Well, it happened, I've turned fifty-two. This past week. It's been an interesting week:)

I'm playing with a full deck now, according to a fellow 52er, and as a full deck player I feel I am entitled to a whole hell of a lot of respect. I appear to be getting it, too, as work yesterday went along nicely, and that has gone a good way towards improving my mood and outlook-not that I am stupid enough to believe things will ever improve there to the point that I look forward to each new business day. I don't. I literally have to drag myself there, and the disappointment that creates is depressing to say the least.

But oh well, I seem to be getting through it and that realization is a help. Crusty wanted me to have to drag myself to work so that I would know how he felt everyday-not going to ever happen. He had me to try and help him see Life does not have to be such a flippin' tragedy-I have no living breathing optimist standing next to me, dammit, but in spite of Crusty's very best efforts, I am still willing to be optimist for myself.

Speaking of the sorry piece of East-Euro-trash Crusty, Hurricane Gustav has him set for being on the worst side of the storm when it hits. I am trying VERY hard to pray the storm falls apart before it hits the Gulf Coast, but frankly I really think it would be bloody perfect if Gustav hit Crusty, but just Crusty and his house, and just about anything he holds dear except living beings, and washes every bit out to sea. Most important, if the storm does hit Crusty (and only Crusty, please God) I pray with my whole entire heart and soul that that sorry excuse for a person DOES NOT GET ANOTHER TAX-PAYER FUNDED REBUILT BEACH SHACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot tell you, dear and gentle reader, how very outraged the notion of Crusty and his ilk using hard working tax-payer money to rebuild a house in such a disaster prone area makes me.

I mean, COME ON! If we as a people can be angry about welfare cheats, how is it that we turn and pay to rebuild the ultimate welfare cheat's follies on the beach?

Growing up in Southern California I watched in amazement as people built houses (expensive, and in clusters-a certain recipe for disaster!) along sand cliffs-excuse me, sand cliffs? WTF were they thinking?? Certainly not "I say, it certainly does not make sense to build a home along a sand cliff that has traditionally and annually crumbled during the SoCal rainy season, now does it my dear?"

And they built in arroyos-dry creek beds for those of you raised elsewhere. HUH?? DRY CREEK BEDS? There is a good reason you do not build a camp in a dry creek bed-like when it rains that dry creek bed becomes a raging mini-river waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster than you could scream "OH S*IT!"

We live on a geo-physically unstable planet. Meaning-some places are nice to visit but you certainly wouldn't want to live there.

And I am certain I do not ever again want to spend my hard earned money supporting your surely drug-induced arrogance

So, if you live in a disaster prone area, I say, except for immediate humanitarian aid, you are and should be, on your damn own.

As in rebuild at your expense, not mine, you cheating idiot wanker (and oh yes, I damn sure know what that bit of vernacular means).

NO MORE FREE RIDES FER PISSANTS!!

I am a climate refugee. I did not ask my fellow Americans to support my habit of living in danger zones. I got the hell outta there, and have been working hard ever since to pay my own way. It has not been easy. I actually need some help but I am not about to ask for a free ride, and I really think a free ride is what these morons are asking for when they go back and rebuild.

Why is it different for Them-because they built ridiculously expensive beach 'McMansions' and that somehow makes helping them cover their stupidity more right than helping some poor kid who made the colossal mistake of not being born into an upper income family, so they couldn't afford college or even staggering amounts of student loan debt loads, so they had to take a low paying job, which made every day a struggle and they couldn't afford to relocate, or even pay for the gas to get the beater loaded up and outta there...

Jesus weeps.