This site will look much better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.

Recap:
UltraMom, after living in the same small town in Idaho for 30+ years moves to a slightly larger small town in Nevada. UltraDad has given up farming and is driving a big, big truck for a mining company. UltraParents buy a house, and UDad gently hints (repeatedly) that it would be nice if UMom contributed to the family paycheck. A job opportunity comes knocking on the door: Matty is an educator who works with inmates at the nearby minimun security prison and used to work with UDad’s sister, Pat, teaching at the local high school. The prison storekeeper is leaving, and Matty hears that Pat’s sister in law is looking for a job. About 4 months later, UltraMom has landed the job, even going to Emerald….....................er I mean Carson City to fill out necessary paperwork. And now….........the job begins!

I arrived at my first day of work with a little trepidation. I had been out to the prison, or Conservation Camp as it is called, before, but never as am employee. I approach the front gate. What is the procedure? Does a guard come out? Is there some way I phone in? Finally a prisoner sees me, alerts a guard and I’m in. Jackson, the prison store-keeper trainer appears, having driven from Reno that morning. “So, didn’t your key work on the lock?” So that’s what that key was for. The camp commander had handed me a set of keys on a pink beaded alligator keychain when I ran into him in Albertsons last week, but no instructions had been given.
The “store” is a long, very narrow room lined with merchandise, with a desk/computer at one end. This is my domain. I am introduced to Joe and Carlos, my two inmate store clerks. Jackson and I exchange a bit of small talk; it turns out he was raised in Idaho and that we graduated from the same high school, though me much earlier than he. I mention the ages of my children, and he says,”But you’re hanging in there.” I feel like I should break out the cane, walker, and hearing aid.
Jackson has only been on the job for a month, coming out of a position of management in the Gaming Industry near Las Vegas. I am the first storekeeper he has trained. This can be both good and bad. The good thing is that he is very gung-ho and tries to be very thorough. The bad thing is that he is very gung-ho and is a little too thorough. I am quickly in “information overload mode.” When he leaves the room, my clerks tell me,”It’s not as hard as he’s making it sound. We’ll help you a lot.” I feel slightly encouraged.
This week I will be working 40 hours. Over the next several weeks, I will gradually taper down until I am working my regular schedule of 20 hours: 5 hours, 4 days a week. When I go to lunch this week, it is so nice to be able to be home after a 7 minute drive. In Idaho, my job was 1/2 hour away. Of course, usually, I won’t even be going to work until after lunch, but still the short commute time will be a plus. The main thing for me to learn, besides basic procedures, is the computer. The computer is ancient, and the keyboard is so old it is missing what are now standard keys. No “Escape” (Calgon, take me away!), no CTRL, no Page Up or Page Down. The computer is “down” on a regular basis, and at first we thought this was going to be the case on my first day of training. But after a few shut downs and ups and a few helpful tips from Joe and Carlos, we were up and running. Same thing with the printer, a huge, old tractor feed machine. The inmates are not allowed to use the computer, but after being there so long, they notice the tricks that make it work. Maybe a good thing we had so much trouble; I think it may expedite new equipment installation, which has been in the works for a long, long time. When the computer screen comes up, I am pleasantly surprised. It is the same system we used at the bank, the good old AS400. Of course, it is a different data bank, and vastly different options, but many of the basic commands are the same: F12 to go back a screen, F3 to exit.
We, or rather Joe and Carlos, do a compete store inventory. We run through ordering, shipments, and store days. It’s not a store like you and I would shop around in. There is a store list posted with items and prices. Inmates fill out an order form and deposit in a drop box. I input orders, the clerks pull items, and when the customers come to the outside window, they show ID and pick up their order, the amount haviing been deducted from their account. If an item is out of stock, or the inmate hasn’t got enough money in his account, tough luck. At the end of the second day, some things are making more sense, and some things are still a bit opaque. I tell Jackson that I think my brain is full. He laughs, and we soon knock off for the day.
Thursday afternoon, Jackson leaves and I am on my own. Joe and Carlos are infinitely helpful, but if it’s computer input related I have to wade through the manual. I meet a few of the guards and talk to the caseworker, the only other female there on a daily basis. I even receive an invitation to a Christmas party at the “Command Post” in a town, about 40 minutes away. The job is SO different from anything I have ever done before: if I even leave to go to the bathroom, the clerks have to leave too, and I lock the door. I leave the prison and go home at the end of the day; they are already home. At some point I will be required to attend a week-long training mostly dealing with how NOT to allow yourself to be compromised by a prisoner. But, on the whole, I am feeling good about the job.
Now, its my first weekend, a Saturday. Days off are definitely more appreciated when they don’t occur every day. Lots of things are on my agenda; go to Elko and finish Christmas shopping. Take down the pilgrims and orange candles and put up the Christmas tree and sparkly lights. Get the last couple of packages together and in the mail. Spend some quality time with Murphy and Polly, and have a scrumptious dinner waiting for UDad when he gets home a little after 8 pm (He had to work today). Packages have been arriving, including one very intriguing one from Japan, and kids should be arriving later next week. None of my kids have ever been to prison. LIfe is good.
UltraMom

Today is Johnny’s 25th Birthday. Ah, Johnny, what can I say? He’s an angel. No, not a trail angel like Paddy-O. No, not like that song, you know the one…...(music notes) “Johnny Angel, How I love him, how I tingle when he passes by, Every time he says ‘Hello’ my heart begins to fly….......” , but wait…....did I say Angel? What I meant to say was “Angle” Definition: To give a specific aspect or point of view to. or Where two straight lines converge. Well, not so much the second one, though if my brain were a little more functional, I could probably some up with something, but definitely the first. I say this because there is nobody who can better tell a story or express his viewpoint more convincingly than Johnny. I can rarely out- logic him, and if I am in danger of doing that very thing, he wears me down with evasive, circular reasoning until I throw in the towel.
Johnny was born when he was very young. (Sorry, that was one of my dad’s favorite lines, and I just had to throw it in.) He actually has a semi-famous birthday because also born on that day (though much earlier) was Smokey, the only dog my family ever had while I was growing up. Smokey was a very temperamental Chihuahua-Terrier. He bit me several times, threw up on me more than once, and much preferred my parents to any of us, but still, as our one and only dog, we adored him. Ah, Smokey. He’s an angel…........or at least I hope so. He’s been gone for quite some time. But wait a minute, this was supposed to be about JOHNNY, not the dog. We’ll have to devote an entire post to Smokey in the future, but for now, Smokey, roll over.
Johnny, at close to 8 lbs, was my biggest baby. He had a brother and sister at home already, and a younger brother back there in the wings somewhere, but he was the baby for a few years. Several things come quickly to mind when I think about Johnny as a baby and child. Generally he was very content. He could play by himself for hours, unlike Bob, who wanted a playmate or an audience for most of his endeavors. He used to sit on the teeter-totter of the swing set his Grandma Wesley had bought for the kids and swing back and forth while singing at the top of his lungs such classics as “I’m a giant…...........A gi-gi-gi-gi giant.” (music notes) or “All you gotta do is E-I-O….........E-I-E-I-E-I-O….......”. I’m sure there were more, but those are the only ones to have survived my capricious memory. He would sit and build block towers or make things with building sets or play in the dirt. Generally very easy going. But when he got his back up, he could be soooooooooo stubborn. One time I remember I was the carpool mother of the day for Johnny’s Kindergarten class, and Johnny was counting as we drove his classmates to their various homes. It all sounded pretty good until he got to 199………..”one hundred ninety eight, one hundred ninety nine, one thousand.” “No, Johnny,” I gently corrected, “After one hundred ninety nine comes two hundred.” “It does NOT,” he stubbornly asserted, sticking out his lower lip. I let it go, but a while later he started counting again. “One hundred ninety eight, one hundred ninety nine, two hundred.” He knew I was right, but just couldn’t admit that he was wrong!
I usually very much enjoy Johnny’s sense of humor, and when he was in 5th grade, he had a teacher who perhaps appreciated his wit even more than I did. Good thing too, cause some of his comments teetered on the edge on insurrection. This teacher would actually call me sometimes to relate some comment he had made. One time, Ms. Losser (for such was her name), asked Johnny to pass out some papers. He declined, and rather than argue, she began to pass them out herself. “See what happens when you ask a boy to do a man’s job?” she said. “Yes,” he answered, “A woman ends up doing it.” It was lucky for Johnny she thought he was funny. More than a little truth in that statement, actually…......
Johnny has always been very much his own person, and, as his Aunt Joy once said, “walks to the beat of a different drummer.” I know, I know, it’s a cliché, but really does seem to apply in this case. John can be forthright to the point of near rudeness, but when it counts he is thoughtful and considerate.
It sometimes comes to my attention, and very forcibly today, that I really don’t understand men all that well (who ever could?). I know that I like to be remembered on my birthday, and decided it would be fun to order a nice cactus garden or other manly arrangement to be delivered to Johnny at his office on his birthday. The main thing that stopped me was the price, so instead I sent a free online e-card. When I mentioned this to Jim, he informed me that was pretty much the worst idea ever, and something that John would very much NOT like. Johnny confirmed that today, and said even the e-card really wasn’t necessary. Did he even care if I remembered his birthday? “Take a clue from your husband,” he replied, “he can’t even remember his own birthday.” “But when I called Jim on his birthday, I could tell he was really glad to hear from us.” “Yes,” Johnny said, “but remember what I keep telling you about Jim. He is very girlish.”
One of my joys, especially in the last several years, has been to witness the close relationship between my children, and how highly they regard each other, even though their interests and aptitudes are so different. It was so much fun playing games and interacting with my three of my young adults last Thanksgiving, though the fourth was sorely missed. Johnny is the spark that kept everything lively and everyone suitable insulted. But he can equally handle being at the other end of the joke, which is all the better.
After securing a Criminal Justice degree at Boise State with high honors, and trying a little stint of living in another country (more specifically Japan), John has now decided to pursue a degree in law. He did very, very well on the LSAT, and has been throwing himself into his law school application process with his usual thoroughness. I am so proud of him it sometimes takes my breath away.
“Johnny Angel, how I love him…………” maybe that’s not so far off after all.
And whether you care or not, HAPPY BIRTHDAY. You are well worth remembering.

UltraMom

Guess who carved this pumpkin all by himself?

When I introduce my son, Jim, to people I usually say, “This is my baby.” Jim is used to this by now, and smiles good naturedly. It usually makes the person I am introducing him to smile too, because ruggedly handsome, 6’3” Jim looks nothing like a baby. But he is my youngest child, born 22 years ago today, and is cursed (or blessed) to go through life this way.
Before Jim was born, the family consisted of two boys (Bob and Johnny) and one girl (Heather), so it was only logical, a foregone conclusion really, that this next child would be a girl, evening up the sexes at two and two. Grandma Wesley even bought a little dress pre-birth, and girl names were mulled over. Grandpa McDonald always claimed he knew it would be a boy. Whether he really knew this or only claimed it to be obstinate, I don’t know, but he dubbed the new grandchild-to-be “Angus Og”. As you have probably figured out, the child was Jim. I was told later that when the doctor announced “It’s a boy!”, I asked druggily, “It’s a WHAT?” But we did have a boy’s name ready in case the unforeseen happened, and so dubbed him James Patrick McDonald.
About 3 seconds after I held him, I forgot I had ever wanted another girl. He had me at “WAAA”. Jim was the only kid we ever had an ultrasound picture made of; the doctor wanted it done because he didn’t see how, given the the size of my abdomen, he could possibly be due when I said he should be due. It turns out he was just a long, skinny baby. Still is.
Johnny, just a few days short of three years old, was fasacinated with his little brother. I had to monitor his probing of the “little fingers, ears, nose, eyes.”
I remember Jim being kind of a fussy baby. He really liked being held, and got lots of it. I would try so carefully to lay him down once asleep, but he would almost always wake up and start crying, holding out his arms to be cradled once again. For awhile when he was about 3-4, he refused to sleep alone, so I would often climb up into the top bunk bed with him until he drifted off to sleep. I can’t remember why Johnny didn’t sleep in the top bunk! If I was too busy for that, Heather would take him into her bed, but would call me in a panic when her sleeping brother twined his arms about her neck in a strangle hold making it difficult for her to breathe.
Once Jimmy (as we called him) reached Kindergarten, he decided that he wished to be called by his real name. His teacher and friends knew him as “James.” For awhile in first grade, he thought he would switch to his middle name for a while, and it nearly drove his poor teacher to distraction when much of the rest of the class followed suite. I remember a school project called “Invent America”, and Kindergarten aged Jim invented a “Sleeping Box”. His Dad helped him make a prototype, and the result was a heavy wooden box lined with velvet, with a half circle hole cut out of one side to accomodate the sleeper’s neck. The premise was that often there was too much light and noise to make it possible to fall asleep. The sleeping box would help. I think they drilled a few air holes, but the box was still stifling and airless. Jimmy tried it out one night, and nearly had heat stroke before he would admit that the box had a few flaws.
Jim had a very special relationship with his Grandpa McDonald, who continued to call him “Angus” once in a while, even after birth. For one special birthday, little Jimmy made his Grandpa a surf board. It started as an ordinary plank of wood, but after it was embellished with some fashionable crayon designs and accompanied by an original poem, it because a one-of-a-kind surf board. The poem read something like this:” When you’re feeling kind of blue, And you don’t know what to do, All you gotta do is get on a board, and surf down a hump of snow.” verse 2: “When you’re feeling kind of green, and you don’t know what to to bean, All you gotta do is get on a board and surf down a hump of grass.” I don’t know is Grandpa ever used the board for its intended purpose, but he sure liked the poem.
Another time, Jimmy gave his Grandpa a little plastic pig, and Grandpa, ever the prankster, presented Jim with tiny little pieces of bacon a few days later. Jimmy gazed in wonder at the bounty his pig had produced. “But, Grandpa, it was a plastic pig!”
Another time, Jimmy gave Jesse Strope, our elderly neighbor, a cardboard fishing pole he had made, complete with a little envelope of smiling paper worms. Jesse showed the boy some whopper trout he caught with that pole. It’s a wonder that poor kid didn’t have some severe emotional issues. But Jesse did give Jim a real fishing pole and a few years later, Jesse’s own personalized pool cue. When big brother Johnny was in school, Jimmy could not wait til he got home. I would play cassettes , and the boys would dance around the house to “Donkey Kong” or “FraggleRock”. For awhile, little Jimmy’s favorite toys were his stuffed animals. He especially liked Care Bears, Popples (they could roll up into a ball!) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, especially Michelangelo. He had a little green stuffed bear that he named “Lively Snuggler.” Isn’t that a great name? UDad would sometimes get the two “J” names mixed up, and would often call them “John,Jim,Fred Ralph”. When Jim got to name one of the outdoor kittens, he named it FredRalph, and said he was naming it after himself. FredRalph was a Siamesey looking cat, very friendly and long-lived.
When he was little, Jim was a bit of a dandy and really liked to get dressed up. He was the only kid in Kindergarten who refused to put his hand into the halloween pumpkin to help pull out the stringy seeds, and when Dad drew charcoal mustaches and beards on halloween faces, Jim always refused to get his face dirty. One time, at a 4-H Baked Food Sale I was supervising, little Jimmy was stung on the arm by a bee. Yes, I said “on the arm”, but somehow he could not walk for the rest of the day, and I had to carry him around while helping sell bread and cookies. I am happy to report that Jim has almost entirely outgrown this fastidiousness.
Grandma Wesley was also a youngest child, and she always had a soft spot for kids in that birth position. She would get Jimmy to walk to the town of Howe with her (7 miles) with the lure of a milkshake at the cafe at the end. But as Jim remembers, the rest of the family would usually show up in the car to pick them up, and they would all get milkshakes too! But that didn’t stop him from going on the next Grandma walk.
It seemed that while my kids had the normal sibling squabbles, Jim usually managed to stay out of most of them. When I asked him his secret for getting along so well he said, “I just do whatever they tell me to do.” He’s totally outgrown that one too! He also rebelled once in a while when he was younger. One time Bob tried to tell him he had his shoes on the wrong feet. “Bob,” he said defiantly, “You are NOT the boss of my feet.”
Jim has always been a good student, and was usually well-liked and well-behaved. The only times he got in trouble for fighting in school, he was sticking up for one of his friends. When Jim was in Junior High, it became apparent that he had a real talent for basketball. His number in 7th and 8th grade was “43”, and he liked to point out (often loudly) that his basketball number was the same as my age! We loved going to his games all through high school; not watching Jim play basketball is one thing that I still really miss.
Now Jim is an upperclassman at University of Idaho, majoring in Wildlife Biology and spends his summers fighting fires for the BLM. He has developed a passion for hunting and fishing, an interest shared by his Dad and several uncles. He is handsome, witty, funny, and compassionate, and I love him to pieces.
Happy Birthday, Baby. Wish I could be with you today. I’m so glad you are exactly who you are.

UltraMom

UltraMom & her forever baby

Jim and my new baby, Murphy

Jim asleep on Thanksgiving Day cradling his football

After all the trouble with the stove, my Thanksgiving turned out very, very well. The double oven was much utilized, and that old truism, “Many hands (and ovens) make light work,” turned out to be…....well…......true: UltraDad’s brothers and wives from Idaho arrived Wednesday afternoon. My children, minus the eldest UltraSon arrived very late Wednesday night. The kids all met in Twin Falls and rode together in Heather’s very nice car, and, rumor has it, they had to stop in Jackpot, Nevada on the way and try to double their money, or at least a few dollars of it. Billie and Brandi, sis-in-law Pat’s son and wife, both attorneys in Cheyenne, WY, arrived the next day, as did John’s sister, Kathy and husband Kay. Of course Pat came over as well, having been assigned the more challenging parts of the dinner, such as the sweet potatoes, rolls and salad. Everyone was much impressed with all the work UltraDad and I have done on the house, and it seemed to me that the house handled 18 people for dinner quite nicely!
Pat and I had a little “tussel” over brother Bill, wife Patty and her daughter Kayce, but I graciously conceded and they spent the ngiht at Pat’s house. The next day I could see the reason behind her insistance; Patty fell in love with “Bulldozer”, the last of the current litter of poodle puppies, and he was going to get a very good home. Bulldozer, or “Gus” as Patty decided to call him, though cute and easy going, is not even in the same universe of cuteness as Murphy. Gus looks as though there is dachsund in his heritage: his legs are short, his body long, and his nose very broad. So ugly, he’s cute. But Murphy is much too well bred to boast, and he graciously wrestled with and stole toys from the unfortunate Gus.
The highlight of Thanksgiving day was…................no, not the fantastic meal of which we all partook until we were nearly sick….........no, not the football games on the television…..................
Johnny finally unveiled his final edition of cousin Nicki’s wedding video. I had seen the video several times, but not the finished version complete with music and choreography and a killer Star Wars intro. Nicki’s wedding was on a beautiful June day in a park in Boise, and Johnny and his cousin Billie thought it would be a nice momento for Nicki and Chad if they made a documentary of their wedding. Billie became Skip Kawasaki or Arnold or Abdul-Jabar. With each interview he changed his last name. Johnny was the cameraman, and once in a while, they cut to Jim for a sports update. It was hilarious. Now, if I can just get him to make some copies…..
The next day, the brothers all left and we went into Elko with Billie, Brandi and Pat for a little shopping and fun. We had a very fun lunch at Biltoki’s, one of Elko’s Basque restaruants, and our Wyoming guests insisted on picking up the tab. They had planned to stick around for one more day, but the weather turned a little nasty, so they decided they had better get going while the getting was good. Too bad. We really didn’t get to play any games, UltraMom’s forte. My three kids stuck around til Sunday, and it was like heaven to have them there. We did get a few games in, supplemented with frequent snacks, esp. Aunt Pat’s famous nacho cheese dip, and I was very glad to hear that they all made it back safely to their current homes. I am holding my breath that I get them all back here for Christmas.

Last weekend UDad and I made a trip to Reno/Carson City. For those martyrs who are faithful readers, you may recall that UltraMom is soon to take a job at our local minimum security prison, and that the only place where the required paperwork may be filled out is in Carson City, a 300 mile drive. I ranted, railed and reasoned to no avail, so Udad And I finally decided to make a mini-vacation out of it. My brother Dave and wife Jane from Placerville, CA offered to meet us in Reno for a night of dining and gambling. I love it when Dave is in charge of arrangements because he is SO good at it. He stakes out great motel rates and entertainment. He had a little trouble this time as his internet was down, but he did get us wonderful motel rooms at the Hilton. Jane had left a car in Reno and flown out to the Boise area for a few days to see her daughter Linda, a student at Albertson’s College (yes, the college, not the grocery store, and a very good college it is too) play her clarinet in a concert, so Jane arrived back in Reno before we did. Dave took the Amtrak train down from Sacramento. Jane joked that, as the train’s journey originated in southern California, it would have plenty of time to be behind schedule by the time it arrived in Reno. It appeared for a time that she might be wrong, but, as it turned out, the train sat on the tracks somewhere outside of the station for quite some time waiting for a couple of freight trains to come in and unload. We decided to make a quick trip to a nearby hotel to get a paper with local entertainment happenings, and happened upon the most interesting cattle auction I have ever seen. These cows, mostly calves and heifers, were on a showroom stage, and were washed, brushed, and glittered. Flunkies were on hand to clean up the inevitable bovine mess, and the bidding was lively and high! But we tore ourselves away, hurried back to the depot, and were finally able to collect my train-wearied brother. We had a delicious dinner buffet at the Hilton, and scanning the shows, I found one that sounded interesting: uh…Something, Something Broadway. Anyway, the review said the group did numbers from a variety of Broadway shows and that they were spectacular, and that they were in Sammy’s Showroom in Harrah’s Hotel. I kept bringing it up until everyone else agreed that we would go. At Harrah’s, finding a spot in the parking garage was quite challenging, but Dave’s patience was finally rewarded. Arriving at the showroom, we were a trifle late, but plenty of tickets were still available. I was very proud of my sister-in-law. She asked the ticket-woman if we could split the cost, meaning that she would pay half and I would pay half, but the woman misunderstood the question, and gave us the tickets for half price! Way to go Jane! The show was entertaining, but NOT spectacular. The entire cast consisted of three male singers and about 6 women, only 2 of which sang. They did do songs from a lot of different shows, including the new Broadway hit “Avenue Q”. The emcee’s comments made it clear that much of the audience were comped, or got in free (probably with a drink purchase), so I was glad that we hadn’t paid full price. I guess the same cast did another show later in the evening called “Bareback” which delved into a bit of nudity, so I guess they were pretty versatile!
We did a little gambling; UDad and I like the nickel, and esp. the penny video poker machines. I probably lost about $6 and I think he probably won about $15, so all in all, not too bad. We played a pretty fun card game in Dave & Jane’s motel room called Diminishing Whist. I say this even though I was lousy at it. We got to bed well after midnight, which is WAY past UDad’s bedtime.
The next day, we had the Hilton breakfast brunch buffet, from which I recognized many of the dishes from the night before. A little more gambling, and it was time to bid Dave & Jane farewell. Then it was on to Carson City for us. We checked into our motel room and tried to find the building where I had to be bright and early the next morning for my job, but there seemed to be no such street as “Snyder” anywhere near where my instructions told me it should be. We shopped a little, and then decided to do something we hadn’t done for a long time: We went to a movie! We enjoyed Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and had VERY buttery movie popcorn. Afterwards, we decided to stop at the Nugget Casino to see if UltraDad could double a few more of his dollars. We were gone, maybe an hour, and when we came back, our car wouldn’t start. Not at all. The battery was dead, dead, dead. I called my motoring plan, and they would be glad to tow me, but who was going to fix my car at 9 pm on a Sunday night? Udad decided to walk across the street to a service station, and we ended up buying a new battery for the car from them. It was bitter cold, and my job was to hold open the hood of the car, as the struts ( I think they are called) don’t work, and UDad, for some sissy reason, didn’t want the hood crashing down on his head as he struggled to remove the old battery and insert the new one. It turned out to be quite a job, and we took turns running back to the service station to borrow tools, flashlight, etc. But finally it was done, and the car has started, and run like a top ever since.
The next morning we started out early to try again to find Snyder Avenue. We finally asked directions (again) and found out we were not even in the right part of town.
The Nevada Department of Corrections in Carson City is housed in the old Indian School and is a rambling collections of brick buildings. Jason, who will train me in my new job, was my guide, first escorting me to Michelle who orchestrates the necessary filling out of reams of paperwork. That done, we went to the Medium Security Prison, where we passed through many locked gates. Jason surrendered his car keys at the desk, explaining to me that this was a precaution in case you were mugged by a prisoner. At least he wouldn’t be able to steal your car. Bob, our escort inside, herded us into his golf cart, and we were off to the badge/fingerprint center. I don’t know if you have had your fingerprints taken lately, but they don’t use ink anymore. Windex was sprayed on a glass screen and as each finger was rolled, you could see the print images appear on a monitor. If my badge didn’t say “Retail Storekeeper” on it, from the photo I think it would be easy to mistakek me as an inmate. Nobody said “Smile”, so I didn’t. Then, armed with another map, we were off to Concentra Medical Center to get a tuberculosis test. That ended up taking a lot of time. The actual TB test took about 30 seconds, but there was a LOT of waiting, both before and after. Anyway, it was finally all done, and UMom starts her new job next Monday. UDad is fond of telling people “My wife used to work in a bank, and now she is going to prison!”
We arrived home late Monday evening, and couldn’t wait to pick up our little poodle Murphy from sis-in-law Pat’s house. “How was he?” I asked. “Fine,” she said, “Except he wouldn’t mind me, and everytime I let him outside he climbed the fence…........actually, come to think of it, he was a little brat.” Now that’s a fine way for a grandma to talk! (She is the owner/mother of Murphy’s mother and father, so that makes her Murphy’s grandma.”)
Now here is the real topper to the whole story. I happened to run into the Commander of the prison where I will be working at the local Albertson’s store last night . He informed me that if I had only talked to him, he would have arranged it so that I did not have to go to Carson City. Go figure.
UltraMom