While leading a global committee of scientists from 2016-2020, I convened hundreds of zoom meetings across all time zones. While gathering, I asked about their days, tried to imagine where and when they were. I was intrigued about comparing and contrasting our weather experiences. But I often found myself in “weather convo dead-ends.” That’s because…
I grew up as a Cold War kid. We experienced nuclear raid drills. (Sort of a joke—we bent over our desks and covered our heads with our hands.) A farcical, disturbing movie, “The Russians Are Coming,” triggered a recurring nightmare for me where Russian/Soviet soldiers knocked on everyone’s doors and put polio braces on all…
Instead of waiting for the high school bus to drive us home, Astrid and I preferred to walk two miles to her house, which culminated in a 10-min steep climb. But once we were there, we had the place to ourselves. Totally worth the trek! Their house was perched on a cliff with a view…
My calendar did not include an emergency meeting with the PR department that entailed challenging negotiations about technically accurate nutrition information versus consumer-friendly language. Although tensions between the nutrition and PR functions predated my tenure … the dynamics were escalating too far. During the meeting, my team (nutrition communications) was criticized for creating dull, uninteresting…
Happy (or Merry) Christmas! Sharing a few insights I learned about how the “island of fire and ice” celebrates Christmas … Yule Lads Instead of one Santa Claus, Icelanders have 13 Yule Lads. According to local lore, they live in the highlands and come down from the mountains, one each night for the 13 days…
Few trees. Few people. Many churches. On our first day driving the Icelandic countryside, I observed the ratio of churches to people and asked my husband, “Since Iceland was first settled by the Vikings in the 9th century, wouldn’t they have been a pagan country?” We pondered how Christianity became the dominant religion. By the…
When I looked down and realized that I was twice the height of the treetops, my stomach flip-flopped … my head started to spin. I could hardly manage to hold onto the steel ladder leading straight up to the fire tower lookout. I was in northern Wisconsin with some friends (in my early 20s). They’d…
The Chicago wind slapped my face as I stepped out of the dentist’s office on Valentine’s Day in 1988. I’d just finished my first root canal and had no plans for a romantic evening … or any romantic prospects on the horizon. It was 3 pm and I felt lousy. Instead of returning to work,…
Instead of checking my email before work, I called my mom to wish her happy birthday. When I walked into the office, I could tell something was odd. My boss walked past me without greeting or eye contact. Looking out at the sea of cubicles, I noticed that everyone had their heads down. I felt…
