August 1, 2008
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What’s in the air?
I know there are mold spores and pollen blowing around on these windy days we’ve been having since the rain stopped mid-week. The soil is wet enough so that not as much dust as usual is blowing in the wind, but there is some of that, too. Glacial silt is fine, and easy to stir up with just a little breeze. Then there is the volcanic ash. Millennia of volcanic activity have provided plenty of that.
Yesterday, with my eyes burning, throat tickling and lungs working hard, I thought I smelled something unusual. It could have been an olfactory hallucination. My sense of smell is a sometime thing, so I often can’t be sure whether I’m smelling or imagining. The only way I could describe the odor to Doug, when I asked if he smelled it, was, “like Yellowstone.” Okmok volcano, currently active, is nowhere near here, and AVO‘s ashfall alerts have never extended this far, but I suppose that some of the gas and ash could have gotten here on the wind.
Excuse me… basic needs: food, water, air… are more important to me right now than blogging. Seeya later.
Comments (8)
I’ve never heard of an olfactory hallucination :goes to Wikipedia:
I don’t require those basic needs, I am a computer generated whack job… LOL! I can smell though, and have occasionally had what I might consider an olfactory hallucination, or maybe a recollection of something from the past. I think they used to call those flashbacks. Remember that word? Wow, they had some real ideas back then.
Hugs, Tricia
i am feeling pretty puny today, too. did not even do my workout at the gym. i figured if warming up on the elliptical for 5 minutes pooped me out, i might as well go home…
We still have ash from the Big Sur fires that burned for what?..five weeks I think. You’ll probably find out that the winds have carried something your way.
It sometimes feels like the whole us is on fire so maybe it wasn’t an olfactory hallucination but actual ash from some fire or volcano somewhere!
I’ve never smelled Yellowstone…but I have had olfactory malfunctions as my nervous system recovered from chemo. My sense of smell returned slowly and I had olfactory hallucinations. Like, I’d walk into a room and smell bananas or burning logs
Be safe and well.
has sinus surger in 92 that took my smell … sadly I have smelled nothing since