The problem with having smoke allergies during wildfire season is that you're sick all the time. It never stops. All the classic allergy symptoms plus a constant headache plague your every waking moment. And while you'd like nothing better than to sequester yourself in a room with multiple air purifiers, it doesn't work like that because life must go on.

You dope up with antihistamines and Advil and go to work.

Or you try to.

This morning I left the house without my backpack containing my weekend work and my laptop. Turned around and went back for it. Then I got all the way to work and realized that I left my MagSafe wallet at home. Turned around and went back for it. And then I walked into my office and remembered I wanted to bring some toast with me. At which point I said "screw it" and found some stale crackers in my filing cabinet that were close enough.

And the week is just starting.

Just checking in to let everybody know that I'm still alive during my 11th COVID vaccination and the 7.3-second full gravity reversal that happened yesterday! Sure I woke up with a bit of a sore arm, but I'm totally not dead. At least not yet.

OR AM I ?!?

For all you know I could totally be dead and typing this from beyond the grave.

Given that the air was new levels of toxic thanks to the wildfire smoke everywhere, I certainly feel like I'm dead...

You can just make out the nearby hills on the left-hand side there. Which is to say it's not a good day to have smoke allergies like me. I end up taking all kinds of pills and inhaler shots to keep my lungs from itching and driving me insane... and aspirin to help push through the headaches.

There ain't enough medicine on earth to take care of the watery eyes and runny nose though. Those I just have to live with.

OR DIE WITH, if you're paying attention.

Though it's entirely possible that I've been AI all this time. Which would be cool because it means the trillions of dollars spent on the crap was worthwhile for something.

The smoke has been clearing quite a lot, making the air quality bad instead of outright toxic. This is not expected to last, however, and the forecast says that the doom smoke will return this evening. Thought I have no clue how they actually forecast any of this. Probably something to do with wind conditions, I'd imagine.

I am attempting to enjoy the respite from constant headache, itchy lungs, watery eyes, and a running nose while I can but, in all honesty, the problem never goes away completely. It's just a matter of degrees. This morning, for example, my headache was still there... it just wasn't so bad that I felt like slamming my head into a wall.

At least not because of wildfire smoke.

There's still plenty of other reasons to slam my head into a wall.

Sorry I've been absent for... ummm... two weeks?

In case you haven't been keeping up with the news, the fires here in Eastern Washington State have been seriously scary. Spokane, in particular, has been catching fire. The city had evacuations of around 65,000 people at one point. 900 structures burned down.

Spokane is three hours to the East of me. But there are fires to the North as well. The combination of which has filled the skies in my region with smoke...

And, as you may know, I have severe smoke allergies.

In order for my lungs to endure it, I am taking medication which tears up my stomach. So I try not to take it except when needed to be able to work. The rest of the time my eyes water, my nose runs, and my lungs... itch. And that's the worst part. Itching from the inside and not being able to do anything about it.

And so...

I hunker down at home with my air purifiers and try to do nothing so I don't have to be medicated.

Including blogging.

But then today things were a little better. No idea if it's going to stay that way for a while.

I plan on enjoying it while it lasts.

For the last couple of days I have been having allergy problems. Which is bizarre to me because I never have noticeable allergies in January. They always hit me in March and April when new plants arrive... then again in September and October when everything is dying. Summer and Winter are blissfully allergy-free.

But then I went to put the garbage cans back and walked around my yard.

Only to find that there are flowers which never died. And greens are popping up everywhere...

This could be very, very bad for us.

We haven't had snow this year. Any sprinkling we get disappears in short order. The hillsides are bare. The mountains aren't covered nearly enough. This is looking like drought for us this Summer, which means high water prices, rationing, dead lawns, and other problems I don't even want to think about.

Meanwhile... a winter storm of scary proportions is about to hit everywhere from New York to Texas.

Climate change is not cool, yo. Not cool at all.

My comfort level, as of late, is dependent on the wind.

If the wildfire smoke is blowing out of the valley, I'm able to have a (relatively) normal day. But if the wind direction is blowing it into the valley, I prepare myself to have a miserable day.

The good news is that my body is tolerating the allergy pills better now that I've been taking them for a couple weeks, so at least I don't have to worry about not being able to keep food down (and, consequently, throwing my back into spasm from vomiting). I also don't have to worry quite so much about itchy lungs, which is the absolute worst. Nothing quite like an itch there's no way to scratch because it's inside of you, and gets worse with each breath.

So, yeah, with the exception of insomnia (which is as bad as it's ever been), everything is peachy-keen.

Half my kingdom for an off switch.

Twice each year my allergies return to plague me.

Once in the Fall, when everything is dying and vegetation starts to rot. Then again in the Spring, when I'm the one that's dying because the grasses and flowers return to life. It could be worse. When I was a kid that suffered year 'round and had to get three shots a week.

Spring, while being my favorite season, is also the time of year I'm my most miserable. I dope up of allergy drugs to try and push through while my body adjusts, but as I get older and older it's harder and harder for me to adapt. I used to have a runny nose, itchy eyes, and a sore throat for three days or so. Then it was a week. Then two weeks. Now it's at least three weeks. And my symptoms get worse every year as well.

On Saturday I woke up and could barely see. It felt like my eyes were swollen shot. And maybe they were. That made it real fun to crawl downstairs to feed my cats. Sunday was even worse, but I was prepared. I brought a can of cat food with me the night before so I could dish out breakfast without breaking my next.

I gave up on blogging over the weekend, and decided to try again on Monday. Then Tuesday. I was going to pass again tonight, but decided to just take a Benadryl early and see what happens. I don't know that it did a ton of good but I was able to see to type, which was good enough for me.

You would think that as the snow slowly melts and allergens are being released into the air, I'd have a gradual slide into allergy season. Nose runs a little more each day. Eyes water up a little more frequently. Cough gets more and more persistent.

But that's not how it works at all.

Not for me anyways.

In my case my body just deals with the build-up to allergy season and I'm perfectly normal with no symptoms... until one day I just ain't any more.

That day was today.

I woke up well enough this morning, but the minute I got downstairs to feed the cats I was in hell. Nose running like a faucet. Coughing continuously. Even struggling to breathe. The first thing I did was go around the house and replace the air filters in all four of my air purifiers just to make sure they were operating at peak proficiency. If they're not, then sleeping becomes impossible and I never get a break from the torture I go through each Spring.

Which is still my favorite season. Go figure.

It would be easy to blame it on the cats going in and out of the catio and bringing the allergens in with them, but I honestly think that it has to do more with my leaving the house and getting saturated.

And so, like last year, I will be doping up with Benadryl and sucking on cough drops all day so that everybody at work doesn't think I have COVID. The drugs make it tough to focus and keep me eternally drowsy, but I guess it is what it is. I just save the more technical stuff for the evenings when I am back at home and can cough my fool head off in peace. Jake and Jenny aren't happy about it, but so long as they can go outside and are still getting fed, I think they'll survive.

Me, on the other hand? I give myself a 50/50 shot of surviving.

As I probably mentioned once or twice... or a hundred times... I have killer seasonal allergies. They are pretty harsh in the Fall when all the vegetation is rotting. Summer is marginally annoying, but I don't notice it any more. Winter is my least favorite season, but the absolute best time for my allergies.

Spring... what's happening right now... is my favorite season. I love Spring.

But my allergies are at their absolute worst.

I survive it by taking more Benadryl than is probably healthy. It's the only thing that works despite it making me drowsy. Every day at work it's a fight between the allergy meds putting me to sleep and the caffeine in Coke Zero keeping me awake. At home I stop taking pills and happily cough my head off.

Today I left the office early to work at home because I was already tired, and taking another Benadryl would have done me in. I managed to work through the coughing for a couple hours before my lungs ached and I finally took a Benadryl and a bunch of cough syrup...

...and fell asleep.

Until the alarm to feed the cats... as well as the cats themselves, of course... woke me up at 6:00pm.

After making sure they had their food, I sat down with a grilled cheese sandwich to tide me over until my pizza dough defrosts for dinner. I turn on the television and this commercial is playing...

Isn't that an amazing ad? It's like a Hallmark movie in 30 seconds... but less sappy and more sweet. Man, I love great advertising!

And speaking of Hallmark... I see that they are airing a Christmas movie marathon so people who are self-isolating can re-live memories of a happier time. I've already seen them all, of course, so I'll spend any free time I have playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which releases tomorrow. OR... at midnight tonight, I'm guessing? Yeah, no. The last thing I need to do is become addicted and stay up until 3am playing a game.

After spending a week being sick I was ready to start feeling myself again. Alas, it was not to be, because now Spring allergies have hit me like a truck. There goes the next two months of my life. It's all sinus pressure, post-nasal drip, and coughing from here on out.

When I was younger I had allergy shots to keep me from being a complete mess. Eventually I outgrew my allergies and the shots stopped. Then, without warning, my mid-forties arrived and Spring allergies along with them. I've tried dozens of drugs... both prescription and over-the-counter... and have found only two things that help: 1) Flonase which, unfortunately, causes nose bleeds... and 2) Benadryl which, unfortunately, causes me to become useless and fall asleep. Obviously I can't go to work while falling into a coma, so I have to suffer through every day and drug myself to oblivion every night.

Such is my life.

As I mentioned a while back, every year on January 1st I convert the maximum-allowable 100 of my DVDs to digital. Sure it's $200 down the drain, but I then have access to all those movies anywhere I have internet. So much more convenient than having to dig through hundreds of DVDs to find something to watch.

Dozens of these movies I haven't seen in decades, and it's been well-worth the $2 conversion fee. I just finished Secondhand Lions which is a fantastic film I didn't even remember existed. Surprising to me that it wasn't a much bigger hit than it ended up being...

A few things...

1. Haley Joel Osment deserved a lot more films as he grew up. He's spectacular in Secondhand Lions, and it's a shame that he wasn't getting more work after he was no longer that adorable "Sixth Sense" kid.
2. Kyra Sedgwick can play literally anything. Her role in this film was unlike anything else I've seen her do... and yet it was still her.
3. Casting Robert Duvall and Michael Caine as two cantankerous old farts with a rather exotic and interesting past was total genius.
4. Christian Kane and Kevin Haberer could not possibly have been more convincing action stars for their roles. They managed to be younger versions of Robert Duvall and Michael Caine without being enslaved to the idea of becoming Robert Duvall and Michael Caine.
5. Few movies which switch between the past and the present do so in a way that "clicks" this beautifully. There are subtle echos going both ways that are wonderfully crafted.
6. Whomever trained the dogs used in this movie should have been given some kind of award. The canines have small, but critical roles to the story.
7. It is fucking criminal that Secondhand Lions only has a 59% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The bad reviews are completely vexing to me. I read the criticisms and can't help but wonder if they watched a different film than I did.
8. "What Every Boy Needs to Know About Being a Man" is one of the most inspired speeches in cinema (even though you only get to hear a part of it). Not because of what it says, but because of how they wrap it up with a disclaimer that it may not be true but you should believe in it anyway.
9. If you don't feel for what Walter is going through (thanks to Haley Joel Osment's inspired performance) you don't have a heart. I'll say it again... it is a tragedy that Osment didn't get put into more movies when he was at this age. He's a sublime actor, and could have brought everything to "coming of age" movies of the day.
10. I'd give just about anything to see all the comic strips and artwork that Berkeley Breathed created for the movie. Some of it pops up online, but I'm sure there's pages and pages of stuff that we've never seen.

Needless to say, if you like movies and haven't seen this one... you should probably get on that.