It is spring, and the farmers in Kansas are burning their fields. Air quality advisories for miles around, half way across all the neighboring states. Dry coughs all around. How do you tell an old lady she smells?

It’s bad every year, and worse, now that every cough and tickle foreshadows a lingering painful death.

Two of my co-workers went into self isolation, last week, and another one this week. Think of it as an unplanned vacation, where some people go home to play video games and smoke pot (no, I suppose I can’t blame that on Kansas.), and others have legitimate health problems, and I scramble to keep doing increasingly more work. To be fair, I think of taking some time off, too. High-stakes gaming theory. When am I most likely to be exposed and how much time can I have off from work?

I am on virus patrol. I collected my mask, my gloves, and my snazzy new infra-red, no-touch thermometer this morning. (I highly recommend the no-touch techno-thing, BTW. It is so fast!)

All the real health-care workers are busy, but I can read a digital thermometer, so there I am.

Aside from the fact that I am now actually doing something to stop the spread of the virus (always a plus) the new assignment gives me plenty of time to… work on my own projects? Yeah. I had to read that twice, myself.

I’m reading Neverwhere. And also, working on my own ghost story.

Silver linings everywhere.