Ahhh! I Feel Much Better Now!
I just had the most glorious nap. It feels so good to not be feeling like my body wants to drop.
Ok, let’s get you updated on the Dykewife life events.
Greg, this is a roll up keyboard. I’m working on getting used to it before school starts. That way I’ll be ahead of the game. its not ergonomic, which is what I really grok on (I can’t believe that “grok” is in my system dictionary!) It’s really cool and not just in a neat way, but also cool as in temperature. I don’t have a hard drive under my palm or a battery or any other heat creating devise that the notebook has.
The keyboard rolls up like a sleeping bag. There are bright red lights on the far right hand side to indicate the lock buttons (caps, numbers, screen). I like that because it’s really easy to accidentally tap the caps lock, in fact, I’m finding it’s much easier to do on this keyboard than on any other I’ve used. Another thing is the backspace key is small. I do prefer the larger key style, but I’ll get used to this. It is really awesome though.
Boy’s recliner is in. It’s HUGE!!! It’s gorgeous, but it is huge. He and Bran went and got a lovely acrylic throw in a very vibrant scarlet colour to brighten up the dun brown of the chair.
Day before yesterday…I guess that’s Saturday now… someone tried to break into our house. We have two windows that aren’t like the others (Sesame Street, here we come!). They’re ones that crank open so that when they’re open, they’re like having no window in the hole at all. They’re designed to allow egress of any person of any size in case of emergency. The other windows are of the old fashioned lift variety, but they’re not 1/2 and 1/2 but 2/3 on the bottom and 1/3 at the top. This means that neither Bran nor Boy would be able to get through if there was a reason for them to be crawling through the window to get out.
Anyway, at night we open (or rather we used to) the window wide in our bedroom to capture any nice night breeze into the fan and blow it onto the bed. I got up in the morning to get ready for work. I was sitting in the living room, working on the necessary oomph to get into the shower, Bran noticed that the screen was gone in the window. It had been taken out of the window and laid against the house. I’m almost certain that it didn’t happen in the night, because I have a sense of remembering that it was there when I walked by it when I got up. However, I’m not totally certain. What makes that possibility even more concrete was that though Bran didn’t sleep that night, he did spend time reading on the bed.
Bran reinstalled the screen into the window. You can see where the person tore the light plastic screen to get to the two small knobs that pull out and allow the screen to come out of the window. The top part of the screen where the top knobs were is still intact. Because they were still in the frame, whoever it was had to warp the screen frame to get it out. Bran then did a walk around the house to make sure that the rest of the house was secure. Happily enough, it was.
That created a certain degree of paranoia in the family. I mean, it’s most likely that the person tried to get in while both Bran and I were awake. I’m pretty sure that was the case. I’m also sure that he/she wouldn’t have been able to get into the house without making our fan, a directional fan, tilt with its usual loud clicking ratchet sound. That means they didn’t get right into the house. The fan is extremely easy to have it tip with that loud sound, you can do it just by turning the on/off knob and put ever so slight pressure on the top of it.
Boy is very reluctant to open his windows more than the amount to the locks on the old fashioned types. Then again, he has a large number of expensive and easy to transport electronics. Of course, that also means that his room gets quite warm. Poor kid.
Saturday night was a very restless sleep for me. My dreams were extremely active. Most of them weren’t bad dreams, but I was on the run from the time the dreams started to the time they ended when I got out of bed. Active dreams like that wear me out. I don’t feel rested at all.
Bran had something similar except he left the sleep part out. He spent a lot of the night pacing about the house being on alert. By the time I got up for work, Bran was ready to collapse. Luckily he didn’t until after he’d taken me to work.
Saturday was an ok day. It was quiet, but it was ok. I mean, Bran and I went to Tim Horton’s and picked up a triple/triple extra large coffee for me and I drank a 5-Hour Energy drink, but I felt reasonably not too bad. My co-worker had a quiet night shift (her first – quiet night, not first shift). I cooked lunch and supper and then got off work. I’d spent the down time of the day (of which there was a lot as usual on the weekends) watching murder and mayhem that I’d been recording for the past several months. I left them there for my co-worker to watch on the night shift.
Sunday was my drop-on-the-spot day. Despite the coffee, despite the 5-Hour Energy drink, I was dragging my ass all day. In the morning, despite having a very healthy breakfast of soy milk and honey nut Shredded Wheat, I had a very significant blood sugar drop. I was shaky, weird headed and sweating. At first I thought I was becoming ill. I mean, this doesn’t happen very often. However, my body, in its fatigued and stressed state, was reacting. It took a while to figure things out. It was just before lunch, but I had a small snack of some saltines. Within about 10 minutes I was feeling more stable. I had lunch (a very healthy sandwich and bowl of soup). An hour later I was totally recovered and it didn’t happen again.
That brings us up to last night when I got home from work exhausted and not wanting to be awake. I was in bed before 10 (I think, I was too tired to see the clock). Now I’m awake, it’s nearly 3 am and I have to work at 4 pm today.
Dad was up on Saturday for someone’s wedding. I have no idea who the people are, but whoever they are they’re important enough for Dad to drive 2.5 hours to attend it. However, because I was working it was Bran and Boy who entertained him while he was not at the wedding.
Oh, a new commenter asked what my work is. Everyone say, “Hi!” to Janice.
Janice, I work at a half-way house for federal offenders. Canada has a slightly different justice system from the USA. The Criminal Code of Canada is a federal Act. It is Parliament who creates new criminal laws. The provinces has a certain amount of jurisdiction but it has more to do with by-laws, such as speed limits, parking and the like. Criminal law, such as those dealing with theft, rape, murder, prostitution, and so on, are all federally legislated.
The corrections system is divided up into two types of offences and two systems of corrections. Summary offences are considered “less” and therefore don’t have heavy consequences to them. They are likely to be fines or fine options (doing work for non-profit rather than paying a fine or serving a jail term). The jail terms that summary offences incur are always less than two years less a day. Sentences are served in provincial jails. Community release is called “probation”.
Indictable offences are the more serious type. These offences will garner sentences of two years or more. Indictable offences are further divided into two more categories, indexed and non-indexed offences. How these categories are defined is somewhat of a mystery to me, but I do know that index are nearly always violent offences. Whether or not a crime is an index offence or not determines whether a person would be eligible for accelerated day parole or not.
Persons convicted of indictable offences are sent to federal penitentiaries. Nearly every province has at least one for male offenders and a much smaller one for women. Penitentiaries, like American prisons, have various security levels from minimum (frequently a “farm” or “camp) to our supermax in the Prince Albert Pen to the facility in Quebec where the most violent persons are sent.
There are two levels of parole, or community supervision. There is day parole where a person can be in the community to work, visit family and such, but they have to return to a secure facility at a certain time (latest for regular curfew is 11 pm). Statutory release (full parole) means the person can live in the community with everyone else, but is still supervised by a parole officer.
Most of the people who live where I work are on day parole. It’s a sort of graduated release system designed to help men and women gradually adjust to being out of prison and in the community. Prison is extremely regimented. That structure quickly becomes ingrained into a person’s psyche and suddenly removing a person from that can be devastating. So Canada has a system of gradual release.
Before a person becomes eligible for day parole, they will have already gone on escorted leaves (like going to the mall with a corrections officer or two – depending on the offence, two with people who were convicted of an offence involving sexual assault or death), unescorted leaves (ranging from a few hours to a few days). Depending on the success of these leaves, then day parole is considered. Day parole isn’t always granted. Sometimes offenders are kept to their statutory release date when they leave the prison on full parole. Whether or not that happens depends on their conduct in the pen, whether they’ve taken programming related to their offences and so on. Sometimes people released on full parole have a residency requirement where they are required to live in a half-way house. Those people usually have unresolved issues with addictions related to violence.
The half-way house I work in accepts people on day parole and statutory release, with or without residency requirements. Most of the people on full parole who come to live where I work are only there until a community parole officer can do a community assessment of where the offender proposes to live (with family, friends, or spouse) or until they are able to become financially able to get their own residence.
The vast majority of people who live there deal with addictions. The addictions are most often the reason they committed the crime that sent them to the penitentiary. Frequently the person was drunk, high or hurting for a fix, when they committed the crime. Right now we have people who will always be on parole (first and second degree murder are offences that have lifetime supervision requirements) to drug possession and trafficking.
We can also house offenders who are sentenced to provincial jails. They spend time in a provincial facility and are then sent to the half-way house instead of being put on parole. Provincial facilities don’t have the same supervisory or graduated release system. In the case of a provincial offender residing at the half-way house, a special arrangement is made. The offender will be supervised by a parole officer and living at the half-way house is an alternative to being in jail. The offender can work, visit friends and family, but has to abide by the decisions of their community parole officer. The offender will live at the half-way house for an indeterminate amount of time prior to their “warrant expiry date” or WED.
Day parole is most often for 6 months, though it can be extended for people who are needing more structure in their lives or shorter for those on accelerated day parole. Offenders convicted of indexed crimes or who are serving their second (or more) indictable offence conviction are not eligible for accelerated day parole. So most people we see there are going to be gone after 6 months time. The director works hard at ensuring men and women who come to live there are not risks for violence. This means that someone who was convicted of a violent index offence, who hasn’t taken programming in the penitentiary, and who has been a discipline problem, will not likely make it to our facility. If (and the if is very small) the person is released on day parole, they will be required to live at a federally run half-way house. The place I work at is privately owned.
So there you have it. A shortened synopsis of the Canadian corrections system. Wasn’t that fun?
I like the people I work with, both staff and residents. The residents really are just ordinary people who made some bad choices. For some, those choices involved the lives, or deaths, of other people. When these people are sober they are nice. Were it not for the influence of the drugs or alcohol, these people wouldn’t have committed their crime. So it is at our place where they learn to live in the community and avoid the people, places and triggers that would send them back to using. I like to think that I have a small part in helping them learn to make better choices.
Now. It’s time for me to eat something. I think I’m going to have one of the pizzas that are in the freezer. After it’s done then I can get the ones I really like.
Ta-Ra