Monthly Archives: August 2018

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Rocket’s existential crisis

I did not take this photograph. My son Trey did. This is Rocket, one of his pet rats. Apparently my son had to lie in wait for just the right moment, when Rocket was resting.

Yes, some days feel like this. Lying there, eyes open, hands empty, feet limp, head on a brick…. some days feel like a cage… some days I need a brick….

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Ms Boa signifies

Ms. Boa looks the way I have felt this week. And hearing that Aretha Franklin died, I think this expresses my mood.

This is for the Ragtag Daily Prompt: respect. Respect for loss, grief, and cat knowledge too.

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Princess Mittens, the cat on the left, is gone. One day she was in the living room, sitting under the vent and staring up at it. I finally paid attention and realized why.

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There was a bat in the vent. I could see claws. Ms. Boa became very interested too.

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We did get the bat out, by opening the windows upstairs and the vent. Keeping the cats downstairs.

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Ms. Boa was sad when our other cat was killed by a car.

Thank you so much for the music, Aretha Franklin.

 

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forest fires and your lungs

Our air quality is still bad today. I got my first alarm on my cell phone for bad air quality yesterday: the first time in 18 years.

Here are some links regarding forest fire smoke and your lungs:

Forest fires and Respiratory Health Fact Sheet: here. This pdf has other links at the bottom.

Breathe: the lung association: here. A Canadian site. Good, short and clear.

American Lung Association: How wildfires affect our health.

Fire fighter health: US Forest Service. Effects of Smoke Exposure on Firefighter Health

The photograph is not a fire: it’s a sunset in Hawaii.

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freedom

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt #76: freedom.

Immigrant children separated from parents and placed in “camps”. This is concentration camp, jail. They have not been returned to their parents: https://www.npr.org/2018/06/19/621065383/what-we-know-family-separation-and-zero-tolerance-at-the-border. This is a horror committed by my country. Return the children to their parents.

The deer were in the empty lot across the street from my clinic yesterday. Both fawns went to check in with their parent when I got out of the car with my camera. Imagine the terror of a small child whose parents have been taken away.