So far I still have a job. Dunno for how long, things are bleak all over.

Yeah, word for the day, month, hell, maybe year, is: BLEAK

I went back to work and have been there pretty much straight through, with quick/brief time-outs to run home for what amounts to a nap-quick shower-change clothes-feed cats-go back.

I thought I'd discovered the perfect quick lunch/snack in low-sodium Ritz Cracker & peanut butter sandwiches until I read the MSNBC news post that the FDA is advising people not to eat peanut butter until they figure out how widespread the salmonella contamination is.

Figures.

Life is rough and becoming more so. I'm finding it quite difficult not to want to shred Crusty for everything he did to ensure that Fox and me would have a terrible time in the coming onslaught, the one I warned him was coming back in '98 and he was furious with me for keeping him out of a sub-prime mortgage and investing the retirement fund in the stock market.

I try very hard not to think about it, but frankly, times like this, when I am sitting here in a near freezing tin shack clinging to the side of a North Georgia mountainside, well, it is damn near impossible.

We were in good financial shape-if he'd been a real man Fox and I would have been OK after the divorce, but of course, a real man wouldn't have needed to use threats of physical violence against me and Fox to keep me from grabbing the kid and running. A real man would have listened before Fox was a glimmer in his father's eye when I said-"No, you're getting too serious, I don't want to marry you, or even date you; a real man would not have pointed a loaded .41 mag to keep me from leaving, and a real man would not have needed a Q'Lude to drug me into bed, but there you go, Crusty was not, is not, and never will be, a real man.

He used to try to say he was a bad machine, a mad dog. Right. Not a viable excuse.

IT IS COLD! My toes are encased in tights, thick socks, AND fake-fur lined boots, yet are still cold.

Last night I huddled on the bed under several blankets while the radiator struggled to keep the house at 50F-oh yeah, thanks ever so, Crusty, you rat s*it bast*rd, where ever you are.

PS, you dirtball-I'm still waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay happier sitting here worrying about my job-rent-car-Fox than I ever was married to you!

Ain't life grand?