Weather Update: Not That Bad After All (With Romanian Culture Note)

Well, maybe I overspoke: by twilight last night, the smoky inversion layer over Palookaville seemed to have lifted, and this morning bids fair to be, I guess you would say, almost fair (we've gone so far as to dare to open a window).

We celebrated the irrelevance of my Romania joke by watching 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (link), which sounds like it ought to belong at or near the head of anybody's life list of edifyingly dreary movies: abortion under Ceauşescu!--right up there with Salaam Bombay, not far behind Dead Men Walking!--you'll be hummin' the tunes on your way home from the theatre! It wasn't that dreary, really, thanks to some flawless acting, lots of photography that was surely imaginative (if a bit showy) and a plot that wasn't quite as hackneyed as you might have expected. Still, there were moiments when I went plunging into the sofa cushions to find out whatever happened to Sound of Music.

Still Smoky Here

Back from sunny, balmy, Portland, into the haze smoke of the California Central Valley, we feel a bit like a UN delegate from Soviet Romania when he got ordered home from the East River to Bucharest. We are pleased to note that the town of Paradise is still standing; at least we enjoy momentary relief from all those headline riffs on "Paradise/inferno."

Holiday

We're off to San Francisco for a bit of opera and to catch up with some friends. We planned this months ago but it couldn't be more convenient: here on the flat of the Sacramento Valley floor, we are under an inversion layer of smoke for an unexampled ring of forest fires in the foothills and mountains that surround us on three sides--and we are only at the beginning of the fire season. We've mostly stayed hunkered down inside the air conditioning for the last couple of days. I did venture forth to the super market last night, where I saw a couple of people wearing breather masks. So, a good time to go gaze at the Pacific. Probably no more posting until Monday but meanwhile, you can follow the fires here. Thanks for the pointer to a somewhat ambivalent Yves Smith.