Hurricane

I’ve been glued to The Weather Channel since the weekend watching Isaac.  I have family in New Orleans and in southern Mississippi.  I’m so grateful that so far they are okay.   Power outages but okay.

But Lord, again in the aftermath, there are people on the roofs of their houses in the parrishes that were under mandatory evacuation.  I see them on the news saying that “they said it wouldn’t be as bad as Katrina and it was as bad as that here” and one guy who looked like he had been through hell said, “they were just calling it a tropical storm and so we thought it would just be some wind and rain”.

I think ‘wind and rain’ is the definition of hurricane

 and that hurricane has ‘hurri’ in it which means ‘hurri up and get your ass out of there’ 

but what do I know.

I can understand.  Everything they own is in their homes.  I wouldn’t want to leave everything I own either.  In addition, humans labor under the delusion that ‘it won’t happen to me.’   When the truth is that none of us are immune to hardships.  I am always waiting for my next hardship.I have a friend who was also divorced last year.  This is a beautiful, smart, 50 year-old woman whose husband was a mean bastard.  Her last child went off to college, she kicked the mean pig out and is now an empty nester.  She called me about a month ago and told me that she had been diagnosed with advanced breast cancer.  I was stunned.  She told me that she had what her doctor called a ‘huge tumor in a very small breast’.  When I asked her if she could feel it she reported that she could and that it even hurt to sleep on her side.  She never went to the doctor and when she had her routine mammogram they found it.  She said that she kept thinking, “after my horrible year with this divorce, I just kept thinking that God wouldn’t give me cancer and it was fine.”

Shock.  

My mammogram was in July as well and all I could think in the days leading up to it was that my luck had been so bad with the divorce, the house floods, etc that I probably had end stage cancer.

I am very worried about her but she is doing great with her treatment, thank God. 

Last night I spent the evening at the Crashpad (my parent’s home where I go on my off nights) and in a rare event, my parents were there.  My dad turned on the Republican Convention.  I didn’t make it very long and retired to the bedroom.

Mike Huckabee pushed me over the edge with his ‘we must take back America’ crap.  

I’m thinking, take it back from who?

The terrorists?  The cowboys and Indians?  The hippies? 

I do not like this demonizing of the other side.  

And just in case you think I’m a big ole democrat, well I will not watch that convention either because they do it too.    I hate it because the fear mongers are trying to scare us with things that are not true and do not matter.

We all want the best for our people. 

(Even Pres Obama and Mitt Romney)

I’m scared of cancer and hurricanes. 

 (and snakes, I’m terrified of snakes and need desentization therapy but hell no)

Please don’t try to make me scared of some made up phantom trying to steal my way of life.

I resent it Mike Huckabee.

By the way, you gained some weight.