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.