My God (Goddess?) what a day!!!

So, anybody who has spent time here knows that I work in a prison.

On Fridays we have administrative segregation committee, that is where the guys who are confined 23 hours a day for whatever reason will come to see a three member panel and we will decide what to do with them. Most of the time there are only about 7 or 8 scheduled, but we have had days of 20 or more. Those days are the LONG days.

I think I've explained that I'm the grievance officer where I work, so a lot of the time I am totally alone. Except for whiny offenders, of course. I rarely get to do adseg committee anymore, which explains why I get totally excited about something that promises to be irritating more often than not.

So, this morning started out perfectly normal and I was excited because I get to do committee. Yeah!!! Then the shit hit the fan... we had three guys who apparently were involved in a fight last weekend. We found the one who got hit, with blood all over him. Then the officers found another one (the one they thought did the hitting) and locked him up. Then one showed up at the shift commander's office and said he was actually doing the hitting.

Now, the weird thing here is guys don't normally tell on themselves. So, (I say that word a lot) we thought he was lying; but we locked him up anyway. Well, we went back and forth this morning and finally decided the one who admitted to hitting was telling the truth.

Then we had another guy who wanted to threaten some staff while on the phone with his wife (girlfriend?sister?), so we had to see him.

Fast forward a few hours and by 2:30 this afternoon I had written three violations, two for the fight and one for the threats over the phone.

Then my boss calls me back in and says "Why didn't you all cut the guy making the hooch loose?" I don't effin' know, I am not (NOT) in charge here. So, we convened an emergency committee at 3:30 this afternoon to let him out of our adseg unit. For the record, hooch is prison made alcohol. They gather all the fruit they can steal from food service and mix it with god knows what else and some bread and voila! You have hooch!! Except this guy's violation didn't get read in time and we can't hold him anymore. Woops! Our bad, we can't punish you anymore because we didn't follow the policy.

By the time I left my office at 5:15pm they still hadn't released the guy with the hooch from 5 house, but I was going home. With the assurance of the sgt that he would be released as soon as chow is over.

I am soooooo glad it is the weekend! And, in other good news, I get to pick up the babies on Sunday. Yeah!!!

Alone for the evening...

Yippee!!!!! I am alone! Totally alone, except for the doggies.

The Diva went to stay with a friend (we are babysitting her kid during the day), and the bottom three aren't home from Atlanta yet. I don't know what to do with myself, hehe!

I think I am going to watch some tv, eat some food, take some ambien and sleep like there is no tomorrow!

I am at the stage where I really don't like being around people all that much, I don't know what to say anymore. I love being able to sit down and write out my feelings and thoughts for the day, except Wow! today would have been mostly curse words.

Anyone who has never worked with an exclusively male population before, you are missing out! The joy of trying to make yourself understandable alllll day long is overwhelming. How many different ways are there to say "you have to wait for the paperwork." I leave some days feeling like I will never change anything, but others it is worth all of this.

So... now I will take a small break, order dinner (italian, yum!), and watch the tube. Y'all have a good night! :)

The joy of quiet mornings...

I love early mornings at my house. All is quiet, everyone but me is asleep.

The sun is shining, and I will not let the gray at the back of my mind take over. These are the mornings where I sit in front of the computer, with my coffee and read my favorite blogs. They are an escape for me, I have found a few new ones over the last few weeks that have really helped. They have made me laugh out loud, and I am glad. Glad to know that I am going to come around eventually, and glad to know that my sense of humor is as warped as it ever was.

This morning I got up and loaded the dishwasher, and made blueberry muffins. I know that C and the Diva will be thrilled when they get up, and it made me all the happier to have a few minutes of quiet peace. Tuesday will come, and I will go back to work, but the weekends with my family make it all worthwhile. Just thought I'd share my favorite day of the week.

What is yours?

Followup on Elrod's eye

Good morning all! The sun is shining and the birds are chirping, meh! Not really, I woke up to a wonderful thunderstorm that would have been really good sleeping weather. Did I get to sleep? Nope.

I took El (the baby bulldog) in this morning for a check up on his eye. Doc says it all looks good, except we have to do the ointment in the non-injured eye 4 times a day because it is still too dry.

We won't know until next Saturday whether or not he will keep the eye. They have to take the stitches out and poke around a little, and then the Doc will decide.

In better news, the secretary told me this morning it is only $480 rather than $650. Yippee! I told her just to keep the money on our account until we see what happens next week.

I am going to think positively, and believe for him that El will get to keep his eye. Although, his Mama D said we could make him a pirate for Halloween next year, with a black patch! I kid, we would much rather him keep his eye. But, at least we know he will always be our baby boy.

So, I sit here and watch him. He hates this damn collar, and really just figured that out this morning. My poor boy...

Why am I sooooo angry??

I woke up this morning, and I was pissed. Not irritated, not grumpy, just pissed.

I don't know where this is coming from. Well, I take that back, I do know. I feel like at least part of my life was left back there almost a month ago when Daddy died. My sis was angry at the beginning, she said it helped her. I don't think it is helping me. It feels like I can't get this rock off my chest.

People will ask me what is wrong, and my brain is thinking "duh, whaddya think is wrong with me?" But then (until today at home), I am nice and brush them off. "Nothing's wrong, I am fine, just fine."

This is the part of me that hates working at a prison. I can't be sad and mopey in front of the offenders, I can't be sad and mopey in front of my boss. I tell new employees all the time, 'fake it until you make it.' But I haven't faked it in about three years. I like my job, I enjoy almost all aspects of it. But, right now I don't want to be there. I don't want to see people, I don't want to talk to anyone.

I teach a class to about 20 offenders, and I know it is slower right now than the last class I taught. I keep telling myself I have to pick up the pace, but I don't know how. I cannot bring myself to care about it right now.

I feel bad for being such a grouch, but I don't know how to stop. I feel like no one wants to hear about my sob story anymore, but I can't make it go away.

I yelled at C tonight and I just couldn't stop. Then I came out of my bedroom, and the Diva was sitting there listening in on our conversation so I yelled at her too. Ack! I know better than to behave like this, it makes me worry that I will drive the people I love most away.

Part of me feels like it would be better to just be left totally alone, but then I'm all 'wait, come back, don't leave!' Then C said she understood, mmmm no, don't think she really does. I don't know how anyone who hasn't gone through this understands, and I know that sounds mean too.

Make it stop!! Maybe if I remind myself to breathe it will all work out, but it doesn't feel like it right now.

Damn bulldogs!!!

Elrod ruptured his cornea last night. I don't know why it has to be the one who is worth twice more than his sister. He is the one with the skin problems, and now this.

We had an emergency surgery at 8:00pm to save the eye, and hopefully they'll be able to take the stitches out Saturday morning. I don't know for sure. Thank God for the Diva, without her paying attention we probably wouldn't have found it until this morning. Thank God for C, without her yelling at the very stupid vet tech, they probably would have convinced the Doc to take the eye without looking at it.

Thank God that it was Elrod, and not Lucy (breathing problems) otherwise we probably would have lost her.

I told his Mama D last night (our co-owner) that I didn't care if he ever showed again, I just don't want him to lose his eye. We are holding out hope.

Also, thank the Goddess (confused yet??) that the other 3 kiddos weren't at home, only two hysterical women needed at once... thank you very much!

p.s. I am hoping to post pics from our trip to the St.Louis Art museum this weekend, it was lovely. They have Degas' dancer and Monet's Waterlilies. I am in love forever!!

My Sister's Keeper

I took the Diva to see My Sister's Keeper tonight. It is a fairly sad movie and although C would sit through it with me (and probably will once it is in stores), I thought she has been through enough lately.

It is a good movie, moving, sad, somewhat uplifting, but all in all a good movie. Here's the bad part though...If you read the book don't expect the movie to hold a candle to it.

I liked it, I just wish it hadn't been the very first Jodi Picoult book that I read. I love her, I love her writing even though she makes me cry every time. Sometimes that is cathartic, I think.

The other problem is I probably won't be able to convince the Diva to read the book, she is still working on Breaking Dawn. So, I sat there and didn't say anything when the end went in an unexpected direction. She won't know what she is missing and neither will C, so the only person I could really talk to about it is my sister. She would go on a complete tangent with this one, I promise.

In other news, the Soldier, the Princess and the Fairy Princess are all in Hotlanta for the next two weeks, so I am trying to figure out how to fill my time on the weekends. We are off to the museum on Sunday, and I think that will be wicked fun.

And... the low here tonight is going to be 57, hooray for open windows and bulldogs that can breathe b/c the humidity finally went away!!! Yippee!