Seismic Twitch

We got home in the late afternoon today. We tucked Dutchess in Boy’s room and he and Bran unloaded the car. Then we found out that the lower floor (basement level) has been contaminated with black mould. That’s nasty stuff. The tenant in the basement will be moving out. That doesn’t break my heart any.

However, if the contamination has moved up into our suite we will have to move. We’re hoping that the contamination isn’t significant enough for us to have to move. We didn’t do laundry ever week and we very rarely used the back entrance. It just wasn’t convenient.

The upstairs neighbours, however, have been more affected, but they use the back entrance (which is open to the basement) all the time and the woman is always up and down the stairs.

I don’t want to have to move. I’m not ready. I don’t want to have to move twice. We have some stuff stored in the basement that is likely contaminated. It should be easy to clean it all though. Except for the cardboard boxes we have down there, the ones the HD televisions came in.

For now we’ll have to do laundry in a laundromat. As much of a pain as that is, it does mean that laundry will be a 2 – 3 hour ordeal rather than an entire day.

Tomorrow the Fringe Festival starts on Broadway. Bran will be selling my jewelry as a co-busker with our friend who makes wire wrapped crystal pendants at Infinite Spirit. If you’re in Saskatoon, drop by and see them.

Time for me to get back to unpacking the bedroom so I can get some sleep later.

Dad’s memorial mass was today at 11 am. It was, as masses go, a good one. I carried the cremains to the front of the church at the beginning of services. My niece, Dad’s oldest grandchild, did one of the readings. My cousin, Julie, did the other reading. Someone I don’t know, my older brother’s boss, did the intercessions. Boy was greatly distressed several times. Bran and I comforted him as best we could.

There was the usual tea after the services where I got to meet people I’d not seen in a long time (cousins I’d not seen since Mom’s funeral – I don’t remember seeing them there but they say they were and I believe them), and others I don’t remember from Adam. Of course, there were those who I’d never met before as they became part of Dad’s life after Mom died.

Other than the funeral home arrangement, there were 4 floral arrangements from family and friends. Bran too photos of them and a photo will be sent to each person along with the thank you cards.

The house was cleaned up yesterday. I vacuumed. I wish the machine was better. The suction didn’t really exist so I ended up having to go over areas I could feel stuff on, but the machine didn’t pick up the first four or five times I passed over it. I also had to pick up bits and pieces of paper (we took outdated books apart for recycling) that were in the carpet. This increase in work load wore out my back. Despite that I did get the dusting done (I don’t think the house had been dusted since before Dad went into hospital). I also cleared off the coffee and end tables of the stuff they had on them, washed up the ceramics (Mom collected Blue Mountain stuff) and put them back out.

My brother, sister and niece worked on getting the food together for the family coming by after the tea and did the other necessary cleaning. Boy and Bran did the powder room off the master bedroom. This was used as a back-up bathroom.

I’m quite looking forward to getting back home. I’m thoroughly peopled out (though my niece, Bran and Boy don’t count in that). My sister, her husband and my brother all smoke, so both my and Boy’s allergies are playing up. That doesn’t even get into the smell.

I may not like my brother-in-law much, but he has done a lot of work in a short period of time to do some of the cosmetic stuff that needs to be done to the house. He got the bathtub area done up so it doesn’t leak, he fixed the powder room toilet so it fills properly, replaced the kitchen faucet and did spot painting that needed to be done on the exterior trim (the rest of the exterior is brick and stucco). He also replaced the locks and some of the worn out light switches. All that since Friday. He’s a person who can’t just sit, so it worked out for him.

Tomorrow my niece goes back to her husband and daughter and we head back to ‘Toon Town. I have a few things that I chose to take back. One is a needle point that Mom did. It used to hang over the living room couch. I’m also taking Mom and Dad’s wedding photo, a small knick-knack stand, Mom’s family ring and a few other small bits and bobs. Boy has inherited a sweater, afghan and letter opener that was made from one of the original rail spikes used on the trans-Canada railway (at least I think that’s what it is). We’ll also be going home with a pile of food. There is a lot left over from the tea and then there was the food that was prepared here.

This isn’t home any more. It hasn’t been for a very long time. I realized it when I was laying on the back lawn with my niece and we were talking. With Dad’s death, the spirit that made this place home departed. It’s time to become someone else’s home. What we kids don’t choose to take will be sold or donated. The house will be sold and the estate distributed according to Dad’s will. The estate will probably go into probate since there is property involved. I don’t know how long that will take, but at the end of it I hope to be able to put a down payment on a house of our own.

Needless to say, going through Dad’s bedroom was like opening a time capsule. Dad moved a lot of his stuff into Mom’s old dresser, but the memorabilia she collected was still there. There were old newspaper articles about awards my siblings won, letters and cards from friends and relatives – some long dead. We found the book that Dad’s mom (Granny) used to keep track of the money that her sons sent her each month to help support her. This was before the days of government pensions for widows. We also found a couple of post cards she had written to Dad in French. Our niece translated them (the handwriting was somewhat unclear). They were both mundane and very special. My sister found a picture of Granny’s brother, Xenon. I’d never seen it before.

Bran volunteered to be family archivist. He’ll scan all the photos in the albums Dad made over the years and then he’ll can the slides. This project will consist of several years of work on his part. But for him it’s a labour of love. It also means that there will be an archive of photos available to all of us instead of only one person getting all the photos, or breaking up the collection.

It’s been a stressful time for all of us. My sister’s dog, Bailey, helped break the atmosphere. Besides grief, there’s also anger and dislike. My sister has been walking a fine line between all of us and had done it with relative grace, though she does tend to micromanage some. That’s ok. She’s executor of the estate and wants to do a good job. Dad trusted her and she wants to live up to that trust.

That’s about it. I’m going to go hunt down a sandwich (there are a gabillion of them in the fridge).

Dad died in the night. I’m going to finish out my shift today, there’s a staff meeting I want to attend at the end of the day. Tomorrow will be filled with the business of getting ready to go out of town and getting someone to take care of Dutchess while we’re all away. We’ll be leaving on Friday morning.

Thanks to everyone for your support the past month. It’s helped ease the load.

Naomi

I just got a call from my sister. Dad’s blood pressure has dropped (he’s been hypertensive for many years, so this is bad news) and his kidneys are failed again. Apparently they had them up and running for a few days but that’s ended. It was suggested to her that they could increase fluids to help with the kidneys but that would affect his heart. They wanted to know how aggressive they should be. She said not aggressive.

It sounds like he’ll be gone within a day or two.

Funny how the categories “Dad” and “Death” are right next to each other in my list.

I’ve sunk down a lot with my feelings about Dad dying. I’ve preferred quiet to talking. Boy and Bran went out to Shell Lake to be with friends today. I opted to stay at home. I didn’t feel up to being with people and welcomed the time in solitude.

I got most of my order from Panda Hall. They left out one of the spacer bead orders though. I contacted them that day, and of course, made a typo in the email. It should be straightened out soon, I hope. I didn’t pay much for them, but I’m missing out 2000 pieces of stuff I paid for.

Since the order arrival, and after I checked it, I started to experiment with what I could create. I’ve made several bracelets and some earrings. I’d make more earrings but I don’t have many earring backs (I use rubber backs) left. Getting more will have to wait for a bit. For the time being I’ve deleted my Esty inventory. I’ll let you know when I put anything up for sale there again.

One of the bracelets I made uses up some of the sandalwood beads from a necklace that Boy finally gave me. I love the scent of sandalwood and having a bracelet made of it pleases me no end. I’ll have to get a picture of it for you to see. I’ve not made another like it thus far.

The best part of the items I ordered is that they’re nickel free. Nickel is usually what people react to in metals. There’s no (or little) nickel in surgical steel and that’s what the earring hooks are made of. The eyepins, chain, bead caps and spacer beads I bought are all nickel free. That can be a selling point of my product. I haven’t found any nickel free wire though. I want some half-hard silver wire that is nickel free, but can’t find any.

Because I’m doing something with my hands, my mind needs to be occupied with other things. I’ve always found it difficult to do only one thing at a time, except for reading. I still prefer to have no noise or distraction when I’m reading. But I bead, do crosswords, crochet, knit, etc. to the television. This means that I’ve been watching movies again. Not new ones, that would be far to radical of me. I’d been watching Scooby Doo DVDs (8 of them), Scooby Doo the movie (the first one), The Avengers, Emperor’s New Groove, Kill Bill (Part 1 and Part 2), and now the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tomorrow I’ll be watching more movies, I don’t know which ones, but I’ll be watching more.

One thing about LOTR I’ve been wondering about. The narrator says at the beginning that the elves are immortal folk. If this is the case, why is it that Arwen’s father is middle aged? Shouldn’t he appear to be in his 20s? I mean, sure, he doesn’t look like suffering from old age, but still, he has wrinkles and looks to be of about the right age to have a daughter the age Arwen is.

Dutchess hunted tonight. There was a rather large moth flying about the living room and she was in very close attendance to it. Alas, being an inside cat has caused her hunting skills to rust and she lost track of the prey as it flew toward my light. More to the point, it was my getting up to get out of the moth’s way (vicious things they are!) that caused her to lose the trail. Hopefully the moth won’t creep up and pounce on me when I’m least expecting it.

I got an email from my thesis supervisor yesterday. She wants to see what I’ve done. Of course, I’ve not done a damned thing since I saw her last. I asked her if I could take a year off the program. By the time a year is up I should be able to get back into doing stuff as I should. By that time Dad will probably have died and things will have settled out emotionally speaking. Either that or I’ll need to step away and not get my Masters degree. Regardless, I can’t do anything right now. It stretches my abilities to deal just going from one day to the next. Working is going to further stress that. It’s hard fighting the inertia I’m feeling. Adding stress to that isn’t going to help me any.

That’s about it for now.

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Stole this from a friend (originally wrote fiend) who mostly blogs for friends only, so I won’t mention who she is. She’ll know when she sees this that I snagged it to her.

We were down to see Dad on Monday and Tuesday. Things haven’t changed any since I wrote last. Dad is not eating though he did take a few spoons of porridge on Monday morning and ice cream on Monday and Tuesday evening. They are still using Seroquel to sedate him when they are able to get him to swallow anything. If they don’t sedate him then they’d have to restrain him. For most of the visit Dad was non-responsive. He was responsive for very short time periods (two to three minutes) in a day. When he became agitated he’d strip himself of bedding, bed clothes, endanger the IV by pulling it (the entire pole and mechanics) down and out of his arm.

He would point at things that weren’t there and try to talk. However, because he has been breathing through his mouth it was impossible to understand much of what he was saying. He did tell me he loved me after I said I loved him, asked me “where is she” and when I asked who the she was, he looked confused and said he didn’t know. Then after a couple of spoons of ice cream he said “that’s enough”. I know he was trying to say things, he would repeat sound patterns when I said I couldn’t understand. This was quite frustrating.

This was only for a short time last night. Monday evening he was non-responsive and unconscious. Now we just wait while his body slowly poisons itself because of his kidneys not working properly. They work some as he has some urine passing through his body (the catheter bag had urine in it), but not enough to properly detox his body. He’s also slowly starving to death since he refuses to eat except for a few spoons of food in a day.

I emailed work while I was out of town and updated them as to what was going on. This way when Dad does die, they’ll be semi-prepared. I’ll need to be gone somewhat longer because, as with the power of attorney, both my sister and I are named as executors of Dad’s estate. There will be business I’ll have to be out of town for.

The stay at home was painful and awkward. I don’t want to be around my older brother and wouldn’t be if it weren’t for Dad dying. Bran was having difficulty with this as well since what affects me, tends to affect him as well, especially with family stuff. The entire house reeked of cigarette smoke. It probably wouldn’t have repulsed me so much but for my distaste for being around that particular person.

Bran went through the house and looked at things that needed to be done in order to get it fixed up for sale. Most of the work is cosmetic (paint, new flooring, cleaning carpets) with the exception of needing to gut the main bathroom and update the master 1/2 bath.

I went through some of the stuff in the basement. You can tell that Mom and Dad were children of the 1930s and lived on a very limited budget for many years of their marriage. I found an amazing number of things that most everyone now-a-days would have thrown out. Mom saved things like aluminum take out containers and styrofoam plates from under meat (she washed them up and saved them for who knows what). There were also various plastic containers for condiments, peanut butter and other things saved. I don’t know how we’re going to work out things around the work needing to be done around the house. I know my brother can’t be there for much of it since a) it needs to have the house cleared and b) he smokes. Any renovations need to make the house smell fresh to make the house more saleable.

I’m glad to be home. II missed Boy a lot while we were gone. We left Dad’s at about 9:30 this morning and arrived home around noon. While we were gone Boy did a lot of work to have the kitchen mostly clean. When we got home he made us Lipton’s chicken noodle soup for lunch (he forgot to take bread out so couldn’t make us sandwiches) and then he washed up all the dishes he used to create and serve lunch. He’s a darling boy. I’m glad I’m home and he’s around me again.

I got home to the happy news of receiving my mail package from China. After lunch we all piled into the car (I let Boy sit in the front since Bran had also greatly missed Boy) and off we went to the Shoppers Drug Mart where the package depot is. I now have a couple of different styles and sizes of nickel free silver spacer beads (Tibetan style), a couple different styles and sizes of nickel free bead caps (Tibetan style), two different lengths (2 cm and 3 cm) eye pins, and 200 metres of nickel free jewelry chain. Yes, it was a heavy package. They didn’t send me one item that I ordered 2000 pieces of. So I sent them an email telling them.

Everything I got has been repackaged into labelled plastic containers from the zippered plastic bags except for the chain. I want to spool that onto dowels to keep it from getting all tangled. Right now that’s also in a plastic bag. I didn’t expect that. I expected it to come spooled.

Anyway, I’ll be looking at my beading stuff and seeing what needs to be redone. I want to make sure it’s all quite durable. I used super glue on some of the pieces and those ones need to be redone because of it. The super glue makes two weak spots in the wire at each side of the glue site. The closer is also a weak spot because the crimp bead might slip (for things like bracelets and necklaces). This is especially important for the bracelets since more people tend to wear bracelets more long term (days at a time) than they do necklaces.

So, guess what I’ll be doing for the next few days. Yeah, knitting. HAH!

The decision of the family is unanimous. No heroic measures are going to be used to resuscitate Dad. We are also not going to have them do much in the way of other measures, including dialysis. There’s not much point to it really. The blood tests aren’t all back yet. They’re trying to find out if he has an infection that is caused his kidneys to shut down.

Dad does have basic responses, but none of them bode well. When the nurses attend to him, take his pulse/blood pressure or wash him, he fights it.This doesn’t mean that he is aware of what he’s doing. He can’t swallow and therefore hasn’t taken any meds since he was found unconscious on Friday afternoon/evening. He doesn’t respond to commands of any sort and doesn’t respond to my brother’s voice.

We’re going to let nature take its course. The nurses will keep him comfortable, that’s all.

So now we wait for the inevitable.

To help me Bran has taken me on two car rides to help settle me down. He did that when my dog died in 1985. He would’ve done it if we had a car when my Mom died in 1993. He did that tonight. We went and got snacks for all of us. Did you know that Chapman’s Ice Cream company makes a no-sugar added, lactose free ice cream? They do. Only 14 grams of carbs per 1/2 C serving. That’s better than regular ice cream.

We went through the real estate listings for town as well. It was something to occupy my mind with and do a little bit of dreaming. It was a nice distraction. While we did that Golden Eye played on the DVD player. Laundry tomorrow so that we have clean clothes to to down to see Dad on Monday with. I’ll be sorting through the stuff collected over the years of Mom and Dad’s lives together (including “treasures” given to them by us kids). I don’t know what to do with things like their letters to each other from before they were married, Mom’s nursing uniform (100% cotton that had to be ironed and starched), Mom’s wedding dress and Dad’s wedding suit, and a plethora of other bits and pieces of so much living.

Thank you all, those who commented and those who are just thinking of me and my family. Your support means more than I could possibly say.

I got a call from my sister tonight. Apparently when the nurses went in to check on Dad earlier today he was non-responsive. They did some tests and found that he is in renal failure. They called my sister to find out how heroic we wanted them to be if Dad worsens.

She didn’t want to make that decision on her own. So she called my two brothers. They weren’t home so she left a message. Then she called me.

I told her that I didn’t think that Dad would want to be the way he is, at least not the Dad I knew before all this. The Dad I knew was a vital, energetic, and intelligent man with a very wry sense of humour. I love Dad a lot, but the person I saw was a mere shell of the man he used to be. He was hesitant, confused and not really there.

I told my sister that they shouldn’t resuscitate him if the need arises. I think that palliative care is all that’s needed now. We just need to let him go.

I’ll be going up on Monday regardless of what happens over the weekend. I could go up tomorrow, but what is the point? I don’t want to be the one to comfort my brother. There’s no business that I can take care of on the weekend even if he does die.

So that’s how things are now.

Today was another adventure in my life. Today I visited Saskatchewan Penitentiary, River Bend Institution and Willow Cree Healing Lodge to recruit new residents for the half-way house. The Pen wasn’t as intimidating as I’d anticipated. Maybe it was because I wasn’t there to be incarcerated or as a family member to visit an inmate. Let’s see…I’ll start at the beginning of the day and go from there.

First, I was awake at 6 am and was ready by 6:30. My ride arrived about 6:45. We drover her sister to a friend’s place and then we headed out of town. After a 2 hour drive we got to Prince Albert where the prison is, just on the edge of town. Prince Albert is a prison based town. Not only do they have the Pen, they have Willow Grove, the provincial jail for women and a men’s provincial jail.

Oh, I should do a little review about Canada the Criminal Code of Canada and prisons since many of my readers are not in Canada (and even Canadians don’t know their own legal system).

Canada doesn’t have the same kind of division of criminal laws that the United States has. The Criminal Code of Canada is the document that states what a crime in Canada is. The federal government is the body that determines criminal law. So it is Parliament that creates, votes on and establishes criminal law in Canada.

Criminal laws are divided into three different categories: summary offences, indictable offences and offences that could be either depending on the determination of the Crown Prosecutor. The Crown Prosecutor represents the government, much like the District Attorney does, but isn’t elected. They’re hired like any other civil servant.

Summary offences are ones that are less severe, petit theft, robbery without violence, and the like can be summary offences. These will receive community service, fines, probation or sentences that are two years less a day (with or without probation determined at sentencing). Indictable offences are more severe such as bank robbery, theft with a weapon/violence, assault causing bodily harm and murder. These offences result in sentences two years and over.

People who are sentenced to two years less a day are sent to provincial jails. They are run by the individual provinces and overseen by each province’s Department of Justice. These people will serve part of their sentence and then be released on probation (as opposed to parole) at their early release date.

People who are sentenced to two or more years are sent to a federal penitentiary. Right now a prisoner will have to serve at least 1/3 of their sentence in prison. That might be a maximum, medium or minimum facility. At 1/3 of their sentence they can apply to go on day parole. The parole board might decide to let them go on day parole or to hold them longer in the system. After a prisoner has served 2/3 of their sentence they are eligible for statutory release. This doesn’t mean they are released, just that they are eligible. Most prisoners with a finite sentence (if they didn’t get day parole) will be released on full parole at that time. Very few people are kept to their warrant expiry (end of their sentence) because CSC prefers to gradually reintegrate people back into society. It tends to be more successful that way.

The government has introduced a bill to Parliament that would get rid of accelerated parole (where day parole lasts only 1-2 months), statutory release is eliminated meaning that every prisoner will have to go through a day parole release or stay in prison to their warrant expiry and getting rid of 2X the time credit for time spent in remand. The theory behind 2X the time (2 days credit for every day spent in remand) is that remand is so unpleasant and restrictive that it counts for twice the time in a regular prison/jail). I worry that more men and women will spend their entire sentences in prison and be released into the community without any resources already set up (as they can on day parole) and without any adaptation to the outside. It’s as sure a way of setting people up for failure as the accelerated parole has been for many offenders.

The exception to this are those who are on life sentences. These people can also apply for parole, but they are rarely released on full parole straight out of the prison. The reason for this is that they have been inside for too long to cope effectively directly out of prison. No amount of watching television prepares a person for that amount of culture shock. People serving life sentences are released on day parole that will last 1 or more years at a half-way house. This is to help them get used to being out and allow for a more gradual reintegration into the community. If they are revoked for some reason (usually a breach of conditions such as drinking) they go back for a few years. They can apply for another round of day parole after they’ve been back in prison for a time. We’ve had a couple of guys a few times on day parole who are lifers who went back and were released again on day parole.

There are also a fewer number of people who are released after 2/3 of their sentence on statutory release with a residency requirement. This means that they have to live at a half-way house as a condition of their release. They have a few more rules to follow, but it functions, for all intents and purposes, the same as day parole except that they have to check in for all meals and stay during the ½ hour meal time.

The people we spoke to at the prisons weren’t just offenders. We also presented what we do to in-house parole officers. They are expecting to get more Section 84 releases (Aboriginal offenders who want to be released to places that have cultural sensitivity and/or programs in place and are Section 84 approved by CSC) from Sask Pen. We’ve already had several from Willow Cree, which isn’t surprising considering is a Healing Lodge for Aboriginal offenders. Anyway having the in-house parole officers more acquainted with our place means that they will be more likely to refer people to our place. This helps them direct offenders who are coming up to their day parole release decide where to go. We saw only 1 man at Sask. Pen, about 8 or 9 at River Bend and 4 at Willow Cree.

So now you know the population of offenders that I work with.

Now, onto the prisons. Sask. Pen. wasn’t quite as intimidating as I thought it would be. I expected razor wire on top of the 99 year old tall walls. The wire was on the inner yards, but not the exterior tall brick walls. You can Google pictures if you want. The front door was just a regular door. There is a sliding locked door that closes this off when they open the door to the prison itself. This prevents any prisoners inside that door (that’s where intake and outgo are ) from bolting and trying to escape. Then you walk through a metal detector that shows the level of your body that metal is. The metal of the underwire of my bra set it off was well as my volume of earrings. Across from this are were two people in a central area who monitored the prison yards on cameras. We went through a door there and then to a meeting room where we spoke to the parole officers and to an offender who was interested in coming to our half-way house. After that, we had a short tour of the facility.

The majority of prisoners housed at PA are medium to maximum security. They have two gang ranges one on the main floor tier and the other on the third floor tier on opposite sides of the quad. When each of the gang tiers are out the entire quad area movement is closed down. This prevents the gangs from being able to recruit people and equally importantly, not fight each other. So when one gang pod is taken to meals or to exercise the other pods (rows/tiers) are locked down. They have one that consists of people who require extra security to protect them. This can be high profile sex offenders, child molesters and/or people with psychiatric issues. There are two general population ranges, two ranges of older men (40 and over and 50 and over) and segregation as well. Most of the people in this building (a very large building) were medium security prisoners. One of the parole officers we spoke to would’ve rated them at high medium security.
We didn’t go into the maximum security building. That’s where the special handling unit (or SHU) used to be. They no longer have the SHU at that facility. That’s in Edmonton. We were shown where programs, Aboriginal programs and workshops were. All in all a very interesting tour.

There was only one loud clanging door like I expected to hear all over the institution. That was the door off the front foyer to the admissions and out-go. Apparently there are a whole lot more of them in the maximum security building.

Next we went to River Bend. That’s the minimum security facility at PA. It used to be a farm growing vegetables and breeding animals, running a piggery and a dairy farm as well as chicken/egg production. The farm ceased operation about a year ago. The farm operations will be replaced with more trades training that will give the prisoners the necessary skills to get a job in the outside world. While working on the farm kept the men occupied and provided food for the facility (as well as other facilities including half-way houses) the work they did there didn’t give them skills to get jobs anywhere other than a farm. How much call is there for people to grade eggs, work on dairies, or muck barns?

This was a more relaxed facility. There are 17 houses where anywhere from 6 to 8 men live. Each house (literally) has a bedroom for each man, a kitchen and living room area. The men buy their own food, cook for themselves and clean their own living spaces. The only cameras in this area focus on the main yard. There are no fences around this facility to hold people in. The men aren’t there to make trouble for themselves. It’s atmosphere was more like ours. From the meeting we had with the prisoners there we’re likely to get more people from there. Most of our residents come from River Bend.

After we had lunch (not very good Chinese food – I rarely get gas from Chinese food that doesn’t tofu in it, today I did) we headed to Willow Cree. Willow Cree is a minimum security facility located on a reserve. The staff are nearly all Aboriginal. Elders were hired to help facilitate the healing of men who were damaged by residential schools (the root of enormous pain for Aboriginal people and their communities) and younger men who are affected by the generational cycle of abuse rooted in the harm done by residential schools and the federal government’s policies aimed at getting rid of the Aboriginal people covered under the Indian Act. It’s a very long and tragic story for Aboriginal people and a massive black scar on the image of Canada being a place where human rights are purportedly respected. Since we’d had a tour last year at the AGM hosted in Saskatoon we didn’t need one today. We talked to several men who were interested in coming to Saskatoon. Their acceptance at our half-way house is nearly guaranteed as they will be minimum security and come to us under Section 84.

Then it was a 1 hour drive back to town and home.

All in all it was a very nice, informative and interesting day. I very much enjoyed meeting the people I met and look forward to going back sometime in the future. Next time my co-worker will be going up with the Director. I hope she enjoys her trip as much as I did mine.