Fight, Flight, or Fright

While anthropologists have readily examined our instinctual flight or fight responses to severe threat, indications of inexplicable behavior brought to light the fright response. Since 1929, it was presumed that humans reacted in one of two ways to threats. However, flight or fight could not explain why the woman sitting next to the exit on the plane on fire did not escape, yet people fifteen rows past her managed to do so through the exit adjacent to her. Passengers commented on how she just sat in her seat as if "frozen" and was entirely unresponsive to people cajoling her to exit. Initial explanations suggested that she was in shock. Further examination brought to light the fright response to threat, in which humans freeze up as if dead when threatened. The biological basis for this is simple, that if we could not fight them, or run away from them, acting as if dead allowed the "enemy" to be unchallenged, leaving the victim as dead rather than for dead.

A recent threat highlighted the varying ways in which my ex-husband and I handle threat. While my ex-husband was microwaving a Chinese noodle container, it caught fire. He was eating a sandwich to one side of the kitchen. My two year old daughter was playing with the paper plates in the pantry on another side. My six year old son was sitting on the other side of the kitchen eating at the table. I saw the fire. I started to squeal like you would not believe. Then, I ran to an area between both children, while continuing to squeal. The squeals registered with the ex-husband and as he continued to eat his sandwich with one hand, he filled a sippy cup full of water, opened the door, and dumped the water on it. Repeat five times minus the opening of the door. Continue eating the sandwich.

By that time, both children were crying, the daughter due to my squeals, the son due to the ever increasing flames. I had subsequently moved to the couch with both kids. My ex-husband, almost done with the sandwich, had vanquished the fire and was exclaiming, "Hey!! You just ran away!!"

Apparently, I was exhibiting the flight response. I think my ex-husband exhibited the fight response, but we would have to ask his sandwich. The children, bless their hearts, were fright models.

Now, if only Walter Cannon knew about us....

1 Drop Hawaiian - A Response to Mr. Theroux

Paul Theroux- a wonderful travel writer recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times. While I enjoyed the article, there was one reflection that made me bristle and I have been thinking about it for a while. His article is available at this link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/opinion/21theroux.html

I believe Mr. Theroux may have missed something regarding his passing jibe at the “1 drop Hawaiian” Hawaiian. I would estimate that I readily fall into that category, being of seven ethnicities and when duly reciting them, I always say Hawaiian first. Not that in these modern times it makes me more “special”, but in the context of my ethnic background, I claim it first as a statement to generations of Hawaiians who were belittled, beaten, and otherwise demeaned for speaking and being Hawaiian. Out of all that I am, Hawaiian, Chinese, Portuguese, Scottish, German, English, and East Indian; Hawaiians are at the greatest disadvantage. While I very much doubt Mr. Theroux would ever jibe about the phrase “1 drop Black”, the ideology behind claiming ones heritage is the same.

Buckle In -It's A Bumpy Ride (If You're A Kid)

My loving brother used to vigorously berate me every time I would put my son in the car in order to take him for a drive to put him to sleep. Loudly, vehemently, these were his words, “You are putting my nephew at risk. What you are doing is stupid.” Now, to hear my otherwise genteel brother describe me so one would think that I was tossing my son in the front seat (or the trunk) sans car seat and driving blindfolded after downing ten mint juleps in the middle of the night. Rather, I was buckling him into his 5-point harness LATCH safety seat and taking a slow afternoon drive up to Rainbow Falls and then back home. A total of (if I was stretching it) seven minutes in the car. However, his angst was entirely legitimate. According to the CDC, car collisions are the number one source of injury and death among children. On average 504 injuries and 4 deaths occur among children on a DAILY basis resulting in 1,335 death and 184,000 injuries per year While the advent of child safety restraints in 1971 heralded a dramatic initial drop in the incidence of motor vehicle injury and death among children, the subsequent data shows inconsistencies in a further reduction. These inconsistencies are evident by the 425 preventable deaths per year due to unrestrained children. Their unfortunate deaths may be a result of several factors that include the actual lack of a safety seat, confusion regarding legal requirements regarding age and weight of a child needing to be restrained, generational and cultural beliefs that conflict with restraining a child, and parental/ caregiver removal of the child from the safety seat in order to breastfeed and/or comfort. (I am so guilty of this last one.) These are then coupled with the speculated and yet unspecified number of deaths due to use of a recalled safety seat, inadequate safety seat construction, improper installation of the car seat, confusion about the Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children (LATCH), and overall frustration with use. Proper restraint in a motor vehicle reduces the risk of fatality in a crash by approximately 70%. However, multiple studies have found approximately 85% of car seats are misused. 85%? That means you and me and possibly nearly every person we know is clueless when it comes to car seats. While the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) provides specific guidelines to prevent injury and death, it delegates the development, implementation, and enforcement of actual legislative guidelines to the jurisdiction of individual States. The result of which is an entirely varied and incomprehensive system of occupant protection laws and fines, and ultimately practices, that endanger children and confuse parents and caregivers. Why are there 50 separate sets of laws regarding safety seat use? Why do only 15 of those (Hawai’i is included) actually specify where in your car your child is most safe? In the rear, in the middle seats. So there you have it. My brother can actually say he told me so. Arggghhhh!

Older and Wiser? (In Love)

When I was seventeen, I had a fantasy crush on Matt Damon. My husband, always the supportive one- even in my delusions, still refers to him as my boyfriend. As in, "Do you want to watch that movie with your boyfriend in it, you now, where he loses his memory?" However, my crushes are not ever sexual in nature quite unlike a certain someone's fascination with Megan Fox and Andrea Lima. Rather, I pictured myself having exceedingly witty conversations with Mr. Damon in a Harvard pub.

Later, I progressed into my twenties and George Clooney became the lucky chosen one. Again, my fantasies are entirely platonic, mainly consisting of traveling around the world doing amazing philanthropic work. There's a little more sensitivity from the loving husband on this one as there's this wonderful Italian palazzo/villa involved and he is actually single...again this is a fantasy, no fun really, if they come true...

Now as I have crossed the happy threshold of thirty, I have a new love interest. Cesar Chavez. And all I can continually fantasize about is him helping with my dog. If you have met my dog, you can completely understand.

When I related this story to my brilliant brother, he said, "Why on Earth would you have a crush on the President of Venezuela?"Just to clarify, this is Cesar not Hugo that I am dreaming about. Furthermore, my husband just explained that I have a crush on Cesar Milan...not Cesar Chavez ... Oh dear, I must be getting older...

Housewife’s Lament

We women write. We all write. We continuously write. We write checks, we write thank you cards, we write birthday cards, we write about our sadness, we write about our jobs, and my goodness, do we write lists. We do not, however, write about our happiness. Maybe, it is because we are too busy capturing the moment and living “in the now” to reflect upon it. I think not. We are too busy capturing the moment with our cameras and are focused on maintaining the moment through our diligence.

For once, take a moment, grab a pen, pencil, the green crayon off the floor and write about your happiness. Take this moment to recall a time when you felt happy or what you feel happy about in this moment, and write it down. Make it a memory that you have for your family and friends and most importantly, for yourself. We are like shadows in our own lives, taking the pictures, but never in them. One would think by looking at my photo albums and my journals that either I did not exist, or that I was chronically depressed. Ironically, I do exist and my sad moments are so fleeting that had I neglected to write about them, I would never remember them.

Dwell on your happiness. And dwell in it.

Chat It Up. Live Longer.

My beloved father-in-law oft laments the obituaries, not the actual passings, but rather, the ages at which his fellow men have a tendency to expire. His observation aptly reflects data concerning why women and men live as long as they do. Men tend to live as long as their spouses do. If by sad circumstance their wives pass, the likelihood of the partner’s passing in the next year or two increases 20 fold, drastically reducing his life expectancy after the age of 60. Why is that? It is believed, that as they age, the circle of friends a man has continually contracts until there is one remaining contingent…their wives. This happens as school buddies, college buddies, work buddies, gym buddies, golf buddies, drinking buddies and the activities with which male friends collectively participate fall away as they graduate, as they retire, as their physical agility and/ or health declines. Leaving just one constant companion.

I have one suggestion, oh, wait two: 1. be kind to your wife, your life depends on her and 2. make lifelong friends with someone who you talk to and interact with on a daily basis that is not activity driven.

The irony in this spousal life dependence is that should the opposite occur, a woman survives her husband after the age of 60, her life expectancy increases. And it increases by at least 20 years. Why is that? *

* Please refer to previous article on why housework causes stress.

Why Housework Causes Stress

Few would argue the health benefits of the mop. It is because there are none. Not that the vigorous swishing of one’s self in the rhythmic overtures of the dirty water blues lacks aerobic merit. On the contrary, it is the mental anguish towards and continual cursing of one’s spouse who happens to not be swishing the mop that negates any and all benefits.

Lonely Socks Club

I have a confession to make. I’ve started a Lonely Socks Club. So far, I have 18 individual members- all looking for their “sole” mates. Why this strange revelation? If friends have resolved to Facebook as a way to keep tabs on their friends two houses down, then why not start a dating club for socks? They share as much intimacy as a Facebook friend, and if encouraged, will no doubt pose in a drunken stupor for that most necessary of “candid” Facebook memories. What happened to talking to our friends? Are we really too busy? Has it become unsafe? Has the threat of rampant illness reigned in our friendliness or does it actually reveal our true character? That we make and have friends out of convenience. And what could be more convenient than Facebook tallying how many friends I have?

I am sure this semi-rant suggests that I abstain from Facebook. Quite the contrary, I revel in it. Ask my husband. However, to assuage my guilt and maintain my inflated self-opinion, I have set up a 500 mile radius to substantiate my purpose of staying in touch with friends to far to see or talk to often. This is my premise. Hawaiian airlines gives 500 miles upon completing an inter-island segment. Therefore, if you live on another island and/or beyond the great big blue of the Pacific…you have… the distinct joy of becoming “my friend.”