Sometimes life works with you, sometimes not so much.
Today was a "not so much" sort of day. The photo below was taken at a little before 11:00am on a "clear and sunny" day... that brown hazy gook? That's smoke from forest fires, both here in Washington state, as well as in Canada.
11:00am, under "clear" skies on a "sunny" day
That's about the clearest it got today... by mid afternoon, it looked more like sunset and the sun was more like a blood red orb, overhead.
I just hope it's a little better tomorrow
Our lungs aren't really meant to breathe this crap. Aside from visibility having dropped to less than 1/4 mile now, I feel like I am "just about to come down with the flu" and have been feeling that way for about 48 hours now. Itchy eyes, rough raspy throat, corners of my eyes watering slightly. I also feel like someone punched a railway spike into my head, immediately above my left eye.
Our Air Quality Index this afternoon was 159. Not good. A blend of smoke and tiny airborne particulate in the form of wood ash.
What we need around here is a steady rain for about 48 hours. Unfortunately, none of that in the forecast...
I Had a Plan. Honestly.
This morning I had plans to have (create) a busy week. I really wanted to jump start my creativity... in part inspired by 
Hoping for some of this. Unfortunately, NOT in the forecast...
But as the day wore on and my head felt more and more congested... I decided that "this is not the time." But it's something I definitely want to take up later. When the air has cleared a little.
Funny just how much this stuff actually affects us.
Reminds me of the rather sad story of my friend Dohn who was driving through a brush/forest fire area on his way from Texas to Florida, and the smoke was rather thick, like this. Except... where he was in Louisiana there was a lot of poison oak and poison ivy getting burned up; enough that the inside of his lungs — quite literally — got "burned" by the toxic residue and he ended up spending three days in an ER in Tallahassee breathing pure oxygen from a respirator.
Fortunately, this smoke is cleaner.
Anyway, apologize for this rather "wimpy" post... but my brain is just not 100% there, at the moment.
Comments always welcome, and invited!
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Created at 180820 23:50 PDT