day 220 - just another day

 Today is the 3rd day of the 32nd week, the 8th day of the 8th month, the 220th day of 2023, and:

• Dalek Day - different from the December holiday as it celebrates the birthday of Terry Nation, who created the mobile saltshakers, celebrated since 2013 
• Digital Nomad Day
• Global Sleep Under the Stars Night
• Happiness Happens Day
• International Cat Day
• International Female Orgasm Day
• International Infinity Day
• National CBD Day - when I was in college, I really wanted to try smoking pot.  Now that it is legal and comes in other products?  not so much, worrying about allergic reactions 
• National Dollar Day
• National Fried Chicken 'n' Waffles Day - I have never had any desire to try this dish despite its ongoing popularity
• National Frozen Custard Day - we used to drive up to Harper's Ferry just to go to this little shop because it served real frozen custard, but that shop is long gone now.  No idea where you can get this since everyone seems to serve "soft serve" ice cream or yogurt these days
• National Mochi Day
• National Pickleball Day
• National Spam Musubi Day - apparently adding grilled spam to sushi rice is standard street food in Hawaii, and supposed to be eaten at room temperature  
• National Whataburger Day
• National Zucchini Day
• Odie Day - the puppy who appeared in the Garfield comics back in 1978
• Scottish Wildcat Day
• Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor's Porch Day
• The Date to Create
• Wear Your Mother's Jewelry Day
• last quarter of the moon at 6:29 AM EDT
• and Voyager 1 is 22h 12m 47s of light travel time from Earth 

Quote of the day:
"We are so obsessed with doing that we have no tie and no imagination left for being.  As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have - for their usefulness."

~ Thomas Merton,  American Trappist monk [later ordained], writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist, and scholar of comparative religion. 

My building is one of 76 high-rise apartment buildings in this county without sprinklers.  I find myself thinking about those two men downstairs that were taken out on stretchers with what the newscaster said were "life-threatening" injuries.  A woman nearby claimed she saw them close up, that at least one man was burned and bleeding.  They laid so still on the stretchers, and one was covered with a silver sheet instead of a blanket, drawn up to his chin.  Altho they lived right below me, I have no idea who they are.  I asked the fireman why their smoke alarms didn't go off.  "They did", he replied gently, "they couldn't get out".   What happened to them before my smoke detectors went off?   Would an automatic sprinkler system saved them?  Were they drunk or stoned and unable to wake up?  Were they stupefied by the smoke?  I have no idea where they were taken, or what has happened to them, and I can't seem to find out - I can only hope they pull through and are surrounded by loving family who are rooting for them.  Management has been silent but that is par for the course, nice folk but lousy communicators.

Ever since I was a child, when my mother leaned over a hot burner on the stove one morning, reaching for a cannister, while she was making pancakes, and set her housecoat on fire, I have harbored a fear of being burned.  My father ran into the kitchen and tore the the very flammable robe off her, and then we went to the doctors.  She suffered burns across her body, his hands were bandaged and he was off work while they healed, and then we went out for pancakes in a rare restaurant treat.  life went on.  After a nightmare or two [the most memorable being a volcano that formed and erupted in the field behind where I lived] I learned quickly that whenever flames appeared in my dreams, I woke up immediately - and I still do so to this day even if a character in my dreams just strikes a match.  

As for me?  The smell in the apartment has dissipated.  My door is still warped with no word from maintenance as to when it will be fixed.  There is also a small rip in the carpeting between the living room and the library where the fire department tore it up to make sure the subflooring had not caught fire.  It draws my gaze every time I walk past it.  I keep thinking of what could've happened, and what did happen to those two young men, and it makes me feel rather ill -  how I regret those 15+ minutes I stumbled about my apartment trying to grasp what was going on before I pulled it together and called 911.  And I am also feeling vaguely guilty because although I have talked about what happened online, I have yet to tell my kids, knowing that neither of them follow my social media or blog. 

Sunday seems so far away and yet it seems so close