Smoke from fires in Canada and parts of northeastern U.S. is spreading south over much of the Midwest, Ohio Valley, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, bringing milky-white skies and dangerous air pollution to the most populous corridor of the country. Fine particles contained within the smoke, hazardous to breathe, have prompted air quality alerts for tens of millions of people. With my lungs chugging along at 21% of capacity I’m one of the people those alerts are aimed at. It has NOT been fun.
Simply moving around has been a struggle. Never the less, I got a lot of stuff accomplished in the first three days of the week.
Major League Baseball has cancelled several games due to poor air quality.
On Monday I got insurance for my SUV so I could get legal here in Ohio. I’m paying just a hair over half of what it was costing me down in The Swamp off the Saint Johns River in DeBary, FL. Then, filled with fear and trepidation I headed over to Bryan, county seat for Williams County, to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Let me tell ya, they could teach the people at the Florida DMV a thing or two about how to run an operation. However, I have to be honest and say the Florida people are dealing with a huger hoard of people, many of them who are probably armed since Wretched Wrong DeSantis signed a law permitting “concealed carry” without a license. I was able to transfer the title to the SUV from Florida to Ohio and got the beast registered without incident.
Getting a driver’s license is a real hassle, though. The supposed “authenticated” license the Sunshine State issues isn’t worth squat to the Buckeyes. I have to provide them with a certified copy of my birth certificate…Ordered over the internet. Then I have to show them my Social Security card. That’s another hassle because I haven’t seen mine in years. Also, when I got my first SS card it said, right on the bottom, “Not to be used for identification.” Times have changed. I tried to get a replacement on line, but the app kept saying it couldn’t verify my address here. So that meant a trip to Defiance to the Social Security office.
In the evening I called the reptile who carried my insurance and canceled. I’m getting a refund…a whopping $4.06!!! Can’t even get a Happy Meal at McDoo Doo’s for that.
On Tuesday I had an introductory appointment with my new doctor. First time I’ve had a woman. She was pleasant and attentive. Changing a couple of the meds I’ve been taking. One, the Metoprolol for blood pressure, lessens the effectiveness of the albuterol I take for my breathing a bit and I’m going back on Lisinopril which I was taking prior to the Metoprolol. Also getting Albuterol with an added ingredient for the nebulizer.
Today, Wednesday, I headed out for the Social Security office. The mapping app on my phone offered three choices…basically a big circle with a slash down the middle. I use that road most of the time when I go into Bryan to do my shopping and pick up my meds at the Wally World there. Two parts of the ride were interesting. On the way down I had to make a turn and head East on US Route 6. If I’d continued on it for a couple or three days I’d have come to within a half mile of the house I grew up in in Orleans on Cape Cod. Route 6 runs from Provincetown on the Cape to Santa Barbara, California.
My first reaction when I got to the location was “Oh, crap!” I thought the place was closed. There wasn’t a single car in the parking lot. But it was open and, besides the security guard, there was no one else in the waiting room. Before I could even sit down I was called to a window where an attractive young lady took down the information needed to get a replacement card. At the end I was asked if, “under penalty of perjury” I swore that all the info I’d provided was true, I said, “Sure. Why not?” She laughed so hard she almost choked. I hope that made her day.
On the way back to what is now home there was a brief leg on iconic Route 66. Everywhere along the route you could see the haze created by the fires hovering over the fields where sprouting corn is turning the once brown acres green.
When I returned to the house in Mount Peculiar I found that Vicki and her son Nick had installed my new a/c in the window of my bedroom. Now I can hole up here insulated from the poisonous atmosphere.
One More Good Adventure 
Where is the boat? When did I miss the change?