Flashing Stop Signs With Freshwater Seafood & A Blogging Moment Of Silence

I was observing a Blogging Silence in memory of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.

To find myself appalled to be getting emails and one phone call asking if I am all right.

Yes, I am all right. I got up at a reasonable time this morning. I went swimming after the sun had lightened up the place. And then the morning was consumed by website nonsense and doing a background criminal check for Tootsie Tonasket regarding yet one more boyfriend of dubious character.

It was well past noon before I got away from the computer. I decided to walk around Oakland Lake Park. There is a stop sign I always see on my way to Oakland Lake. It is solar-powered. You'll likely need to click on the picture to make it bigger to see them, but I can tell you there are flashing red lights around the perimeter of the sign. Why? I do not know. It's a 3 way stop. 2 of the 3 stop signs have the solar-powered flash lights. It's not a particularly busy or hazardous seeming intersection.

And then at Oakland Lake Park I saw yet another of the signs I've mentioned before, those ones that tell you that there is a fish consumption advisory for this body of water. I had not noticed, previously, that the sign directed me to a State of Texas website. To a website about seafood. Doesn't seafood come out of saltwater? Not a polluted landlocked lake?

So, I followed the sign's directive and visited the website to find no mention of freshwater fish. The verbiage mentions oysters, clams, mussels, scallops and crab. I am fairly certain none of those can be caught in Oakland Lake. I have no idea what "molluscan" is. Below are the words one reads when one goes to the website one is advised to go to....

The mission of the Seafood and Aquatic Life Group is to protect the consumer from disease or other health hazards transmissible by oysters, clams, mussels and scallops and crab meat produced in or imported into Texas. The Seafood and Aquatic Life Group also protects recreational fishers from disease or contaminants found in fish and other aquatic species caught in Texas' lakes, rivers, bays or nearshore state waters. We carry out this mission by classification of shellfish growing areas, certification of molluscan shellfish shippers and crab meat processors, and testing tissue samples from fish and seafood harvesting areas.

It is 99 right now, heading to a predicted high, this Friday, of 102. It was 95 with a Heat Index of 100 when I went walking at Oakland Lake. It did not feel particularly hot. A breeze blew, there are trees with some shade.

But, as I walked I realized in less than a month it will be a year since I flew up to Tacoma to spend a month feeling so cold, in so many ways. I realized today, as I walked comfortably in the heat, that by the time I flew up north last July 20 I was so used to being out in the extreme heat. I keep my A/C at around 80. And that feels cool. The temperature never got to 80 my entire time I was in Washington last summer. I remained cold the entire time I was up there.

I remember towards the end of my stay one of Washington's most obese residents, wearing a coat of at least 400 pounds of insulative blubber, called and asked how I was feeling. I said I was feeling cold. Because I was. That bloviated gasbag had the gall to tell me I had had plenty of time to acclimate, that I was not the only skinny person in Washington and that I only complained about being cold to get attention. Which was pretty much projection from a person who constantly engaged in attention getting behaviors. I said something like, "oh yes, I feel so good now, I'm getting attention because I'm cold." Geez, I'm glad I'm rid of that idiot.