Sme-e-e-e-eeeell...

They're resurfacing the road right in front of my house. Fresh tar. Oh JOY.

There are only a handful of smells that really really upset my nose. Tar is one of the very top ones. It not so much annoys me as closes my upper respiratory passages and I am reduced to breathing through my mouth like I'm gasping for every breath. And here I am, in the midst of summer, trying to seal my house from outside air because if that stupid stink gets inside it will never evaporate again. And FAUGH it stinks.

(To add insult to injury, they started doing stuff out there just after seven this morning. I don't have to go to work, thank you very much, I usually wake up naturally around eight, so not only was it an hour too early it was also a sharp and unpleasant awakening to noisenoisenoisenoise and I've been a very unhappy camper ever since...)

Well.

I hope they're done by now. They've raised the level of the road by a full inch, it looks like from my windows, which is going to make getting in and out of my drive way somewhat interesting, too.

Anyway. Just wanted to whine. Like Ludo said in "Labyrinth" when confronted with the Marshes of the Eternal Stench, "Smeeeeeeeeell..."

In other news...

My thanks to ozarque for taking my mind off the tar completely with this URL:

http://panexa.com/

I'm particularly interested in this snippet ( of information )

And in yet other news...

According to Amazon rankings today, "Jin shei" has apparently experienced a somewhat large leap upwards. Should this be due at least in part to someone having purchased the book in response to my earlier post... thank you. SHould there just be a general unexpected surge... thank y'all anyway. I'm a very pleased author.

[insert image of myself offering a graceful grateful bow]