Why it’s so hard to lose weight

The New Neo Posted on by

For many of us, that is.

There are those of you who are different. There are people who gain weight because they overindulge, and all they have to do is stop eating all that dessert or drinking all that beer or whatever it is they did to gain the weight, and off it drops.

And then there are those people regularly featured on cable TV who chow down to the tune of 20,000 calories a day and are enormously obese and get bariatric surgery because their systems are so awry that for reasons both psychological and physiological their appetites just won’t quit.

And then there are people like me, who’d like to lose ten or fifteen pounds and don’t eat all that much to begin with. It’s almost funny when I read an account from someone (usually a guy, but not always) who lost a formidable amount of weight by cutting out all the pizza and chips and candy bars and eating something like 1700 calories a day. I don’t eat pizza and chips and candy bars, and I doubt I eat 1700 calories on a regular basis when I’m not dieting.

And please do me a favor and don’t tell me to go paleo or Taubes or whatever. I’ve been on different versions of those sort of diets and (a) I don’t lose weight; and (b) I hate the food. And don’t tell me to exercise: I already do. Nearly every day I fast-walk three miles, and have done that for decades. And I can’t add lifting weights, although I’d like to, because doing so stirs up my chronic injuries.

Yesterday I found this Vox article entitled “The science is in: exercise won’t help you lose much weight.” I already knew that because upping my exercise has never caused weight loss for me—although reducing my exercise has never caused weight gain, either. I exercise for other reasons, but weight loss is not one of them.

That led me to another article that helps you figure out what your resting metabolism probably is, based on age and weight and gender: 1186 calories a day for me. Since resting metabolism is supposedly a certain fraction of your caloric needs, according to the site that means that I need somewhere in the range of about 1423 to 1700 calories a day. Let’s average that out and say it’s 1560 or so. That’s as much as I can eat every day without gaining weight, and that’s at a moderately high activity level. To lose weight, of course, I’d have to eat considerably less—but you can’t eat much less than that without being really, really, really hungry. In fact, I challenge you to eat about 1500 calories a day, day after day after day for the rest of your life, and not feel hungry.

It also means that if I were to go on a conventional restrictive diet of 1200 calories as I often do, I’d be losing at a snail’s pace (do snails lose weight?). And all it would take to stop my weight loss in its tracks (or slow it down considerably from its already geologic pace) would be a couple of extra pieces of fruit a day, or an extra serving of pasta (which I almost never eat anyway, although I like it). Dessert? Don’t make me laugh.

To top it all off I can’t stand artificial sweeteners, and some of them actually make me very ill.

Come to think of it, maybe I should be grateful I’m the weight I am and just go about my business. But I have reasons for wanting to lose weight that have little to do with vanity—although vanity is one of them—and have to do with various things like cholesterol that have crept up and up over the years.

By the way, I was never naturally thin, even when young and very active. I’m 5’4″, and when I was dancing I weighted about 105, but I was subsisting on about 1000 calories a day, and my natural weight was closer to 130 at the time.

But enough about me. What about you?

So now it’s Oprah for 2020. Of course.

The New Neo Posted on by

You may have thought that the Golden Globes would be about the anti-Weinstein men and women in black—if you thought about it at all. But just look at memerorandum today and you’ll see that the real event was Oprah Winfrey’s speech and the desire of Democrats that she run in 2020.

It makes perfect sense. If Trump runs for re-election, it would be the celebrity vs. celebrity contest, the mega-wealth vs. mega-wealth contest, the man vs. woman contest, and the white vs. black contest, all rolled into one. What could be more au courant?

Oprah is exceedingly well-liked and has been in the public eye forever, or at least for about 35 years. In 2020 she’ll be 66, but that’s younger than Trump. Her lack of any political experience certainly won’t be a factor in running against Trump—although by 2020 he will be very experienced indeed.

No wonder Democrats are salivating at the idea of Oprah being their savior in 2020. NBC tweeted this (as a joke or an error? If a joke, it fell a bit flat, because they seem to have taken it down):

“Nothing but respect for OUR future president,” the verified NBC account tweeted on Sunday night during its Golden Globes telecast, complete with an image of Winfrey, after host Seth Meyers joked about his desire for the talk show icon to run for office.

Early Monday, NBC appeared to back off the apparent Oprah endorsement, and blamed it on a “third party.”

“Yesterday a tweet about the Golden Globes and Oprah Winfrey was sent by a third party agency for NBC Entertainment in real time during the broadcast,” read the tweet. “It is in reference to a joke made during the monologue and not meant to be a political statement. We have since removed the tweet.”

Media Research Center Vice President Dan Gainor told Fox News that the initial tweet was “stunningly unprofessional” and it’s the “latest of about a billion examples” of how openly liberal and anti-Trump the mainstream media is on a regular basis.

Reports that Oprah is “actively thinking” about it came out almost immediately, fanning the flames. But in a post-speech interview Oprah said she isn’t planning to run. Nevertheless, her significant other had this to say:

“It’s up to the people,” Winfrey’s longtime partner, Stedman Graham, told the Los Angeles Times on Sunday when asked about a presidential run. “She would absolutely do it.”

I wonder—will we ever again have a president who’s ever held political office before?

Anesthesia and consciousness

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a fascinating article on the mysterious working of anesthesia, which is as yet a poorly understood although highly effective and useful tool:

Anesthesiologists speak of patients descending through “the planes of anesthesia”””from the “plane of disorientation” through the “plane of delirium” toward the “surgical plane.” While we go under, they monitor our brain waves, titrating their “anesthetic cocktails” to make sure that we receive neither too little sedation nor too much. (A typical cocktail contains a painkiller, a paralytic, which prevents muscles from flinching at the knife””the early paralytics were based on curare, the drug South American warriors put on the poison-tipped arrows with which they shot Europeans””and a “hypnotic,” which brings unconsciousness.) But even as they operate the machinery of anesthesia with great skill, anesthesiologists remain uncertain about the drugs’ underlying mechanisms. “Obviously we give anesthetics and we’ve got very good control over it,” one doctor tells Cole-Adams, “but in real philosophical and physiological terms we don’t know how anesthesia works.” The root of the problem is that no one understands why we are conscious. If you don’t know why the sun comes up, it’s hard to say why it goes down.

The article contains a detailed description of the harrowing and yet transcendent experience of an Australian woman in 1993 who somehow became conscious during an operation and could feel all the pain involved, and yet was completely paralyzed and could not alert the doctors as to what was happening. That struck a nerve (to coin a phrase) with me because, when I had surgery in 1999, I had already read about that sort of phenomenon and the prospect had terrified me.

Its rarity at the time (it’s even rarer now, but it was very rare then, too) had failed to reassure me, and the day before surgery, when I had my little pre-surgery conference with the anesthesiologist, I mentioned my anxiety to him. Instead of pooh-poohing me, he was surprisingly kind. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I promise to keep you safe.” He explained that anesthesiologists had ways to monitor patients so they could tell, by changes in heart rate and blood pressure and other signs, if the patient was in distress. He swore that he’d make sure I was not aware of what was happening and that I wasn’t suffering.

Right before the surgery, when they wheeled me in under the bright lights and I saw the anesthesiologist again, I mentioned it again. He put his hand on my shoulder reassuringly and told me “I will not let that happen to you. I promise; trust me.”

And I did. After all, I really felt I had no choice. But I really did trust him; he seemed so certain and so kind.

That was almost twenty years ago, and I remain grateful to him, whoever he was.

American teens are delaying sex more

The New Neo Posted on by

This seems like good news:

Fewer U.S. teens are sexually active these days, as many wait until later in high school to try sex for the first time, a new report reveals.

But the numbers are still shocking, at least to me:

The proportion of high school students who’ve ever had sex decreased to 41 percent in 2015, continuing a downward trend from 47 percent in 2005 and 53 percent in 1995, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…

Sexually active 9th graders decreased from 34 percent to 24 percent between 2005 and 2015, while 10th graders having sex declined from 43 percent to 36 percent during the same time period.

By comparison, significant declines in sexual activity were not found among 11th and 12th graders, the researchers added.

So it’s just the younger high school kids who are having less sex, not the older ones. And it turns out that significant decline was only seen black and Hispanic teens (who had higher rates to begin with, anyway), not white teens:

About 48 percent of black teens and 42 percent of Hispanic teens said they were sexually active in 2015, down from nearly 68 percent and 51 percent, respectively, in 2005.

On the other hand, sexual activity among white teens did not change significantly, the investigators found.

The article also quotes experts as saying they think the reason for the decline is sex education, but I’m not at all sure. No evidence is presented for that conclusion—although it may exist—and of course these experts have an agenda that favors promoting sex education. In reality they haven’t a clue why, as you can discover if you go to the research itself (as I did):

Although these findings cannot be connected directly to any specific intervention, the results indicate that decreases in prevalence of sexual intercourse occurred among the nation’s high school students. During 2005”“2015, the United States experienced significant shifts in various influences that might have affected these findings, including changes in technology and the use of social media by youth, requirements and funding for education, and innovations in and federal resources for human immunodeficiency virus infection, STI, and teen pregnancy prevention.

It would be instructive to learn what the decrease was about.

Have Trump’s critics lost their sense of humor?

The New Neo Posted on by

David Frum certainly has:

This morning’s presidential Twitter outburst recalls those words of Fredo Corleone’s in one of the most famous scenes from The Godfather series. Trump tweeted that his “two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart,” and in a subsequent tweet called himself a “very stable genius.”

Trump may imagine that he’s Michael Corleone, the tough and canny rightful heir””or even Sonny Corleone, the terrifyingly violent but at least powerful heir apparent””but after today he is Fredo forever.

There’s a key difference between film and reality, though: The Corleone family had the awareness and vigilance to exclude Fredo from power. The American political system did not do so well.

Michael Wolff’s scathing new book about the Trump White House has sent President Trump spiraling into the most publicly visible meltdown of his presidency. Until now, Trump’s worst moments have occurred behind closed doors, and have become known to the public only second-hand, leaked by worried officials, aides, and advisers. Yesterday and today, we have seen a Trump temper-tantrum in real time on Twitter, extended over hours, punctuated only by stretch of fitful presidential sleep.

To see an alternate point of view (and one I happen to share), read this from Althouse:

3 tweets. Read them in this order:

1. “Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence…..”

2. “….Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star…..”

3. “….to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!”

Well played, those cards.

I like the mix of joviality and lightweight cruelty.

But all Frum and so many others see in Trump is a serious, deluded, angry, dangerous, dunce—and not an amiable one, at that.

To treat every tweet of Trump’s (nice alliteration, eh?) as though it’s uttered in solemn seriousness is to miss the point entirely. Does Frum not understand the joke inherent in the Valley Girl construction of “being, like, really smart”?

Actually, to take the whole thing seriously for a moment, Trump is in fact a smart man—as was Reagan, as was Bush, as was Obama (all of whom were called dumb, although by different crowds). I can’t think of a dumb president in my lifetime—one thing about the interminable campaign season is that it tends to weed out stupidheads. Not all presidents are intellectuals, however, (probably a good thing) and Trump is the antithesis of an intellectual. I may be an intellectual of sorts, but I certainly am not so dumb that I think Trump is a dumb man.

As far as “stable” goes—Trump’s main instability seems to be in his past divorces, if you consider that a sign of instability (otherwise known as restlessness and lack of fidelity). To weather the campaign he weathered is to be very stable, like him or not. As for his insulting/funny/nasty tweets, that’s been going on for just about as long as Twitter has been in existence. Very very stable in the sense of “steady,” although not to Frum’s liking.

I am puzzled as to why anyone would see these tweets as a temper tantrum from an unstable guy. Can’t they see the sarcasm? Can’t they understand the deftness of the historical reference to Reagan? These tweets are crafted, and if Trump doesn’t exactly wield a stiletto, it’s still a pretty effective knife that usually finds its mark.

[NOTE: More from Scott Adams.]

[ADDENDUM: By the way, when I first read Trump’s statement about Steve Bannon, I originally failed to take much notice of what Trump wrote at the very end [emphasis mine]:

We have many great Republican members of Congress and candidates who are very supportive of the Make America Great Again agenda. Like me, they love the United States of America and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down.

That little poison pen letter about Bannon is very well written (did Trump write it himself? I don’t know). It’s jam-packed with incredibly apt put-downs that contain more sophistication than Trump’s usual—not that it’s Churchillian, but it’s certainly clever and it hits Bannon where it hurts.

I see its last sentence as an alliance with the more mainstream wing of the GOP, as long as they work with him, and a rejection of the more extreme views of the so-called alt-right represented by Bannon and in particular of what I call the “burn it down” crowd. I believe some of this reflects Trump’s anger at what happened in Alabama, which he blames at least partly on Bannon. Recall that Trump originally backed the establishment candidate and was not a Roy Moore fan. Trump’s life will be made much easier if the GOP keeps control of the Senate in 2018, and much more difficult if they lose it, and he’s not eager to encourage those he thinks are likely to engineer the latter rather than the former.]

Have Wolff’s minutes of fame already started to wind down?

The New Neo Posted on by

Maybe, at least among anyone paying attention to this sort of thing:

Michael Wolff, the author of “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” included a note at the start that casts significant doubt on the reliability of the specifics contained in the rest of its pages.

Several of his sources, he says, were definitely lying to him, while some offered accounts that flatly contradicted those of others.

But some were nonetheless included in the vivid account of the West Wing’s workings, in a process Wolff describes as “allowing the reader to judge” whether the sources’ claims are true.

That’s quite a process. I think it used to be called throwing enough mud against the wall and seeing what sticks.

In other cases, the media columnist said, he did use his journalistic judgment and research to arrive at what he describes “a version of events I believe to be true.”…

The book itself, reviewed by Business Insider from a copy acquired prior to its Friday publication, is not always clear about what level of confidence the author has in any particular assertion.

Lengthy, private conversations are reported verbatim, as are difficult-to-ascertain details like what somebody was thinking or how the person felt.

In other words, what used to be called making stuff [or sh**] up. Plenty of people have disputed quotes attributed to them in the book, as well, but Wolff says he’s “comfortable” with what he wrote.

Then again, Wolff is making millions, and I’m not. So there’s that.

On Jeff Sessions, Congress, and marijuana law

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m basically with National Review on this:

Under Article II, the executive is obliged to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” and, under federal law, marijuana remains prohibited. Using prosecutorial discretion as a smokescreen for nullification is not our definition of “faithful,” however misguided the legislature’s will might be.

Cory Gardner, a Republican senator from Colorado, had harsh words for Sessions. “With no prior notice to Congress,” Gardner griped, “the Justice Department has trampled on the will of the voters in [Colorado] and other states.” This critique rings hollow. It was Congress that established this law, and it is Congress that must repeal it. Indeed, if anyone is “trampling,” it is the legislature of which Gardner is a part. We have long argued that the prohibition of weed is a fool’s game, and we have long urged that it be ended. We have held to this view through a host of administrations, and we hold to this view today. Nevertheless, we believe also that the Constitution must be strictly obeyed, and that congressional inaction presents no magic veto power to the executive. This, put simply, is not Jeff Sessions’s call.

Like it or not, the marijuana horse has left the barn long long ago (that’s a pretty bad metaphor, but you know what I mean). The ban at this point is something akin to Prohibition: it’s just not working, although I actually wish it was, because I think both practices cause a certain amount of destructive behavior (alcohol even worse than marijuana). I believe at this point it should be left to the states, and that the feds should stay out of it, but that must be done by an act of Congress.

Never-Trumpers never-Trumping

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “DNW” writes:

My guess is that most of the rage [at Trump] is not really at his uncouthness, or the many abrasive personality traits he is said to have, but more, or equally, a chagrin and alarm over what he actually is showing signs of being able to accomplish.

Sensitive conservatives like crony capitalism, they made peace with ObamaCare just as they have with every other ultra vires bureaucratic, legislative or government act that transforms free citizens into social resources.

They don’t want the bonds slackened. They like having you in the traces and tugging at the load.

And when you die, leave the keys to the house under the door mat.

What DNW is expressing here is a very popular thought on the right, particularly among Trump supporters. It predated Trump, though, and is not limited to Trump supporters. It reaches its peak in those who I used to call the “let it burn” crowd, who are the ones who claim that there is no difference whatsoever between the two parties except window dressing.

But I disagree, and have been disagreeing for quite some time. Oh, I don’t deny that there are some politicians in the GOP “establishment” who fit that description. But I don’t believe there are anywhere near the number that the burn-it-down crowd alleges, or even the number that DNW seems to think exist.

I don’t buy the idea that most anti-Trump conservatives don’t really want the conservative agenda, or at least most of the conservative agenda. I think their main objections to Trump now are twofold.

The first is still stylistic, somewhat like what was felt by the Kennedy people who hated successor Johnson because he was uncouth. It didn’t matter that Johnson enacted all that civil rights legislation or the Great Society agenda. For such people, style and class meant and means a lot, and Johnson’s (and Trump’s) lack of it fills them with actual revulsion. Trump may be rich and the son of a rich man, but he’s not a smooth classy intellectual (and that’s an understatement). Theirs is a gut reaction to him, and it’s powerful.

Their second objection to Trump is that, if they were to praise him in any important way, it would necessitate admitting that they were wrong about something. Very wrong. That is very difficult for most people, and they are no exception. Au contraire.

It’s even harder for people who are known for being smart and successful and insightful and clever to say, “Hmmm, you know what? I was wrong; this guy isn’t as bad as I thought, and he’s doing some things that I like.” Some Never-Trumpers have managed to make that switch and some haven’t. But I don’t conclude that the ones who haven’t are really uninterested in the conservative agenda to which they profess devotion. They may not even realize it themselves, but their devotion to a certain style of being in the world, and to not having to change their minds in such a public way, just happens to be greater.

Valet Olympics

The New Neo Posted on by

Yes. Seriously. A competition for parking valets.

I’ve long been in awe of the skill of parking attendants in city lots, although I don’t have much experience with other forms of valet parking. I can parallel park well enough (after all, I grew up in NY), but let’s just say that I’d never make it as a parking valet.

On Wolff: the latest chapter in the continuing anti-Trump effort

The New Neo Posted on by

Of course, to call it an “anti-Trump effort” is to both understate and simplify the matter. Since the evening it became clear that Donald Trump would become president of the United States, and millions upon millions of totally shocked Americans (including me) tried to digest the startling news, some huge proportion of them (not including me) have been trying to discredit everything he does and everything he says.

The goal seems to be impeachment. But impeachment alone, although a disgrace, is practically meaningless in terms of actually removing a president. It’s conviction that does that, and though conviction is always a possibility, the bar is set so high (67 votes) that it’s highly unlikely unless something else, and something big, happens.

Democrats are hoping for that “something big” to happen. And if it doesn’t happen, they’ll uncover it because it’s already happened. And if they can’t uncover it, some of them are determined to manufacture it, because it’s just that unconscionable that Trump is president and just that necessary to remove him for the good of the nation.

I certainly was no Trump fan during the primaries—au contraire. I thought he might be a dangerous and tyrannical president. But since he took office, I’ve seen very little evidence of that sort of behavior—and (as I’ve written many times) for the most part I’ve been pleased what what he’s actually done.

So in terms of the Wolff book’s allegations, which are such huge news right now, I’m not planning a point-by-point analysis. I’ll leave that to others, and pick up the story if and when it appears that these claims end up being something more than the latest salvo in the long-continuing fight against Trump. After all, Wolff’s truth-teller credentials aren’t exactly impeccable.

Trump is uncouth, often ruthless against enemies, and more than capable of lying and/or exaggerating. He was elected with the American public knowing all of that, because he demonstrated those characteristics over and over during the primaries. But since taking office, not only has his behavior has been better than expected rather than worse, every serious post-election allegation against him (and there’ve been plenty of them) so far has come to naught despite multiple investigations by people who would dearly love to charge him with something.

The left is salivating over Wolff’s book, though. For now, anyway. The goal is not just to impeach or somehow remove Trump. The larger—and probably more realistic—goal is to discredit the entire Republican Party. That was always the danger in electing Trump—that the combination of an MSM allied against him and his own episodic outrageousness could ultimately end up tarnishing the right in a way that would result in liberal control of the reins of government. That’s the real goal of this entire crusade against Trump: the regaining of power by a left that believes it should be inevitable and permanent, and that will not and cannot rest until it has that power once again.

[NOTE: How did Wolff manage to get his interviews? Here’s the description:

Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, Wolff says, he was able to take up “something like a semi-permanent seat on a couch in the West Wing” ”” an idea encouraged by the president himself. Because no one was in a position to either officially approve or formally deny such access, Wolff became “more a constant interloper than an invited guest.” There were no ground rules placed on his access, and he was required to make no promises about how he would report on what he witnessed.

Since then, he conducted more than 200 interviews. In true Trumpian fashion, the administration’s lack of experience and disdain for political norms made for a hodgepodge of journalistic challenges. Information would be provided off-the-record or on deep background, then casually put on the record. Sources would fail to set any parameters on the use of a conversation, or would provide accounts in confidence, only to subsequently share their views widely. And the president’s own views, private as well as public, were constantly shared by others. The adaptation presented here offers a front-row view of Trump’s presidency, from his improvised transition to his first months in the Oval Office.

If that’s true, it’s pretty shocking that someone like Wolff was allowed that sort of access. Trump and company should have known it was the perfect set-up for a hit piece. Surely it’s not usual for some random member of the press to be plunked down in the middle of a transitional White House, with full access to anyone wishing to speak with him? Here’s Wolff’s Wiki entry; he’s mostly been a reporter on the media and his reliability has been questioned many times.

The White House has certainly focused on that aspect of Wolff:

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that a forthcoming book containing scathing criticism of the president and his administration from team members and allies was filled with “mistake after mistake after mistake.”

Sanders told reporters at Thursday’s press briefing that Americans “probably could care less about a book full of lying and would really like to hear about” issues on which the administration has claimed victories, including combating terrorism and the economy.

“I don’t think they really care about some trash that an author that no one had ever heard of until today or a fired employee wants to peddle,” she said.

Oh, I know plenty of people who really really care. Most of them hate Trump already, though, so I’m not sure that Wolff’s book and the coverage of it will change many minds.

Others, including former deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh, have denied making statements attributed to them in the book, and Sanders on Thursday characterized the book as “complete fantasy and just full of tabloid gossip.”

Asked to offer examples of falsehoods in the book, Sanders pointed to one excerpt listing White House communications director Hope Hicks’s age as 26 ”” she is 29 ”” and another in which Wolff wrote that Trump responded “who?” when former Fox News chief Roger Ailes suggested John Boehner for the job of White House chief of staff.

“I’ll give you one, just because it’s really easy: The fact that there was a claim that the president didn’t know who John Boehner was is pretty ridiculous, considering the majority of you have seen photos,” Sanders said. “Frankly, several of you have even tweeted out that the president not only knows him but has played golf with him, tweeted about him. I mean, that’s pretty simple and pretty basic.”…

Sanders also disputed a portion of the book that outlines expectations from the top of Trump’s campaign, including campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and Trump himself, that he would not win the 2016 election. The press secretary called it “one of the most ridiculous things” from the book.

“The president, the first lady, his family, they wouldn’t have put themselves through that process if, one, they didn’t believe they could win, and two, they didn’t want to win,” Sanders said. “It is absolutely laughable to think that somebody like this president would run for office with the purpose of losing.

Sanders also said one thing that might answer the question of how Wolff got access to his interviewees:

…that 95 percent of the interviews for Wolff’s book were conducted at the request of Bannon…

Bannon was fired last August. And I would guess he realized things were going badly between him and Trump long before that. When did Wolff interview most of his subjects?]

Let it snow

The New Neo Posted on by

Well, we don’t have much choice, do we?

It’s snowing, the wind is blowing (but not, I think, at blizzard level), and I have no reason to go out today.

As for great blizzards of the past, I well remember this one. Fortunately, I was not among those stranded motorists on Route 128, some of whom died because their exhausts got covered and the carbon monoxide backed into their cars. I was safe at home hunkered down with my husband and a fireplace.

Unfortunately, however, I was stranded on a Greyhound bus with a seat near front row and center for this 1967 Midwest biggee. My bus and I were somewhere in Indiana; I’d been on my way to a family wedding where I was scheduled to be a bridesmaid. In those days, forecasting the weather was a great deal more primitive than now, and nobody foresaw the scope of this storm at the time I joined a ragtag group of people who stepped onto that bus and filled every single seat, because the airport was already closed.

I did have the foresight, however, to wear multiple layers of clothing, and so I was very warm. I must have been hungry, too, but I don’t remember that. I chiefly recall an interminable night of sitting with my Intro to Botany text open on my lap, reading the same paragraphs about xylem and phloem over and over and trying vainly to absorb the information, while somebody’s pesky two-year-old roamed the aisles unsupervised, his copiously running nose unattended and dripping with the cold.

How long did the bus sit there without moving? I don’t know, but memory tells me it was at least 24 hours. Did I make the wedding? Yes, barely.

[NOTE: Half of this post has been recycled from a previous one.]