My Smart and Motivated Friends Part I: Clean Livin'

One morning this winter I was washing dishes or sweeping the floor, immersed in some passive activity, thinking of how proud I am to have friends who are organic farmers, recycling-business owners, and environmentalists. I have friends who do honorable things with their time and energy, and want to shed light on their endeavors.


Let me introduce you to Rachel. Like me, she's an East Coast transplant who settled here with her husband and 3-year old daughter. I met Rachel through a former colleague of my sister. Years back when I was moving cross-country, he passed on Rachel's number and told me to look her up. We hit it off after a few hip-hop classes with a teacher named Dax, and the rest is history.

Always a green gal, Rachel began volunteering for the Washington Toxics Coalition to satisfy her interest in toxics such as pesticides and mold. To be honest, I've always been annoyed when asked to take my shoes off in my friends' homes. They're part of my outfit, okay? Well, there's a ton of chemicals on our streets and sidewalks, and those chemicals swell whenever it rains and carries runoff. You wear shoes in your house, you track all that junk inside. If you have kids who play on the floor, you expose them to lead and other surprises from our periodic table. So now I get it. We take off our shoes.
"Come in! And take off your shoes, fools".

Rachel has applied her knowledge of green living to create a consulting company, Healthy Home Focus. She also got certified by the American Lung Association to assess families' homes and advise on improving air quality (think asthma due to mold spores).

Tonight I was dealing with a slow tub train, and reached for the Drano. While reading the directions, the label essentially said if you hold this product too long it'll make your eyeballs bleed and burn your skin off. I couldn't bring myself to use it, so I turned to Healthy Home Resources to see what Rachel would do. Here's the green prescription: 1/2 cup of baking soda, followed by 1/2 cup of white vinegar. Cover, let sit for 5 minutes, then flush with a pot of boiling water.

I did the whole thing twice- and it worked! And now we're not going to die with Xs over our eyes from poisonous gases. Hooray for Healthy Home Resources! And stay tuned for Part II of this series...