Smoke and More Smoke and Smog
That’s pretty much Portland the past three days. Today damp fog arrived turning all the smoke that continues to pour into the area into dense smog. When I took the dogs out for a bedtime potty I thought my glasses were terribly smeared, but I wasn’t wearing them and it was my halal light hitting all the particulates in the air.
Getting our worst spots sealed Thursday night has been a huge help. A friend of mine posted that she was awakened at 3am by her in home smoke detector going off! Even though it doesn’t smell like smoke, we’re having headaches and my eyes burn nearly all the time. I’m just tired all the time too.
Dora even woke up lethargic and didn’t want to eat! Given how sick Obie is, this made us both feel overwhelmed and doom-y. We put her back into the bedroom, where we’ve covered over the air vents and put a towel at the bottom of the door to make it our cleanest room. After a few hours she woofed to come out, finished her breakfast, drank water, and then went outside to pee. E we both felt much better after that!
Bertie is lethargic too. They both sneeze in the moments we go out. They’re only going out to do business then right back in. It’s bad enough they aren’t super interested in being out. Obie doesn’t seem to notice, we think that’s because he’s on steroids!
A friend in California sent me a thread of suggestions to help improve indoor air quality. The idea is to increase the humidity by making swamp coolers (a fan blowing over a pan of water), also circulating the air. This makes smoke particles heavy so they go to the floor. It also helps soothe skin, eyes, nasal passages, etc.
I did this all over the house, including the smoky downstairs, and it’s helping a lot! CK might even be able to work at her desk tomorrow, it’s been that effective on the smoke that came in Thursday. I also put on a big pot to simmer with several herbal tea bags.
Doing all that left me feeling kind of lousy the rest of the day. We spent some extra time in the clean bedroom air too, trying to keep headaches at bay.
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