Our brave firefighters keep gaining ground on the wildfires in the area that have been burning for over five weeks, and it's looking like there's finally light at the end of the tunnel. Today the fire to the north reached 55% containment. And while the fire to the south was holding steady at 7% for weeks, today they announced that the crews there have managed to achieve 10%.

The bad news is that what kind of day I have depends entirely on how the wind blows, because the smoke is still pretty bad.

Every once in a while blue skies will arrive... for a while... which means my lungs won't feel as fuzzy, my eyes won't be burning as severely, my head will be less likely to start exploding, and I won't be coughing as much. I also won't have to take an excessive amount of allergy medication.

But it's always fleeting.

Which is to say that I still go directly to work in the mornings then go directly home afterwards. And still feel awful most days.

Thank heavens for grocery delivery! But even then, having to open the door to receive my order guarantees an instant headache until the air purifiers can get things under control again.

Can you believe that I honestly thought we'd make it through the Summer without a wildfire?

I wake up every morning and look out the window to see what kind of day I'm going to have. If I can see the surrounding hills, it's probably going to be a fairly good day (at least to start... who knows where the wind will take us). If I can't see the surrounding hills, I'm pretty much guaranteed a day of misery from the minute I walk out the door. And today was one of those days. We were socked in and I could smell smoke on Jake when he walked in, which means he was out in the catio.

But, as I lay here now at night? I can see a star.

Sure it's just one, but it gives me hope for tomorrow. It would be nice to be able to go outside instead of hiding in my house all weekend.

And now... for all the Swifties out there, today was the day...

The album that changed my mind about Taylor Swift was 1989. It was pop perfection and had the lyrical masterpiece that is New Romantics. Then she followed it up with Reputation and Lover and I was convinced that she was going to be on my "Best Of" list until I was dust.

But then she took a turn with Folklore and Evermore which lost me. Fortunately Midnights was a return to the Taylor I enjoy listening to, and I thought maybe... but then The Tortured Poets Department had only one song I truly liked (along with a smattering on the first part that were okay) and I thought "Well, it was fun while it lasted."

And now we get The Life of a Showgirl.

It runs the gamut, going from pop optimism and clever musical turns to a dis track on (assumably) Charli XCX and a bouncy song about her fiancée Travis Kelce's dick being as big as a redwood that opened her thighs.

In the end, this album is a partial u-turn back towards the 1989 era. Though it does get dragged down by a few tracks that won't be added to my playlists any time soon.

As for the others? Thank you, Taylor! I'm enjoying them.

The wildfire smoke has been so bad that I ended up taking the weekend off. From everything. Including blogging.

Despite the fact that I cowered in my home with air purifiers on full power... Saturday was residual misery from going to work in heavy smoke on Friday, and Sunday I made the mistake of taking out the garbage without a mask. In a city which I would later learn had the worst air quality in the entire country.

Fires to t he North. Fires to the South. And I read that some people are starting to wonder if the fires might merge. At which point I will be evacuating along with the rest of the city.

Personally, I think it's unlikely. As the weather cools and rain is forecast, fire containment by our firefighters seems the safer bet. Fortunately, it's not July right now, or I'd be pretty worried.

Well, more worried than usual.

My view on the way home yesterday felt like the End of Days.

A canyon outside of town is under immediate evacuation. Air tanker planes are flying overhead, shaking the house and freaking out the cats. The fire began 24 days ago. Now 31,000 acres are in flames. Winds are making containment difficult. We could really use rain... but I worry that it could come with lightning and start more fires...

I honestly thought we'd escape a major fire this season. Guess not.

The wildfire smoke was back with a vengeance this morning, which made for a miserable day. I masked up in a futile attempt to not end up with itchy lungs, which is the worst, but to no avail. I had to drive into the Big City after lunch and ended up pulling over on the way back to puke my guts out into my car's garbage bag. Doesn't get more fun than that.

After stopping by home to brush my teeth, I went back to work and felt like dying for two hours. Then I drove home and have felt like dying for four more hours.

The good news is that the Air Quality Index dropped from a hazardous 294 to a slightly less hazardous 257.

The bad news is that it will probably still be smokey enough to make me sick tomorrow.

Also the bad news... more misinformation bullshit has been unleashed upon an unsuspecting world... vaccines AND Tylenol causes autism now?!? God. I suppose not even the fact that the World Health Organization has declared there's no evidence of any of this will make no difference. Just throw it on the ever-growing pile of idiocy that's going to fuck over humanity. I mean, if people believe the earth is flat, they'll believe anything.

Meanwhile, I'm off to bed way too early in the hopes that I can somehow fall asleep so my lungs can clear out and not feel fuzzy and itchy any more. Where's my Tylenol PM?

And... fire season has arrived.

I honestly thought that we'd somehow get away without a local fire filling the valley with smoke. Fires were around us all Summer, they always are this time of year, but we never had such bad air quality that I ended up sick. Until today when I could barely function at work and had to leave for part of the day.

Allergies suck bad enough when it's pollen... but smoke? That goes past being uncomfortable to debilitating shades of misery and suffering. I feel my lungs itching from inside and there's nothing that can fix it. Breathing is tough. And eating anything more than crackers is impossible.

So here I sit confined to my house with air purifiers on full-blast and every entry sealed... eating soda crackers and drinking 7-Up Zero while trying to ignore the fact that I wish I could pass out from having been outside.

Hopefully things will clear up over the weekend so I won't have to go through this all over again on Monday.

And so I took a week off blogging. I have to take so many medications to function at work during the day that I have to stop taking them when I get home so that I'm not in a 24/7 stupor. It's very difficult to form coherent thoughts while coming off medications, coughing your head off, and having your nose and eyes running like a faucet.

Thank heavens I was smart enough to not post right away, but wait until morning so I could review what I wrote.

And I wrote such gems as "...wishing I had time off so I could take time to not have to worry about not having time to do stuff..." and "I wonder if I wonder the smoke will ever stop smoking."

And so I decided to have a one-week sabbatical, visit my sister (where it is significantly less smokey), and spare everybody my incoherent ramblings.

Which, admittedly, is a minor step down from the semi-incoherent ramblings I usually drop on Blogography, but a guy has to have his standards. Mine are low, but not in the basement. Yet.

We may get there in short order if I have to suffer through this wildfire smoke much longer.

It's frickin' October. Why are we still plagued with wildfire smoke?

Every morning I get up and look out the window to see how bad of a day I'm going to have with my smoke allergies. If I can see the hills clearly, I can get away with minimal drugs so I can breathe, speak, think, and live. But if I can't see the hills...

And it's supposed to continue all week. Oh what fun.

Once again my heartfelt thanks to those firefighters out there battling it out with the flames. Where would we be without you?

This morning the wildfire smoke was the worst it's been yet this year (no, I have no idea how this is the case in late September) so I closed off the catio. When I got home Jake was crying and crying and crying at the back door, so finally I was like "OKAY! Go outside! But I tried to warn you!"

After ten minutes, he was still out there, which bothered me greatly because his little lungs are more susceptible to smoke damage than mine, and mine were burning.

Eventually I shook the bag of treats to get him back inside. That's the one thing that's more of a motivator than anything else in his life.

Certainly more than me.

I have had enough of this smoke.

I guess you could say that it is looking a little better today, but the smell is still hanging in the air and the hills are still hazy. It would be nice if they could manage to get the wildfires contained... not just for my sinuses, but for all the little woodland critters that are being made homeless.

IN OTHER NEWS...
Since I can't go outside except to drive to work, I have been staying indoors huddled up next to my air purifiers and watching a lot of television. And holy crap have I got a winner. If you want to see one amazing television show, then tune into Netflix for лучше чем люди (which translates as "Better Than People," but has been retitled Better Than Us by Netflix). It takes place in the near future where robots are around to help humans... but a new kind of robot prototype escapes, and her programming is not like other robots!

This series is gorgeously realized. The tech that's integrated into people's lives all seems remarkably intuitive and real. The world that's been created is amazing... not so far from our own, but jusssst different enough to be fascinating. And the cast is incredible (the young girl who plays Sonya is so good). Seriously one of the best things I've watched in a minute. The more you watch, the more it sucks you in! I have no idea why Netflix didn't promote the heck out of this show. You can watch all sixteen episodes dubbed into English, but the original performances are so good it's better with subtitles.

You're welcome!