Graeme is here. It's good to see him. We're going out later, hopefully to drink.

kids are done school. I still have to work, which leaves them bouncing about at home... I'm having a few days off next week with them. I wish we could just all go and sit by the lake and forget about lottery tickets...

I'm cross-eyed from spending the weekend writing about patriarchal gender-role expectations and aboriginal women in the Canadian justice system. (I know, I really have too much fun, don't I). I love the bits of the essay-writing process when I get to pit my experts against each other. There is some disparity in the idea that Canadian Indigenous culture was, before contact with us whitefolks, a non-patriarchal/women-oppressing type of society. I get to quote all the pundits who disagree with each other, like Jerry Springer with a wordprocessor.

Seriously, I watched Jerry Springer the other night when I had an electric foot and couldn't sleep (one of those things that happens) and it was a man whose wife had left him for a hermaphrodite. Someone in the audience asked the hapless hermaphrodite what he/she had "down there", and the hermaphrodite dropped drawers and demonstrated.

Also, it was a dog mascot suit, and I did dance by the side of the road and wave to motorists. It was a blast, and I think if I can't find a job when I'm finished university I want to become the A&W RootBear. I found myself seized with an uncontrollable urge to shake the flappy tail on the back of the outfit, and dance like Gumby with epilepsy.... too much fun.

I got my tax bill today. Due to the sale of all assets of the coffee shop, I owe a big chunk. I was beginning to think about leaving town without forwarding address, until Kirsten said, what about all the money in the cupboard?

It's a long story, the money in the cupboard. With moving out to the Mall (capitalized, naturally) I left my bank downtown. I get off work at 4. My bank downtown closes at 4. I stuff my deposits into the bank machine at the Mall. I am given, every day, large amounts of change from people's purses and pockets, as I think I've mentioned. I can't stuff these large amounts of change into the bank machine. So, to keep them from choking up my safe, I started bringing them home with the idea of one day making it to my real bank.

This of course never happened. So tonight, in the despair engendered by the tax bill, I counted my cupboard full of money. Since those of you who know where I live aren't burglars, I'll tell you: 3726.00 worth of two dollar coins, quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. For some reason, nobody gives me one dollar coins. This, in the spirit of money under mattresses, will go a fair way towards paying my tax bill. And depending on how I feel, I might just take it to the government and dump it on the counter. Voici, Madame ou Monsieur/ Here, Mr. or Ms. taxman, is all your money. (this is Canada, after all) Hope you've got a bank that's open past 4pm.

Tomorrow I get to go dress up in a bear mascot suit and dance by the side of the road to entice people to visit the karate bake sale, fun fair etc. Should be a laugh.

My midterm did indeed go well. I got 87%, and I'm really happy about that as the class average was 60%. So tonight I feel better about the whole thing. I was beginning to wonder if maybe I had gotten in over my head. With getting permission to skip the pre-requisites for the the 300 level courses, I felt a bit in the deep end, and so compensated for that the only way I knew how... studying obsessively.

Ian has the sickness Rachel had. I still haven't managed to throw it off. Stress, I'm guessing. I'm once again making turtle cookies for a bake sale. And contemplating weeding my bean patch. Which is growing nicely. Also my lettuces. Peas are a bit scraggly, and something's eating the radishes as fast as the leaves come up. No sign of carrots yet. Slow growing root vegetables. Graeme will be here on Tuesday. Yay!

Long week. Rachel is better, and her birthday was all right, although a bit low key because she hasn't been well. I had to go with her to Brownies on Wednesday night, as they were doing year-end things. Then Thursday I went to Simon Fraser for my Crim 330 midterm (which went well, despite my obsessing) and stayed overnight there in the residence, as the test went til 9:30 at night. Came back Friday to work (this entailed getting up at 5 am to catch the 830am ferry...) and then yesterday I did Rachel's birthday party with her little friends, swimming and cake.

Graeme will be here soon, it will be good to see him.

Rachel is much better today, she's pink again. A bit tired, still a bit weak, but better. So no IV. Bought her a skateboard for her birthday, which is tomorrow. She'll be 8. Hard to believe.

spent the evening in the emergency with Rachel, who has been fighting a fever for the last few days. I've been sick too, but not as bad as her. Tonight she was at Gramma's with M, and he brought her home about seven thirty, and I didn't like the look of her. She was sort of out of it, and her lips were bleeding, and she was restless and fretting. I asked M if he thought he could take her to the Dr. tomorrow morning but he said, no, he had too much to do, so I got him to take us to emergency.

They were very sweet to her, she's obviously ill, and they managed to bring her fever down, (although she didn't like how they did it..."do you know what a suppository is, Rachel?") and they said she's on the edge of dehydration. If she doesn't start taking in fluids, tomorrow she'll have to go back and get blood tests for electrolyte balance and go on an IV but I'm hoping we can avoid that. She's asleep at the moment. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I wish there were a way to make it all go away. To sit down in a corner and say, no, I've lost my sanity and I'm just going to sit here for a month until it comes wandering back of its own accord, and apologizes for screwing with me for so long. Then the dust under the couches and the pine needles in the bathtub and the clothes festering under the beds would be remedied by some sort of kindly matron person, and I could knit little sweaters for squirrels and the state would pay for it. I'm sure the squirrels would have all the answers, too, and if I listened to them they'd tell me that work is for suckers and life is for hanging upside down in trees and yelling at people.

I'm writing a paper on poverty and socio-structural disadvantage.

So, naturally, I'm reading about this.

No, it's ok, really, it has nothing to do with what I'm writing about. I find that if I take a little break every hour or so and surf aimlessly it helps my concentration. I'm chasing schizophrenia, today, after reading about the man who got the Supreme Court to say that he couldn't be made to take medication.

And he even has holes in his underwear, now.

things could be worse, my name could be...this

On Thursday of last week I actually went out. To a bar. With other people. Granted, it was underneath a hotel and we were the only folk in the place with teeth, but I had a beer, courtesy of Emilia, and the men (six of them) all had wings to celebrate it being Chuck's last night with us (the police volunteers). He's retiring. The wings looked dire, but Chuck got all sentimental anyway.

This week I am working all week again, the Tuesday girl didn't get her knee surgery but she's convinced the pain in her side is cancer and is trying to find a doctor who agrees with her. This, apparently, is a full time job.

It's official. Everything that happens in the mall is My Fault. The change machine breaks down? My fault. The mall isn't open past 6? Again, my fault. Your ticket didn't win the big prize? Must be, oh, I don't know... My fault?

And my personal favorite, when, on Friday the network went down, and I had to tell potential customers that I couldn't sell them a ticket at that moment... "What did you do to the machine?" Oh, hey, I broke it myself because I wanted to sit here for an hour and piss people off. That must be it. Then, they go to try and check their tickets on the automatic ticket checker, and, surprise surprise, it doesn't work. I say, again, "The network's down". They bring their tickets back to the front counter and say to me "Well, can you just check it on your machine?" Um, no. Here, give it to me. I'm just going to rip it up right here and now because you are far too stupid to be allowed to win. Money in the hands of imbeciles. Can't have any of that.

Dad came over last night, and the first thing he said when he walked in was, "Where's the sheep?"

I was supposed to have tomorrow off, but the Tuesday girl has decided she has appendicitis. "I have a pain in my side... I have to go to the hospital. So I won't be in tomorrow. Or next week. Because I'm having knee surgery this week too." If I add that she weighs at least 300lbs... nuff said.

Jazz has pulled my coat off the rack and is sleeping on it in the front hallway. When the literature says that Eskies shed in the spring, it doesn't mention the three weeks or so when every room in the house is knee deep in clumps of fuzzy white wool. Every spring, I wear out a vacuum and have to buy a new one. She keeps scratching herself and pulling off clots of fur, then dropping them and moving to another spot. "Here's a clean spot..." Unfortunately, the carpet is a sort of red rusty color, which shows the fur to great advantage. I keep taking her on the deck and brushing her, and getting enough fur to make a few more dogs, but it doesn't seem to help. Someone bred these dogs with sheep, I swear. Still, she looks so cute with tufts hanging off her. Like a llama, but smaller.

When people speak badly of you, you should respond in this way: Keep a steady heart and don't reply with harsh words. Practice letting go of resentment and accepting that the other's hostility is the spur to your understanding. Be kind, adopt a generous standpoint, treat your enemy as a friend, and suffuse all your world with affectionate thoughts, far-reaching and widespread, limitless and free from hate. In this state you should try to remain.

-Dhammapada

hmmm. not asking for much, are they?

I'm studying prosecutorial discretion. Some folks have spent a lot of time writing almost unreadable articles on the subject. In an effort to stay awake, I went to read it in the bath. Ran the risk of drowning. I still have far too much work to do... I'm currently chasing "unendorsed warrants" and whether or not you can sentence someone via video monitor. For the record, you can't. Not in BC, anyway.

More today about the events of yesterday. Not nice... sounds like a very nasty party.

Dear kate,
Here is your horoscope
for Tuesday, May 20:

Patience is your strong suit. Take notes as your experiment plays out along its logical or surprising lines. Who knew that you could have this much fun without breaking any laws?

Well, I went to court. and so did this gentleman. He wasn't given bail, surprise surprise. The courtroom was full of kids, 17 or 18 yrs old, most of them, and every now and then one of them would break into tears. Also there were the mother of the victim, who was dry-eyed but very tired looking, and the mother of the accused, who sat in the same row as me... I took tons of notes, lots of other things went on too, and I'm hoping to get some sense out of what I wrote down. A woman got a week in jail for shoplifting 6.99 worth of cosmetics. Another woman had a bench warrant issued for her, but it turned out that she had just gotten the wrong courtroom, and when she did show up, her lawyer said, "She's here now, so we can throw out the warrant." In some ways it was more formal than I thought it would be, there were a lot of requests to adjourn things to later dates, but in some ways it was less formal. The accused people sat in among all the grieving kids, and the judge was actually very sweet to some of them. One guy with a 'failure to provide a sample of breath' charge was also up on possession of marijuana, and the judge said to him, at one point, quite mildly, "Four ounces is rather a lot of marijuana..." Another guy with an impaired charge told the judge he was taking welding at the college, and the judge said, as if they'd just been introduced socially, "Welding is a good career choice. I wish you the best in that."

Another young man was up on armed robbery charges (stole cigarettes and phone cards by brandishing a syringe full of blood at the cashier) and when the judge was sentencing him, he said, "Many thousands of people go out every day to their minimum wage jobs standing behind counters in stores, and we have a duty to protect them from people who come with guns or syringes..." Guy's lawyer wanted a conditional sentence, but he got jail. An interesting morning, all in all.