A little Aussie satirical poem because, well, life vapes and then you die.  This is not the happiest poem so you may want to skip it.

It’s Christmas Time In the City

no joy no joy no
air no air no air none

kirribilli smokin’
white men jokin’

it’s Christmas time in the city

make haste to land of the smoke-free

blow smoke up ya
are we having fun yet?

not me not me not
happy mo-mo

no joy no joy no
air no air no air no

Christmas barbie in the city

Sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen.  It happens when you’re starved of oxygen.  I will resume my normal calm programming as soon as we can breathe again.  Maybe in a few months time.  Or maybe when we meet our Paris emission target through accounting loophole.  Not happy mo-mo.

Regards.
Tracy

Australia.  Perfect one day.  Bushfires the next.

57 thoughts on “Christmas Time In The City”

  2. Ah, to be robbed of what we deem an undeniable right: to breathe. At least our poetry bears witness to life in the time of the sixth mass extinction. As I read your words, I kept thinking of a line from Rumi “like smoke that drowns the freshness of the morning breeze.” I feel your pain.

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    1. Thanks Victoria. That is a good line from Rumi. I’m afraid I’m not nearly so eloquent. Poetry is too fine a word to give my shrieking.
      Thank you for your daily words. They are a shared connection across the Pacific. Your support means a lot too. ❤

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      1. I sent Elizabeth a link to your blog. Today when we went to a concert in fun-filled Del Norte, Colorado, she asked who you were and where you live. She didn’t realize you are in Australia. Anyway, I sent her a link to your blog. She got to talk to her family yesterday and today, and she feels better than she did the day of our tea party. She found a link online that shows the map of all the fires and their status. That helped too.

        I remember “my” fire (2003, California, the Cedar Fire) when I was evacuated. I didn’t have an answering machine at home. I paid the phone company to take messages and I dialed a code to collect them. I did this because I wasn’t home much. I had a cell by then, but…

        Anyway, one of my friends was calling my land line every half hour because he’d heard if the answering machine works, the house is still there. In my case, that wouldn’t necessarily have been true. I never had the heart to tell him. It was my dream house and I’d only lived there 5 weeks. It didn’t burn down, but I didn’t know for more than a week what its status was. The fire was within 1/4 mile of my house in every direction. It’s terrible not to know. ❤

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      2. You don’t forget those experience, do you Martha? I can just imagine how awful it was for you and the dogs to have to camp out in those conditions.

        My father put out an extra garden hose last week. During our 2003 bushfires, he had to douse embers on the roof and in the garden. He is nearly 80 now. It is difficult and dangerous to go clambering around on your roof at any age, let alone at 80.

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      3. No, you don’t forget ever. You deal with it while it’s happening but later, you definitely have PTSD. I don’t think my house would have survived if it hadn’t been on a main road and hadn’t had a fire hydrant in front of it. I know the firefighters — after gassing up at the gas station in my town — the only one until the next town some 20 miles away THROUGH the fire, stopped and wetted down everything they could of the houses they could reach from that hydrant.

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      7. Ironically, in CA, if there has recently been a fire in the neighborhood, houses are more insurable because of spent fuel. Climate change has upended what was once thought to be nature’s normal logic. 😦

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  5. Thinking of you all in the fires – thank you for the poem, it hurts. Wish I could send you some rain from here. We hear terrible news every day from your country.

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  7. I was watching the cricket in Canberra on TV until the match was stopped due to poor air quality, something that I don’t think has ever happened here before. It looked horrible and not something people should be outdoors in. I know how it feels too because that’s what we had for several weeks last summer. Take care, stay indoors as much as you can.

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    1. I saw the footage of the smoke drifting over the oval, Vanda. No wonder they cancelled the match. It was very dramatic in real life. Also stifling hot.

      It is pretty hard to keep the smoke out of the house unless it is airtight and our house is far from that. So we end up with a smoky house that we can’t get the heat out of because we can’t run our evaporative cooler. I’ve slept in the lounge room for over a week now where we have set up the little portable air conditioner we bought a few days ago. The snow dogs were having a terribly time of it.

      I know you had to live through endless weeks of bushfires and smoke last year. There seems to be no stopping these fires when the country is so dry.

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      1. It is difficult to deal with the smoke and it was the smoke that drove many residents in Geeveston to leave early as much as the risk of the fire spreading to the town. We are so lucky it didn’t . It is so sad to read about those communities in SA and NSW which have been destroyed. Not to mention the poor wildlife.

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  9. Have just had two days of thick smoke here too. Well, weeks of smoke, but the last two days have been particularly bad. Wind from the south today, so a bit clearer.
    Take care…I guess staying inside is the best option.

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    1. There is nothing like the lived experience, is there, Jane? I now see the error of my ways in only having evaporative cooling. You can’t use it otherwise the smoke pours in. The heat and the smoke indoors is incredibly claustrophobic. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. 😦 It is no wonder that the PM took his girls to Hawaii and that they are staying on. It is not the girls’ fault that their father’s party is full of morons.
      Like Mudgee, we had a relatively light smoke day. It was such a relief. I had to put a jumper on tonight.

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      1. Yes, cooler for us yesterday too. We had evaporative at our last place, and I liked it because we could have the windows open with the air con on. I didn’t realise it has the drawbacks you mentioned. It must have been dreadful for you on those hot days.

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  10. I know the feeling, my daughter and I were thinking of re-working six white boomers, along the lines of six white boomers, snow white boomers, denying climate change while the country burns. It looks really bad down south at the moment, just hoping there is a break and you guys get some relief.

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    1. Thankfully we had a light smoke day today and it was much cooler, so I get to sleep in my own bed tonight! It is not expected to last though, Sharon. I have been thinking about you. Those fires around Toowoomba looked horrendous. Have they been extinguished yet? I haven’t been able to keep up with all the developments.

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  11. Last night one of the news programs showed Sydney blanketed with the thick pall of smoke. No wonder you’re choking and upset. What’s with the PM that he’s denying the unhealthy fog he’s breathing? Doesn’t he have family he cares about? Doesn’t he remember the melting of Icarus’ wings from flying to close to the sun? They all think they’re invincible, don’t they. May they all get lost in the maze they’ve created and allow everyone else a chance to find a safe way to live on earth.

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    1. We are south of Sydney, Sharon, but there are also fires further south and we are affected by that smoke. The PM took his family to Hawaii, for which he copped quite a bit of criticism. He has returned. They have not. Understandably so. They are not to blame for the morons in their father’s party. However, that is not an option for everyone. Some of us don’t even have air conditioning on these 40+ days. It is horrendous.

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      1. Hope you have an upcoming election. This man has got to go.
        I’m still going to wish you a very Merry Christmas though the fires and the general state of things casts a shadow over what should be celebration. May the New Year bring true peace and justice to the entire world, and may the fires end immediately.

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  12. Oh dear, what a terrible situation! As the Canadian Lung Association says, when you can’t breathe nothing else matters. So sorry for you and your fellow citizens, Tracy.

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    1. Thanks for your kind words, Irene. Most parts of Australia normally have great air quality (some don’t though), so we have certainly taken it for granted. Other areas of the world have not, as you would know, but it is something that every person should be able to count on.

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      1. I find it odd that we’ve ended up in a global leadership quagmire right at this very time when the environment is under stress. I hope relief comes to the fire fronts soon, it is devastating.

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      2. It was inevitable, Paul. Unfettered (light-regulatory touch) capitalism has not been the environment’s friend. Our world can only be raped so many times before leaving a festering wound. The unfettered capitalists pay just enough taxes and employ just enough enablers to keep us begging for more. The dirty linen, like dirty money, is laundered. How’s that for deeply pessimistic! You could write a(nother) poem about it.

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  14. I’m so sorry, Tracy! I can’t imagine how hard these horrible fires are on all the people (and animals) who live nearby, let alone those who have lost everything. You have every right to vent…and keep doing so if it helps at all.

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  15. So sorry to hear about this Tracy. I have been in touch with someone in Adelaide too and the fires were very close to their house at one point. Really hope things have improved over the last couple of days.

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  16. Seeing the pictures in the news daily is horrible enough but your words put the horror of it all directly in our hearts – and lungs! Having asthma I know the horror and fear of choking, the smoke must be terrible. Is there any way you can get fresh oxygen into the house? I mean, I know that you’re supposed to close all doors and windows but is there something like canned oxygen? Or is that something sci-fi that I dreamed of?

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    1. A friend has lent me an air purifier, Sarah. I’ve got one on order because of course, they are all sold-out. I went to buy another portable air conditioner, and they’ve all sold out too. We will survive despite all our complaining. I’ve got my grout mask that I can put on when I go outside and sometimes wear inside because all of the other more comfortable masks have sold out too. Woe is me. 🙂

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