Our Father of the Internet, it's been two days since my last confession, I mean, post.
And what a couple of days it was. Yesterday the sun went blood red in the morning, from the bushfire smoke drifting across from the state, and there's a smoky smell in the air.
The Amateur Actress had her washing out and now she probably has to do it all over again. The pussins are lying around indoors because they don't like the smell. Is that anything to complain about when 181 people are known to have died, and over 1800 houses destroyed? No, it is not.
The media interest let up a little bit yesterday, so I finally had time yesterday to make a donation. My One True Love and I decided to donate to the fund set up by Wildlife Victoria - because over $100 million has been raised for the human victims of the fire so far, but there are lots of little creatures out there who lost their homes as well, and who need looking after just as much.
Sam the Koala has gone global - and while her story is a very sad one, it's good to know that even a little animal is helping to raise awareness of the scale and magnitude of the tragedy in Victoria. (If you watch the video, it gets a lot clearer at around 1 minute in, so persevere ... or fast-forward.)
YouTube - Koala drinking water from the Bush Fire Tragedy Crisis, Victoria - 7/02/2009
We also did a massive grocery shop at Coles last night (I know, grocery shopping on a Friday night, what wild and exciting married lives we lead) - and Coles was donating all the profits received on the day to the Fund, so that's another few hundred we contributed.
We got a pretty gruesome request at the office too, which came from Mission Australia .... there are lots of people affected by the fires who need suits, ties and shoes, they said, please help.
Suits? I thought. Why on earth would you need a suit?
And then I realised it's because people need to start going to funerals.
So I took in one of My One True Love's old suits, and two ties, because who could refuse to help with a request like that. Later this weekend I'm going to edit my wardrobe and donate everything I haven't worn in 12 months to the Red Cross and Salvation Army.
Today I am wearing a dutch blue and white striped dress. It has a halterneck, and a full skirt, and I feel a little Marilyn Monroe-ish in it. I've accessorised with my vintage pearls and white sandals; because life is too short to keep things "for best".
Showing posts with label bushfires. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bushfires. Show all posts
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
MIGRAINE -graine-graine-graine .....
....so it turns out that phenomenal headache I developed yesterday was actually a migraine.
Migraine sufferers everywhere, I have felt your pain. Kudos, people, kudos.
I didn't realise migraines came with constant, gut-wrenching nausea .... seat of your pants, any-minute-now-I'm-going-to-heave-my-kidneys-up nausea. Or a stiff neck. Or weird visuals that curve the world disturbingly.
Or a specific, localised centre of agony in your skull that flames with every movement, rendering you helpless and limp.
I fled from work early yesterday, catching a cab home and wincing with every jerky stop-start tap on the accelerator/brake/accelerator/brake/accelerator. Why do taxi drivers always, always drive like that??
And the light was too white. Even the light on the tv hurt my eyes.
I took two panadeine tablets and went to bed, pulling the covers up over my head. I slept, in brackets of time, and when I woke up this morning at 4am I knew it wasn't over yet.
Checking the blister pack, I was surprised to find the panadeine was actually panadeine forte left over from my broken arm last year - the really good, really strong stuff - and yet it didn't make a dent in the blanket of pain at all.
So I texted the boss and worked from home today. I was fine as long as I didn't move or have the lights on, so I did my radio interviews from a set position on an uncomfortable chair, and it was okay. Podae sat on my lap for around four hours (he never sits on my lap, he hates it, and so of course it's what I constantly wish for).
I even worked out a quote in case the Fathead came out and miaowed loudly while I was on air. I wouldn't have put it past him.
I was going to say And that's my puss Fathead, trying to get to the phone so he can send his own message of love and support to all the poor cats and dogs and other animals out there who are living through this devastating experience.
In the end, it wasn't necessary. But I think it would have been kind of cool.
Migraine sufferers everywhere, I have felt your pain. Kudos, people, kudos.
I didn't realise migraines came with constant, gut-wrenching nausea .... seat of your pants, any-minute-now-I'm-going-to-heave-my-kidneys-up nausea. Or a stiff neck. Or weird visuals that curve the world disturbingly.
Or a specific, localised centre of agony in your skull that flames with every movement, rendering you helpless and limp.
I fled from work early yesterday, catching a cab home and wincing with every jerky stop-start tap on the accelerator/brake/accelerator/brake/accelerator. Why do taxi drivers always, always drive like that??
And the light was too white. Even the light on the tv hurt my eyes.
I took two panadeine tablets and went to bed, pulling the covers up over my head. I slept, in brackets of time, and when I woke up this morning at 4am I knew it wasn't over yet.
Checking the blister pack, I was surprised to find the panadeine was actually panadeine forte left over from my broken arm last year - the really good, really strong stuff - and yet it didn't make a dent in the blanket of pain at all.
So I texted the boss and worked from home today. I was fine as long as I didn't move or have the lights on, so I did my radio interviews from a set position on an uncomfortable chair, and it was okay. Podae sat on my lap for around four hours (he never sits on my lap, he hates it, and so of course it's what I constantly wish for).
I even worked out a quote in case the Fathead came out and miaowed loudly while I was on air. I wouldn't have put it past him.
I was going to say And that's my puss Fathead, trying to get to the phone so he can send his own message of love and support to all the poor cats and dogs and other animals out there who are living through this devastating experience.
In the end, it wasn't necessary. But I think it would have been kind of cool.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Responding to the Victorian bushfire crisis
I've developed a crippling headache this morning, one that's fixed on the right side of my forehead above my eye, and it's a piercing pressure inside me.
The numbers keep going up in the bushfire toll - 173 at last count this morning - and I think I may be starting to respond in a physical way to it.
Work is busy, we're doing a lot through our employees and communications, so that's occupying my mind and my time. There's a lot of pressure of course, and we even have people who've lost their homes but still insist on working through it, so I can hardly complain about my little headache in the face of that kind of solidarity.
People respond in so many different ways to tragedies of this kind. Some cry, others hit things, a few lash out, others collapse inwardly.
Me, I get right in the zone. My emotional range narrows to the sharpest of sharp points. I become very cool and detached and unemotional; and focus on executing the task at hand. This channels my emotions into actions instead, which actually energises me and provides me with the bounce and resilience to do what needs doing.
This can be a good thing. In becoming dispassionate and re-directing the energy (and it's not something I actually think about, it just happens naturally) it gives me enough room to do what has to be done and not get teary/angry/upset or otherwise lose the ability to perform. I am, after all, a perfectionist.
However, it can also be a bad thing. In not displaying any emotion, and sometimes actually seeming ruthlessly efficient, others can think me cold, and that I lack compassion or sympathy. The uber-professional comes to the fore.
But of course I'm feeling it, it's just that my conscious mind pushes it deep into my subconscious until I have the right situation and ability to deal with it.
It does mean that I have to make myself consciously aware of my feelings at times like this.
When doing radio interviews, for example, I need to deliberately moderate my voice to reflect the seriousness of the situation. Earlier in the week I recorded a bunch of news grabs for a radio station in Sydney, and about 15 minutes after I'd hung up, I realised I sounded far too cheerful for what I was saying. So I rang them back and re-recorded them all, this time making sure my voice was much more appropriate.
And in writing about the bushfires, I'm conscious that I probably haven't yet come fully to grips with the reality of the situation. It's difficult to express my thoughts without sounding saccharine, or insincere, or melodramatic.
It's been so good to see other members of the blogging community do what I always fail to do in this kind of situation, which is to spring into action on behalf of the victims.
While I'm busy using the mainstream media to give messages to customers and people who want to donate to the Victorian Bushfire Relief Fund (BSB 082 001 Account number 860 046 797), others like Curlypops and Meet Me At Mike's and SillyGilly are rounding up volunteers, holding charity auctions, and doing lots of other useful, helpful things that give us all the opportunity to contribute meaningfully.
This is why we need people with different attributes in our lives- because some get on with the job, some show kindness and compassion, others think of practical ways to help.
Together, we all do something that someone else can't.
The numbers keep going up in the bushfire toll - 173 at last count this morning - and I think I may be starting to respond in a physical way to it.
Work is busy, we're doing a lot through our employees and communications, so that's occupying my mind and my time. There's a lot of pressure of course, and we even have people who've lost their homes but still insist on working through it, so I can hardly complain about my little headache in the face of that kind of solidarity.
People respond in so many different ways to tragedies of this kind. Some cry, others hit things, a few lash out, others collapse inwardly.
Me, I get right in the zone. My emotional range narrows to the sharpest of sharp points. I become very cool and detached and unemotional; and focus on executing the task at hand. This channels my emotions into actions instead, which actually energises me and provides me with the bounce and resilience to do what needs doing.
This can be a good thing. In becoming dispassionate and re-directing the energy (and it's not something I actually think about, it just happens naturally) it gives me enough room to do what has to be done and not get teary/angry/upset or otherwise lose the ability to perform. I am, after all, a perfectionist.
However, it can also be a bad thing. In not displaying any emotion, and sometimes actually seeming ruthlessly efficient, others can think me cold, and that I lack compassion or sympathy. The uber-professional comes to the fore.
But of course I'm feeling it, it's just that my conscious mind pushes it deep into my subconscious until I have the right situation and ability to deal with it.
It does mean that I have to make myself consciously aware of my feelings at times like this.
When doing radio interviews, for example, I need to deliberately moderate my voice to reflect the seriousness of the situation. Earlier in the week I recorded a bunch of news grabs for a radio station in Sydney, and about 15 minutes after I'd hung up, I realised I sounded far too cheerful for what I was saying. So I rang them back and re-recorded them all, this time making sure my voice was much more appropriate.
And in writing about the bushfires, I'm conscious that I probably haven't yet come fully to grips with the reality of the situation. It's difficult to express my thoughts without sounding saccharine, or insincere, or melodramatic.
It's been so good to see other members of the blogging community do what I always fail to do in this kind of situation, which is to spring into action on behalf of the victims.
While I'm busy using the mainstream media to give messages to customers and people who want to donate to the Victorian Bushfire Relief Fund (BSB 082 001 Account number 860 046 797), others like Curlypops and Meet Me At Mike's and SillyGilly are rounding up volunteers, holding charity auctions, and doing lots of other useful, helpful things that give us all the opportunity to contribute meaningfully.
This is why we need people with different attributes in our lives- because some get on with the job, some show kindness and compassion, others think of practical ways to help.
Together, we all do something that someone else can't.
Monday, February 9, 2009
The raging inferno
Yesterday, 26. Then 35. Then 65. 76. 96.
Today, 108. Then at 4pm this afternoon, 131.
That's how many people have died in this fire catastrophe so far. 750 homes destroyed.
There'll be more to come of course, the fires are still roaring across the state, and there are so many razed houses that they'll be finding more victims for weeks underneath the collapsed rubble. People on outlying properties who stayed to fight, people who tried to run in the cars but couldn't go faster than the flames -
I'm profoundly disturbed by the newspaper photos of cars sitting on roads, mangled and burnt out, sometimes crashed into each other. There are dead people in those cars, and those pictures are actually images of tombs.
I don't like thinking about the poor animals in the forests and on farms who would have been terrified by the cataclysm, frightened out of their lives as they tried desperately to escape. Or the people who only had two seconds to run and couldn't grab their dogs or cats. The mental horror, guilt and anguish for them is unimaginable.
And then there's the Age, which tells the story of a man who stayed with his horse (and survived) and sent his brother away on his prized 1993 Harley Davidson to escape the fires. He doesn't know if his brother is okay.
In the Herald Sun there's a photo of a Harley Davidson lying on a road, on its side, and the story says the body of the rider was found nearby.
Are they actually two halves of the same story?
Today, 108. Then at 4pm this afternoon, 131.
That's how many people have died in this fire catastrophe so far. 750 homes destroyed.
There'll be more to come of course, the fires are still roaring across the state, and there are so many razed houses that they'll be finding more victims for weeks underneath the collapsed rubble. People on outlying properties who stayed to fight, people who tried to run in the cars but couldn't go faster than the flames -
I'm profoundly disturbed by the newspaper photos of cars sitting on roads, mangled and burnt out, sometimes crashed into each other. There are dead people in those cars, and those pictures are actually images of tombs.
I don't like thinking about the poor animals in the forests and on farms who would have been terrified by the cataclysm, frightened out of their lives as they tried desperately to escape. Or the people who only had two seconds to run and couldn't grab their dogs or cats. The mental horror, guilt and anguish for them is unimaginable.
And then there's the Age, which tells the story of a man who stayed with his horse (and survived) and sent his brother away on his prized 1993 Harley Davidson to escape the fires. He doesn't know if his brother is okay.
In the Herald Sun there's a photo of a Harley Davidson lying on a road, on its side, and the story says the body of the rider was found nearby.
Are they actually two halves of the same story?
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