Penicillin: The Greatest Human Invention

One foggy Sunday morning in 1928, Sarah McElroy Fleming was cleaning out the refrigerator, opened an old jar of haggis, and through her revulsion, began to scream.

"Take it away! Take it away!” she cried as her husband came running.

Mrs. Fleming shuddered and gagged. She pushed the jar into Dr. Fleming’s able hands. He peered inside. “My lovely wife has been completely immobilized by a simple, though colorful mold," he observed. Fascinated, he began to poke at the specimen.

It was thick and spongy from feasting on Scotland’s national dare-you-to-eat-it food. Arranged in concentric circles, the mold was forest green, grassy green, black, and white. The doctor’s mind began to work. “Women are delicate and weak compared to man and beast. And yet, they are stronger than the common cold…” He looked more intently into his accidental Petri dish. The wheels were turning.

Suddenly, they locked into place. “Eureka!” the good doctor exclaimed, “You are a fine woman, Sarah, and if this simple mold can incapacitate you, then surely it can kill the lesser species that cause scarlet fever, pneumonia and mengitis!"

Clutching the jar, he kissed Sarah’s cheek and made a dash for his lab. The rest, as they say, is history.

Unfortunately, I’m allergic to penicillin, so I have to admire this incredible bit of human ingenuity from the other side of the pharmacy counter (though I do sometimes wonder if I could eat the green fuzz straight from the refrigerator and still avoid anaphylactic shock).

Penicillin is so well documented that I can, while driving, download its history, pharmacology and chemical structure from the mobile Web on my cell phone.

So I ask with all earnestness: if we happen to sever our digital umbilical cord and lose access to the documentation of the greatest scientific discovery of all time, will human kind ever again put two and two together and come up with mold as the for cure for raging, Gram-positive infections (and the unmentionable Gram-negative, gonorrhea)?

A Life Without Chocolate? Now There's a Climatic Catastrophe

Lately I've been focusing on things we take for granted because, I believe, those are the things we need the most in our life. We're just like the fish who, as they say, don't know they live in water until they find themselves flopping around on the dock.

When this ad arrived on my cell phone, thanks to my chocoholic daughter, I realized that chocolate is woven into the very fabric of my life. I love chocolate. I entertain with chocolate. I express my love with chocolate. I use chocolate for crowd control in my work as a conference planner (why do you think they give you chocolate cookies at 3:00 pm every day of a conference or convention?)

And yet, apparently I completely take it all for granted. Chocolate will always be here. And I will always yearn for it.

So now that Reese's has drawn my attention to the effects of global warming on the chocolate supply, I am completely willing to make whatever changes are necessary! Sign me up!

How about you?

Spiderman and Rainbows

On Saturday, I headed out to McCleary, Washington to Hartman Jewelry repair. The Hartmans are fabulous people. She is as nice as he is cynical. What could be better? Their little shop is packed with fun things and I always spend a ton of money I didn't mean to.

I went to get my watch fixed. Yes, the birthday watch. Hope springs eternal, I suppose. Plus, it was Hartman's 10th anniversary and watch batteries were 25% off.

I did not need a new battery. The friction pin on the minute hand has burned out. Fascinatingly though, after the check up (no repair) the watch worked fine for the 35 minutes my husband wore it. As soon as I put it on, the minute hand started cu-chunking its way backwards.

The friction pin can be affected by electro-magnetic force, and therefore, a girl who has been hit by lightning.

More and more I am coming to grips with the reality that our run-ins with Mother Nature, just like radioactive spider bites, become part of our biological fabric.

I can forget that I was hit by lightning--or at least go for years and years without thinking much about it. It's not something that has all that much relevance to my day-to-day life. Except when I burn out a watch or crash a computer system by standing too close to a critical component. Then I reminded that it's not a memory. It's a force in my being.

Our outer world gets under our skin. It changes us in ways we can't consciously explain. And then it all oozes back into our lives in ways we can't consciously explain. We're all a little bit like Spiderman that way.

And that's the good news, I think.

Even Sarah Palin now agrees that climate change is eeking its way into our lives. The question is whether the change will be slow and incremental or catastrophic.

Mark Lynas argues in Six Degrees (a great new book from National Geographic) that the earth will heat up one degree at a time causing incremental change. It will become part of us and we'll face the next degree with our new and improved selves. John Medina makes a compelling case for how we adapted when we "came down from the trees" in his fun new book Brain Rules.

It gives me hope.

But here's the thing: I was hit by lightning on top of the Mount of the Holy Cross in August, 1978. Although lightning is a regular occurrence in the Rocky Mountains towards the end of summer, it was still unexpected and remarkably sudden.

The sky was gray. There was no rain, no thunder, no warning. Suddenly the world turned white and blue. I was flying through the air, balls of electricity flying from my finger tips. I landed face first in a small trickle of water--the headwaters for some mountain stream.

It happened at the speed of light. Nothing we knew or believed mattered. We were powerless to act.

A part of me still believes that when the weather changes it will be violent, sudden, unexpected and crippling. Of course it will change us forever, but what will we bring to the experience? Will our own inner Spiderman be suited up and ready to rock?

Everyone in my Girl Scout troop made it down from that mountain in one piece. My sister took care of me. "Stay down!" the leaders had shouted after the lightning sent us all flying. My sister crawled to me from somewhere and covered me up with an old Army poncho. It was thick and smelly and I could hear the hail thudding violently against it. She marveled at the blue balls of fire zipping from my pinkie. I marveled at her presence of mind.

And then someone called out, "There's a rainbow!" It was all over. And in an instant, I realized exactly why we humans put stock in mythical stories.

Towels and Other Glorious Human Inventions

Each May 25th, the world celebrates Towel Day. As well it should.

While the towel is incredibly useful--essential even--it is unheraleded and generally taken for granted. When is the last time you stopped to acknowledge:

• Your dependence on towels when your hair is dripping, the floor is slippery or the dog is tracking mud into the house?
• Your appreciation of towels when the upholstry in the back seat is too hot to sit on; you're lying on the beach; or covering up in the PE locker room?
• Your reliance on towels for self expression when cheering your favorite team; decorating the bathroom for the holiday; or coordinating colors and designs to complete your interior design?

There are so many unsung heroes and necessities in our lives. I'm beginning to think we might be able to measure the importance of certain objects in our world by the degree to which we take them for granted.

We love our cars, show them off, care for them. But what about motor oil, windshield wiper blades or air filters? Do we ever give attention to these essentials?

We love food and wine. But what about heating elements, pot holders or spatulas? Do we stop to think about how much these objects contribute to our nourishment?

My snoring husband recently got a C-PAP machine. It's like a leaf blower: while sleeping, it blows enough air through the nose and throat to keep the airway from collapsing thereby preventing not only snoring, but the much more dangerous (and potentially deadly) sleep apnea. But for us, the C-PAP offers something much more fundamental, something we typically take entirely for granted: REM sleep.

That's right, before this bit of technology came to our bedroom, my husband lived without REM sleep for as long as five years. REM deprivation makes you tired, sluggish, a little slow on the uptake. Eventually it makes you psychotic. But that's a different story.

We so take this function for granted that two doctors missed the diagnosis altogether and offered anti-depressants instead.

I understand. If we tried to track on every detail of our world and tried to elevate every gadget, electronic or essential bodily function to the level of recognition Towel Day offers, our brains would be overwhelmed and threaten to shatter into a million shards.

And yet, failure to recognize the glorious details that keep us ticking makes them all vulnerable. Like species that slip, almost unnoticed, into extinction.

Think about it. What little things do you take for granted? Click Here to answer.

Welcome Back

When I last left off, I was thinking about my life as a super hero and wondering if we aren't all a little bit like Spiderman. But I'll get back to that later.

I got distracted by summer, which was notoriously cold. And short.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, the rain normally starts to ease up in February and comes to a complete halt on the day after the 4th of July holiday. There are occasional dry days in April, May and June, although none of these occur on a holiday or a weekend or for a special event such as a wedding.

Once all the fireworks have gone off, however, it's suddenly (and exquisitely) dry and warm until Thanksgiving, when it floods (without exception) and all the locals act surprised (without exception). I am only allowed to make this observation because I am a transplant.

So, between the 5th of July and Thanksgiving, there are intermittent hot spells when temperatures may soar as high as 93. Three days of such a heat wave and true Northwesterners will begin to pine for the rain. Never fear: after 5 days, the temperatures will plummet to the mid-70s and all is right with the world for a week or two.

We will go through this cycle 4, 5 times in a summer.

Everyone's garden grows. Everyone's zucchinis are eaten by deer. I make fun of the web-footed natives who are truly tortured by temperatures above 82. All is right with the world.

But this year, not one Pacific Northwesterner complained. No one had the opportunity. We topped 90 just a few times--maybe three--and those days were followed by a week of rain. Gardens began to grow in August. Gardeners were holding out hope for a late harvest. Deer are waiting patiently in the wings.

It's only September 1st and already the furnace is kicking on at night. Yesterday, I wore a sweat shirt. And I had to dig my closed-toed shoes out of the back of the closet. It was still August then. Rain fell from the sky in torrents and bounced back up from the roadway in waves.

I passed a car on the interstate that hydroplaned onto the median and did a dozen donuts before coming to a stop. It had Oregon plates. Perhaps they were from eastern Oregon. But more likely they were just taken by surprise.

School doesn't start until tomorrow. The day after tomorrow...well, at this rate, it's shaping up to be the day after tomorrow!

Quick, find your parka and your hat and your scarf. They're in the closet some place. Try checking behind your closed-toed shoes. I know you've found those aready.

Bundle up! Keep warm! And keep reading!