" ... outracing the storm-wind / We leap to the infinite dark like the sparks from the anvil."

[larryhammer]

It has, as usual, been an odd year weatherwise -- botanists have cited the overwarm spring for bringing saguaro to bloom earlier than usual, and for longer. I don't know whether the weather can be blamed as well for mesquites and acacias dropping their drying seedpods a few weeks before their usual time.

    Under mesquite trees,
pods scattered on the sidewalk
    crunch beneath my feet --
crackles more satisfying
than walking through autumn leaves.

I'm pretty sure, however, the heat can be blamed for cicadas waking up early.

    In the row of oaks
outside an office building,
    cicadas announce
a matinee performance
of the great zerEEEEEE Chorus.

Beyond a doubt, the heavy wildfires are due to the drought, and the heat, and the winds. Every few days, the distant scent of burning pines reaches the city, from some new fire.

    Backlit by sunset,
a plume of wildfire smoke
    glows gold and purple --
thousands of acres burnt to
a ribbon across the sky.

But then, it wouldn't be high summer without cicadas screeing in scathing heat. Or scattered clouds loitering like bored kids over the distant mountain ranges. Or this slowly rising humidity that keeps nights from really cooling off. Soon, the monsoon thunderstorms will arrive.

Soon.

---L.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

thousands of acres burnt to
a ribbon across the sky.

Aghhhh, this expresses something profound about life, beauty, and death, Larry.

And, weirdly, just as I was reading it, our smoke alarm quite meaninglessly went off. (Its batteries must be low)

wildfire season
in the southwest, do you
turn off smoke alarms?

[larryhammer]

distant smoke's not alarming
but just a tang and a tint.


Thankee -- it's a pome I'm rather pleased with. Written on a train to Albuquerque. (No left turns allowed.)

---L.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Beautiful! And rather scary...

Give me a wet English summer over wildfires any day.

[larryhammer]

A week ago, as we drove home from a graduation party on the northwest side, there was a wall of smoke drifting across half the city -- hiding half the mountains, and anything more than a mile off. It can get quite dramatic.

---L.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Oh, indeed. That's exactly what it's like. Very nice, Mr. H. Very nice indeed.

[incandescens]

While the first and third poems are lovely, the middle poem on cicadas made me almost snicker out loud. At work.

[larryhammer]

Thankee.

---L.

[larryhammer]

Only "almost"? Oh dear.

---L.

[janni.livejournal.com]

Nice. And, yes.

[incandescens]

I had to retain a reasonable pretence of focusing on the cross-maps between the SNOMED CT terminology and the ICD-10 classification for cranial injury with less than 24 hours unconsciousness. Or else I would certainly have snickered out loud.

[larryhammer]

Ah -- a social inhibition. I feel better.

Also, sorry about the coding correlations. Or, really, that you have to deal with SNOMED CT at all. (By coincidence, I was also working on ICD-10 stuff today, but on nothing so detailed as any actual codes, just on how codes get entered.)

---L.

[galeni.livejournal.com]

I love those poems, especially the wildfire one -- I remember those from my childhood.

[larryhammer]

Thankee.

---L.

[incandescens]

Nice coincidence. :)

My actual job involves creating cross-maps from SNOMED CT to ICD-10 and OPCS-4.6 (the UK classification for operations and interventions). Oranges to apples . . .

[larryhammer]

Ooch -- I haven't had to work with OPCS, as another writer has our UK product, but what little I've seen has not filled me with the loving fuzzies. Especially with mappings.

Do you also deal with CPT codes or just diagnostic stuff?

---L.

[incandescens]

No, not CPT codes: the OPCS-4 codes seem to cover the same niche over here as CPT does in America, though they don't seem (at a glance) to be as exhaustive.

Financing (by the government) is worked out via Healthcare Resource Groups (HRGs), which are mostly produced from OPCS-4 codes, with a bit of input from ICD-10, patient age, and length of stay.

[larryhammer]

*nod*