Emotionally Exhausted

We had BG's visitation this evening. It was harder than I thought it would be. But at least I had lots of friends around me. I think if I had been there by myself I would have lost it.

They gave us time and even loaned us a state vehicle so we could all go as a group. Or several groups, actually. That was nice of them.

When I came back and went out on the yard it was a good thing that nothing happened. I had to fight to keep myself focused on where I was and what I was doing, and that isn't good. I should have gone up and said "Hey, I'm apparently toast. I need to go." But pigheaded me hung around until Sgt Uncle Buck and Lt Strong came up and said "Man, you look tired. We have plenty of people. Go home."

So I did. And it was a good thing. I'm worn.

The funeral is tomorrow right before work. I'm sure I'll be in fine form then. Yeah.

We'll see.

Wednesday will be Dare Day. I dare one of those knuckleheads to get stupid the way our mood has been lately. It's also National Go Barefoot Day, Stand For Children Day and Say Something Nice Day.

A Very Long Day

Today was longer than I thought it would be. If I would have called in nobody would have thought twice about it. But then I would have had to fight myself to come in the next day and that would have been even harder.

The day was interminable. I thought it would never end. Not that anything bad happened, it was just my mood. Dark and gloomy and kind of depressed.

We spent the last couple of days talking about BG, of course. Remembering things he did and said that made him so special.

Ms. Archer called me yesterday morning and reminded me of one day down in the Hive (of course) when some knucklehead was pretending to be unconscious in his cell. We all just stood around in a little knot outside the cell waiting for the nurse to get there and tell us yes, he was faking it, so we could write him up and go on our way.

As we stood there waiting, BG suddenly piped up and said "We should get together like this more often!"

I laughed so hard I almost fell over the rail.

That was him, all right. He rarely said anything in front of a group of people, but when he did, it was always a gem.

I remember the first time I went down to the Hive to do rec. I walked in there and someone said "Oh, you have to work with BG! You probably won't like it. He's pretty strange." And someone else said "Yeah, if he says anything, let me know. I'm not even sure he can talk!"

They had me a little worried, then this mountain of a guy came through the door and grabbed up the rec list. Giving me little more than a glance he said "Ready?"

Yeah..... I suppose so....

He didn't talk to me at first. Not really. He just asked the inmates if they were going. If one said yes, he'd point and say "Him."

Once we got them out on the rec yard and we got to sit down I tried a few different ploys to open up a conversation and didn't get much more than single syllable answers.

Then I mentioned something about going to a yard sale.

And the flood gates opened.

Once we got back into the house one of the guys asked me "Did he say anything?"

To which I replied "Yeah. Now how do I get him to shut up again?"

Tomorrow is the visitation, which is going to be hard. And the next day is the funeral which will probably be harder.

Not sure if I'll write about it or not. I guess we'll see.

Tuesday will be National Macaroon Day. It will also be What You Think Upon Grows Day (okey dokey) and World No Tobacco Day. Yeah, good luck with that. Talk about an apocalypse....

In Memorium

I had planned, this weekend to write about Memorial Day and how it started and what it really means for those who don't know.

But instead I will write about my good friend BG, who passed away last night.

As you may remember, he came in to work one day in April and wasn't feeling well and ended up in the hospital. Then into the ICU which scared the crap out of all of us. He told us that he had a bleeding ulcer which gave him anemia and blood clots in his legs, but that he was getting better and would be back to work soon.

What he didn't tell us was that he also had cancer.

That is so much like him. He was such a private person that it took a bright light and rubber hose to get any personal information out of him most days. I was his partner for five and a half, almost six years, and it took four years before I found out that he had a brother. Of course I didn't find out his brothers name until almost three years later when I met him in the hospital.

That was so much like him.

I didn't get to see my friend after he got out of the hospital. He didn't really want to see anybody anyway, being embarrassed about being sick and all. I figured I had embarrassed him enough seeing him laid up in the hospital. He was a true stoic.

And a Luddite, for all intents and purposes. BG didn't own a computer, a cell phone, a DVD player or even a VCR. He still got his teevee signal from an antenna on his roof and spent alot of time listening to AM radio.

He was also a notorious miser. He would do ridiculous things like not turning on his water heater until right before he needed hot water. A few minutes ago his brother told me "He could pinch a penny and get miles out of it."

BG was an avid collector of antique glass and other things like presidential campaign buttons, stereoscope pictures and cookie jars. He was also an expert on local history, old cars and almost anything older than him. He was a fountain of fascinating information.

BG was also the rock that the Hive was tethered to for many many years. He helped shape and solidify alot of the policies and procedures that made the place run as well as it did. And he helped shape me into the officer that I am today. I've tried to live up to someone that he would be happy to work with.

If he could see me now, my eyes brimming with tears threatening to drip onto my keyboard he would snort and say "Don't be a fool, Rev. Get up from behind that stupid machine and get some work done." I'll try to do that.

The visitation is on Tuesday and the services on Wednesday. The Honor Guard will be there to represent us and to be his pall bearers. I think BG would be secretly proud of that. We will all be there, too. As many of us as can come.

On that note, I'm going to get up from behind this stupid machine and try to get some work done.

BG's work is done. Ours continues.

Rest well, my friend.

Mad, Just Mad

I'm so mad. Just freaking pi**ed. I missed it!

I found out just the other day via this article that there has been a national pun-off competition going on for the last 34 years and I have missed them all!

And the last one was just freaking last Saturday!

Oh, the humanity!

Puns have been my favorite form of humor most of my life. Even before I really knew what they were. One of my favorite authors, Spider Robinson, uses some horrible horrible puns in some of his books and I love them. There have been times that I had to throw the book down and run screaming from the room, some of them have been so bad.

And to think there have been punsters, paronomasiacs to be exact, gathering in the same place for the last 34 years to test their skills against one another..... Oh! I'm still peeved that I didn't know about it much sooner.

Of course, I'm going to have to go next year. And I'll have to take the Watcher along with me. He's one of the few who can out-pun me on a regular basis.

If you'd like to know more about the competition, go here and check out their website. I'm sure it will make you groan in dismay or delight, depending on your sense of humor.

And just because I have tossed in so many links tonight, here's one more just for the halibut.

And now on to the calendar before I get smacked. Saturday's celebrations are National Hamburger Day (for which I will gladly pay you Tuesday), Slugs return From Capistrano Day, International Jazz Day, Julia Pierpont Day, and the Amateur Radio Military Appreciation Day.

Okey dokey.

Sunday will be End Of The Middle Ages Day, the Indianapolis 500, Rogation Sunday (It's apparently a Catholic thing), and Rural Life Day.

And Monday will be My Bucket's Got A Hole In It Day. Dear Liza, dear Liza...., Loomis Day (you got me) and Memorial Day. Not just a day for shopping, folks! Remember those who fought and died for our country! All of them!

Unemployable

Most of the people that I know that work here at the prison came here form other jobs. There are a good number of them who had retired from their other jobs and came to work for the state. Mostly due to the fact that if you retire before you are 65 you are just screwed.

Unless you were the CEO of some huge corporation or a senator or something.

There are alot of retired military folk working here that just couldn't make it on retirement benefits. That's just a blasted shame. You would think if you had the stuff to serve your country for twenty years, at least a quarter of your natural life, that your government would be able to take care of you for the rest of it.

I'm not talking smack about my country or my government. I'm just saying that it's not right.

Anyway.

Some of the folk here are in their first jobs, which is a little scary. Just the thought of them getting their first exposure to the workforce in a prison. What next? leave the prison and go be a dentist? "Open your mouth, boy! Do it NOW!!!"

Or go be a greeter at WalMart and pat search all of the shoppers as they come and go to make sure they aren't carrying any contraband. I'll bet that would cut down on the shoplifting!

Me, I think I would be a good bill collector. None of those namby-pamby letters in the mail or dunning phone calls. I would come to their door and say "Give me the money now. If you do not give me the money now, I will spray you, slam you to the concrete and put you in a cell with a 300 pound man with nineteen different personalities. And twelve of those don't like deadbeats. Six of the others don't like anybody. The last one is a Ritz cracker."

I'll bet I would be successful.

But some of these people..... I don't know. There are some of them that I don't think could find another job anywhere. And we only put up with them because they have been here forever, like Kermit. They have been here for so long they are more institutionalized than the inmates and it would be cruel to them and the rest of the world to try and make them go out and find another job.

Where else can you be rude and illiterate and socially dysfunctional and still get paid for it?

Besides talk radio, anyway. And reality teevee shows. I don't know.

And I'm starting to get that way myself now after all these years. I really suspect that I would find it hard trying to fit in out in the square world after all this time. I imagine most places look down on you slamming and cuffing rude customers. That could be a deal breaker.

I may just have to stick it out here. **sigh**

Let's just go check the calendar, then. If we must. Friday will be the Body Painting Arts Festival. Where??? OMG! I want to go to that! It will also be Cellophane Tape Day, Player Piano Day and Wig Out Day. Cool, man..... just cool.

No, I'm Not Dead Yet

But I have definitely been blowing in the wind today. Took some more big nasty weather hits. I looked at the statewide weather radar before I left for work and there were eleven tornado warning boxes scattered all over the state. By the time I got to work four of them were directly west of us and coming in fast.

It's all over the national news, apparently. I've been getting emails from friends and family back home saying "Are you daid, boy?"

Naw, aint daid yet!

It hadn't rained a drop until I got into the parking lot, then it started with a few of those widely scattered big fat raindrops that hit like toads dropping from the sky. One of them hit the brim of my hat and knocked it down onto the top of my glasses.

Then as I was walking up to the admin building I heard this "pock!" and looked down and saw a small hailstone, about the size of a pea, bouncing across the ground. Snap! I ran for shelter, but the hail stopped just as fast as it started.

I had already lost power at home once this morning and hoped we weren't going to be having any more of that at work. I was wrong. Later on when I went to lock up the admin building I no sooner walked into the hall and turned the corner when "poof!" the lights went out. I almost smacked into the wall in the dark. And when the power went out it killed the power to the siren outside too, apparently. It died when the lights did. That was kind of spooky. That one also knocked out some of our phone lines for awhile. Only the control center could call outside of the institution for a couple of hours. Whee!

I have to tell you, getting everybody secured and sheltered and fed at the same time is quite challenging. You have to time the movements in between little breaks in the storm. It got done, but it sure took awhile. We were lucky we didn't get anybody hurt.

Last night when I was out on the yard everybody kept talking and worrying about the storms that were rolling in today. I kept saying "Don't worry. It will be okay." Finally after the third or fourth time I said that someone said "We might get a tornado! Why the snap do you keep saying it will be okay?" I just gave them my widest smile and said "Because I'll be safe up in the comm room! It will be fine!"

Boy, I got a cussing out for that one, let me tell you.

We didn't get hit by an actual tornado, but we got straight line winds and rain and hail and lightning. Everything but a tornado. There was one small one reported just south of us heading our way but it dissipated before it could get here. And there was baseball sized hail reported up north of us.

Dodged another bullet. I hope we can keep dancing around long enough to survive storm season.

There's supposed to be another round working it's way in tomorrow night. Of course. My night on the yard and my night for the Del Norte walk. Joy!

So Thursday will be Grey Day. That should be easy. Just look under my hat. It will also be National Spelling Bee Day. And amazingly enough, that seems to be all. A simple day to celebrate for a change. Yay!

Zombie Apocalypse!

I had actually been saving this post title and picture for something else but this seems more fitting. Besides, the kids (not mine, somebody elses) kept me chatting in the parking lot until almost 1 am which is my bed time.

So here I am once again, nodding at my keyboard trying to be coherent.

There's a new blog in town. It's called They Won't Get Us and so far it's all about zombies. Short stories penned by my friend FlyinMonkey aka Tango J. he has a great imagination and a great sense of humor and I think you should go give his stuff a look.

There's only two stories up right now but I'm hoping for lots more. If we can keep his enthusiasm as high about his writing as it is about reading about zombies and other creepy things that go bump in the night, there should be enough material here to keep us entertained for a long time.

Go check him out and comment! I think he might get a better grade in his writing class that way too.

On to the calendar before I fall face first into the keyboard here.

Wednesday will be (er.. already is) National Tap Dance Day. Get your tap shoes on, Martha! We're going to cut a rug! It is also a bunch of exciting other things like African freedom Day, Cookie Monster's Birthday, Nerd and Geek Pride Day and Towel Day. You should always know where your towel is!