Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Screwed In The End Times

An Early Fall

Yes indeedy, those of you who subscribe to Murrmurrs have probably noticed I've signed on with a new subscription service called follow.it. I had no idea it would send out such an alarming spammy-looking initial email, and if it made you suspicious and you unfollowed me, well, you can always sign back up again at that <<--new box in the left margin under Pootie's handsome mug. It's actually a pretty spiffy outfit and gives you options of how you want your Murrmurrs dose, such as to your phone, to your email, to your mama, up your butt, or dropped by drone on your front porch. It also makes it super easy to unfollow. Horrors! And now, to really test your-all's loyalty, I give you a new, super-bleak post with no humor in it whatsoever. I don't want this to be a trend either, but I had to get it out of my system. Thank you all for coming. And caring.
 
................

Let me set the whole sorry scene. We're in a major drought. It's worse every year. Large trees were already visibly suffering. We just had our three hottest days ever recorded, and by a long shot. Four trees on my alley turned brown literally overnight. They clatter in the breeze.

This year there seemed to be a consensus that fireworks would be a very bad idea. They've been banned in the whole state. Some teenager burned down most of the scenic Columbia River Gorge with a firecracker a few years back. Last year the parts of the state that weren't on fire were smothered in acrid smoke for weeks. This shit is real.

I say there seemed to be a consensus because for the days leading up to July 4th we heard maybe one or two bombs bursting in air, which is way under our traditional mayhem. People would talk about it on the street. Hope no one sets off fireworks. How stupid would they have to be?
 
And so we got all the way to about 8pm on Independence Day before the first one went off, and it was a doozy. Sparks flew a hundred feet high. Two more followed. You could feel the outrage igniting from inside every shaken household. And then one of our neighbors went screaming down the street like an avenging angel in the direction of the noise. That's illegal! What the hell do you think you're doing? Hey! And so on.
 
Only takes one such soldier and suddenly I, nobody's vigilante, had jumped out of my chair and bolted off to offer support. Of course, I had no idea who was setting off the fireworks, but I figured a posse would be helpful. On the way I passed another neighbor, an 80-year-old gray-haired woman in a bathrobe and scuff slippers, shuffling the same direction, loaded for bear. By the time I got to the blast zone, there were about fifteen of us arriving from all directions. All of us women. All of us old.
 
There was my dauntless neighbor, loudly explaining about drought and fire danger and the fact that a nearby apartment building had burned to the ground from fireworks the previous night, killing two. And that the governor had banned them. She was nose to nose with another woman yelling even louder.
 
And that's when things got ugly. Rather than the twenty-year-old drunken yahoos I was expecting, our miscreants were a Black family, one of very few in the vicinity. There was a lot of hollering. Mainly it was the two women nose-to-nose, but people had their backs up. The fireworks lady said they'd been shooting off fireworks for fifteen years and they weren't about to stop now. Everyone yelled back that this is not a normal year. Someone said they'd had a death in the family and they just wanted to cheer themselves up. Someone else said maybe they could do that without burning the place down. Everyone was yelling at once. Within minutes our old-lady posse had been pegged as racist. There were ugly accusations. The avenging angel continued to insist this was not about race but about fire. Her adversary laughed in her face and said "Just look around you. Look at the demographics here."
 
I walked away. What was clear was that nothing good was ever going to come from this confrontation. I knew a lot of facts about the situation, but they wouldn't be heard here. One: yes, all the complainers were white, because that's pretty much who lives here. That is a problem, but it's a different problem. Two: we had converged on this family because they were the ones setting off fireworks. Three: as far as I could tell, most of us had come from two or three blocks away, and had no idea who was responsible. Four: I know the avenging angel well. She is the original Anti-Karen. She wouldn't call the police on a Black man if he was threatening her life; she doesn't trust the police to behave. By confronting the other woman, she was treating her exactly as she would have treated anyone else doing the same thing. Five: she shouldn't have come at her so hard. Nobody likes to be charged and yelled at. It didn't help. It made things worse. Six: she did it because she had just plain lost her shit. We were all crazy with worry over this. That. And all the other Things.
 
All the other things.
 
And that is why, as I lay in bed later listening to the bombs going off, from that unrepentant corner and from one street over in the other direction, for hours, with my window open in case I smelled smoke, I finally burst out sobbing. I've done well holding it together, but suddenly it all was so hopeless. My own personal troubles, which are not trivial. The impossibility of communication when we're all stoking our own private fires. The drought. The three days of insane heat that, frankly, shook me up more than I could have imagined. The quickening tumble toward climate catastrophe. Extinction. The coming water wars. A world in migration. The sheer stupidity, at every level, of our kind. We're face to face with it, now. Nose to nose.
 
I'm as well-rooted as anybody but sometimes I feel myself clattering in the breeze. 



 
 

70 comments:

  1. You are not alone in feeling overwhelmed by all this. Man's stupidity is at the heart of it for me.

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  2. It's fear. I don't think anyone can do anything to avoid how shitty it feels. It's a sad, broken, terrible world that you have loved, cheered, ridiculed, justly criticized and ever held dear. Know that you are dearly held by readers like me.

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  3. Ya gotta let that shit out once in a while.

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  4. Here in northern Delaware, fireworks are supposedly illegal. People just go over the state line and get them from PA. Usually, it's just a few sparklers and small time stuff like that. THIS year, however, for whatever reason, people actually procured mortars. The noise was horrific and unrelenting. It sounded like something you'd hear in news footage from Beirut. It went on from sunset until about 2 am. I could smell the gunpowder and a haze hung over the whole area. I finally had to close the windows and turn on the AC just to get some semblance of sleep. Thank goodness we had a drenching rain the day before. How the fuck can regular people get mortars, FFS??!! It wasn't neighborhood people; word on the street is that these people set up at an abandoned bowling alley parking lot and a local Goodwill lot, as well as a playground on the other side of my fence.

    Fourth of July has now officially replaced Christmas as my most detested holiday.

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    1. Every year I've lived here it's been a war zone and usually for weeks in advance and afterwards. This is not a sparkler neighborhood.

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  5. Sometimes, because I am old, I just want to say, "Go ahead and burn the f***ing planet down. I don't care anymore." That would be selfish, though, and I'm not that kind of person. Yet.

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  6. Replies
    1. And I almost didn't put in this post.

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    2. Glad you put it in. When I used to post stuff on LiveJournal, many moons ago, I always found that the stuff I was ambiguous about posting not only got the most foot traffic, but the most favorable comments. I think that people think all these things, but think that they're the only ones who think this. It's sometimes a relief to find someone who feels the same way, even if it's depressing as fuck-all.

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    3. Right there with you. Even small things have me going off my rocker and hiding in bed under the covers. Anxiety and depression are visiting too many of my days. It does help to know that others are feeling overwhelmed.

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    4. Marie, I've always been an anxious person, but my levels now are through the roof. Some days, I lay down on the sofa and can feel my heart beating from sheer panic. I don't know exactly what I'm having a panic attack about, because these days there are just so many things....

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    5. I have to believe we're going to find a way through this hell on earth environment we've built - someway, somehow - but in the meantime otherwise healthy and sane people are suffering an enormous amount of anxiety. I recently sat at a table of age-peers at a wedding - they all had grown children in their 20s--30s. One after another said their son suffered from anxiety, their daughter had panic attacks, their son was on medication for anxiety and depression, and on and on. It was shocking to know that every single family was dealing with this, but I think that's where we are.
      Glad we are at least here to support each other.

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    6. Young people are not as regularly visited by Hope as we were when we were their age. With good reason. It's pretty bleak out there. I actually take more comfort in the very very long view, when we're gone from the earth and irrelevant.

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  7. One of my favorite cartoons involved the Old White Man with the halo and beard sitting on a cloud, talking to an angel with a sword. They're gazing at the Earth, which is covered with smoke and flames. The old guy turns to the angel and says, "You were right, Mike. Giving the apes big brains was a lousy idea."

    "This is the way [our] world ends; not with a bang,but with a whimper."

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    Replies
    1. All of this, the cleverness and the stupidity, is who we are.

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    2. My dear friend, Howie, hit the nail on the head—“we’re just fancy, schmancy monkeys”.

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  8. Oh Murr. Sobbing with you. And fearful.

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    Replies
    1. Add me.In Australia, fireworks are mainly for New Year...our mid summer

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  9. Everyone is on edge..over so very many terrible things about which we seem to have no control. Yesterday in my beloved Mt. Tabor park I almost photographed a huge Doug Fir whose massive branches were weeping all the way to the ground. Stressed? Dying?(Who would want to see that photo?) Sure to go up in flames if anyone had been stupid enough to shoot fireworks..a yearly crazy ritual up in the park. (Always leaving trash all over afterwards!) Human will not survive this changing climate...eventually Mother Nature will determine who still lives on this Earth.

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    1. I tell my parrots that I wish that the asteroid didn't take out their ancestors. They would have done such a better job of being top of the pecking order. They just look at me as if to say "Duh. Bring me my snap pea, Monkey!"

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  10. I'm so sorry this happened. Just because some one lights up for fifteen years doesn't mean she gets to when there's a ban. Downunder, in Aus. fireworks are banned permanently and every single summer there are bans on outdoor barbecues, any other type of burning and so on. We're well used to it, but accidents happen, like the bush fore that spread across half the hills area when someone's angle grinder let out a couple of sparks.

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    Replies
    1. That all is simply dreadful. We're getting there. Am I incorrect in assuming Australians are temperamentally similar to Americans in their "rugged individualism?"

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    2. Maybe a few, but when we get told there's a fire ban, we don't light stuff up, when there's a ban on sprinklers, we don't water our gardens, when there's a covid lockdown, we stay home like we're told to. None of us run around with guns either.

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    3. oops, you said INcorrect (*~*) and now I'm confused, does my answer fit?

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    4. Yes it does, and my question even confuses me now! But you answered it.

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  11. So much of this is what I think about these days. Climate change, the coming water wars, the absolute stupidity and selfishness of my fellow human beings. When I mention it to friends they think I am exaggerating. They still have hope for gestures like turning off the tap when you brush your teeth, and recycling their damn plastic water bottles. I feel we have already turned the corner and that there is no going back. I’m just happy I have no kids or grandkids and that I most likely won’t live long enough to see the bitter end.

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    1. Joycetta, you voiced exactly what I'm thinking. I think that those who know the truth -- that we've already passed the tipping point -- are giving us "hope" because otherwise we'd panic and OMG... can you imagine how the populace would act then? All the gestures that you mentioned are just theater, to give us hope.

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  12. I feel for the next generation. The motivation, the intelligence, the concern and the action is largely with them. I have the good fortune to witness some of that. And I feel for you. {{Murr}}

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  13. My friend fled in terror at 3:30 am from her apartment immediately next to the buildings that burned. I myself used to enjoy a couple bottle rockets years ago..... until the year one went awry. Oh crap. What fireworks sounds do to folks w/ PTSD, animals and birds....... Never more. Never!

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    Replies
    1. That was one scary-ass fire. Boy. And Tater is a sturdy cat, but she got all squatty and kept leaving the comfort of Dave's lap because anywhere else must be better, I guess.

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  14. Excessive heat makes people crazy before it kills them. That said, I will address the pachyderm we'd all like to ignore: claiming victimhood and discrimination when getting called out for behavior that would have resulted in equal outrage from the neighbors regardless of the offenders' melanin. I will draw an unpleasant analogy and note that claiming discrimination when it doesn't exist is in the same camp as women alleging rape or harassment when it didn't happen. False claims diminish the credibility of every person who is an actual victim. And their justification was just bizarre. Everyone in the city had been under stress, suffered losses, had a horrible year, but the majority weren't going around being stupid. I'm wondering just how much damage got done to the willingness to be an ally in the future of your acquaintance, the anti-Karen. How much skepticism is she going to feel the next time a real injustice gets reported? Or, for that matter, the other people in your group.

    I think we've probably passed the tipping point for the planet, too. Deep ecologists like the late Pentti Linkola have argued for decades that what the planet needs is a really good plague. I was briefly hopeful COVID might do it, but the mortality rate turned out to be too low. Maybe the next one (and there will be a next one) will be more efficient.

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    1. I will say that this particular individual seemed especially thoughtless and oblivious.

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    2. I wonder if those who hope for a really good plague are also prepared to be the ones who die from it to save the rest of the planet.

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    3. Oh, I probably would. Certainly if that's what it takes. We ARE going to get worse pandemics down the line.

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    4. I'd be willing to die, simply because I am a wimp. I would rather die than have to deal with all the madness that comes with The End Times. Hence my keeping classic cars in my garage. Paul thinks I'm all talk. I'm not. I am too old to fight in "water wars." And I've had it too cushy my entire life to try.

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    5. I'd have no problem getting loaded on the cart heading for the mass grave. I'm old. Have to admit it would bother me to see kids die, though.

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  15. Hugs and pats to you, Murr. Progress is going in the wrong direction on a lot of fronts. I have a lot of fear too, but I would be right with you running down the street yelling.

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  16. We all need to be more like more like mimimanderly's parrots.

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  17. I'm very sorry I didn't read this yesterday when you posted it. So... I take it that the (black) family who fired off those first ones continued to do it after all of you had left? I don't see a Welcome Wagon coming to her place anytime soon. Gosh, if she had just said "Oops I didn't know, I'm sorry" it would've diffused the situation. Anyway, just sorry you got overcome with things Murr, but thanks for sharing.

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  18. This is a brave post. People do stupid things, and one's race, even in these tiptoey times, is not a pass for doing a stupid thing. Ms. Firecracker, your race has absolutely nothing to do with this, and to assert otherwise is very messed up of you. This is a public safety issue, and you are being very dumb. Period. Whatever your skin color. NA. I have been moved to tears by the actions of my neighbors, too. It's hard to live among people, because by living among them, we find out how deeply ignorant they can be. There's a guy, who happens to be Caucasian, on the corner of my county road who I saw out one spring afternoon, weedwhacking drifts of blooming bluets--BLUETS!! to the ground. He planted Asian Miscanthus grass in huge clumps. Got rid of those pesky dainty wildflowers, he did! Asian Miscanthus grass has now taken over his steep bank and is headed in every direction from there--razor-edged, 8' tall grass nobody can ever eradicate, or even walk through. Good going, Mr. YardProud. I'm surrounded by people who take great joy in gunshots, mufflerless engines, and mowing things down to the roots. If they're blooming, and covered with butterflies, so much the better. That's the time you mow, if only to break that silly hippie woman's heart. At this point, all I can do is protect what I own. And that's all your posse was trying to do. You go ahead and cry. Your readers don't expect to be jollied all the time, and neither do mine. Sometimes sh-t gets real and we have to tell our stories, and you know what? Our readers not only live through it; they appreciate it, because they have their own hard times, and it only brings us closer to you. Keeping it in is for your own pride, and there's no shame in having rough passages. It's the human condition. Do tell. So much love to you, Murre.

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    1. {{{Julie}}} Our neighbours just cut the most beautiful black pine. It must have been 100 years old. Gorgeous thing. Took two days to lop all the branches off and take it down. Can't imagine why unless they wanted people to see their ugly little toad of a house.

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    2. Around here, I get the idea that a lot of people think their tree is fixin' to land on their house. So the guy across the street took down two large conifers and the 40-year-old (but smaller) smoke tree keeled over roots and all in an ice storm, its roots no longer supported by neighboring tree roots, and landed on the neighbor's house.

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  19. Well said, from start to finish.

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  20. A message I received today from one of the innumerable emailing lists I subscribe to bears the headline "MIT Predicted in 1972 That Society Will Collapse This Century. New Research Shows We’re on Schedule."

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  21. Just because you're black doesn't mean you can be an asshole.

    Hugs, Murr. I'll likely be dead before the real shit hits the fan, but I fear for our grandkids. The water wars will start in the arid and semi-arid places, like here in Colorado.

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    1. I no longer think I'll die before the SHTF. But it will get ever worse for the younger.

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    2. And the agricultural economy here in California will collapse when the groundwater is gone, there's no more spring snowmelt, and there's no more water to steal from the Colorado River...

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  22. I'm overwhelmed by your-all's responses. Thanks for listening.

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    1. {{{Murr}}} You are obviously well-loved, Murr. And we are all feeling this. Paul has always told me, when I was catastrophizing, "Oh, they've been predicting the end of the world from its beginning!" To which I reply, "Yeah, but ONE DAY they are going to be right!" Guess that day is here.

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    2. It is truly weird to have washed up on the beach of the End Times.

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  23. Firework$ ... yawn. Have to wonder how the same people, who shell out a hundred or so, like it's nothing, will loudly moan and accuse when the washer quits or the car needs repairs to pass inspection.

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    1. Yeah, I hate them, but I know people really love them, and I know I spend money on things I love that other people don't care about. None of which have ever set anything on fire.

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  24. Sad you're moving Murr, most of those new sites I don't like and I'll miss those who leave The Land, but Be Well there. As for how you feel, I think so many of us feel the same, so much is unraveling and in ways we cannot control, cannot change, cannot feel at Peace with either. We were fortunate here in the Desert that we had the first epic Monsoon Storm the day before the 4th of July so saturate everything thoroughly. *Whew!* We've had Two Years of Drought but those who are Morons will still want to do stupid shit that nobody can reason with them about, it's futile to attempt to. That Family playing the Race Card was by default, they knew they were doing something potentially dangerous and illegal, period... people of all demographics default to blaming when they really don't have any other legit response to being called out when they're doing something they know they shouldn't be... if it works for them, they'll work it. Here in our neck of the Woods the major headaches come from the ReTrumplican Cultists, who are no longer tethered to Reality at all so there can be no dialogue and no common ground to reach, since even I can never be quite that delusional and that far down a Rabbit Hole, even on my Craziest Days.

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    1. Oh good, I apparently misinterpreted and thought you were bailing on this site! *Whew!*

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