CPAP Machines & the Loss of Genetic Advantage

My offspring are doomed. And not just because they skipped their chores last night, but because they are mine. Or rather, because they are my husband's. He is simply not suited to the rudiments of survival in the wild.

I don't mean to be unkind. I love my adorable husband. But he sleeps with a CPAP machine, and he has handed down this charming genetic weakness to our progeny. There is simply no chance of long-term survival in an ice age.

Even if there were, by some miracle, electricity in our post-climate change cave, someone will undoubtedly beat these men to death with a stone just to stop the unrelenting noise. It's like spending endless, dark nights with Darth Vader; it is impossible to express the disturbance in the force!

Even if the CPAPers survive (which is unlikely once sleep deprivation sets in amongst the strong and healthy), they are genetically doomed: who, in their right mind, would willingly breed with a family whose grave stone reads: Forgot to Breath While Sleeping or Unable to Breath Independently?

Given the genetic errors of my way, my kids have got two, three generations tops.

For those of you who aren't aware, the CPAP machine is like a leaf blower you stick up your nose so you can breathe while lying down. It hums and buzzes all night long. If you are especially lucky, it will work itself into a high pitched frenzy that drills holes in your ear drums while inducing even deeper and unpenitrable sleep on the part of the CPAPer. It's enough to make you do crazy things...

Mostly, CPAPs are prescribed for snoring and sleep apnea. In some cases, there are deeper sleep disturbances lurking below the surface (as in the case of my genetically inferior family). The obvious solution is to banish all the CPAPers to their own cave. That way they won't disturb the rest of us, and there is no chance that they will reproduce any further...once that contraption is running, there is no risk of hanky panky with any of the other leaf blowers.

Obviously, this plan has a certain Red Tent ring to it, so you never know, there might be a happy ending after all.

But in the meantime, each night I turn off the lights to the wailing sound of the CPAP, I become a little bit more aware that my lovely children are doomed, doomed, genetically doomed in the coming ice age, and there is nothing I can do about it now.

Are You an Innie or an Outie?

The truth is, we all have a little bit of Neanderthal in the old DNA, just as we have a bit of chimpanzee in there. Or maybe chimpanzee have a little human. It's hard to say for sure. But in any case, when pressed hard by circumstance, humans do have the ability to peel bananas from the bottom up, survive on proteins we pick from our loved ones' fur, and beat our chests emphatically when we want to make a point.

It's a little harder to know which human quirks mirror the Neanderthal. But that's only because we have so few cave men in captivity and so little video tape to observe. America's exotic pet owners, however, are able to say that today's Neanderthals, like belly buttons, come in two forms: innies and outies.

I, with my constant reflection and intellectual curiosity about the coming ice age, am an innie. My cousin PJ, who lives in the arctic circle, hunts, fishes and shoots all trespassers for food, and sheds his fur in the summer, is an outie. PJ does not need to prepare for the coming ice age. He wakes every morning, gathers up his loyal dogs, and walks outside chanting, "Today! Today! Let the ice come today! Today! Today! Let the ice come today!"

The casual observer might think he is trying to get out of going to his day job, which, let's face it, is a necessity in the pre-ice age era and something we innies have down cold. In truth, PJ is ready for his next challenge and only an ice age will do. We innies, might be somewhat behind.

We could attempt to catch up by following the outies' example--build basement get away shelters, amass a lifetime supply of food and nuclear weapons, and master the particulars of cooking with yak's milk. It wouldn't be hard, but it requires a lot of work. ("Going green" and saving the planet might be less labor intensive.) Plus, imitating the outies' every preparation exposes our Achilles' heel and makes us easy prey on day one of doom.

In the alternative, I would suggest working together and building on each other's strengths, but that's just so much innie, soft-skills, leadership speak I can hear the outies laughing already.

There is simply no other choice. We innies need to take a page from the outie's Rule Book for Life, and turn to our own greatest strength. Which, I am sure is our better chimpanzee nature. To survive the ice age, we must find the warmest tree top available, form tight knit social groups that resemble tribes, and learn to pierce the eardrums of marauding outies with our screams.

And in the meantime, it probably wouldn't hurt to learn a few things about making musk ox jerky using last winter's sidewalk salt and that old fan in the garage.

You Don't Need No Stinking Guide

I know, I know. You don't need no stinking Guide for the Coming Ice Age. You don't care that the folks in marketing have called it the definitive guide. You have your own plan for averting the impending doom of an ice age:

1. Refuse all bags at the grocery story and the mall. Surely this will slow down climatic doom till after you are dead and buried. Plus, you don't really need bags. Proof? You have been shopping at Costco for eons. All you need is a good, sturdy cart. Plastic or metal? That's easy! The plastic is not nearly as cold to the touch--and a shopping cart would never end up in the landfill like a silly plastic bag or water bottle...
2. Learn to cook with zucchini. Sure, zucchini are nature's most disgusting food and taste like paper when left to their own devices. But zucchini are the rabbits of the plant world--reproducing with wild abandon. If you can grow one, you will grow a million and find yourself feeding an entire tribe for the winter. With zucchini you could even eat through the long, dark winter of the coming ice age!
3. Purchase an island get away. As soon as the ice age threatens to descend, jump on the first available flight to Hawaii. Bring a shopping cart full of zucchinis and you will undoubtedly be welcomed with open arms by the locals, who will be more than happy to share their water, rum and sunscreen.

This guide isn't for you, you've got it going on! It's for yokels.

Like me. People who read Animal Farm at an impressionable age, know for sure that some pigs are more equal than others, and worry that we'll need one heck of a leg up when Napoleon takes over the glacier.

Perhaps, if you are feeling smart and generous, you can let the rest of us know the secret to surviving the long, dark winter ahead?

The Answer My Friend is on the TV, the Answer is on the TV!

For generations, fish and wildlife officials, as well as hosts of TV's Animal Planet and Wild Kingdom, have been tagging large (and edible) beasts, fitting them with ear tags and collars of various sorts.

This clearly makes radar the first, and potentially most essential, tool of the coming ice age! Bring a tracker--instant dinner! Camera crew optional...

In preparation for impending doom, you may want to:

• Spend extended periods of time watching the tagging of edible critters on TV. Use an atlas to mark areas where such activities are popular.
• Study your map for patterns to identify the best place to find tagged animals in the event of a hunting emergency.
• Make an effective transportation plan to deliver you to the hunting grounds as soon as the ice age sets in. Be sure to accumulate sufficient fuel, food, water and other essentials to make your migration without delay or adversity.
  
• If there is an ocean between you and the hunting grounds, make air travel plans as soon as possible. Don't forget to apply for a visa--and I don't mean the credit card! You may not want to disclose your radar equipment to customs officials, just in case they want to horde easy prey for the locals.
  
• Check out Wikipedia for cooking instructions (just in case you are not fluent in roasted wild boar or barbecued baboon).

Thanks Mutual of Omaha, for insuring our future!

What other wonders of TV entertainment can we leverage for own future survival? Survivor and Man vs. Wild may just be Hollywood's contribution to the survival of the species...what can we learn from those?

Impending Ice Age Revealed in Change of Season

For the second year running, we here at InnerNeanderthal (and by "we" I mean one middle aged neanderthal goddess named Krista) were distracted by the allure of spring and then summer.

We would like to report that we were kept from blogging by organic farming in the backyard, smoking local delectibles such as oysters and salmon, and laying in (or is it laying down?) provisions for the winter. But with the exception of a nice roasted tomato sauce with frizzled basil and garlic thanks to Safeway and generous green-thumbed friends, we accomplished no such thing.

Rather, we contemplated life after the death of one's laptop and the loss of one's jump drive. And we learned a bit about naturopathy, energy healing and the value of a good facial.

For the second year running, we find that the leaves are turning too soon, wind storms belonging in January have arrived with the big yellow school bus, and skiing is now a mid-autumn sport, rivaling football for relevance on a Sunday afternoon.

As in past years, these new and yet some how chronic realizations have motivated us here at InnerNeanderthal, to fire up the desk top and get back to work, leaving me to contemplate, what other positive outcomes will the coming ice age bring?

Welcome back! Hope your summer was magnificent and drought-free.

The End of Civilization as We Know It!

It's the end of civilization as we know it. As a result of the recent snowstorms here in Washington's capital city:

• Mail service was suspended by one full week. I waited for two helpless weeks, tracker number in hand, for my Amazon.com box to arrive!


• There was no trash pick up for two weeks. Happily, residents will not be charged for extra bins out when service resumes.


• The local high school will not reconvene for...a while. The recent roof collapse (precipitated by snow) caused flooding throughout the building (apparently the pipes that feed the sprinkler system broke). And for reasons I cannot fully comprehend, natural gas lines must be relocated.

No mail, no trash, no public education. This is in addition to impassable roads, the worst plowing and sanding on record, and complete failure of the public transportation system. The end of civilization, I say!

At first, it seemed like an amusing commentary on snow in the northwest. But now it is snowing again.

Not just fluffly little flurries, but swirling, pelting, blinding snow whipped up by winds that make the trees creak in frightening ways. And as I slipped on my sherling boots, zipped into my LLBean all-weather parka and strapped on my faux-fur mad bomber hat in order to go out for provisions, I realized the change has come.

We have a new climate here in the Northwest, and we are utterly unprepared. One tiny snow storm has revealed how quickly the ice age can become the Dark Age all over again.

Already I miss the traditional Western Washington Winter, with its 40 days and 40 nights of unabated rain--and all the promise of civilization that implies!

A Man for All Things

When I was young, virginal and deluded, I imagined that one man could meet all my needs.

But now I recognize that in a time of climatic catastrophe I require more. Much more.

A tribe, in fact. The only question now is how to make that work.

I started by sharing this realization with my husband of 23 years. He was a little shocked, but I asked simply, "Do you want to be the man who hunts for moose, shoots them dead with no help from Sarah Palin's heliocopter, and then skins them?"

"No," he admitted. "I'd rather not be that man."

"Okay," I said, "I'll find one of those. Now, how about shooting people? I doubt you want to be the man who stands out at the edge and shoots marauders to protect me?"

Much to my surprise, he said: "I would do that!"

Really? Twenty-two years of marriage and I never knew!

So, now that I know that I have my own personal National Guard (apparently he's even had weapons training!) I can focus my attention on hunters, gatherers, healers and engineers.

The question is, what else do I need to complete my tribe, and how shall I break them in to do my bidding?

Making a List, Checking it Twice

I have just returned from the grocery store, where many shelves were completely bare.

I had not previously noticed that hot cocoa usually occupies a good 12-foot stretch of aisle 16. But the gaping hole left by Swiss Miss and Nestle immediately suggested haggard shoppers stripping the shelves like so many Soviet-era Russians in search of rare foodstuffs.

The absence of eggs, bread and Lay's snack foods was simply alarming. Clearly, the storms that have gripped the Northwest for more than a week now have immobilized the modern food chain, dependent as it is on transportation.

Without a break in the weather, shortages and riots could be in the offing. Thank heavens most folks are stocked up for Christmas (and the rest of us know what to do with a potato, an onion and a little oil...)

Truly, this turn of events gives us a tiny glimpse into the coming ice age. Sudden, bitter cold, an unprecedented accumulation of snow and ice (the ice is easily a foot deep in many locations), and a complete break down in our usual ways of doing business is disrupting routines, challenging our infrastructure, and revealing the weak who will surely collapse under the slightest pressure of climate change.

Based on this fascinating week, here's what I know for sure:

1. I require at least one strapping man with an engineering mind (who is also be able to take direction) to perform such tasks as clearing a path, carrying firewood, and engineering work-arounds when systems such as electricity and road maintenance fail completely.
2. When picking a puppy, select the one delighted by the snow. That way you'll always have the potential of a sled dog, should you need one. Dogs that require a sweater to go outside for business are a liability to their owners and surely spell doom for their slavishly devoted people in the event of an ice age!
3. Everybody needs a tribe. Your own willingness to help a stray is the measure of your likely survival. When picking a stray, however, be sure to take number 1 and 2 into account.
4. God bless the Australians who made the sherling boots currently keeping my peds warm and dry! When the ice age descends, I simply must have well-crafted boots with good traction. And if the ice age is going to press me to make my own replacements, then I want sheep and whatever else it takes to perform such sherling miracles!
5. A simple knit cap is manna from heaven (though the currently trendy mad bomber hat is a fantabulous addition for going outside!).
6. Gloves just make your hands cold. Mittens are the only way to go!

Keep warm! Be safe! And start making a list.

Lacking the gene for survival...

Alright, I've been absent for nearly three months. AWOL. Traveling, working--doing everything but blogging. And thinking there was no real need...after all, it seemed (in the warm glow of the fading autumn) that climate change must have been a figment of the collective imagination...a mistake...a rouse...the straight line for "drill baby drill."

Never mind that scientists recently reported that 2 trillion tons of land ice (sweetly abbreviated 2T Ice, as if it were a simple kitchen ingredient) has melted from Greenland over the past 5 years, resulting in a measurable rise in the oceans. Never mind that Saudi Arabia recently opened two gigantic new oil fields that "promise" to deliver more oil than human kind has consumed thus far. Never mind that there is now a hole in the earth's magnetic field (okay, so that's probably unrelated, but it does sound a bit more dramatic than a hole in the ozone layer--that's just so last century).

So many words.

And like so many, I was distracted by other interesting things. My quickly emptying nest. An historic election. Opportunities to explore my notion that an island is simply the opportunity to see the ocean from many perspectives...

And then came the snow. And the ice. And the snow.

For days ice has followed snow has followed wind has followed snow. Nothing too unusual for Boston. Or Denver. Or Wasilla. But for the moderate Pacific Northwest, this is something!

And I have been reminded: we are doomed! Simply doomed!!

Look down now. If you have webbed feet, you're toast. There is no way for Pacific Northwesterners to survive the coming ice age!

Here's why: First, we are transfixed by weather-related news stories! In the event of a real catastrophe, we will drown while waiting for the next Doppler update to break into the emergency broadcasting network instructions for evacuation.

Secondly, we are unable to educate our young. It goes without saying that all school is cancelled upon sighting of the first snowflake. With ever-increasing rounds of inclement weather, this puts a whole generation at risk of ill-literacy.

But more importantly, we are unable to plan for the inevitable (and the simple).

We were all properly appalled by the bungled evacuation of New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina--the shock and surprise at gas lines and traffic jams. And yet, our self-righteousness is compuh-letely unwarranted. We are equally vulnerable to oblivion by the obvious.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we cannot even plow the roads. It is not for lack of preparation--we have had weather updates every half hour since the storm originally appeared on radar--nearly three days before it arrived. In fact, last night, there were three weather updates during Saturday Night Live alone, each explaining that the Doppler radar had been switched to "winter mode" so that the storm would appear in white on the map, making it "easier to detect." As if we couldn't see the amassing snow and ice out side the window!

And it is not for lack of equipment. There are plows circling everywhere--blades mysteriously up.

No, we are suffering from some deeper malady. Some clear but unnamed desire to languish as the waters rise, as witnessed by the intersections here in the Capital City.

Although roads around the city have been randomly plowed--cleared for stretches then randomly left to the vagaries of traffic-induced rutting for a stretch, then cleared, then abandoned--in no case has an intersection been cleared.

Not the entrance to the mall. Nor the Costco. Not the intersection leading to the State Capitol and all the government buildings. Not the intersection that joins a major commercial thoroughfare to the Interstate. I can say with perfect assurance that every major intersection is blocked by two feet of churned up snow requiring four-wheel drive and the clearance of a Hummer to pass.

I take this to mean that we simply lack the will to survive. It's the same lethargy that explains the performance of all Seattle sports teams.

It's just too much trouble to figure out what makes sense, what needs to be done, what would help get us past our most immediate thought to the days beyond.

If climate change comes in a scenic, nature-loving way, the kind where we can hop in our kayaks and go for a good paddle, we will be fine. Even if we find ourselves water-borne for weeks, we'll be fine, taking an occasional pause from paddling to eat smoked salmon and sip a fine merlot.

But if it's more violent--and icy, well, we simply lack the will to survive. And like the people of Pompeii, we'll leave a perfectly preserved example of Americans going about business as usual, unaware of danger in the offing.

And realizing this, I am back from my hiatus.

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!

The Real Life Adventures of Girl vs. Nature

I recently turned 44, and to celebrate my fabulous husband gave me a watch.

Actually, he bought more than one, starting with the kind he thought I ought to wear and eventually ending with the one I actually would.

This was no ordinary watch. It was traditional, with a wide leather band reminiscent of a bomber jacket. It was substantial. It was totally butch. And it was Swiss.

Thankfully, it also came with a warranty, because less than two weeks into life on my wrist, it stopped keeping time (although the second hand is still dutifully making its rounds).

And while this turn of events saddens me deeply, it is in no way surprising: I have been frying watches since 1978, when I was hit by lightning while venturing up the Mount of the Holy Cross with a gaggle of Girl Scouts.

This was no ordinary accident; it was Girl vs. Nature.

I am still standing, but no watch has ever survived being strapped to me, and that's saying something because in the year leading up to the Mountain Top Incident, I survived another Girl vs. Nature smack down and my watch was the winner.

In 1977, I was attacked by a killer horse. Or maybe it was just Horse Gone Wild. It's hard to say. But either way, I started out riding the horse and ended up flat on my back, unconscious, with the horse thrashing wildly beside me in an effort to get right-side-up and back on her feet. Stunningly, my skull was not broken, but I had multiple concussions and a broken jaw. And, although my arm was both compound fractured and splintered into 11 pieces, my Timex was in tact.

My mother said this was to be expected; back then, Timex commercials featured real life disaster stories with people like me, who would hold up their surviving watches and declare: "It takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'." She thought I should be in an ad.

It was not meant to be, however. My trusty timepiece met a dramatic end just a few months later, sometime between the blue haze of the lightning bolt and the hail storm and the rainbow that followed.

My next Timex never worked. Nor did any of the watches that followed.

It would be ten years before I would learn that this is not an uncommon consequence of being hit by lightning. I've since heard that no one who's had a near-death experience can wear a watch.

After about 4 dozen watches and 20 years, I declared Nature the winner and threw in the towel. Until recently.

Then I decided I needed a watch. A very specific watch. It had to be a women's design, but substantial and bold. With a leather strap. And big enough to read with my aging eyes.

This was a rather surprising impulse. Irrational. Doomed to fail. And yet, inspired by something completely endearing--an email from the most brilliant of colleagues addressing me as "Wonder Woman."

I realize in retrospect that I do indeed want to be Wonder Woman, and I want a watch wide enough and tough enough to deflect all of life's bullets. But you can't, as they say, fool Mother Nature.

Soon, my wonderful birthday watch will be in its magnificent orange box headed home to Switzerland, where the master watchmakers will undoubtedly open it up and declare: "C'est increable! C'est impossible!" By then, my $29.99 on-clearance-at-the-discount-store replacement will be finished as well.

Maybe I am part Wonder Woman; I do seem to have my very own super power: Electro Magnetic Girl Fries Electronics and Brings Down Computer Systems in a Single Stroke! But apparently, I'll have to embrace traditional cuff braclets; I'll never be able to dress the part wearing a watch no matter how perfect it might look.

Maybe it's not the look. Maybe Girl vs. Nature is really about iterative transformation and the ways that we stay connected, like Spiderman, to the mysterious power of Nature that threaten to overwhelm us.

I am, after all, still standing. And late. Again.

Sun Worship and Other Paradoxes

Happy Solstice! I hope the summer sun is brightening your world!

I was blessed to be born on the longest day of the year and I do have a very special affinity for the sun!

And yet...I always wear sunglasses, and not just because the risk of ocular melanoma is rising exponentially with the loss of the ozone. My pale blue peeps are remarkably light sensitive and I am easily blinded by any form of daylight.

And I own stock in the makers of SPF. My fair skin (a kind euphemism for my particular shade of pallor) is prone to horrific burning, though I do make a better run of it than my sister, who has on more than one occasion found herself hospitalized for sun stroke, sun poisoning and high altitude burns. The up-side, from what I understand is that we melanin-challenged individuals are far less prone to frostbite than others.

And frankly, I hate to be hot. I live the Pablo Neruda line: "In the full light of day I walk in the shade."

As I have been watching the recent flooding in the mid-west and the onset of the fire season in the far west, it's occurred to me that we all suffer from this kind of weather-related paradox. In farm country, run-off is a blessing, an anticipated ritual, a marker of time, and a signal that the new season for growing crops has begun. Run off brings a torrent of plenty and the promise irrigation throughout the summer. And yet too much rushing water brings dread, anxiety and destruction.

The ancients believed they might gain an upper hand with Nature by praying and sacrificing to the gods. Bringing pleasure and satisfaction to the spirit world was meant to appease those forces that would otherwise bring flood, famine, lightning and forces of destruction. Sometimes it appeared to work...

Today, we build levees and dikes, dams and reservoirs. And at times, it appears to work.

I think it is inevitable that we humans will keep trying our hand at this. Just as the sun will bring the solstice again and again, we will make our efforts again and again. What's most interesting to me, though, is our relentless optimism, our apparent belief that we will some day find the way to prevail.

All Hail the King!

This morning at breakfast my middle child, a 19-year-old soon-to-be-sophomore biology major, surprised me by announcing: "I searched your blog and found that you have not mentioned me. You haven't even mentioned that you have a son."

Actually, I haven't mentioned that I have two sons.

The older one will graduate from college in May of 09. If you happen to be the one who scores the Foreign Service Exam, I hope you take notice of him! He's named Josh, has an incomprehensible love of comparative politics, mad gaming skills, a certain aversion to dirt, and --by graduation day--experience working for the Canadian consulate. Not that Canada is all that foreign, but we in the Pacific Northwest love our neighbors to the north. Plus, they speak English and French. Like Josh.

Hopefully, if the ice age comes along in the next year, Josh's Canadian friends and colleagues will lend him a dog sled and teach him the finer points of trapping. It's not as exotic as Micronesian friends and colleagues or Canary Islander friends and colleagues or even Australian friends and colleagues. But it's practical. Like Josh.

Now, my other son is not known for his aversion to dirt. Or being practical. In fact, he's rather lofty and is known far and wide as King.

This is not his given name, of course. But his given name is one of those adrogonous names gone all girly. He hates it (or perhaps he hates his parents for saddling him with it), and has always gone by his middle name. But in a modern world, your first initial leaks out, and by second or third grade everyone wanted to know what his mysterious first initial, K, stood for.

"Simple," he would say, "It's King." Then he would humbly explain that he was sparing their dignity by not using his haughty moniker, and by middle school absolutely everyone--friends, neighbors, teachers, the mailman--everyone believed that we had named our first child Josh and our second child King. "My name is King Cole," he would declare, and no one would laugh or giggle or ask any questions.

Just for the record, he is not named King Cole, nor is he named King Kong, which might be more appropriate given his flair for the dramatic.

The King is extaordinarily gifted. He has an IQ of about 8,000 and a Midas touch that won't quit. And he's quite certain that global warming isn't real, or at least not worrisome, which is the real reason I haven't worked him into the blog until now (in case you're reading, my wunderkind).

He's making me read The Beak of the Finch so that I might learn just how we living organisms will adapt to a crisis such as climate change. But I'll confess: I don't really understand it.

Still, I find myself nearly persuaded each time I hear The King argue that polar bears will survive; after all, they have already begun to adapt. I'm not sure if he learned this in his evolutionary cellular biology class or because he attends the only university in the country to have a polar bear as a mascot.

And yet, for all his blustery objection to global warming propaganda, here he is, reading--searching, even--InnerNeanderthal. What else could a mother ask for? What else could a blogger ask for? My goal here is to stretch the limits of imagination, and clearly, I've captured some tiny corner of his.

As an adult educator, I am well aware that human beings can neither discuss nor act on anything that is beyond the boundary of our imagination. And we cannot imagine global warming.

Or more strictly, we cannot imagine how six, or at the most eight, degrees of warming will change our world. And since we cannot imagine, we cannot talk about what's coming or what we could realistically do to stop it.

We can, however, imagine how difficult it would be be to whittle all our possessions down to a short list we could pack and carry in a hurry. And that is the point of the exercise.

The King may be right. Maybe global warming is a natural phenomenon that has not been accelerated by humankind. I find this a bit unlikely. But also a bit irrelevant.

We should all radically change our behaviors right this minute, just to be sure. And certainly, The King and his brother Josh have been most cooperative in our family efforts to live a one-car life and to slash our electrical use.

But even if we cease to produce any more greenhouse gases tomorrow, global warming would continue...the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere need time to dissipate; they will continue to influence the weather until they're gone.

And so, it is most likely that we will see climatic catastrophes for decades to come.

It seems to me that it is time for all of us--skeptics and saints--to shine a little light on the corner of our imagination and talk about what we're going to do about the impending reality, regardless of its ultimate cause.

Perhaps, in the end, The King knows that his mother is right. Perhaps that's the real reason he's searching for his Inner Neanderthal!

Top Ten List of Entreprenuerial Possibilities for the Ice Age

Ever since I discovered that homo sapiens and neanderthals are separate species I've been holding out hope that the future ice age will be a little more civilized than past ones. We have so much wisdom and so many conveniences to help us along this time around.

And yet, too many of our best tools still rely on electricity or a network of some kind. With hundreds of feet of ice on the ground, our electronic umbilical cords will be severed.

Once a critical mass of fresh water melts off the polar ice caps, slowing the Gulf Stream and triggering massive cooling, life is going to get a lot less complicated. We'll forget all our passwords and PINs and head south, focused on staying warm, finding food, and protecting our own.

Sure, we'll have Gortex and wool socks and protein bars. But what's still missing? What will we need that's not yet been invented or isn't properly powered for the ice age?

Here's my Top Ten List of Entreprenuerial Possibilities for the Ice Age:

10. Ice batteries. Putting batteries in the refrigerator is supposed to be good for them, so there must be a way to generate power in the cold! Since many of our most essential conveniences need some juice, ice batteries should be at the top of the R&D agenda!

9. No melt candles. Light bulbs are complicated and electricity will be in short supply. Candles are the obvious solution, if only they didn't insist on melting away! If we can make them dripless, we can make them no-melt!

8. Ice floe toilet. Floe, flush, whatever works. Need I say more?

7. Battery operated coffee grinder. I'm not a big coffee girl myself, but I know what happens when the dancing goats go without for too long. A wise ice traveller will make friends and build alliances along the way by carrying a closely guarded supply of beans, a grinder, and the means for whipping up a steamy mug wherever (s)he goes.

6. Ice cows. I don't really like to admit it, but it is possible that a sudden ice age might elminate a quite a number of species and limit our ability to hunt down food. What's more, most of us are quite domesticated--which is to say, we don't really know how to hunt. We need a herd of ice cows to travel with us, produce milk, and serve as an occasion gustatory sacrifice. I'm sure they can be engineered and domesticated in a freezer laboratory until we need them....

5. Solar powered blow dryers. Really, why don't we have these already? I'm not a huge fan of the curling iron, and the flat iron is ridiculous, but as long as there is vanity, these items ought to run off the sun as well!

4. Blow dryer co-generation capacity. Manufacturers have been co-generating products and energy for quite some time. Blow dryers put out inordinate amounts of heat, which we ought to harness for important endeavors, like grinding coffee or lighting the cave.

3. Toothbrush making kit. It's an unfortunate fact of life that toothbrushes wear out. We need to be prepared. We could schlep a thousand toothbrushes along (is that enough for an average lifetime?), but as the old saying goes: give a man a toothbrush and he is minty fresh for a day; teach a man to make a toothbrush and he is cavity free for a lifetime.

2. Water deriver. Every Inner Neanderthal will want and need one of these easy-to-tote contraptions. Just break off a piece of relatively clean ice and lock it in the chamber to melt it down and sanitize it for drinking. Just think of it as the next generation of bottled water!

1. Solar Powered iPod. I have been talking with people for years now about the most essential items to pack in the event of climatic catastrophe, and they have provided me with a long list of sensible items: fire, tampons, all the ammo I can carry. The iPod never comes up though; it's just not sensible. It's not essential. And yet, it appeals so deeply to our sensibilities, reflects our individual identity, captures history and art. Even if I could never upload another tune, I'd sure like to have a Nano on hand, ready and able to play Like a Virgin till all eternity.

Survival of the Richest

Although my physical body shows up at the gym several times a week, my mind often wanders. And so today, I found myself contemplating a funny sign that hangs over the towel rack on the way in: "Shower Towels 25 Cents."

I noticed it on the way in, as I grabbed a little towel--the non-shower towels, I suppose--that you use to mop up sweat and wipe down machines. They're itchy and graying. I paused as I picked it up, wondering for a moment if the shower towels are more luxurious and white. They must get a lot less use.

Just as I worked up a sweat, I began to wonder: Who would pay a quarter for a towel?

My husband and I were debating the Top Ten People Most Likely to Survive the Ice Age as we passed by the shower towel sign. He was making a darned good case that rich people would fare best in the Ice Age--at least for awhile. Would rich people pay a quarter for a shower towel?

"It depends on the rich person," I thought as turned out another mile.

There are plenty of rich people out there like me: "Why would I give you a quarter for a towel when I can bring one from home for free?" Even if the mysterious shower towels are gorgeous and absorbent, why waste cash? "I come to the gym 4 times a week, that's a dollar a week, that's 52 dollars a year..." You've met this guy. He knows exactly how you can turn your $52 into a million bucks before you retire.

I'd like to know how to turn a quarter a day into a retirement fund! But, I'm not really sure the math adds up. There is a different kind of rich guy, who makes this case: "Time is money. And by the time you find a towel and pack it and put it in the laundry and pay for the soap and the water and the electricity to get it clean, you've spent far more than a quarter." I start to wonder how you do this kind of cost-benefit math. Somebody must know how.

I'm through the cardio and the stretches and the weights and the shower before I realize that money isn't everything. There is another kind rich guy (my kindred spirit, perhaps) who says: "Are you kidding me? There are some things you just don't share with anyone!"

I don't know where he comes from, but my mind wanders off to another kind of rich person, the one who would undoubtedly scoff at my reasoning: he wouldn't belong to a club where you pay for towels, much less where you put up a tacky sign announcing the cost. "I belong at a place where staff places clean towels in my locker whilst I play squash. Alfred knows that I prefer white, Egyptian cotton with a slight scent of lavendar."

I have no trouble imagining real people who think in these different ways, not just about towels and other trivialities, but about meaningful life decisions. But would it make a difference in the event of climatic disaster? I ask my husband what he thinks, as we head for home, "Which kind of rich person did you mean when you said rich people would be the most likely to survive?" I make a case for each:

The guy who saves his quarters and invests them to greatest advantage is incredibly resourceful. He's good at the long term and knows how to get where he wants to go. And he's willing to sacrifice in the short term to get there.

The guy who weighs the quarter against the hidden costs knows how to see the big picture. He doesn't always take the obvious path, he takes the smart path. He understands trade-offs and measures his carefully. He'll be able to plan ahead, account for all kinds of variables and make smart decisions.

The guy who doesn't share will have a loyal clan around him, an extended network of family and friends who take care of each other and protect each other from outsiders.

And the guy who plays squash...well, he might sound like he's a little soft around the middle, but he knows how to be the king of the jungle. He knows how to get others to do his bidding, how to be on top. He'll probably make a whole new country and get himself elected king for life. And whatever the new economic system looks like, he'll be the richest one.

So whose going to make it? Who is the fittest for survival? Is it possible to train your mind to be as fit as your body? And if so, whose footsteps do you want to be following in?

Thank Heavens for Vic's Pizza

It's Friday night and my daughter wants pizza. Vic's Pizza to be exact.

Vic is apparently the pizzeria's resident shepherd dog. I don't know how a dog learned to make pizza, but the thin, crispy crust and zingy sauce set it apart from all other local options. Only Hot Lips--down the road a hundred miles in Portland--could even begin to compare.

Vic's and Hot Lips are small shops in college towns; both sell by the slice or by the pie. Both make it possible for carnivores, omnivores, vegetarians and vegans to embibe in the world's Most Essential Food. Perhaps that's what makes them great. But the convenience doesn't hurt either.

Call ahead and voila...pizza! There goes my daughter now...

As the tail lights fade into the distance, I begin to wonder what makes pizza so indescribably close to perfection? Do I want to preserve this treasure for eternity? What, exactly would it take to bring pizza making along for the Ice Age?

If we were living the Neanderthal life, we would definitely need one of those solar foil ovens we learned to make in Girl Scouts a zillion years ago.

Admittedly, sitting around the foil oven doesn't have the same ring as sitting around the campfire. But nevertheless, I can imagine my InnerNeanderthal baking up a Friday night storm, bending low over the foil oven, evoking oooo's and aaaaah's from those who never could cook.

Perhaps you can smell the yeasty dough...I can. And yet, this is where my vision begins to get cloudy. Pizza is remarkably simple: cheese, sauce, dough (and maybe a topping or two, if something interesting is hanging around).

But the cheese...Exactly where do you get cheese when there's no deli drawer in the refrigerator?

I know it involves a cow, or a goat, or possibly some other mammal. Perhaps Vic will be bringing along a herd for us to milk.

And perhaps Vic knows what happens next, because I sure don't. It's something involving cultures and cheese cloth and the intestines of a calf.

Okay, maybe I imagined that last part. But wild berries and barbequed snake on a stick are beginning to sound a little more practical.

Lucky for me, my daughter is back and she has one ginormous pizza box in hand!