WEATHER: WE TALK ABOUT IT AND AVOID IT

No matter what the news of the day is, everyone is talking about the weather. That's pretty normal. Even when the weather is ordinary, it tends to find its way into most civilized conversations. And when the weather is hotter, colder, wetter or windier than normal, it becomes THE topic of conversation.

We've heard so much about El Nino by now that most of us think we have some grasp of those mighty forces that make the winds blow and the rains fall. And just about the time we get the hang of El Nino, it goes away.

Instead of El Nino, we now have something call La Nina, which, we are told, is the sister of El Nino and which has a personality -- if weather, indeed, possesses moods -- exactly opposite of its brother. Frankly, we haven't yet had La Nina hammered into our brains from every possible source, so most of us will confess we don't quite understand her.

There are conflicting views, of course, even about the weather. Mostly we've heard that the mild winter of 1997-98 was a product of El Nino. Then we had all those fires, from Central America to near Disney World, which were either the fault of El Nino, greedy jungle farmers or lightning, depending on where the fires were and who was assessing the blame.

It doesn't help that our tiny part of the globe has been gripped in 90-degree-plus days for -- how long has it been, exactly? Forever?

There are some so-called experts who would say that all of the heat has muddled our brains. Still others would argue that we have become so addicted to the frosty temperatures of air conditioning that our bodies are out of sync, because we aren't letting our mortal tissue and bones adapt to the weather of our natural surroundings. Of course, our natural surroundings these days, in climes where the heat and humidity have made billionaires out of the air-conditioning repair people, are enclosed in a sealed box we call home, where our only real necessities, in addition to the aforementioned air conditioner, are a microwave and a TV remote control.

Once upon a time, you will hear a lot of old-timers say, we humans existed with the elements, not in spite of them. We appreciated a cool breeze on a muggy night. Nowadays the only air movement we are aware of is when we walk past the air-conditioning vent. But stop a minute. Listen to your elders. In addition to memories of cold winters and hot summers, they also remember when lives were in tune with ebb and flow of today's weather instead of existing in a climate-controlled environment where every day -- and night -- is just like yesterday or last week or last winter.

Heat wave? It's summer, for goodness sake. And we haven't even started August.