My Evil Twin is Mother Earth

As a woman who can no longer figure her age without the aid of a scientific calculator, a sheaf of graph paper, and a Number Two pencil, I completely understand the concept of global warming. I've barely hurdled the half century mark and I don’t break out the sweaters and scarves unless ice is actually forming under my fingernails. Mother Earth has got me beat by a few decades, give or take a period of conquering hordes, a roving band of dinosaurs, and a Crusade or two. I figure tornado-force winds come from fanning herself to keep cool.

In my younger years I was the first in the neighborhood to break out the faux fur and firewood, but these days my polar cap is melting at a rapid rate, which is the only explanation I can find for my humid hairstyle and damp T-Shirt. If I had to hold the heat of all the people on Earth, there would be a spike in the number of new oceans, not to mention some even greater lakes, and not a small increase in tributaries. All of these new bodies of water would spring to life in the wee hours of the morning accompanied by a good bit of tossing and turning and 37 trips to the little room down the hall where I'll trip over the cat and flush my library book.

I don’t mind the aging process. The popping of my joints lends a lively reggae beat to keep me from napping at my desk in the afternoons, and I’ve become accustomed to wandering from room to room searching for a clue. But if Mother Earth is ahead of me in menopause years, I can understand why history repeats itself.

She lost her place and had to start over.

From Polar Caps to Cold Feet

As a woman who can no longer figure her age without the aid of a scientific calculator, a sheaf of graph paper, and a Number Two pencil, I completely understand the concept of global warming. I haven’t even hit the half century mark and I don’t break out the sweaters and scarves unless ice is forming under my fingernails. Mother Earth has got me beat by a few decades, give or take a period of conquering hordes, a roving band of dinosaurs, and a Crusade or two. I figure tornado-force winds come from her fanning herself to keep cool.
In my younger years I was the first in the neighborhood to break out the faux fur and firewood, but these days my polar cap is melting at a rapid rate, which is the only explanation I can find for my humid hairstyle and damp T-Shirt. If I had to hold the heat of all the people on Earth, there would be a spike in the number of new oceans, not to mention some even greater lakes, and not a small increase in tributaries. All of these new bodies of water would spring to life in the wee hours of the morning accompanied by a good bit of tossing and turning and 37 trips to the bathroom. It's odd, though, how the temperature of the whole is greater than the degrees of the parts. My behind is the permanent victim of Chinook winds and my feet are wedged firmly in an Antarctic ice floe. But I wear the Equator like a halo above my sweatsoaked brow.
I don’t mind the aging process. The popping of my joints makes for a lively rhythmic beat to keep me from napping at my desk in the afternoons, and I’ve become accustomed to wandering from room to room searching for a clue as to what I was looking for in the first place. But if Mother Earth is ahead of me in menopause years, I can understand why history repeats itself. She lost her place and had to start over.

Global Warming

When you’re four years old and heading off on important candy-gathering venture at Halloween, global warming seems like a pretty good idea. Global warming means you don’t have to wear an undershirt, six sweaters, and an overcoat with your costume. Outerwear is notoriously rough on angel’s wings and dampens the effect of a howling demon on passers by. Let’s face it. The Author of Death clad in a blue snowsuit and lambie mittens is just not as unsettling as initially intended.

So I never really had a problem with global warming until I reached a Responsible Age. Now I realize I probably caused the whole trouble myself. I produced two boys, gummily attractive in a no-teeth, drooly kind of way, who as babies seemed harmless enough sucking cereal from a spoon and wearing little diapers with cartoon characters printed in blue on the front. (How much trouble could a size zero hiney be, anyway? Of course now we have Paris Hilton, Allegra Versace, and pre-baby Nicole Ritchie to serve as benchmarks, but back then we just didn’t know.)

Anyway, I’ve read about the amount of methane produced by all the cows in the world, except the ones in India that are sacred, and I think my guys can beat that number without straining. The three teenaged boys in the backseat (we threw in an extra cousin just to make it interesting) on the way to the Fair this weekend cheekily counted the number of times the term “excuse me” came into play. We were nearing triple digits, which even allowing for exaggeration and downright bragging, is a pretty impressive number. I’ve decided I’m going to give up raising children and buy stock in a dairy farm. It’s easier on the environment.