A WHALE OF A POST

Hi Everyone,

Since I only had time to be blind for about fifteen minutes this weekend, I will attempt to edify you with a brief interim post: I just read today in the New York Times that certain species of whale can live for up to about 200 years. A story in today's Week in Review talked about Eskimo hunters having recently killed a whale in whose head they found a harpoon dating back to the 1880s! I think this is an important reminder we humans aren't the best at everything. Nor can we approximate all of the advantages of other species using new technologies. Though we are trying. Well, not me personally. I don't think I can claim responsibility for even one technological innovation in this or any other century. Currently, I feel a bit like a whale, having eaten a delicious vanilla cupcake from Hotcakes Bakes (in Mar Vista,) followed by some Trader Joes oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. They're not that good, but they're very faithful. They know to stay put in my cupboard until I command them to do otherwise.

The other thing I feel compelled to make sure you know about whales: They share a very close ancestry with cows. Can you believe it? A creature crawled out of the water, evolved, and then crawled back into the water and evolved some more? And now, you'd never know they were cousins. All of this begs the question: If a whale and a cow hooked up, would they have retarded children?

One more thing before I go to bed: During my short stint blindness experiment, my husband kept leading me up and down the same curb over and over again, in a zig-zag pattern, sabotaging my senses and disorienting me completely. I'm not sure if he's the best seeing-eye husband out there. Applications for guides are currently being accepted.