I managed to get into prison to see our friend without warnings of any kind about my clothing!  I think I have my new prison outfit.  (Okay, so it won't be as fetching as Lara Croft's but then again, this is real life.)  It was a gorgeous day, high clouds, cool breeze.  Visiting was crowded but no one got kicked out.  Our friend looks good--healthy, focused on the things that get him through day to day; reading, jogging, controlling his diet in an uncontrollable environment, work, responding to letters, looking forward to visits.

We had a nice moment with one of the guards as we left.  He's seen us coming in to visit for the past 3 years and has gotten to know us by sight.  He asked if we had a good visit.  We said yes.  Then I added (because I always have to add something), "It's just always so hard to leave."  His face immediatly shut down and went back to guard mode.  I suppose it either got too personal/real for him, or invoked sympathy and as a guard, he just can't go there.  He's been one of the nice ones (to us anyway).  When we're done with this whole sorry mess (21 more months, LORD willing), I plan on sending a thank you note to him and a few others.

The trip was brutal both ways, but we were able to make it home to our own house last night and it's always good to sleep in your own bed.  I come back from these visits hyperaware of all that we have within easy reach (and often take for granted) and all that he does without.  Then I gradually slip back into life until the next visit, where my senses get abraded all over again.

Enough of that for today, eh?

I was excited to read that my friend, Todd Truffin, will be rooting me on for nonwrimo.  I was telling Dan about the project during our trip and it occured to me that earlier this fall I was telling my sister-in-law, Cindy, that I was looking for things to eliminate between now and the end of the year.  Then I went and piled on this commitment.  Ah well!  We'll see how it goes.

One last tidbit in this scattered post--Tomorrow Dan and I will be playing Torrey Pines South Course.  I'm excited and moved to be playing the course my Grandpa Stube played every weekday.  I'm intimidated to be playing a course that the pros find challenging (and that sandiegogolf.com recommends skipping if one's index is over 18).  Let's hope for good placement of the women's tees.

I am getting myself into the proper mental state for the game.  It helps to remember that:

1.  No one else cares how I golf tomorrow (with the possible exception of Dan, whose main hope is just that I have a good time and don't bug him).

2.  I'm not going to be in the top tier of the finishers, so it doesn't matter if I have a blow-up hole (which I likely will) or three (which I hope I won't).

3.  I'm there to enjoy and feel some connection to the Grand-father who died when I was 11.  I never knew Buddy (that was his nickname) very well.  I hope somewhere he's watching...and that he'll forgive me for the last conversation we had.  He was scolding me for being rebellious and I am sure my response was, well...rebellious.  Sorry, Buddy.

4.  Success in this case will be playing the course.  How's that for setting reasonable expectations?  I'll be counting my blessings every step of the way.

So much for having it all figured out when it comes to visiting clothes.  On Saturday, I wore my black shorts and a Minnie Mouse top...and almost got sent back because the shorts were "too short."  Now, I'm a fairly conservative dresser.  So short shorts on me consist of shorts that are about 3 inches above the knee.  These shorts were well within the 2-inch above the knee measurement that is required for visitors.

However, the guards interpret the rule to be that the shorts have to be 2 inches above the knee when you sit down.  Fortunately, I know this guard pretty well...so I pulled my shorts down low on my hips, promised to wear them there my whole visit, and sat with my jacket covering my scandalously exposed legs for our 5 1/2 hour visit.

Sheesh!  Note to self: cropped pants are as short as we go.

We did have a funny thing happen as we drove up to get our passes.  We were driving Dan's car and the first guard we passed said, "I like your car."  The second guard, who was giving out passes said, "I want your car."

Before I could stop myself, I said, "We can make a deal."  I would have handed over the keys to the car in exchange for our friend, no questions asked.  Possibly trying to pre-empt me from an offer of a bribe, the guard said, "I'm going to have to confiscate it."  Someday this mouth of mine is going to get me in real trouble.

At any rate, we passed a nice visit with Dan getting up to get us snacks since I was stuck with my jacket over my legs.  The weather was breezy and sunny and the hours passed too quickly.  As usual, my heart broke as we walked out of the visiting area, leaving our friend behind.

We asked about the reinstatement of Friday visiting and were told that there was a "dispute" between the union and management...that it was dependent on the resolution of the dispute.  So we won't be doing Friday visits for a while, I'm afraid.

After we got home, we had our usual recuperative weekend where we don't do a whole lot (although Dan did some work and was generally more energetic than I).  I did manage to finish a book I've been reading, The Tenderness of Wolves. 

Winner of the 2006 "Costa Book of the Year", the novel is being marketed as "literature," and as a result, I bet it's thrown a lot of people off.  It is a well-written story, rich in character, story and setting.  The story is set in 1867 in Canada among characters who deal with the fur trading industry, others who live a more "civilized" life in town, and native "voyageurs" (aka Indians).  Essentially writing a mystery, the author (first time novelist Stef Penney) does not attempt to keep us in suspense the entire time about who "done it," but does manage to keep us in suspense about the motivations of each character's heart. 

Quite a satisfying read touching on sexuality, racial tension, relationships both familial and societal.  I recommend it heartily and it's going on Dan's reading stack.

So today, it's back to work.  There is laundry to be done, projects are awaiting completion and my stack of office work is teetering ominously.  That and I have to buy a wild shirt and some cropped pants so next time we visit our friend I can move about without fear of being tossed out on my ear.

Happy Monday, everyone.

Some facts this morning to bolster my instinct on paper towels, courtesy of Ideal Bite (a website with daily green factiods).  According to the "biters" (as they call themselves), Americans send 3,000 tons of paper towels to the landfill every day.  That's a lot of sopping up!

It's been fairly easy to switch from paper to cotton (and bamboo...more on that later).  I now keep a couple of towels out on the counter, one by the paper towel rack, and use those for wiping my hands, buffing up the counter, wiping up spills.  Then I toss them in the wash pile after a day or two's use (depending on the use).  I'm down to using paper towels for excessively dirty or unhygenic jobs.  Pretty amazing that I've had a partial roll of paper towels up for a week.  Normally it would be gone in a day or two.

One of the neat side effects of going green is that I discover cool new products.  I recently purchased some gorgeous, soft, absorbent kitchen towels made of 85% bamboo and 15% cotton.  I have a couple of light sweaters made of bamboo, but this is the first kitchen towel I've seen.  I like it at least as well as the microfiber towels I've been partial to in recent years.

On another shade of green, more of a khaki really, we head out today to visit our friend in prison.  It will be a grueling couple of days with driving, waiting in line, visiting while our hearts are breaking and our minds are shouting out that this is wrong, then coming home and collapsing.  And we're the ones that get to come home!  Imagine what it's like for him...or don't.  It's better not to.

Good thoughts appreciated.

You have to be careful about what you take, too.  I've been asked to change a couple of times in recent months.  I forgot that women's white, scoop-necked t-shirts look too much like inmate shirts.  And I was told that my light brown baggy sweater looked too much like the guards' uniforms.  (Yeah, I can see how a baggy, unbleached cotton sweater can look like a dark khaki uniform from a gun tower...sure.)

So the answer, obviously, has been to come up with a uniform of our own.  I think, after 3 years and 1 month of visiting various prisons, I've finally gotten the packing down.  A wild shirt and black pants for Dan.  An underwire-free bra for me (dangerous weapon, those underwires), black pants and a non-white, non-green shirt.  That's a lot to remember, so I'm considering getting a couple of wild shirts like Dan has and sticking with those.

23 more visits and then he's out...that's just under 23 months left.  Can't wait for that day.  First we spring him, then we celebrate...then I burn the bra.

And start buying green clothes again.  (Of both varieties.)

Got a great comment from Sally, my step-mother, about the green blogs.  Sally writes:  "About this "green" thing--Since I neither cook nor shop, why don't you just take my share of the credit and be done with it?"  I like it.  Sally Baldridge is my kitchen carbon offset!  

I also got an interesting comment from my brother-in-law, Ken, about yesterday's rant/blog (b-rant? ran-log? There's got to be a word to coin for that) regarding the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and their conflict with our Governator.  Ken asked for more in-depth information about the prisons involved...and he's right.  Yesterday's response to the article was shoot from the hip rather than a carefully researched and well-articulated point of view.

Ken wanted to know what level of prisons I was referring to and whether or not the guards are different at different level prisons.

The prisons I've visited our friend at have varied from Level 1 & 2 (minimum security) to Level 4 (maximum security).  It is my understanding from various news articles that guards get to select their assignments with relative ease, so I don't believe there's a correlation between experience, difficulty of the situation (say, assignment to a maximum security duty) and pay rate.

Which seems counter-intuitive to me...wouldn't you want your most experienced, highest paid guards at the most difficult position?  In that case, the guards would be able to draw on their experience to better handle the most difficult and dangerous prisoners; the state would have better allocation of its resources by paying more for more difficult jobs; the wardens would be able to actually manage their personnel.

One of my key objections to the status quo is that wardens, who theoretically should be in charge of their prison, are not able to manage their personnel.  How does one manage without authority?  The answer, as we see in our California State Prisons, is "not effectively."

Ken also referenced a book, Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by journalist Ted Conover that I'm going to have to add to my reading list.  Conover became a prison guard in order to write about the experience of prison guards. 

I am sure it will be an interesting read.  I am not unsympathetic toward the guards and the difficulty of their jobs.  I have seen some amazingly compassionate moments from the guards at "our" prison.  I have also seen how the guards are inevitably jaded by their experience as guards and the resultant damage to the guard, the inmate and the visitors. 

What I am unsympathetic toward is the idea that the guards are not, in the current system, subject to substantive review, correction or management.  The system is broken and more of the same isn't going to fix it.  That's why I think Arnold's on the right track.

This from Dan Weintraub at the Sacramento Bee:  "A fully trained beginning officer who now makes about $60,600 a year would be getting $70,221, plus enhancements for physical fitness, language fluency and working in hard-to-fill jobs. A veteran officer would top out with a base salary of more than $85,000 a year."

Thus, with overtime, a number of guards would at least be approaching, if not topping, $100,000 per year.  Not quite as outrageous as the rumor mill but still pretty steep salaries with extraordinarily generous rules on overtime, sick time, transfers and grievances.

There's an excellent article in today's Los Angeles Times about the escalating tension between Arnold Schwarzenegger and the powerful California Correctional Peace Officers Association.  The story starts off powerfully, detailing how guards filed a nuisance grievance against the State over a 5' sunflower plant that was supposedly obstructing their view from the gun tower.

I'm surprised they didn't shut down visiting at the Lancaster facility while they paid some guard triple overtime to go home, get his clippers, put on protective gear, clip the sunflower, put it into hazmat disposal facilities and change back into uniform.  (If I sound cynical about this particular union, it's because I am.)

I wrote a letter to one of the State's prison wardens last week.  I won't specify which one because we want to keep our friend anonymous and safe.  The reason for the letter?  The State recently reinstated Friday visiting, a privilege they'd revoked (along with Thursday visiting) several years back when we were having the Davis budget crisis.  Dan and I went to visiting twice after the reinstatement.  Once on a Friday, which was wonderful because it wasn't crowded, lines were reasonable, guards were in a much better mood than usual.

The second visit was on a Saturday.  Again, it was much better than usual, presumably because Friday visits were taking some of the enormous pressure of weekend visits off of Saturday/Sunday.

As I wrote to the warden, "As you can imagine, it takes an extraordinary amount of dedication to regularly visit an inmate at any California prison facility.  The travel is difficult, the processing is time consuming and, despite the best efforts of visitor and guard, always tense."  What I didn't add, because I didn't want to be antagonistic, is that visiting is always demeaning for the visitor. 

You'll note that I did reference "the best efforts of guard."  As a visitor, I appreciate that the guards are in a difficult position.  They have to suspect the worst of every visitor and, at the same time, manage a pleasant demeanor and treat visitors with respect.  Many don't manage that tightrope, but all of the guards who staff visiting at "our" prison do at least make the attempt.  Not so at every California prison.  (We've visited at 3 now.)

In general, I don't object to individual guards (although our friend has some stories that would raise anyone's hackles).  What I do object to is the unfettered power of the prison guard's union and some of the ridiculous concessions they've won from our government in contract negotiations.

The article lists several examples.  My personal favorite is that sick time counts toward overtime. (!)  Their rumored pay level of over $100 K for the average guard (including overtime, sick time, etc) is also beyond comprehension.

I've long said to Dan that the government needs to get out from under the prison guard union.  Now that they've official withdrawn from negotiations, maybe we'll have the chance.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not against unions in general (too many family members in unions for one thing...and for another, there are many times that management over-reaches).  What I am against is a powerful union, running amok with political contributions, overpaid workers on the State payroll, and contributing to the inefficiency, cruelty and inhumanity of California's prison system.

I'll be interested to see if Arnie is strong enough to bring the union into line before he leaves office.  If he does, I'll have to retract my anti-Arnie sentiments (at least in part).

An article in this morning's LA Times, about a jail chaplain named Don Dickinson, really touched me.  A retired fireman, Dickinson has been a chaplain in the LA Jail system for 25 years now, splitting his time between the jail downtown and the Pitchess Detention Center up in my old neck of the woods, Santa Clarita.

Dickinson apparently has moved from spending most of his time with prisoners to spending a significant amount of time counseling the family members of prisoners.  As someone who has seen the jail and state prison system up close (we have a close friend in prison), I am positive that he is making a real difference in many lives.

We had a conversation with some friends over the weekend about the conditions in prison.  Specifically, we were talking about the guards and how most of them are inhumane...and why most of them are inhumane.  Imagine a job in which you are unable to trust, where every time you trust, you get burned.  Imagine a job where you are in real danger most of the time.  Can't be easy. 

On the other hand, imagine having your most intimate personal freedoms taken from you.  You are told when and what to eat, when to sleep, when to shower and take care of other bodily functions.  You get to see your family and friends (if you're lucky enough to still have them) for a few hours at a time.  If you're in jail, it's always behind glass.  If you're in prison, it's in the visitor's center where you count yourself lucky to eat food from a vending machine.  Where you endure a strip search for a few hours with someone who loves you enough to visit.

Imagine going to visit your loved one in such a place.  The guards treat visitors like prisoners who just haven't been busted yet.  They call inmates' children "little cons."  You stand in line for hours, endure searches and rules for clothing that change each visit.  You are allowed one kiss and hug.  You buy junk food from the machine because that's all you can give your prisoner.  You talk about a life you feel guilty leading because he's in prison.  He talks about a life you'd rather not imagine.  Too soon, it's over and you get one more kiss and hug.

And then you leave him there with guards who you don't trust, who you know assume the worst about all of you.

What an empowering thing for Dickinson to do, talking to these family members.  He's helping them understand the system, understand the cyclical nature of re-offending.  He's helping them access programs that will help their inmate stay out of jail for good. 

I don't have a solution to the mess our prisons are in...haven't done the research and it's so overwhelming on a personal level I can't really manage to think about the global issues.  But I do know that Dickinson is making himself part of the solution, one life at a time.