B Flat

This morning was lovely. A great day to be alive, until, that is, I looked out the window and could barely see my backyard. I wondered first if the window was fogged up from showering, but it’s not winter so it shouldn’t be fogging from a small amount of warm, humid air. I looked out more windows, but they all looked back at me with the same blank, greyish-white look. Similar to the look I’ve seen in people’s eyes when I’m verbally boring them on a topic of zero interest, only to find out later that they had cataracts. Speaking of zero interest, we look forward to the day when interest rates come down again. But I digress.

The wildfires burning north of us must have reduced to a smudge, as the smoke is so thick you can barely see the curb on the far side of the street. Unless, of course, it’s fog mixed with the smoke. It could be that the clouds were getting lonely and wanted to come down to say hi, much to everyone’s annoyance.

From what I’ve read recently, the fires around Yellowknife have updated their status to “Being Held”, so that’s nice. Maybe holding the fires will help them calm down a bit. It works for my little daughter, and she can be fiery and intense sometimes. At least the fires are no longer advancing on the city. It’ll be yet a little while before people can go home, though, as the essential services (déjà vu, anyone?) need to be fully functioning before residents return: grocery stores, fuel stations, etc.

Further south, but still north of us remote northern creatures, poor Hay River seems to be getting fired from all sides but the lake. Here’s hoping they can get it held as well so the town doesn’t suffer too much more loss.

Enterprise, on the other hand, is not. As in 90% of it is ash and dust and burnt out remnants. I’m curious what and how it’ll be rebuilt. It’ll definitely keep some people busy for a while.

Suffice to say, it’s been a wild ride this summer. Smoky, too.