Monday: One Thing
The sunrise was red and black and clear, but I was hesitant to go outside on 7H porch this morning because last evening Red Tide was evident in dead fish floating along the Bay edge, and also in the air and in my nose and throat. Red tide at higher concentration is toxic for humans, extremely offensive, causes stinging, choking breathing. Some years ago I officiated a wedding planned for the beach, at the Gulf shore, that had to be moved to an indoor chapel because red tide made the air impossible to breathe within about a quarter mile of the shoreline. Below (scroll down) is the latest FWC red tide report, which arrives frequently by email. The report is free by online subscription, and if I were planning a vacation trip to PCB I would want to keep up with whether red tide was going to be a problem - - for anyone, but potentially critically for anyone with respiratory issues.
Other activities this morning, reading an article about the moon
(Genesis: the lesser light),
its origin a result of an event billions of years ago when a Mars-sized object collided with Earth. "Where was the actual impact?" is a good question, and How can we tell? and Why wasn't Earth simply pulverized? And also, is the moon a broken off chunk of Earth or is the moon what's left of the Mars-sized incoming? Lacking hands to reach out, grab things and smack them together, Παντοκράτορα creates by Word alone, thinks or mutters יְהִ֣י and it's so. Fascinating! yeh-HEE!! and it happens, a huge object crashes into Earth, creating our moon and continuing the process that makes life possible here. God the Father, who speaks Hebrew.
Word, the philosophical term for all this creative activity and its prime mover is λόγος because God the Son, Logos, the Word of God, speaks Greek. Jesus of Nazareth, the Incarnation of the Word, spoke only Aramaic so far as we know. Well, wait a minute: IDK. He unrolled the scriptures and read to the congregation in synagogue: it could have been written in Aramaic. If the scroll was the Septuagint he obviously read Greek, maybe spoke a little koine Greek to converse with the occupiers. Or, if the synagogue's scrolls were original language, he obviously read Hebrew; so I'm not sure. In fact, I'm certain of nothing. There will be the usual pious cuckoo insisting that Jesus knew everything and read and spoke all languages, but ἐνανθρωπήσαντα he was made man, he became human and lived solely in a strip from Galilee to Judea as a man of that day and age. I mean, the Christ poem in Philippians says he emptied himself of his godhead, therefore he was not walking around knowing everything, not even how to speak and read every language on Earth, eh?
See? whether speaking or writing, my major problem is that I ramble. And if I ramble long enough and far enough and don't realize it, I have no idea what I was talking about in the first place, and I lose my antecedent.
It's delightfully cool outside, but I'm staying inside because of the red tide, and taking care to keep the doors closed so it doesn't seep into the condo. At level 7, we're above mosquitos, but we're not above red tide, as I said, I've already sniffed it. There seem fewer dead fish this morning though, so maybe Bay County waters will be spared a high concentration.
See what I mean about rambling? Right now I'm sitting in my office/study/den while my laptop recharges, because my CHF has my feet swelled up to bursting so I can't even wiggle my toes, so I'm loaded up with FuroForty and staying near the bathroom;
but it's cold in here because our HVAC has been broken for two or three weeks waiting for a part that's probably sitting on a ship offshore of Los Angeles waiting to be unloaded next summer. Our air conditioning company, very kind though not as organized as my last a/c company, has installed a couple of portable air conditioners in 7H to tide us over - - and the cold is "spotty", warm out in the hall but cold in this small room, so I have my lap robe over my legs and feet.
Back to battery. I started this morning with astronomy, an interest that began during elementary years at Cove School and, intensifying our three years living on a high hilltop in Yokohama, Japan, was my prime interest for long years. Cars also a lifelong interest, automobiles, I've owned and loved dozens of cars and trucks, some 75 of them over my lifetime, enjoy a small collection of scale model cars, and have an old collection of car brochures that I started in 1947. Right now my lust could be for a 1947 Ford pickup listed for auction
but there ain't no way, and besides, I'm happy with my sixteen year old SRX V8. 70k miles, cold AC, and always garaged.
So my meandering Monday wanders through my major interests, the delights of my life. First and foremost, the people in my life. Cars next. Then, as Eucharistic Prayer C has it, "the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses".
Then finally (WTH, I'm 86 so I guess this is "final") fewer "things of this earth" and more "things that shall endure", although I'm pretty iffy about the latter. My hobby has worked around to what kept me from ever hearing a boring sermon all my growing up years in the Episcopal Church: my nose in, eyes and mind on, books from the pew rack in front of me during sermons. BCP, Hymnal, Bible, theology.
So, my favorite thing to do anymore is leading our adult Sunday School class. Before this, it was the Mid-Week Bible Studies that I led for years in town and at my beach church. Before that, many years as a mentor in our EfM program that studies OT, NT, church history, theology, and the practice of theological reflection on life itself. Being more retiring than not these days, I guess it's mainly bible and theology now.
So to be specific. Yesterday in Sunday School we talked about Job, the OT Book of Job. Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a far away land, there lived a blameless man whose name was Job. He was so blameless that Satan couldn't stand him, so Satan persuaded God to conspire against Job to see if Job could be tempted to sin. God was convinced NO, Satan was certain (as satanic things are always certain) that YES, Job could be led into temptation and sin.
As it turns out Job is clean and God was correct about Job, if not right in an ethical sense: the Job story leaves God standing in an even darker light than does than the Genesis story of the near Sacrifice of Isaac. Maybe Carl Jung was right that Calvary was God's penance for God's abuse of Job (though Jung seems to have taken Bible stories more literally historic than I do). If your piety prevents you from "seeing" this, if Job's defensive harangue at Job 13:6f ("are you going to keep on lying ‘to do God a service’? to make up stories ‘to get him off the hook’? Why do you always take his side? Do you think he needs a lawyer to defend himself?") (The Message), if that harangue is to you as God's apologist, you might not feel at ease in our Sunday School class. But if you are a Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank God Almighty, Free at Last self-thinker, you might enjoy our Sunday School class where the Job drama puts God himself on the stand for examination and cross examination as a hostile witness.
Our Sunday School class is often a no-holds-barred wrestling match. Nobody has to wear pious personna as a submissive sanctimonious soul. We are a class of intelligent people set free to express what we "REALLY suspect but always hesitated to say out loud" as opposed to the dogmatic utterings of old men. In Sunday School, even I occasionally let it slip that I like to do my own seeking of the Truth come what may, cost what it will, that I don't believe what you say you believe or, indeed, anyone else's dogma! That these things leak out to the public via the electronic ether is a fact of modern life!!
Until covid introduced livestreaming of our Sunday morning hour sessions, we were, like "What's Done in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas", sort of "What's Said in Sunday School Stays in the Library". I pray no one is offended by what they hear us say in Sunday School, but we wear neither mask nor muzzle! And a fact of life in this twenty-first century is that the notion of religious Heresy is as obsolete as burning at the stake.
Last of all in this occasional Monday Meander, maybe it's time for the Truth. In spite of all I said above, my favorite thing to do, at least now at eighty-six nomesane, is eat. Fried mullet, fried oysters, raw oysters, linguini carbonara, rare prime rib, rare steak, sharp/stinky cheeses, anchovies, chocolate, chopped liver pate, ground sirloin seared quickly on both sides and served raw in the middle with plenty of salt and a glop of mayonnaise, ricotta cheesecake, deer sausage, German bread, French bread, fried eggs, lamb, scrambled cheese eggs, pork chops, fried grouper sandwich, German mustard, cheese grits, steamed shrimp, ham, baked red snapper, shredded ralston that no longer exists, lemon pie, German's chocolate cake, coconut cake, vanilla ice cream, liverwurst, warm stuffed eggs, broccoli, dark chocolate cake, pulled pork, sticky pudding, whipping cream, cauliflower, heavy thick oatmeal with cream, baked beans with bourbon, maple syrup, and crispy bacon on top, poached salmon, okra, maple syrup, sushi, ... ad literally infinitum. Dry red wine, gin, Islay scotch, a dirty martini after church, unsweetened ice tea, ... thus, my lifetime weight problem. At the moment, and ongoingly from Time to Time, I'm trying to lose some weight so as to give my heart a chance against the CHF. It's not very interesting, but I can do it, I've found out in life that I can do anything I set my mind to. The trouble with my mind is that my heart isn't in it. And living here in St Andrews I can see Captain's Table and Hunt's Oyster Bar and Shrimp Boat, Alice's, and Uncle Ernie's right out the window from here where I'm sitting.
We are to the point in life where we can only do One Thing A Day. Sunday morning church is One Thing. Trip to Sam's is One Thing. Visit to Tyndall is One Thing. Trip to Grocery Outlet is One Thing. Walk around Publix is One Thing. Trip to PCB and Fresh Market OR The Carousel is One Thing. Some days, taking a shower is One Thing. Today our One Thing was going to Panama Lock & Key to have duplicate keys cut for the Harbour Village door locks changed last week as a final step of recovery from Hurricane Michael three years ago.
Nap Time.
[my thought was to refrain from printing this verbosity on Facebook, but WTH, Over]
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Current Conditions
A patchy bloom of the red tide organism, Karenia brevis, persists along Florida’s Gulf Coast. Over the past week, K. brevis was detected in 157 samples. Bloom concentrations (>100,000 cells/liter) were observed in 61 samples: one in Bay County, one in Franklin County, two in and offshore of Pasco County, 13 in and offshore of Pinellas County, 10 in and offshore of Manatee County, 30 in Sarasota County, one in Charlotte County, and three in Lee County. K. brevis was also detected at background concentrations along Florida’s East Coast. Thanks to our partners at USF and NOAA, we are using satellite imagery – shown in the provided maps – to track patches of elevated chlorophyll (as a proxy for algal biomass) along the Panhandle (from Bay County extending eastward), offshore of the Big Bend (and along Dixie and Levy counties), and along Southwest Florida (from the Pasco/Pinellas County line to Lee County). Additional details are provided below.
- In Southwest Florida over the past week, K. brevis was observed at background to high concentrations in or offshore of Pinellas County, very low to low concentrations in Hillsborough County, very low to high concentrations in or offshore of Manatee County, very low to high concentrations in or offshore of Sarasota County, background to medium concentrations in Charlotte County, and background to medium concentrations in or offshore of Lee County.
- In Northwest Florida over the past week, K. brevis was observed at low concentrations in Santa Rosa County, background to very low concentrations in Okaloosa County, background to low concentrations in Walton County, background to medium concentrations in Bay County, background to low concentrations in Gulf County, low to medium concentrations in Franklin County, very low concentrations offshore of Taylor County, background and low concentrations offshore of Dixie County, background to low concentrations in or offshore of Levy County, very low concentrations offshore of Hernando County, and low to medium concentrations in or offshore of Pasco County.
- Along the Florida East Coast over the past week, K. brevis was observed at background concentrations in St. Johns County.
Fish kills suspected to be related to red tide were reported on the Florida Gulf Coast in Bay, Gulf, Franklin, Levy, Pinellas, Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, and Lee counties over the past week. For more details, please visit: https://myfwc.com/research/saltwater/health/fish-kills-hotline/.
Respiratory irritation suspected to be related to red tide was reported over the past week on the Florida Gulf Coast in Franklin, Pinellas, Manatee, Sarasota, and Lee counties. For recent and current information at individual beaches, please visit https://visitbeaches.org/ and for forecasts that use FWC and partner data, please visit https://habforecast.gcoos.org/.
Forecasts by the USF-FWC Collaboration for Prediction of Red Tides for Escambia to Gulf counties predict southern/southwestern movement of surface waters and eastern transport of subsurface waters in most areas over the next 3.5 days. Net southern movement of surface waters and minimal coastal movement of subsurface waters are predicted in most areas from Franklin to Pasco Counties. Net southern/southwestern movement of surface waters and southeastern transport of subsurface waters are predicted in most areas from Pinellas to northern Monroe Counties.
The next complete status report will be issued on Friday, October 22nd. Please check our daily sampling map, which can be accessed via the online status report on our Red Tide Current Statuspage. For more information on algal blooms and water quality, please visit Protecting Florida Together.
This information, including maps and reports with additional details, is also available on the FWRI Red Tide website. The website also provides links to additional information related to the topic of Florida red tide including satellite imagery, experimental red tide forecasts, shellfish harvesting areas, the FWC Fish Kill Hotline, the Florida Poison Information Center (to report human health effects related to exposure to red tide), and other wildlife related hotlines.
To learn more about various organisms that have been known to cause algal blooms in Florida waters, see the FWRI Red Tide Flickr page. Archived status maps can also be found on Flickr.
The FWRI HAB group in conjunction with Mote Marine Laboratory now have a facebook page. Please like our page and learn interesting facts concerning red tide and other harmful algal blooms in Florida.