Does it Ever End?

I guess I need to back up since my last post was last week...

Thursday, I started the day out with a Suspicious Person call right out of the chute. As I was backing out of my parking space, I looked to my left. Didn't see anything, and glanced at my computer before looking over my right shoulder. I started out of the parking space and backed right in to another car. It was a citizen looking for directions. My lieutenant thought that since the guy pulled so close to the back of my car, there was probably no way I could have seen him. Still my fault though.

When I got done with that and got back in my car to go to a call and got ready to back out, there was a silver Crown Vic (unmarked patrol car) parked behind me. I thought it was our pain-in-the-butt evidence clerk who wanted something but was too lazy to come up there and ask me. I waited a minute, but the car didn't move. I hit my air-horn and the car didn't move. So I got out and waved my arms in a frustrated manner and the car moved. Because I of the tinted windows, I couldn't see who was driving it.

I went on to my call and another. While I was waiting for a wrecker, I checked my e-mail. I had a note from the Assistant Chief saying that he didn't mean to piss me off. Most anyone else would have been worried about being in trouble. But you gotta remember, I was his secretary for many years. Plus, he was saying it in an amused manner. So I called him up and apologized. It told him it wasn't like I wasn't having a crappy week. We had a good laugh about that.

So we continued to be extremely busy on Thursday. I had a call at a house that Jeff and I rented when we were first married, over 18 years ago. At the time, I was a Records Clerk. The house is owned by the same people, and they moved into it a while back. I haven't laid eyes on the lady in probably 17 years, but I knocked on the door. When she opened it, she said, "You're Darya, right?" Who would have thought she'd remember me? Plus, I was standing there in uniform...

Nothing else too exciting happened on Thursday.

Friday, we were pretty steady, but with periods of quiet. Me and a couple of the guys went to Longhorn for dinner, and it just didn't sit well with me. When we were done, I was given an alarm call, which I handled. I was pulling out of the call when my dinner decided it wasn't gonna stick around, so I was trying to get back to the station where I can get comfortable. One of the morning watch guys had one run from him and then they couldn't get him on the radio. Talk about not knowing whether to #$%@ or go blind! But I just couldn't have made it over there....

Saturday... Holey Moley!

We were back-to-back calls then I had a little lull. I decided to run to Walmart to grab a couple vacation things. Before I got there, I ran a tag on the computer and the owner came back with a warrant. So I went ahead and stopped the vehicle, since half the time, that person isn't driving. But of course she was. So I arrest her and take her to jail.

Get done with that and get another call at an apartment complex. A neighbor is threatening another neighbor with a baseball bat. The children were playing tag and when one girl tagged another, the tag-ee fell and busted her lip and knocked her front teeth loose. In the neighborhood I live in, you handle it and get on with your business. In this neighborhood, mom takes a baseball bat and goes over to the other child's house and threatens to beat her and her mother with a bat. Goes as far as trying to hit the mother as she's apologizing, but the suspect's husband and brother-in-law grab her.

I went up to the hospital and got the suspect's side of the story. But rather than making the situation worse by taking Mom out of the hospital in handcuffs, I go take a warrant for her with the intent to serve it later and then I went to eat dinner.

I just went back in service and was trying to tell then I was going to serve the warrant, when they gave me another domestic situation. I'm thinking, "Oh, I'll knock this out and then serve the warrant before I go home early." Oh, no. Not happening.

Get over there and have a pretty good case for Aggravated Assault, but I'm not real sure about some of the woman's facts. After talking to her husband, I decided not to charge him. But it take two hours to get to this point. A report needs to be written in a situation like this. Fortunately, Brandon offered to handle it for me or I would have been there a couple more hours.

I finally cleared the call at about 12:45am, and was about out of gas. So I go straight to the pumps, and as I'm getting gas, they send us right back out there. The female half decided that she was going home and we couldn't make her not go. I had tried to get her a hotel through one of the churches, to no avail. So she went home and it started again. She was the primary aggressor this time. But the Morning Watch Lieutenant was there and he handled the second call without taking anyone to jail. It was then 1 o'clock; quitting time! PAST quitting time for future vacationers.

By the time I get everything squared away, it was 1:30am. Got home, got in the bed and got about 3 1/2 hours sleep before my mom woke me up to leave to head to the beach. Ormand Beach, just north of Daytona.

We had a pleasant enough drive down. A few squalls, but mostly sunshine. We got to St. Augustine and found some great outlet malls, so we decided to stop and shop. Not knowing that this was the ONLY time we'd see sunshine in Florida, and missed our only possibility for beach time.

I had not had time to even THINK about checking weather.com. We got to the condo and got some dinner. It was starting to cloud up, but when we got back from dinner, it had started to lightening. By the time I got settled in, it was raining. So I checked weather.com and much to my dismay, discovered there was absolutely NO chance of it letting up for at least three days. And then it was an 80% chance until the first possible glimpse of sun on Friday.

Monday, it was raining and the wind was blowing so hard, it was raining sideways. We got up and got dressed and drove back to St. Augustine to the outlet malls and shopped. And shopped and shopped and shopped.

We stopped back by a seafood restaurant and had dinner and then headed back to the condo at Ormand Beach. By then, the wind kicked up a notch and was really howling. We watched a bit of television, then went to bed.

Mom woke me up about 6:30 yesterday morning. She had gotten up and was moving around her bedroom when she realized the carpet in there was saturated. Slosh-y saturated. She called the front desk and they said they had a roof leak. We were on the top floor, but it wasn't our ceiling. I think it was coming in through the equipment room and leaking through the wall.

The offered us another unit, but we decided that since the weather was so miserable, we would just pack the car and come home. So we hit the road around 8:30am.

Of course, we had to stop in St. Augustine again. Just briefly this time. Then we hit the road again, stopping every 30 miles to pee. (Old people and pregnant women.) We finally got home at about 7:30pm.

I was trying to think positively. Thought I might get my doors painted, my shelves painted and installed, and lay out on the deck. I felt like there must be a reason for it, namely that Cynthia was very pleasant and we got home before that gave out and I was ready to kill her.

Cynthia went home and Mom and I grabbed some dinner and watched a bit of TV. About 11pm, my mom came in my bedroom and said she didn't feel right. She felt tight in her chest, and felt like her pulse was really irregular. I checked her pulse, and it felt irregular to me too. I told her I could call the paramedics to come check her. She said she didn't want a fuss, but consented to at least let them check her out.

The Fire Department sent an engine and an ambulance. They convinced her to go get checked, even though her vital signs were okay. They got her over here and decided that she needed to stay and see the cardiologist in the morning.

The cardiologist says he can't see one of her stints and wants to take a look at it through catheterization. So they have to reverse her blood-thinning meds, and that's not happening very quickly. So now the plan is to admit her, keep an eye on her and do it in the morning. If they have to replace the stint or do another, they will have to transport her to another hospital.

So now we hurry up and wait. And wait and wait and wait.