Wildfires & Beautiful Things

Since June, it has been quite hot. Running outside is always a challenge for me when it is hot. This year for the first time in a long time, I have been able to motivate myself more and was able to actually run outside at an acceptable frequency.

Today, just like all the days before this week, I will not be able to run outside. Air quality issues. Again. Just like every summer for at least the last 4 years. It is hazy outside. You can smell the smoke. You can taste the smoke.

It ruins everything.

I am so furious because of the constant fires. The inability of the Canadians to contain those is absurd. Trust me, if I had a choice of choosing my cause of lung cancer induced death, I would almost always pick smoking cigarettes and not the wildfire smoke depending onto Michigan.

I feel cheated out of my summer, again. I can understand the sentiment of Trump and others wanting to punish the Canadian government for this. This is not normal and we should not accept this as the new normal. I sometimes think that the Canadian government and other people purposefully let this happen to use as ammunition in the fight against climate change. It is frustrating to me how many un-situations are excused and tolerated because of “climate change”. And it drives me even more mad when I read in some Reddit and other forums how we as US Americans need to stop complaining about the smoked because the poor Canadians have it worse. “… and it is even worse for the black and indigenous people, because… “ I forgot that reasoning.

I do not need to be empathetic all the time. I am not only allowed to hold people accountable for bad decisions and actions, it is my duty to hold people responsible and accountable for their role in society and the world.

And yes, Canada is indeed to blame.

I would not be myself, though, if I sat inside wallowing and ruminating on all these bad things happening because of feminized governments and people that want me to be empathetic to a point where I need to accept harm. The one thing I am not is someone that marinates in sorrow and bad situations. I am proactive to a fault.

To a fault manifests the following: Whenever I have a product that works for me, I stockpile it. For example, I now have about 10 cans of tomato paste in my pantry. I bought them in bulk. The same is true for my favorite soap. Recently, I switched over from body wash to soap bars as a form of reducing waste. Originally, I was a body wash believer and really thought that it helped my skin much better than soap, but since then I am true soap bar convert. It just feels better.

I recently also discarded all my plastic food containers and instead am using glass and metal containers to store leftovers. I use dish soaps and detergents that are better for the human body than Cascade is. Am I the only one who could taste the chemicals on their dishes and glasses that Cascade clearly leaves as residue? After drinking multiple disgusting tasting coffees over the years, I switched completely to Clean People and the bad taste is gone. I no longer feel like I am poisoning myself. The same is true for my laundry. I use detergent without ingredients that are harmful and instead I wash certain things hot like our grandmothers used to do to kill bacteria or viruses or to get the laundry cleaner.

Yes, I dare to wash my laundry hot. While I like reducing waste and toxic chemicals to my body, I am not absurdly obsessed with reducing my comfort and wellbeing in order to satisfy the climate change ideology. There is no contradiction in what I am saying here. Some things make sense, others do not.

Sure, I am not an idiot, I do not wash my delicates hot, but the clothes and linens that can be washed hot, I will wash hot.

Because it is also better for the washing machine in order to prevent mold and musty smells. My washing machine smells much better now that I do. I also use baking soda to enhance the laundry detergent and I always have a large container of 30% distilled vinegar in the house. That vinegar is diluted and used to spray the countertops in my kitchen every night when everything gets cleaned up. And I also use it for laundry occasionally. Vinegar and baking soda are household essentials.

I keep my house very clean. You could stop by and will find that there are no dirty dishes. No laundry lying around unfolded and most of my stuff is typically put away. I am a firm believer that an orderly house is a key enabler for solid mental health.

The wildfires put a big dent in my mental well being. I do not like to be confined to the house. I do not like the idea of wearing masks. I refused to wear masks and for all the Covid years, I basically avoided going shopping as much as possible. As someone wearing glasses, I hated how everything fogged up in cold weather. And I hated that I was never able to understand what someone was saying. To me, the mask was like the muslim veil, a visible sign of segregation of those that were followers compared to those that were considered bad and dirty. I hated every aspect of it. And I will do whatever I can to prevent any of this from happening ever again. And yes, this will include speaking out against the islamic influence we are seeing in the west. Islam is not compatible with our western values.

Yesterday, in my misery and because the smoke had lifted for a few hours, my husband and I decided to drive to a nearby Michigan village at the bottom of the thumb. The town we visited is a quaint little village with really old houses by the Michigan and American standards. You find houses built in the 19th century still used as shops and single family homes and a historical society who tries to keep old knowledge and wisdom intact. They help preserve old buildings and do events to bring history and modernity closer together.

Like most little towns in the US, you can find a lot of vintage and antique stores. This is indeed a very US thing. For example, Germans do not honor vintage and antiques as much as Americans do. I sometimes feel that Germans treat old things as trash and other than well preserved old houses often still standing from the Middle Ages, it is not very common to have antique furniture and tools still in use. There does not seem to be the same market for that.

Pottery seems to be also a very popular Michigan thing for artists to do. Yesterday, I acquired two birds made by a local artist.

My second weakness is that I — like a lot of the women in the last two centuries — love to collect animal figurines. I just recently inherited some of the collection from my mother in law. She liked birds that complemented my already quite excessive bird and animal collection.

When a neighbor moved a couple of months ago, she gifted us an old grandfather clock. Doesn’t it go well with our civil war wheel chair?

I like old things and have many items in my house that are more than 100 years old. Most of them are in active use. I do not believe in hiding old things away behind museum glass. I like to touch and feel. And it makes me very proud, when I can pull out some old dishes that has been used for more than a century. If — god forbid — we ever lose electricity for a certain amount of time, we can survive in my house. We have an ability to cook, heat, and create light without electricity.

What I learned throughout the years is that any type of negativity or backlash you may be experiencing needs to be proactively worked against. You feel sad? A walk may not take the sadness away, but it at least allows you to see things from a different perspective. When you feel trapped and stuck, visiting a new town or a new location will do wonders in inspiring you on how to get unstuck. If you feel lonely, just seeing some friendly faces out and about can ease the pain.

The benefit of small towns that seem to be forgotten in time is often that the people still operate with the social code of the pre-woke and pre-Covid era. This means, you can find people that are genuinely friendly and helpful. It is a refreshing step back in time and you can recover from whatever bullshit your city living may throw at you.

Today, I also had huge cravings to eat a traditional noodle salad. Since I had also hot dogs in the fridge I cut them up there too. And, because I felt like it I decided that my little dog needed a dog salad, too. So I made her one. I do not cook often for the dog or my cats. However, I firmly believe that the purchased food is not good for them. So the dog often gets an egg or some yoghurt to add some nutritional value to her diet.

Today, I made a noodle salad out of pasta, egg, tuna, and yoghurt for her. Here is she “helping”.

Happy Sunday to everyone!

And if it is not happy, what can you do to make it a teeny tiny bit happier? There is always something.