Open Windows
Saturday, September 26, 2020 at 3:47am
I posted a release announcement for Beati Qui Inveniunt Feles yesterday, one week after the ebook’s release. That post marked the end of a near-three-week hiatus of new additions to this blog.
On September 9, Seattle experienced the first wave of smoke from our state’s active wildfires. On September 12, to add insult to injury, a low pressure system over the ocean to our west began diverting and dumping California and Oregon’s wildfire smoke directly onto us as well. The result was a period of about ten days in which the atmosphere in Seattle was literally toxic.
One of the great joys of living the Pacific Northwest is the moderate climate. The temperature rarely drops below freezing, and the summer highs rarely get above 32°C. Even when temperatures do get that high, you can rely on evening ocean breezes to cool things off. For this reason, it has been unusual (until very recently) for living spaces, particularly apartments such as mine, to possess air conditioning. The ritual of opening one’s windows in the early morning to cool things off is sometimes referred to as “northwest air conditioning.” It works pretty well. However, it assumes one in capable of opening one’s windows.
During a smoke event of such magnitude, however, one discovers just how disgustingly stuffy an unventilatable apartment can become, even if the outdoor temperature remains relatively mild. By the time I realized that the smoke was not going to get blown away anytime soon, the run on air purification devices had already begun. At the time of this writing, I still have not received the order I placed for such devices on September 14, although the smoke did finally clear this past Saturday.
Sitting in an apartment breathing rank, stale air (the only other option being the toxic outdoor air), was not an environment conducive to my creative energy, or even just concentration of any sort. At least not during the event itself. It might just spawn something now that I am back in action. We shall see.
