From Death Row to Slapstick

Saturday was the single most bizarre day I've had in quite a while.  I began the day at the ungodly hour of 6am. I actually woke at around 445, but laid back down.  That was really a dumb thing to do as I was seriously wide awake the first time and after I laid back down, getting up was completely horrid.  So I got up and had some Jo and a smoke and was on my way to one of our lovely state prisons to see a friend who resides on death row there. 

I used to write him and visit him so often, we had our own sort of language and ways of communicating which only we could understand.  Abbreviations in our writing and references in our speech so that we could communicate freely when we needed to.... They are always monitored and watched and the tables are quite close to one another in the visiting "park".  Some subjects are just off limits to others and so we had our ways of making privacy.  Since the birth of Harley and the crash of the economy, I only get up to see him 3-5 times a year... (It is 4 hours round trip), and writing has become sporadic at best.  It's hard when someone is still as important to you as they ever were, but you simply have so many demands on your time and attention and energy in the present right in front of you that your behavior would tell them otherwise. That said, we had a marvelous visit full of laughs and some tears.  The men there are experiencing really hard times as the admin has totally changed thanks to our delightful governor.  They are being mistreated and picked on constantly, but that's another story for another time.  So I spent my whole day there eating bad canteen food and drinking freeze dried coffee.  The best part is the pop corn.  It's so buttery gross it's good!  Really good!  

On the way home, I got a call from a long time friend  John, who has come to town to play in a reunion benefit concert with his old band.  It has become a tradition for a bunch of us old friends to go and hang out and catch up, listen to GREAT music and dance our fool asses off for a few hours... and forget our real age!  John and I discussed his getting me and my companion on the guest list (aka broke people's list) as the tickets were 23 clams each!  Whoa Nellie, that's a half a tank of gas and almost a week of groceries for me.  Since he has a rather large family, he didn't want to make promises since each band member only gets 8 free spots.  He had been in town since Tues, and it was now Sat and I had not heard from him, so I figured he couldn't swing it and I was planning to home and collapse...  So he calls to tell me he is leaving our names at the door and he hopes we can come... sigh...  While I was really excited, it was also kind of a real mind bender to think I was going to be up till the wee hours that evening... especially since I had been awake since the wee hours that day!  I haven't done this since my 20s, but ok, why the hell not?

So my oldest friend in town and I decided to go for it.  I came home, played with Harley for about 20 minutes before I had to take a shower and leave again.  We were supposed to bring canned food for the homeless as part of the benefit.  I had planned to bring that, and my winter coat also, but it didn't happen.  What did happen is that I freaked out when I could not locate my drivers license and my 20 dollars left over from the prison visit.  You have to put your money in a plastic bag along with your driver's license and your car key.  I knew I had it when I left, but I could not find it.  Finally, I did.  It was under a pile of something or other on a desk.  But I spent so much dang time looking for them I was late and scatter brained and left without the food or my coat!  DOH!

Ok, this is getting really long so I will continue this adventure in the next post.  I know I'm not really good at this continuation thing.  Jojo is probably still waiting for the conclusion of the Pooh fiasco post!  (smile).... but I will do my level best to continue this ramble tomorrow.  Seriously, this was a long damn day!