I guess we got to talk about the air a little bit.

Your Daily Lex.

And in case you’re wondering, no, I am not referring to Prince William, although he is in air.

He’s not the air.

Yeah.

So the air has been terrible.

It’s putting the air in terrible here in New Jersey.

And it’s been interesting to me to see people like say, screw you, Canada, you stink.

As if the US doesn’t contribute plenty of pollution and other issues of its own that are negative on the environment.

Here in Jersey, we’ve had the special thing of also having like a pretty heavy burning smell from more local fires.

But they say that smoky haze is more due to Canada.

Either way, the air quality is terrible.

And that’s no fun at all.

My son Liam, he was concerned and all he saw was his weather app because he checks the weather every day when he’s getting dressed and it was telling him, hey, the air quality is really bad or there’s air quality warnings or whatever.

And so I went over with him in kind of some scientific detail, I guess you would say, where I’m certainly not an expert in air quality, but we were looking stuff up together and I was talking about our air conditioning system and how air filters work and why we care and how much time he is or isn’t spending outside and how our house is sealed and air quality monitors that we have in the house.

Like we went through it in some detail to try to put him at ease, which seemingly worked.

He definitely was calmer about it by the end.

The schools sent out an email yesterday saying, hey, we might do a shortened school day because things were fine all of the day today, but things were getting worse as the day progressed and we did start to notice smoky smell in the school buildings at the end of the day.

Now I’m thinking, you noticed the smoky smell in the school buildings at the end of the day in large part because you kept opening the doors to let all the kids out, which I’m okay with.

Like it makes sense to let people out, but that’s a lot of open doors, which means a lot of time for air to get in there.

Fine, what are you going to do?

And then they ended up not closing schools early today.

They didn’t do it.

There were some parents who were like, you should have done a delayed opening, although I don’t know what benefit that does.

And there were some parents who were like, you should have closed school early.

And they didn’t do either thing, which I’m okay with.

If the kids are inside, I’m okay with it.

They canceled all outdoor things, which I think makes total sense.

But I was so mad because when Sierra came home, or actually while Sierra was coming home, she sent a text from the bus being like, I’m wearing a mask on the bus and it sucks.

And she was doing so because there was a kid on the bus.

I was going to say the kid’s last name because I hate these families.

But anyway, there was a kid on the bus who opened his window as soon as he got down and the bus driver doesn’t do anything.

And some students are like, hey, don’t do that.

But he’s like, I don’t care.

I’m opening the window.

I’m going to share.

Ha ha ha.

And like, I know this kid’s parents.

I hate this kid’s parents.

They’re nearby neighbors of mine.

It’s a crappy family.

It’s a family that tends as a rule to show total disregard for the interests of others.

They’re like, almost every family here in my development has some kind of backyard set up.

Okay, great.

And many of them, including me, have music.

Now, when we have music in our backyard, it’s Sonos powered, whatever, we got some outdoor speakers.

It’s at a pretty reasonable volume.

You have to be in my backyard to hear it.

You go to the neighbor’s house, you can’t hear it.

These guys always blast their music and their speakers kind of are situated so that they point towards my house to a large degree, where my speakers also point to my house.

And fine, like, listen, sometimes you’re going to play music and I’m going to hear it.

I get it.

That’s fine.

That’s how it’s going to be.

We live in a world.

I get it.

We’re neighbors.

But there are times when they’re like, we’re going to hang out in our front.

So we’re going to blast our music insanely loud.

And then I have to text the guy or go over there and be like, hey, it’s deafening in my house.

I’m going to be blasting your music loud enough in the back for you to hear it from the front.

They’ve mostly learned that lesson, but they’ve done other things that also demonstrate a clear lack of not even lack of self-aware.

It’s just a lack of caring about other people.

And so their kid, like I said, opens the window on the bus when they’re like, hey, the air outside is toxic.

Don’t breathe.

And so I said to Sierra, do you want me to say something to the kid’s dad?

Like, hey, could you encourage your kid not to open the window on the bus today or tomorrow, whatever?

And she’s like, no, my God, don’t do that.

And I was like, I could talk to the bus driver.

I could send a note to the school anonymously.

And she’s like, no, don’t do any of those things.

And honestly, Lauren was the same side of Sierra.

Like, no, no, no, don’t do anything.

Don’t raise a stink about the stink.

And I struggle with that.

I didn’t.

I honored their wishes, but I really struggle with it.

Like I understand sometimes that your kids don’t want you to get involved because they want to handle the thing or they don’t want to be the one whose parent got involved because there’s something embarrassing about that.

But I always am willing to advocate for my family.

And I’m also really trying to teach them to advocate for themselves at the same time.

Sierra, I’m sure, did not say anything to this kid of, hey, can you close that window?

You idiot.

But other kids did.

And of course, had no success.

So I don’t fault her for not doing that.

But I don’t even fault her for saying, no, I don’t want you to get involved or don’t contact the school or the parent or anything else.

I just don’t agree with that call.

I understand where it’s coming from, but I want to do.

Boy, this was not a fun episode anyway.

Hey, it looks like the air is getting better at the sky.

The sun looks a little bit less like a basketball today, and that’s good.

It looks a little bit more sun like, and you can actually see some sunlight shining down on us today.

So there we go.

But I’m staying inside.

And when I take my dog out, which I have to do over and over again, because Cody had surgery this week, maybe we’ll cover that tomorrow.

Who knows?

But I have been wearing a mask outside just because Cody needs a little bit longer than usual outside.

Anyway, I hope you’re having a wonderful Thursday and hey, hang in there.

Friday’s coming.

I mean, probably.

Lex.

Thanks for watching.