Two things

First of all, I know that everyone thinks that I'm just a poor blogger and that's why the blog hasn't been updated in two or so weeks. This is clearly very true. However, I also have a legitimate, if somewhat pretextual, reason for failing to update more frequently. That reason is this, that my life is incredibly mundane. I know this is hard to believe coming from someone who has snipered and been pepper-sprayed in the same recent three-month period, but it's nevertheless, and sadly, true. The most exciting thing that has happened at work recently is that some of the crazy and semi-crazy people in mental health court say some pretty funny things. But I've mostly been having a desk job the past little while since all of our jury trials end up getting cancelled. This is fine since jury trials are a big production for me, but it leaves me with no good stories for you, the expectant reader.

Although...I did just think of a little gem of an incident that happened a couple weeks ago, and while I told some of the people in my life about it in face-to-face conversation (so outdated, I know), I didn't post about it, which is really a shame. So here you go. One of the really great (notice the sarcasm) parts of my job is that I periodically have to search female inmates that are going into custody from the court. The week of T-Give, I had to search a woman who the judge had just sentenced to 120 days in the county jail. She's what the deputies like to call a 'frequent flyer' with the jail as well as the courthouse, so I've seen her many times before. She was being very cooperative (or so I thought) while I was searching her and asking if I needed her to take off her jacket and stuff like that. One of the things that we have to do when searching is feel the underneath of the bra to make sure that they don't have any weapons hid in there. This is accomplished mostly by just running the back of your hand down the middle--which, incidentally, can be uncomfortable for both parties if the woman is at all busty--and then across the bottom. That's the reason they have us female bailiffs do it, so that the inmates can raise any claims of being taken advantage of or anything like that.

Anyway, I was about to do the bra part of the search when the woman asked me if I needed to do something to her bra and she used what I presume was some jail terminology for a more invasive bra search. I said no and told her that I just needed to make sure there was nothing in her bra. I did the search as described above and didn't find anything, so then I went back upstairs since the search was complete. Turns out, a little while later, they saw one of the other inmates reaching down this woman's bra on camera, obviously trying to get something out. Apparently she had been concealing some sleeping pills in a hidden inner pocket in her bra, and she shared it with the other inmates. Isn't that thoughtful? Anyway, I didn't even find out until later that afternoon when one of the regular deputies said, "By the way, that female that you searched earlier had some pills hidden in her bra," as if I should have found something in a hidden inner pocket in her bra. Seriously? I'm not groping women when I search them. But one of the other deputies consoled me by saying that there was nothing that I could have done about it and that I'm only searching for weapons anyway. As a bonus for both of us, she's probably going to be charged with possession in a jail, which is really stupid for her since she was originally only going to have to be in there for 120 days. So dumb. But that's probably the most exciting thing that has gone on lately, and that was before T-Give. Further proof of how boring my work life has been the past few weeks.

Second thing, how is it already a week before Christmas? We got a cute little real tree the first week of December and got it decorated, and now all of a sudden, Christmas is a week from tomorrow! What the heck! Although I've got to say, I realized the other day that this is the first December of my adult life that I haven't had finals. How great is that? Seriously, I have had finals in December for the past 7 years of my life. So Merry Christmas to me, huh? Anyway, I hope that everyone has a fabulous Christmas this year with family and friends and safe travel to wherever you are going. I know that we are going to miss seeing Blair's family this year and Nicole and Dan, but hopefully we'll get to see them soon. We're excited to spend Christmas in Fool Creek, and we might even get in some hooding. Blair was first introduced to this great wintertime event two years ago at Christmas, and we haven't been able to go since, so we're hoping for a good snowfall around Christmas for prime hooding conditions. If we go, I'll try and get Brenda to take some pictures like she did the last time so that you can see the childlike glee that hooding brings to those of all ages. Until then, Merry Christmas!