goodnight kitty
The weather forecast keeps promising that the winds will shift and take this fucking smoke away from Seattle -- it's been ongoing for well over a week now -- and I'm right sick of it. As of right now, tomorrow's forecast moves from today's "Smoke" to simply "Areas Smoke," but I've heard that song before. I still keep hoping.
They've been providing face masks at the front desk at work, and yesterday I finally took them up on the offer. I can't come up for any good reason why this should have happened, but as I rode my bike home with that mask on, I felt super self-conscious about it -- even though several other people outside had masks of varying types over their faces, and even though the vast majority of people outside did not, none of them paid me any mind or gave any shit about it. It was just a very new experience for me, and I guess that alone can trigger such a response. I was pretty well over it by the time I was, say, three quarters of the way home, though. I even stopped to snap that selfie.
Besides, I'm really stuck on the article I read that said breathing this smoke is like smoking seven cigarettes, and how the smaller the particulates the more dangerous they are, and can even be linked to cancer. Yeesh. (All further supporting my assertion that Shobhit is wrong about the car's air conditioning being worse, by the way.) Furthermore, not only did I ride my bike home, but then I rode it back down to Lower Queen Anne again to take myself to a movie, and then rode it back home again. For all three bike rides I wore the mask. The air was thick with smoke the entire time, and continues to be as I type this. It's awful and disgusting and I hate it. I even created a small photo set on Flickr just for pictures of this seemingly endless wildfire smoke around the city, with another 3 on my phone that I still need to add to it.
The movie I saw last night was called Puzzle, and I liked it fine but still wished it were better. Solid B, mostly for the wonderful actors -- I already knew Kelley Maconald was in it, but I had no idea Irrfan Khan was in it until he appeared onscreen. That was a pretty delightful surprise, actually. I really like him -- and I have always though Kelley Macdonald was a great actor as well.
After getting home, I wrote the review, barely more than 500 words so a fair amount shorter than usual, but I was satisfied with all I said about it so felt no need to pad it. I was getting ready for bed soon after.
Shobhit and I have this new habit with the cats -- or, specifically, with Shanti. Guru can nearly always be counted on to get into bed with us as soon as we go to bed -- or even when I go to bed, really. But when both of us are there, he loves to sleep between us. His position always depends on my position in the bed, though, and if I am on my back or on my left side, he always hops over to my left side. I always fall asleep on my right side, though, and as soon as I move into that position, he comes to my right side so then he's between Shobhit and me. Guru just always has to be wherever I am facing.
Shanti is a little different. Our new habit is to pick her up and bring her to the bed, because rarely will she come to bed with us when it's bedtime, the way Guru almost always does. But now, I'd say 4 out of 5 times when we pick up Shanti and put her on the bed, she does stay and even lays next to me and purrs for a bit. She tends to stay on my left side regardless of my position; she never comes to lay between us -- although sometimes she'll lay down on Shobhit's side of the bed if he's not there.
She must have missed me last weekend for some reason, though, even though I was gone for all of one night (though still the better part of two days). On Sunday night, she did hop up onto the bed of her own volition as soon as I went to bed, mewing at me for affection as she purred next to me and I fell asleep. It was very sweet.
[posted 12:50 pm]