Smoke
So, of course after I assured Charlie Martin last night that there was no forecast for smoke to move into our area, I woke to find the hills obscured by wildfire smoke this morning. I sort of had a feeling that would happen. In fact, when I read her the forecast for Homer, I mentioned that it didn't seem like the National Weather Service had even entertained the thought that the smoke along the west side of Cook Inlet might possibly move in here. They are whizzes at retroactive forecasting and never seem to pay much attention to what's happening down at this end of the Inlet anyway. We are fond of saying that the terminal forecast is only one amendment away from being accurate. Sorry if that sounds cynical but I have been burned too many times by bad forecasts--and the pilots tend to remember the person who told them the bad information--not the people who actually wrote it. The forecasters are safely insulated in their Anchorage offices from irate users who might want to complain so guess who gets to be the designated target?
Pilot reports all afternoon and evening from the other side of the Inlet had described smoke and haze reducing flight visibility to one to three miles and I had the sense that the smoke was drifting in our direction as I watched a haze layer creep up the Bay during the last few hours of my shift last night. By the time I was driving home, the mountains across the Bay were obscured below the 2,500-foot level--just the peaks floating above a silver-blue layer that melded with the water. So I wasn't surprised this morning to find we are smoked-in again. The winds are stirring about so they may help dissipate the smoke. We shall see.
So, I came home last night to several messages on the machine that I have to deal with today. The lady that has had our cat trap for the last four or five months was calling to complain about her inability to catch the cats in question. I don't know what she is expecting me to do--her roommate keeps feeding the cats in places other than the trap, so I suspect that for some reason the old woman doesn't want them to be caught. There's not much I can do in the face of that sort of sabotage. I wonder if I will ever get our trap back...
And a neighbor called wanting to talk to Dennis. I don't have the time or inclination to call people at ten-o-clock at night when I get home from work, so I'll have to get in touch with him today. It just hasn't sunk into this fellow's head that I work evenings...
I also need to get a space cleared for the hospice-case cat I will be bringing home from the Shelter this evening. I would like to put her in the downstairs room but someone has been spraying things down there and a strange cat--even one in a semi-coma--might be the straw that makes the little shits start spraying on the new bed and I don't want to chance that, so I'll probably put Bung-Bung in the bathroom. I'm surprised the poor thing is still hanging on and I had been secretly hoping she would pass on before her owner had to leave today, so the gal could have some closure. But Bung was still with us last night when I checked on my way home from work, so I guess I'll be nursing her until her situation resolves one way or another.
Pilot reports all afternoon and evening from the other side of the Inlet had described smoke and haze reducing flight visibility to one to three miles and I had the sense that the smoke was drifting in our direction as I watched a haze layer creep up the Bay during the last few hours of my shift last night. By the time I was driving home, the mountains across the Bay were obscured below the 2,500-foot level--just the peaks floating above a silver-blue layer that melded with the water. So I wasn't surprised this morning to find we are smoked-in again. The winds are stirring about so they may help dissipate the smoke. We shall see.
So, I came home last night to several messages on the machine that I have to deal with today. The lady that has had our cat trap for the last four or five months was calling to complain about her inability to catch the cats in question. I don't know what she is expecting me to do--her roommate keeps feeding the cats in places other than the trap, so I suspect that for some reason the old woman doesn't want them to be caught. There's not much I can do in the face of that sort of sabotage. I wonder if I will ever get our trap back...
And a neighbor called wanting to talk to Dennis. I don't have the time or inclination to call people at ten-o-clock at night when I get home from work, so I'll have to get in touch with him today. It just hasn't sunk into this fellow's head that I work evenings...
I also need to get a space cleared for the hospice-case cat I will be bringing home from the Shelter this evening. I would like to put her in the downstairs room but someone has been spraying things down there and a strange cat--even one in a semi-coma--might be the straw that makes the little shits start spraying on the new bed and I don't want to chance that, so I'll probably put Bung-Bung in the bathroom. I'm surprised the poor thing is still hanging on and I had been secretly hoping she would pass on before her owner had to leave today, so the gal could have some closure. But Bung was still with us last night when I checked on my way home from work, so I guess I'll be nursing her until her situation resolves one way or another.
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