Friday’s Wandering Thought
Tinted by smoke, the sun was a tangerine as noon rolled up. A short man walked through the warming, stifling day. Someone caught in middle age’s trenches, hard-edged in his slenderness, pale as a grub, bald as a newborn, walking fast. Unbelievable sight in this nasty air. White-grey ash collected on surfaces, dulling car polish, stinging nostrils with high magnitude burnt-wood flavors, usually encouraging tears, runny noses, sniffing, coughing.
But this guy walked down the sidewalk like the town’s proud owner, the only one out there, protected by sandals, a white tee-shirt, and light blue denim jeans. He also sucked on a cigarette and blew out his own smoke.
That might explain a lot.
Friday’s Theme Music
Might as well call this Smokeday. It’s August 18, 2023. The air in Ashlandia, where the roads are wide and the sidewalks are numerous, has gone into the trashcan. Yesterday, Purple Air showed the air quality jumping into the hazardous range and lurking there for the night’s entirety. Today finds it still mostly in the hazardous or unhealthy zones. We’ve gone all Twilight Zone apocalypse out there, with the mountains hidden behind he dirty air and no view of the valley. We could be the last island of civilization, if this view is the guide.
We’d been hoping we’d miss the smoky air this year. So far, we had done well, but lightning lit up the Klamath complex southwest of us, and its smoke drops a pall over the region. The fire centers on Happy Camp, which was also the source of our 2014 nasty air.
In good news, we’ve dropped out of the high temperatures. 72 F now, today’s high end is believed to be 92 F but I postulate that this thick smoke will keep us from reaching that high. Winds are from the east, clearing the smoke out right now. Sunshine has cleared its way after a long red dawn morning. It’s raining on the coast, which will put some moisture in the air around Happy Camp. That keeps us hope that the fire won’t be around into November.
The cats aren’t pleased with the smoke, as we’re keeping them in. Tucker the elder is fine with it but Papi issued declarations that staying in was not in his bucket list. He mostly makes his home in the master bath, with its cool and quiet, I suppose, and no one can slip up on him without being sighted. I’m thinking of Tucker in that, who gets passive-aggressive at times, and outright aggressive at others. TC is being mellow, though, but already a little under the weather with some respiratory issues brought on by the smoke. I’ll give him some Lysine L, which generally helps him deal.
Songwise, I have Croce in the morning mental music stream (Trademark worthy). Jim Croce arrived there after a convo in which someone said, “You just don’t do that.” My Neurons leaped into action, adding, “You don’t pull on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, you don’t pull the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger, and you don’t mess around with Jim.” So here we are with “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim”, some fun story-telling music from Jim Croce and 1972.
Time to coffee up and face the day. Be strong, stay pos, and don’t get sucked into the vortex of negativity. Here’s the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 