling off or reduction in the spike of asthma and allergies, I will look the other way whenever I see a grubby finger heading for a tiny little nose.
The other pet topic of mine hitting the news is much easier on the eyes, at least for me. Not so for a vocal segment of the population, but I feel like I'm on the right side of history here. The Supreme Court has given me hope, yet I am a little hesitant thinking there's another shoe to drop. They refused to take up any of the cases regarding same-sex marriage presented to them over the summer, thus allowing the circuit court decisions to stand, paving the way for equal marriage for over half the country now. This has been referred to as an earthquake moment, a huge tectonic shift in the number of people who have access to a basic human right that we all should have, the right to enter into a dedicated emotional and economic contract with the person we trust above all others, that will be recognized by hospitals, elementary schools, insurance companies, DMVs, and the IRS, to name a few. So far only one county in my state has moved forward, accepting applications for marriage licenses from same sex couples. There's a 24 hour waiting period until they are issued valid licenses, so it remains to be seen whether the state government tries to block the first lesbian couple who turned in their application this morning. Couples from around the state were slow to learn only this one county is doing it so far, and eventually they started arriving down here to submit applications. I want so much for this to go forward, and I had the urge to go downtown and stand on the courthouse steps with a rainbow sign that just says "Mazel Tov!" (The later I stay up at night, the less likely I am to make it in time for that couple to see it, however.) In my heart, I'm holding up my banner, and wishing good fortune on all the soon-to-be newlyweds.
I have one update on the musical instrument situation I mentioned earlier in the week. My piccolo arrived, in a gigantic box, large enough to hold a half dozen piccolos, and still have plenty of space for packing peanuts. I put it together, wiped the mouthpiece down with a little hydrogen peroxide dabbed on a paper towel (sure I am cool with the microbiome, but I'm still grossed out by the spit of some high school kid who had this before me, that I never met), and tried to play a quick F major scale. I failed miserably to make pretty tones. It was a very windy series of razzberries, and it sounded like I had rubber gorilla lips glued to my regular ones. It took one short scale for both dogs to Lose Their Minds. Well before I started an agonizing trip through the online sheet music for the CU fight songs, I was told how terrible I sounded. I believe Elsa's exact words were, "Hooo-ooo-ooo, Wooo-oo, Ah-ooo, Woooh-aaaa, Eeeeee-ouuu!" She went outside for an extended playtime after that.
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