Thursday, January 22, 2009

Burn, baby, burn

So I'm real sick and there is no food and things in our house are very sad. But the fun doesn't stop there. Our mountain home is in bad shape, too. Utah and Salt Lake counties currently boast the worst air quality in the nation and it is so gross outside that I am occasionally moved to tears of desperation and disgust. The pollution is so horrendous that it is as if the whole valley is sitting around a campfire, except instead of logs we are burning petroleum and coal. Yuck. It's not safe for kids to go outside and I am pretty convinced it is a contributing factor to the hacking cough that has been keeping me up at night.

If you are interested in helping get signatures for a petition sponsored by Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment and Utah Moms for Clean Air in protest of building ANOTHER coal plant in Bountiful just post a comment and I will email you a copy. It is easier for swingin' singles and students to get lots of signatures fast than it is for docs and moms! Tell your friends! Your swingin' single friends!

Tonight I came home from class and made a beeline into the house, trying to breathe as little as possible. I made some just-add-water (still vegan, high in sodium) dinner for Ryan and then went to visit my sister-in-law and niece in the neighboring building. When I returned an hour later it smelled more like burning inside my building than it did outside which, in these circumstances, is not good. And I knew.

Ryan's vegan, high sodium dinner was reduced to charcoal and our apartment was filled with smoke. Thank goodness I came home earlier than expected--I can only imagine how few minutes remained until the sprinklers went off. You see, I thought I had left the pot on the still-warm-but-turned-off stove to continue cooking for the last few minutes, but instead I had left the stove set to medium.

Being sick does not improve brain function.

Now I am sitting in a sauna of carcinogens. The sliding door is open to let the dinner smoke out (and the pollution in.) I am an idiot. An idiot well on her way to emphysema.

Sign my petition. And bring me dinner. We are hungry.

3 comments:

missy. said...

i wish i lived close by so i could come bring you some nourishing soup. i'm sorry you've been sick for so long. i owe you soup.

ixoj said...

Hmm...I'm tempted to try this idea of rum on myself...though alcoholism most defintiely runs in my family as well...

i hope you feel better soon.

Julie said...

I want to sign the petition immediately. And I need your address all of our holiday greetings have been returned to us.