A trail cam update, featuring one photo from each of the usual suspects (minus a raccoon). Sadly the camera isn't able to capture the two deer fawn who were literally running all the way round my house as they were playing, which was utterly adorable.
... or is it side affects - I'm never quite sure. In the "industry", we call them adverse events. I was warned that the diabetes medication that I've started taking would have some gastroenterital side affects, and boy they weren't wrong. It's a good job that I haven't gone into the office yet since I started the medication. We are talking explosive diarrhea (yes, I know that is the American English spelling) and significant flatulence. It is not pleasant. But getting better as my body adjusts to the medication. And you have my word it is the medication causing this, and not any junk food I'm trying to cut down on.
A stretch of road near me has been fully closed since 20 June, and is not due to open again until the end of August. They are apparently replacing a culvert that is preventing the passage of fish. Not quite sure why it takes 2 months to replace a pipe, and why the entire road needs to be closed. Whatever. It's kind of a pain in the ass - it doesn't affect my commute, but does mean that I have to take long detours to get to some destinations like the supermarket or some of my regular hiking trails. But it has also caused a welcome reduction in the amount of traffic that goes outside my house (and, not coincidentally, a welcome reduction in the amount of litter!). With the road closure, people can no longer use my road as a cut-through. Let's hope it stays that way once the road reopens.
... it's also relics. Here are a couple I got recently:
These are not the best examples I've got and generally they kind of suck. For example I'd rather have a whole police badge than just a bit of one. But at least I know they're genuine and have actually appeared in a Bond film (and they're numbered, so they have some value).
Yesterday - in a word - sucked. 10+ hours stuck in waiting rooms and treatment rooms. Discovering (or, if I'm going to be honest, confirming what I already feared) that I am suffering from hyperglycemia. All the symptoms I've been experiencing over the last month suggested that. But I think I was in a state of denial and hoping it would just go away on it's own accord. But it didn't, so finally went to an urgent care clinic (essentially just a walk-in clinic). They checked my blood sugar level, and immediately told me I should go to emergency care. I did - and after an excruciating 3 hour wait, they finally took me into a trauma room (!) and hooked me up to a saline IV for a few hours to reduce my blood sugar level. Between urgent care and emergency care, I provided so many blood samples, urine samples, finger pricks. I'm actually dreading how much of this my health insurance is going to cover, and how much I'm going to have to pay for myself. And it's a sad indictment of the American healthcare system that I have to worry about that. Ultimately, I've started on a new diabetes medication, I've got a couple of follow-up visits already scheduled and will plan to have more regularly scheduled appointments going forward, and perhaps most importantly I need to improve my diet. Two major takeaways. Patience. You really need it when you're dealing with the healthcare system, especially emergency care. And sacrifice. Something I am going to have to do when it comes to my diet. Something I'm not going to be happy about, but realize it's necessary.
No blog post today, as I just got back from an unexpected and unwelcome visit to urgent care, and then emergency care. Details to follow (or not, depending on what I feel like sharing). But I'm home now in one piece - safe and well.
Ah yes, a classic theme from a classic early 90's Channel 4 game show with the best presenter ever.
It was highly recommended to avoid downtown Seattle this past weekend. Apparently the traffic was horrendous, and it was packed with people. And the reason why is really tragic. Yes, the Seattle Mariners were playing at home this weekend - but that was only a small fraction of the crowd. Nope, most people there were concert-goers. And who were they there to see? Clearly an artist of outstanding quality and fanatical levels of adoration. An artist who I don't care for, don't know or care for any of their songs, and even not hearing their songs I know they suck. Someone at the forefront of one of my least favorite genres of music - country pop. Yes, Taylor Swift was in town. And - taking a guess at the Taylor Swift demographic - I imagine downtown was packed with teenage girls and irritable dads having to shell out all their money on overpriced tickets and merchandise.
There seems to be a preponderance of bad British shows on American TV right now. Most of them I still watch - being the masochist I am - but even I have my limits. For example, I started watching The Lazarus Project but gave up after a few episodes. A very typical British sci-fi show - high concept, low budget. And it quickly went off the rails. And then we come to the British crime drama - normally a reliably safe viewing option. But there are a couple of stinkers airing right now. Ridley is a very bog-standard show. I like Adrian Dunbar in Line of Duty, but boy does he suck in this - and please for the love of god could he not be allowed to sing on this or any other show. DI Ray is another very derivative crime drama - with the added distinction of featuring some very poor acting. Yet all 3 of these shows have been unbelievably and inexplicably renewed for another season. What am I missing?! Have I become too Americanized that the Britishness of these shows no longer appeals to me? Or have my standards for judging the quality of a show increased? Or as I've got older, have my tastes become too refined and I no longer settle for some half-assed crap? Unfortunately with the writers/actors strike in the US severely affecting production, I fear things are only going to get worse.
Another nice day, so I was going to relax outside on my deck for a little bit. But when I stepped outside, things got awkward. I'm not sure the family relaxing in the shade of the nearby trees would appreciate my company.
Been seeing a lot of deer activity over the last few days. And given the nice weather we've been having recently, been wandering whether I should leave some water out for them.
Wow, literally as I'm writing this post this evening - look who I saw out of the corner of my eye going past my house. And I managed to grab a photo (even if it is kind of crappy - I need a new iPhone):
Do I think it's coincidence that I see this guy only a few hours after encountering the deer? Nope.
Will I be watching the Women's World Cup? Will I heck. Is it because the time difference is absolutely atrocious for watching most of the games? Is it because I don't need to see any more of the offensively xenophobic coverage of the "USWNT"? You'd think they'd already won it. Is it because the quality of football is so poor? Yes to all of those, but it's mainly because I simply don't care about women's football. I don't care how well England does or not. I don't care to watch any of the games (as I'm writing this, I believe the US game is airing live on one of the networks - but I haven't watched a single second of it). Does that make me a big sexist? Probably. But there are men's sports that I feel equal disdain for and that I refuse to watch - baseball being a prime example right now. I'm already fed up with the BBC Sports website confusing me with headlines about the Ashes but when I actually open the story it refers to the women's game. I care even less about women's cricket than I do about women's football.
I guess the fact that I’m writing this makes it obvious that I didn’t win the billion dollar jackpot last night. Oh well, perhaps the next time the jackpot gets above a billion dollars!
But on better news, I achieved something this week that I haven’t ever done before. Even though I should have. I, finally, reached a 100 day win streak on Wordle. It’s been a long time coming! I normally break a streak by forgetting to play on a day when I’m preoccupied with other stuff, but apparently not over the last few months. And it’s not like I’ve breezed through the Wordle every day – there’s been way too many times I only got it on the last guess (including today!). Am I sad for even thinking this is some kind of achievement? Probably.
We currently have 2 huge lottery jackpots up for grabs. The Mega Millions has a jackpot of about $720 million (5th largest ever) and the Powerball jackpot tonight is up to about a billion dollars (3rd largest ever). Cue loads of poor people spending all their hard-earned money on a minuscule shot of winning something. Plus me. I've bought a few tickets recently - but haven't even come close to winning anything, not matching on even a single number. But I'm not going to miss the opportunity, no matter how small, of totally changing my life for the better forever.
Watching, of all programs, Running Wild with Bear Grylls, I heard the word "cache" pronounced about 3 different ways. And I wandered which was correct. I have always pronounced it like cash, and I believe that is correct (confirmed by Google!). But in this same program I also heard it pronounced cashay and even caysh. What a stupid word to be so easily mispronounced.
A check of my trail cam revealed several suspects for who could have killed that bunny:
This evening, found the body of a dead rabbit in the far corner of my yard. It didn't look as though it had been dead long, and I couldn't tell the cause of death - probably one of the local predators I capture on trail cam (which reminds me I should probably check the camera for "evidence"). But the body didn't seem particularly defiled, which I might expect from a predator, so I really don't know. For some reason, it made me feel quite sad. Perhaps because this was probably the same bunny that I've become accustomed to seeing all the time, and that I scared off yesterday - hope that doesn't mean I was partially to blame for it's death. It's not the only rabbit I've seen around. Sometime last week, I counted about 5 rabbits between my house and my mailbox. So expect some other rabbit will take over it's territory - though the grass in my yard is very brown now so not exactly an abundant source of food.
Earlier this week, we were told that the Northern Lights would be able to be seen from Washington State tonight. Sadly, the aurora forecast cooled down and now I don't think we're going to see anything here. Which is a real shame, as we have perfect clear skies tonight. I've only seen the Northern Lights once, in Iceland, and that was a long time ago. So I quite fancied the idea of getting out of the city and viewing the lights (though where I would drive to is a good question - away from the light pollution, but do you go for high elevation or a north-facing body of water?). Even if the reality of seeing the Northern Lights is nowhere near as good as it looks in photos. But I hope there will be more opportunities with an active sun over the next few years.
They’re back. Perhaps they never went away. I am being woken up consistently now by the sound of crows in the trees outside my house. And we are talking sunrise early. 5.30am. It is ridiculous. I can even hear their squawking through the ear plugs I sleep in. I am seriously thinking about getting an air gun and seeing if I can frighten them away that way (just been looking at some guns in the Amazon Prime day sales, and they are not that expensive!). But these tall conifer trees that they perch on top of making their racket may be out of range for even an expensive air gun. They say that crows are intelligent. Perhaps they are purposely making my life a misery. After all, they must surely know I don’t like them. I chase them away whenever I see them by the bird bath or on my driveway. And I wave my dead crow deterrent at them when their noise gets particularly grating, which sometimes gets their attention but mostly they just ignore now. I don’t know how many there are – definitely a couple, plus some others. I know that when an eagle landed in a tree in my neighbor’s yard last week, it didn’t take long for about 20 to 30 crows to show up and start attacking and chasing it away. Evil things. And disgusting too. The last time I chased a crow away from my birdbath, it left behind a cube of meat that it had clearly pilfered from someone’s trash. I don’t care much for Americans’ love of hunting birds (or hunting anything really), but I would make a major exception for the crow.
A follow-up on bear sightings. In the area where that sign went up on the trail I use regularly, there was a local news article about it. Apparently they think there are at least 3 bears in that neighborhood. And they are attacking backyard animals. A pet goat has been killed, and some other backyard animals have been attacked. No humans yet as far as I'm aware, but it's only a matter of time if they don't get caught soon. The article said they have set up some bear traps. I imagine they are a kind of net trap with a picnic basket as the bait. (I'm quite pleased at being able to come up with a Yogi Bear joke!)
Washington hasn't been immune to the Canadian wildfire smoke. Nowhere near as bad as the Midwest or the East Coast, but the air quality has deteriorated this week. It's definitely been hazier when I go out for a hike. And I could really smell the smoke last night after what was the hottest day of the year. All the illegal fireworks and the smoke they created has not helped. In fact, we had some of the worst air quality in the US (and probably the world) on the morning of July 5th:
I need to check my trail cam more regularly, there were way too many photos to go through. Here are some (many) of the highlights from the last month.
A little bit disconcerting to be greeted by this sign at one of my regular hiking trails. It wasn't there a few days ago.
Now whenever I hear a branch breaking or a sound louder than the birdsong that normally accompanies me on this trail, I'm instantly on high alert. Made for quite a stressful hike!
I'm not sure this was a childhood favorite that I watched regularly, but I remember it being on. And I definitely remember that one of the main characters loves mashed potatoes.
Ah history - the subject that I wish I hadn't dropped at A-level after 2 weeks. My interest in history is definitely something I inherited from my Dad - and in many ways I wish I had pursued it academically. And I've been watching a lot of history videos on YouTube recently, and it has rekindled my love for the subject. Makes me want to go see more historical sites around the world. And this is where I regret being in the US and not the UK - the US may have some great geological and natural history, but the kind of history I like is political and military, and that is where Europe excels. It would be nice to visit a few more historical sites the next time I'm back in the UK - meanwhile here in Washington State, I should try to make it out to the San Juan Islands again with the aim of checking out the location of the Pig War (a US-UK confrontation in the mid-1800's where the only casualty was a pig!).
It's not 4th July yet, but I've already heard lots of fireworks going off over the weekend. Despite the fact that it's illegal. But what is utterly ridiculous is that you still see fireworks on sale. If you don't want people to set off fireworks, then don't tempt them by selling them here. It's a total lack of common sense. As are the idiots who set off fireworks when it's still light outside. What is the point of that. But what annoys me most is the total lack of enforcement by police on people setting off fireworks. If you don't bother to enforce the rules, then people will keep on breaking them. I see that some road signs have gone up mentioning the illegality of setting off fireworks, but I doubt it's going to make much difference. Nor is the fact that I've just been looking at the Snohomish County Interactive Fireworks Discharge Information Map (I live in Snohomish County), and I see fireworks are illegal all year round where I live but Bothell, which is nearby, actually has limited fireworks discharge allowed on 4th July. Which was unexpected to find out. I'm definitely going to hear that from where I live, so it's going to be another noisy 4th July. I should just go up to Canada to avoid all this nonsense!
