"On the plains of Oklahoma, with a windshield sunset in your eyes like a watercolor painted sky, you'd think heavens doors have opened."
Fly Over States



Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Typical Day


Jezebel wasn't too thrilled about wearing the wreath but she will do just about anything I ask her to. I could dress her up in doll clothes and she'd just sit there and suffer.

Here are the sisters:


I am working on the Surf and Sand Challenge quilt top. Here is a picture.


I don't much care for wrestling with paper pieced blocks that have paper all flapping and giving me paper cuts but it is a necessary evil when you insist on paper piecing. The sashing has been pretty slow going but I hope I like what I end up with.

Here's more pictures of Miss Jezebel.






How about that muzzle! It just keeps coming in. Used to be that from the side, it still looked black. That is changing.

And here is Evelyn, also decked out in an autumn wreath.


She is still not talking to me after I put that on her.


Busy work day, today. I had a case this morning and met the parents for the first time (I'd visited the kids at school and only spoken to the parents by telephone). Both parents looked like movie stars - they were drop dead gorgeous. Even in their jail togs.

The second case involved a parent who was facing 12 months in jail for failure to pay back child support. We'd begged for a little extra time to get caught up a few months ago. I gave up criminal law because it utterly kills me to have one of my clients, even the ones who deserve it, spend time in jail. I was scared to death that he wouldn't get it together. But he did, the case is dismissed, and he told me I need to remember that there are good people out there (I was a combination of shocked and thrilled that he stepped up to the plate - so many don't).

Another case, particularly sad, involved a one year old baby boy who was staying with his mother while my ward (the father) is locked up. I am not the child's guardian ad litem, in this case. My ward wanted the child to be placed in the custody of the paternal grandmother (his mother), claiming that the child's mother is a drug user and lives an unstable lifestyle.

I watched the mother with her son and the bond between them was amazing. She was so gentle with him, and he just snuggled up with her. A big part of me wished my ward felt differently about the situation but there you go.

The child's guardian ad litem had the court drug test the mother. It took hours (the mother claimed she couldn't "go") but eventually, after being threatened to be placed into lock up, she produced a sample. It turned up positive for drugs. The father testified that the mother was a chronic drug user, which was uncontested. However, the nails in the coffin were the MYSPACE pictures the mother had posted on the internet that showed her dragging on joints, glorifying pot usage (you'd just have to see it) and multiple photos of pot plants in her apartment. The final nail was a picture she'd posted of the baby in "gang" attire, holding a bottle of whisky and a lighter shaped like a revolver.

Like I said, so sad. I hope she gets her act together. At the same time, I am not sure you can fix stupid. But I still liked her.

Off to make some phone calls.

5 comments:

Nancy said...

Jezebel's nose looks great!

Stephanie D said...

The last part was confusing to me--your ward wanted the child to be put with his mother (whose mother? the child's or the ward's?) and who was good with the child? Somehow I got lost there.

I soon won't be able to tell the girls apart. Jezebel's muzzle was the only way I knew it was her--and it's grown back so much I will be clueless yet again!

Lady Beekeeper said...

Yeah, Stephanie, that was confusing. Even before I read your comment I was going back to change it. To put it another way -Dad wanted the child to be with HIS mother because the BABY's mother is a drug user. Grandma isn't.

South Jersey Quilter said...

I read your blog regularly, and I'm so glad you have "the girls" to balance your job. I'm a school nurse in a poor urban district, so I see the same kinds of families as you do- it can get real depressing!

Holly in south jersey
http://sjquilter.blogspot.com

Perry said...

Jezebel's nose is really looking wonderful, and I love the quilt you are paper piecing. I don't like to paper piece because you have to remove the paper, lol. Such a sad job you have, I don't know how you do it, but I am glad there are people like you that do.