My Apocalyptic Michigan Summer: Smoke, Parasites, and Other Delights

 

This summer, Michigan feels less like a state and more like a testing ground for whatever fresh disaster the universe wants to beta‑test. Jean was hunting for a topic to write about this week then Michigan, never one to miss an opportunity for dramatic flair, said, “Hold my beer,” and delivered smoke, parasites, bedbugs, and even a grocery store suspending carry-out service like it was a preview for the end of time. And because she lives right in the middle of it, she gets a front‑row seat to the chaos, complete with hazy skies, health alerts, and the occasional reminder that our global connections are far more tangled — and far more fragile — than we like to admit…. AI

Michigan is one of twenty states affected by the unhealthy air quality caused by smoke drifting down from the historic number of wildfires in Northern Ontario. The sky has been a dull haze — the kind you mistake for fog until you step outside and get a lungful of it. It was so thick today that the one grocery store in town that still has “bag boys” that take your purchases out to your car wasn’t offering the service. OSHA doesn’t forbid outdoor work during wildfire smoke, but they do say employers should offer NIOSH‑approved masks for voluntary use, give workers frequent indoor breaks, and reschedule strenuous tasks.

Welcome to Trump’s there’s‑no‑global‑warming world. As of this writing, he has blocked federal U.S. waterbombers from assisting across the border, even though Canada sent their firefighting air teams to California last fall. He’s also threatening Canada with a tariff on “cross‑border pollution,” claiming they’re “willfully negligent” about "keeping their forest floors raked." Canada has 912 million acres of forest — 40% of their land mass — and only 41.1 million people. Even if “raking the forest floor” were the answer, where exactly would they find the workforce? And where will we get the lumber to build houses if we keep slapping tariffs on a country that used to be one of our closest allies?

Rant off — in case you didn’t know it was on.

I didn’t see many people wearing masks while I was out, but I did talk to one man who said he wished he’d grabbed one before leaving home. I have a stash of masks in my car left over from the pandemic, but it never occurred to me to put one on until after that conversation. Even then, I didn’t do it. Why? Because those masks have been hanging behind my driver’s seat for several years. Who knows what microscopic yuck they’ve been harboring. When I got home, I tossed them straight into the washing machine. No telling how long it will take for the smoke to clear out. I just might need them. 

Since I’m already in a doom‑and‑gloom mood: Michigan is also dealing with a health alert involving the microscopic cyclosporia parasite, which has caused over 5,000 confirmed cases of severe, “explosive diarrhea” and more than 100 hospitalizations in Michigan alone. (Last year, RFK Jr. ended the CDC's required surveillance of the parasite, which in the past kept these kinds of widespread outbreaks from happening.) If untreated, the diarrhea can last from two weeks to a month. Contact tracing is difficult because symptoms don’t show up right away — they appear five days to two weeks after exposure. Salad greens are the suspected culprit. Thankfully, I’ve been on a high‑protein diet and haven’t had a salad in almost two months. (Side note: I was at the doctor’s today and the official word is I’m down 20.8 pounds since May 15th.)

And as if smoke and parasites aren’t enough, Michigan was recently named as having three of the worst hot spots in the nation for bedbug infestations. I need to stop reading public‑service notifications. Today I learned I live in the tenth worst city in the nation for bedbugs. I am not sitting on any fabric‑covered chairs in public places until further notice! And needless to say, I’m not sleeping in any stranger’s beds either — not that I’ve been asked in the last fifty years. But if Brad Pitt came along, I’d jump in his bed even if it meant he’d have to call security. Between the smoke, the parasites, and the bedbugs, I swear, at this point I’m one emergency alert away from answering the door wearing a hazmat suit and oven mitts.

Back on topic: Years ago my mother‑in‑law’s house had bedbugs, and how they got in was shocking. She had a live‑in caregiver who, unbeknownst to the family, had a hobby of writing to prisoners. On her days off, she went to state prisons to meet some of the men she’d been corresponding with where she was gifted with the critters.

Bedbugs are known to spread from one care facility to another via workers who hold multiple jobs in multiple facilities. If our Assisted Living or Memory Care buildings ever get bedbugs, they’d quickly spread to my Independent Living building because many spouses live in IL while their partners are in one of the other buildings. It’s one of the selling points of continuum‑care campuses — a short walk gets you a daily visit (conjugal or otherwise) without driving halfway across town.  

Oh, yes, Michigan doesn’t need a state motto — it needs a warning label. 

The ecosystems around the world are becoming more and more interconnected, and disasters in one region ripple outward — whether it’s a war that disrupts shipping lines, a pandemic that refuses to stay on one continent, or produce that isn’t handled properly and ends up being distributed far and wide. We’ve come a long way in the last hundred years; towns no longer dump factory waste and raw sewage into rivers. But I still wonder how people back then couldn’t see that that was a bad idea. Just as I wonder how someone can sit in the Oval Office and be so short‑sighted and vindictive against our neighbors to the north. Call it Karma or cause and effect, everything that goes around, comes around. ©

See you all next Wednesday. In the meantime, let's all keep Canada in our hearts and thoughts. It's not only the forests they are losing to the fires, but also lives, homes and wildlife.