Sunday

For the second week in a row, smoke from nearby wildfires has kept us from our Sunday brunch and stroll. The afternoon is an orange haze burning away a thin white morning fog of dust. I've been coughing all week, but given my, er, history it's the nosebleeds that are the most terrorizing. The smoke keeps Eric at the edge of his migraine on top of everything else. The air we are breathing is a poisonous cloud of human tragedies... My class could conceivably be canceled Monday (school shut down both Thursday and Friday but those are not teaching days for me), but we are approaching the chaos of end of term and students are already falling off the edges of the map and deadlines are getting plucked like violin strings. Thanksgiving is the furthest thing from my mind, hoping the holiday break in three weeks will bring a measure of relief...