...doing pretty much nothing. I hate that. But, not much I can do when my body decides to shut down. I've been drinking lots of juice and water, as per the doctor junior's instructions and resting, but now I'm out of water, and nearly out of juice, so I will have to make a short walk to the store, to get some more, I suppose.

I can't drink the water in my city, 'cos quite frankly, it basically tastes like it's been filtered through mud. Even the cats aren't crazy about it--they drink it, but not very enthusiasically. They grew up on artesian well water, that was surprisingly pure (had it tested), and also town water orginating from a lake, not a river. Until I moved here, I'd never had treated river water--even tho' I grew up less than a mile from the Hudson River. Bleh!!!! It's tastes like poo! (Not that I actually know what poo tastes like, but I imagine it wouldn't be much different than this city's water supply, ha-ha).

There is some pollution along almost the entire 315 mile stretch of the Hudson River. Beginning in the far north, as the charmingly named "Lake Tear in the Clouds" High on a mountain in the Adirondacks, the Hudson winds and twists through the southern Adirondack mountain region, before straightening out on it's long journey through the Upper-Hudson, Mid-Hudson and Lower-Hudson valley's, all the way to New York City and the Atlantic Ocean.

There is some pollution near old mills in small Adirondack towns like Warrensburg and Corinth, to be sure. But, it's not until you hit the city of Glens Falls and it's opposing neighbour, South Glens Falls, with their two papermills bordering each side of the river, the waste treatment plant soon thereafter, followed by a closed highly dangerous former mill site--full of heavy metal pollution, that has yet to been cleaned up, ten years on--that the pollution begins in earnest. Despite the fact that the Hudson water used to supply this city is "treated," and supposedly okay--desptite scares in the past that have caused illnesses with something known as "beaver fever," I don't trust this city, when it comes to pollution. They are more interested in the jobs and funds provided by the mills, than in the health of its residents. The cancer rate here is enormously high, I've been told.

THE HUDSON LOOKING SOUTH FROM COOPER'S CAVE BRIDGE, ABOUT A MILE FROM WHERE I LIVE--Finch Pyrne paper mill on the left, SCA Tissue on the right bank. Sewage plant and toxic waste dump just a short ways downstream.

Here is a website worth visiting.

http://www.swimforcleanwater.org/swims/hudsonriverswimdiary.html

There was a local gent, several years back, who swam the ENTIRE course of the Hudson, in order to raise awareness for the need for clean water. As recent as ten years ago, issues were being raised about how this planet is running out of clean, safe water. Unfortunately, the "trendiness" of the global warming issue, has overshadowed the real, serious issue of the fact that we are---REALLY, REALLY WE ARE--running out of clean water.

Global warming won't mean a thing, if we have no clean water to drink. But, no one seems to get that, and so the global warming debate--which I concede is hugely important as well, keeps the water issue out of the picture.

and, I'm not talking water in places like Africa or Asia, I'm talking about in the US, Europe, pretty much all over the entire globe.