After much thought, I am giving up Lent for Lent this Lent. I have basically tried to be a pretty good Catholic all these years. And to tell the truth, I can't complain. Life has been pretty good to me by objective standards. But the last few years, I feel like I've done my bit and now the ball is in God's court for awhile. Show me why I should be devout. It hasn't been exactly the trial of Job, but dang. Got the current house in November of 2020. Had renters in my first rental. Putting a renter into my old house. Then I just needed one more rental and I could "retire." But the 'Rona happened. And the supply of affordable nice houses dried up. The renter I put into my old home turned out to be a turd who liked to play games and my dog died in March. Then my cat died in June. Then I took a job I hated as a favor to a friend. Again. And my first renters had to break their lease. When Turd's lease was up I wound up telling him he had to move out (because he'd been having problems paying rent over the winter and the first month he was off the lease he "forgot" that the rent had gone up and wound up paying the balance late). Oh, and I donated a decent amount to St. Jude Children's Hospital because I was a bit behind on donations and they had their Dream House raffle so, in a perfect world, I'd have won the raffle and had my last house. But it isn't a perfect world. Plus, I think our current Pope is a turd and I continue to be just on the cusp of getting what I want but can't get that last break. So fuck it. I don't need to prove myself by suffering and sacrificing for Lent. I've been doing that all my life. I get that last house--oh. That's the other one. I realized I could rent out storage space through a Website. So I got everything cleaned up and listed with them. What a bust. Got one good renter. But now he got laid off from his new job so he's going to have to sell the car he was storing with me. So yeah. I find some people that want to store cars and/or another decent rental and I'll go fucking vegetarian for the rest of Lent--even skip fish (and try to cut back on alcohol). But in the mean time, fuck it.
And yeah, I did some reading on Pancake Day and apparently Thee Olden Dayes sucked and pancakes were a decadent indulgence. Little British children would go around begging for pancakes. Now pancakes are like, when you're out of groceries. Or you're a starving college student. That's another interesting thing that has changed over time. When I was your age, "living like a college student" meant you were poor. You got a TV set from the local junkyard and stayed tight with the guy who owned a car so you could get around without having to take the bus all the time. You lived on ramen noodles and generic oatmeal (and pancakes) and your entertainment budget for the weekend was literally $5. Nowdays college kids drive around in Audis and go out to the clubs and Door Dash and Uber and eat out every night. And then they bitch about how unfair and crippling their student loan debt is for their transgender urban studies doctorate.
