OT Hard Week

This week I've been attending my brother's trial. He was caught with 6
grams of cocaine (1/4 oz, or about a tablespoonful), and a scale. He was
found guilty of "distribution", which includes sharing, and is now looking
at a minimum of 10 years, but more likely the 30 years set out in the
guidelines. He's 61, and non-violent. He's likely to die in jail. He's
not criminally bad, but I guess he's criminally stupid.

We have 10 times as many people in jail as England. I'll bet we could have
5 times as many and save enough money to have socialized medicine here with
no increase in taxes. It will cost us tax payers $1.5 million to keep Frank
in jail, if he lives long enough, and unless costs go up.

Today, I'll get the house back in order. Got the dishes done and counters
cleaned this morning. Garden needs work, floors are a mess. At least I got
Susie's beaded purse crocheted for her wedding.

Life goes on. Life is good.

Tina

Oh, Tina, I'm so sorry about your brother.

There's something seriously wrong with our system when non-violent drug
offenders receive harsher sentences than rapists, murderers, etc.

Do we get to se a picture of the purse?

As for me, I have a torn trapezoid musle, and can do very little with my
right hand, so beading and lampwork are out for a while. Sigh. It hasn't
been a fun month.
--
Jerri
www.beadbimbo.com


"Christina Peterson" wrote in message
...
This week I've been attending my brother's trial. He was caught with 6
grams of cocaine (1/4 oz, or about a tablespoonful), and a scale. He was
found guilty of "distribution", which includes sharing, and is now looking
at a minimum of 10 years, but more likely the 30 years set out in the
guidelines. He's 61, and non-violent. He's likely to die in jail. He's
not criminally bad, but I guess he's criminally stupid.

We have 10 times as many people in jail as England. I'll bet we could
have
5 times as many and save enough money to have socialized medicine here
with
no increase in taxes. It will cost us tax payers $1.5 million to keep
Frank
in jail, if he lives long enough, and unless costs go up.

Today, I'll get the house back in order. Got the dishes done and counters
cleaned this morning. Garden needs work, floors are a mess. At least I
got
Susie's beaded purse crocheted for her wedding.

Life goes on. Life is good.

Tina

On Jul 12, 11:05 am, "Christina Peterson"
wrote:
This week I've been attending my brother's trial. He was caught with 6
grams of cocaine (1/4 oz, or about a tablespoonful), and a scale.

Sorry to hear that. I know nothing about cocaine, but that sounds like
a rather
small amount to be charged with distribution.

Today, I'll get the house back in order. Got the dishes done and counters
cleaned this morning. Garden needs work, floors are a mess. At least I got
Susie's beaded purse crocheted for her wedding.

Picture? - And as getting the house back in oder goes, if DD wasn't
helping
(well, she causes a good amount of the dishes) I wouldn't have a
snowball's
chance. Never mind the yard.
I'm crocheting her a bag (no beads) for her camera so that it doesn't
get scratched in her purse.

Truck is almost 2/3 full of lilikoi, she helped with that too,
otherwise I wouldn't
have been able to get as much done. - There's more left, most of them
from
a largish lot on the other side of town where the owner told me
"please feel
free to go in and pick as much as you want", which really would be
"all",
but in the end I said "I'm not going to scramble down that hill again
and carry
another 30 lb back up".

And I sold several 100 Swarovski crystals to jewelry makers at the
farmers
market yesterday. Even if my markup is rather small when I sell those
at
the market, I'm quite happy with that. (No, I don't have a stand
there, I target
sellers, so I don't spend a large number of hours and I don't pay
rent).

Life goes on. Life is good.

As long as you (and we all), can keep that attitude it sounds like
we'll
keep going :-)

Aloha,
Maren
HiloBeads: Beads - Beading Supplies - Hand-made Jewelry
http://www.hilobeads.com/
Blog at: http://hilobeads.blogspot.com/

Thanks, Jerri,

It's still sinking in. I think I've come to terms with it and then I'll
remember that his son doesn't know yet, or wonder which of us will tell my
mother, or realize that for my children Frank will just kind of cease to
exist. What Frank did was not acceptable, but there's a vast distance
between "acceptable" and the 30 to life recommended (which the judge has to
justify if he doesn't follow the guidelines), and there's maybe a month off
per year for "good time".

And it costs the tax-payers $55K per year -- more as costs go up, less if
prisoners die first. That's $1.5 million. You know, if we sent all drug
offenders to rehab (for the same amount of time even), we'd cut at least 15%
off Corrections costs. Rehab doesn't have a tremendously high rate of
success, but it's at least 6 or 8 times as good as jail (even for shorter
programs).

And the prosecutor lied. About me, no less.

I'm so sorry to hear about your shoulder, Jerri. How did you hurt it? And
how long before you can use it again. Can't do wire, I'm sure, but what
about seed beads?

I tore the tendon on top of my right ring finger about 3 months ago, and am
still needing to wear a splint at least at night. But it doesn't really
hurt, and I can still work with the splint holding the last joint straight.
After all, I'm used to being kind of clumsy.

Our Queensland Heeler is nearing her end now. I've only had a cat, and my
husband has never had a dog die of old age. Stella has a fairly thin face
and a very fat body, with what feel like fibrous tumors that I can feel, so
I think she has a lot of tumors, and she seems to be in some pain. We give
her lots of attention, and also Reiki seems to help. I have mixed
eelings -- I hope things are resolved before my daughter's wedding so Pete
doesn't have to either deal with this when I go to AZ before he does, or
have to deal with her dying "alone" when we're both Outside.

Boy, this is just not a good time for me to get dysfunctional! As I tell
people, one of the benefits of Depression is that I have to decide what is
most important (and effective) and put my energy into those things, since
the primary effect of my illness is that my head runs out of room.

And so, wedding preparations continue. My daughter's fiancé is great!

Tina


"Beadbimbo" wrote in message
...
Oh, Tina, I'm so sorry about your brother.

There's something seriously wrong with our system when non-violent drug
offenders receive harsher sentences than rapists, murderers, etc.

Do we get to se a picture of the purse?

As for me, I have a torn trapezoid musle, and can do very little with my
right hand, so beading and lampwork are out for a while. Sigh. It hasn't
been a fun month.
--
Jerri
www.beadbimbo.com


"Christina Peterson" wrote in message
...
This week I've been attending my brother's trial. He was caught with 6
grams of cocaine (1/4 oz, or about a tablespoonful), and a scale. He
was
found guilty of "distribution", which includes sharing, and is now
looking
at a minimum of 10 years, but more likely the 30 years set out in the
guidelines. He's 61, and non-violent. He's likely to die in jail.
He's
not criminally bad, but I guess he's criminally stupid.

We have 10 times as many people in jail as England. I'll bet we could
have
5 times as many and save enough money to have socialized medicine here
with
no increase in taxes. It will cost us tax payers $1.5 million to keep
Frank
in jail, if he lives long enough, and unless costs go up.

Today, I'll get the house back in order. Got the dishes done and
counters
cleaned this morning. Garden needs work, floors are a mess. At least I
got
Susie's beaded purse crocheted for her wedding.

Life goes on. Life is good.

Tina

I didn't know what was normal usage either, until the trial. I guess 3
grams is well within normal range for an addict to use in a weekend, but 6
grams would suggest that he's might have been going to share it (eg, with
his girlfriend) even if he didn't plan to sell any of it. And "sharing" is
"distributing". The only two witnesses were women who had pending cases and
were getting consideration in exchange for their testimony, and who had a
histories of having given false reports. One of the jurors has ramshackle
apartments where drugs are dealt from. I wonder what Frank did to **** off
the DEA agent.

Yeah, I'd better get that purse photographed. But its so light, I don't
know if it will show up decently. It's white cotton with silver lined matte
clear beads and just of few pale accent beads. So I may have to show you a
different bag.

We've got about 11 cords of dry firewood in our pile now. Hope to get
another 10 cords, but prefer it be green which doesn't burn as fast. We'll
burn more than 10 cords this winter, and we'd like to get a start on next
years wood. With the price of oil, it's like money in the bank. What do
you pay for gas?

We don't have anything growing that we can eat yet except leaves. And our
neighbor's rhubarb. I make a sauce of it that's great with ice cream, and
adapted a recipe for applesauce cake to use the sauce. Our friend from
Mexico (I stay there when I go to the dentist) loves rhubarb pie so I've
been making her one of those every week or two. And will continue to do so
as long as the weather is cool enough. With store bought crust.

Soon it will be time to check on the progress of the blueberries. I imagine
they'll be ready within a couple weeks. And then the Lingon berries, called
"Low Bush Cranberry" but actually a red blueberry and not in the cranberry
family. They should be ready about the time I'm getting ready to start
packing for the wedding. And the first run of salmon was too poor to get
our fish, but they're doing better now, so we need to plan for our trip to
Copper River to dip-net our 30 salmon.

For the wedding I'm bringing smoked salmon. And I'll send down berry jam in
a flat-rate box, so I don't have to carry it.

I grew up in Calif, and I envy you all the wonderful fruit you have in HI.

Great plan to sell Swarovski crystal to the sellers instead of getting a
booth. Especially in summer. Or is winter a time that's even busier for
you?

Thanks,

Tina

"Maren at google" wrote in message
...
On Jul 12, 11:05 am, "Christina Peterson"
wrote:
This week I've been attending my brother's trial. He was caught with 6
grams of cocaine (1/4 oz, or about a tablespoonful), and a scale.

Sorry to hear that. I know nothing about cocaine, but that sounds like
a rather
small amount to be charged with distribution.

Today, I'll get the house back in order. Got the dishes done and
counters
cleaned this morning. Garden needs work, floors are a mess. At least I
got
Susie's beaded purse crocheted for her wedding.

Picture? - And as getting the house back in oder goes, if DD wasn't
helping
(well, she causes a good amount of the dishes) I wouldn't have a
snowball's
chance. Never mind the yard.
I'm crocheting her a bag (no beads) for her camera so that it doesn't
get scratched in her purse.

Truck is almost 2/3 full of lilikoi, she helped with that too,
otherwise I wouldn't
have been able to get as much done. - There's more left, most of them
from
a largish lot on the other side of town where the owner told me
"please feel
free to go in and pick as much as you want", which really would be
"all",
but in the end I said "I'm not going to scramble down that hill again
and carry
another 30 lb back up".

And I sold several 100 Swarovski crystals to jewelry makers at the
farmers
market yesterday. Even if my markup is rather small when I sell those
at
the market, I'm quite happy with that. (No, I don't have a stand
there, I target
sellers, so I don't spend a large number of hours and I don't pay
rent).

Life goes on. Life is good.

As long as you (and we all), can keep that attitude it sounds like
we'll
keep going :-)

Aloha,
Maren
HiloBeads: Beads - Beading Supplies - Hand-made Jewelry
http://www.hilobeads.com/
Blog at: http://hilobeads.blogspot.com/

Yes, if someone's using drugs, and only hurting themselves, I have a hard
time understanding the harsh sentences. Many years ago, I worked with a
nurse who's father was killed by a drunk driver. For whatever reason, the
judge was lenient and the drunk served something like 2 years. It just
doesn't make sense. Harming yourself is one thing, but if you take the life
of someone else because of your drinking or drugs, I think they should throw
the book at you!

As for the shoulder, I'm just a klutz. I fell while working out in the
yard. I can use the arm fine, but it's the fine motor skills I have trouble
with. I can barely write a check before those muscles fatigue. Anything
repetitious is difficult. (All these garden vegetables, and I have trouble
cutting and chopping!) I tried a little seed beading the other day and
could only do a few minutes. Thank goodness, my 14 yr. old finished the
gift I was making for me. It's very frustrating, that I can't do what I
want to, but fortunately the severe pain is mostly gone now. Those stabbing
pains nearly did me in!

Sorry to hear about your QH. It is so hard to lose them. Spike is 7 1/2,
not really old at all, but finally slowing down a bit and not at full speed
all the time. I am taking Caesar, who's 4, through an agility class and
having a ball. It is so much fun. He's such a great runner and jumper that
I thought he would love it.

So glad you hear you like your son-in-law-to-be! It must be nice to know
your kiddo is marrying a good guy.
--
Jerri
www.beadbimbo.com


"Christina Peterson" wrote in message
...
Thanks, Jerri,

It's still sinking in. I think I've come to terms with it and then I'll
remember that his son doesn't know yet, or wonder which of us will tell my
mother, or realize that for my children Frank will just kind of cease to
exist. What Frank did was not acceptable, but there's a vast distance
between "acceptable" and the 30 to life recommended (which the judge has
to
justify if he doesn't follow the guidelines), and there's maybe a month
off
per year for "good time".

And it costs the tax-payers $55K per year -- more as costs go up, less if
prisoners die first. That's $1.5 million. You know, if we sent all drug
offenders to rehab (for the same amount of time even), we'd cut at least
15%
off Corrections costs. Rehab doesn't have a tremendously high rate of
success, but it's at least 6 or 8 times as good as jail (even for shorter
programs).

And the prosecutor lied. About me, no less.

I'm so sorry to hear about your shoulder, Jerri. How did you hurt it?
And
how long before you can use it again. Can't do wire, I'm sure, but what
about seed beads?

I tore the tendon on top of my right ring finger about 3 months ago, and
am
still needing to wear a splint at least at night. But it doesn't really
hurt, and I can still work with the splint holding the last joint
straight.
After all, I'm used to being kind of clumsy.

Our Queensland Heeler is nearing her end now. I've only had a cat, and my
husband has never had a dog die of old age. Stella has a fairly thin face
and a very fat body, with what feel like fibrous tumors that I can feel,
so
I think she has a lot of tumors, and she seems to be in some pain. We
give
her lots of attention, and also Reiki seems to help. I have mixed
eelings -- I hope things are resolved before my daughter's wedding so
Pete
doesn't have to either deal with this when I go to AZ before he does, or
have to deal with her dying "alone" when we're both Outside.

Boy, this is just not a good time for me to get dysfunctional! As I tell
people, one of the benefits of Depression is that I have to decide what is
most important (and effective) and put my energy into those things, since
the primary effect of my illness is that my head runs out of room.

And so, wedding preparations continue. My daughter's fiancé is great!

Tina

(((Christina)))

Barbara

Bead & Polymer Clay Habitué

There is a very fine line between a hobby and mental illness. (Dave Barry)

http://www.penguintrax.com
http://www.polymerclayworkshops.com



Christina Peterson wrote:
This week I've been attending my brother's trial. He was caught with 6
grams of cocaine (1/4 oz, or about a tablespoonful), and a scale. He was
found guilty of "distribution", which includes sharing, and is now looking
at a minimum of 10 years, but more likely the 30 years set out in the
guidelines. He's 61, and non-violent. He's likely to die in jail. He's
not criminally bad, but I guess he's criminally stupid.

We have 10 times as many people in jail as England. I'll bet we could have
5 times as many and save enough money to have socialized medicine here with
no increase in taxes. It will cost us tax payers $1.5 million to keep Frank
in jail, if he lives long enough, and unless costs go up.

Today, I'll get the house back in order. Got the dishes done and counters
cleaned this morning. Garden needs work, floors are a mess. At least I got
Susie's beaded purse crocheted for her wedding.

Life goes on. Life is good.

Tina

Tina,
I'm sorry to hear about your brother. It seems to me that if he
didn't have the scale with him, maybe they wouldn't have charged him
with "distribution." Was that a factor?
Does the judge have any leeway in the sentencing or is it a
mandatory term? I hope the judge will be thoughtful and examine the
situation.
Try to keep a positive attitude. There's NOTHING you can do about
this situation except control the way you react to it.

Patti

On Jul 14, 8:00 am, "Christina Peterson" wrote:

We don't have anything growing that we can eat yet except leaves. And our
neighbor's rhubarb. I make a sauce of it that's great with ice cream, and
adapted a recipe for applesauce cake to use the sauce. Our friend from
Mexico (I stay there when I go to the dentist) loves rhubarb pie so I've
been making her one of those every week or two. And will continue to do so
as long as the weather is cool enough. With store bought crust.

Ha, rhubarb. I miss that! I tried growing rhubarb here once, it didn't
live
very long. At least I found something called "Ceylon gooseberries"
last
year that has a taste that very much resembles real gooseberries.

For the wedding I'm bringing smoked salmon. And I'll send down berry jam in
a flat-rate box, so I don't have to carry it.

and the salmon ...

I grew up in Calif, and I envy you all the wonderful fruit you have in HI.

I've been told that loquats do much better in California than they do
here. I'd like to have loquats.

Great plan to sell Swarovski crystal to the sellers instead of getting a
booth. Especially in summer. Or is winter a time that's even busier for
you?

We have a bit of a shortage of cruise ships right now, but according
to the harbor schedule they're going to come back in the fall. Hilo
isn't
really a tourist destination so much as the other side of the island,
Kona, is. We have the volcano, and still more of a feel of old Hawaii,
plantation culture, but it's not the "mai tais on the beach" Hawaii
that a lot of tourists expect. - But I have some jewelry in stores
there,
of course means wholesale pricing, but also means I don't have to
do the selling. - Tourist season really is both summer and winter,
and the times in between are slow.


Sorry to read about your Queensland Heeler in the other post.
We had a hard time getting over our old cat passing away.
I take the dead rodents the other ones leave us to her grave
as she can't go after them anymore ...
(now wondering whether there is something like
http://icanhascheezburger.com for dogs - I hope I spelled
that one right. Somebody posted that here, and it helped
me a lot.)

Aloha,
Maren

Tina, you are having challenging times. My thoughts are with you. Did
you ever get my reply off line? I haven't had access for two times since
then to the newsgroup and even though we are quiet these days I really
miss the group.

Cheers, Jan