NOzone

I do not have much to contribute about the much-publicized ChemCentral explosions and fire yesterday, smoldering into today, except that you might want to check up on their usual environmental scorecard.

The smoke seemed to move up high and then to the south and west, and somehow, I never smelled it.

It was bad to breathe it in, just as breathing burning mineral spirits would be on any given day, but the EPA gave us the "all clear" for being outdoors. The school district evacuated a bunch of elementary schools; three are still closed today - one is just up the street.

I'm sure I'm safe because I'm older than an elementary school student.

My photos also have little to contribute to the masses of them already online, but my perspective is my perspective. Yesterday, that perspective was Kessler Park.

This is Carlos, who was giggly and wearing only two button-up shirts. No hat, coat, gloves. He asked if I spoke Spanish. A lot of people ask me that, and I always say the same thing, feeling shy and awkward: "I know some, but you know some English, too."

The other day a high school girl asked me the same thing. She wanted to rely on a friend who knows both languages well, but in the middle of our conversation, when trying to answer my question about what store her parents had at the Super Flea, she was impressed that I knew "zapatería" without assistance.

It's no big deal. I wish we all didn't feel so dang shy.

The only two humans to talk to me on the hill yesterday afteroon were guys, of course. One tall black one and one short Carlos. Flirtation, apparently, knows no boundaries. (I didn't initiate the conversations. I ended them by being the first one to move - away). The pretense they both took was that it seems weird for a solitary female without a camera crew to be catastrophe-gazing. "Did you get out of school early today?" the first asked. We chatted a little about "the fire," he took a call, etc.

Carlos said I looked younger than I said I was. Asked if I was married. Did we have kids. He also said, in reference to the smoke pouring out of the factory in the bottoms below us, "The Earth is tired."