My rabbit is shedding non-stop. This is very unusual at this time of the year. It is driving me crazy. I can't keep this tiny apt clean even though I clean it every week. His hair and hay eventually cover the entire square footage of the house by the end of the week. Maybe I'll hire someone to clean it.
I really like this weather, but at the same time I know it has very real consequences. Less than a week away and we had the October storm. I can't deal with that again. Anyways, it isn't just one particular day that has me worried, it is the consistency of the heat.
The storm last night is more typical of August weather. It was nice, but it lasted forever. I really couldn't sleep. My bed is right under a window and with the heat I couldn't bear to close it. That is one of my fears, getting struck down by lightning that comes through a window.
The air was not very breathable today. It was actually kind of gross and I had another hard day breathing. It wasn't ozone according to airnow.gov. It was particle matter. This was their warning for today that continues into tomorrow.
Unusually sensitive people should consider reducing prolonged or heavy exertion.
I suppose I am one of those unusually sensitive people that can smell toxins and pollutants in the air when a lot of other people don't notice. Personally I think the air is worse than their testing shows. I think their is something in the air here that isn't measured in in their tests, but nonetheless is pretty stank. I don't think that their is one particular source but really just a mixture of toxins from different factories that mingle with each other and create a nauseating cloud.
Sources
I just gotta say that I totally agree with paul about living on elmwood, but that my journal is not referring to the traffic. When I worked at coffee& on elmwood they had these glass tables outside that I cleaned with a white rag every morning. Every morning the white rag would turn black with suit after washing the glass tables.
What I refer to is when these weird chemically smelling gasses seem to get stuck in the atmosphere. I notice it more when we have thick cloud coverage or on days where the ozone might be high like intense heat days or days that are hazy. The chemical smell I am certain isn't produced by traffic but rather like jenks said something awful burning. I notice it much more when I am over at Target. The smell besides bothering my breathing (I don't have asthma) makes me feel ill and I get kinda pasty looking.
When I lived in Rochester, I never smelled these smells. Rochester by the way is one of the number one producers of dioxin in NYS because of Kodak. When I used to visit my sister who lived by Kodak park her area smelled kind of like bleach. To be honest it wasn't quite as bad as the smells I smell here during those off days.
If I had to guess, the smells are coming from factories in the area. Mostly from along the niagara especially towards Tonawanda. I think the GM Powertrain plant is probably one of the bigger polluters in the area but I'm no expert.
If I had the energy, I would record wind direction, environmental conditions and monitor factory activity to fully understand where the hell this crap was coming from.
(e:paul) you should see the dirt I clean off of my windows every spring.
I think the temperature for that water is officially nipply with a 80% chance of shrivelly later in the afternoon.
some mornings I walk out to my car to go to work- it's like 5:30 am and really calm and quiet out- and it just STINKS. Like some weird gross burning smell. I have no idea what it is, and no one else seems to notice it. And then the next day it will just be gone. No idea...
Sorry about poor Wab. Maybe he's too hot?
I really think it is where you live. Honestly, when we lived on the corner of lafayette and elmwood I had pretty bad asthma and used my inhaler. Now over on linwood I really never need it unless there are cats involved. At lafayette, there was a stop light. Truck, especially in the morning would idle and their puff of black smoke at about our bedroom window level. Living there, the air was freakin disgusting. I am very sensitive to that.
Think about how much pollution the cars on elmwood put out. I mean it is one massively busy street with tons of stops for people to idle at.
Various parts of a city have vastly different air, my suggestion is not to live next to live on our urban highway. Even a couple blocks away makes a huge difference when you think about exhaust and how it travels around.