Time Flies

Fun or no fun, time has a way of slipping through my fingers and flying away to become distant past before it was ever really present.

Things have been...well...interesting strange umm...things.

I am swallowing my pride because my pride isn't terribly helpful just now.  It's rather getting in my way.  It's taken me a minute to work up to posting this, because I am a coward, and proud, and not much in the mood for dealing with censure and negativity, but one can't be apathetic and expect to get anything done.

So here goes.

Someone was arrested in February for a variety of charges, mostly centering around possession of marijuana.

Those who know me know I am an advocate for legalization, that I believe the prohibition of marijuana does more harm than good, that I believe it IS a medicinal plant and worthy of consideration in the treatment of many ills.  I believe the prohibition continues because it is profitable and gives law enforcement something to show the public - "Look, see, we're effective and keeping your community safe from ravening potheads!"  I am also not a consumer because I can't - is it unlawful and it also tends to make me rather useless because I have a low tolerance (I found out the latter many, many, many centuries ago, well beyond whatever the statute of limitations is for this sort of thing).  If I could be, legally, I might occasionally partake when the variety plate gets to be too much.  As it is, I am clean, sober, very much rooted and grounded in the here and now.  Whee.

Bah.

Anyway, he was arrested at his place.  Eventually I got him bonded out, but he was re-arrested for bond violation and other charges added on to the first set.  Whee.  This time, there is no bond.  As we are collectively broker than a politician's promise, we can't afford a lawyer, so he has a public defender.  I am certain there are good public defenders in the world, but they are NOT located here in Redneck Central.  The man assigned to Someone's case hasn't contacted him or me, despite many phone calls, e-mails, pleas for information and action.  He is notorious among the other inmates of the jail for NOT seeing his clients and for largely ignoring them until trial days, when they may speak to him for a minute or two before going into court.  The only thing anyone from the PD office has said to me is "Tell him to shave his beard, he will look better to the judge."  Really?  This does not inspire confidence.

I need a moment to breathe.

Okay.

I am trying to find a lawyer who will take payments, but that's about as easy as locating an honest politician. So I have swallowed my pride in one big lump, stressed myself to the point of nausea, and reached out to the world at large with this:

I miss him.  I write him every day, even though he only gets mail on week days.  When I can afford to pre-pay for calls, he calls me every day.  He talks to Sprout on the phone at least once a day, and I am now one of those horrible mothers who takes her child to the jail to visit her Papa, because she misses him to the point of tears and thirty minutes a week on the other side of the glass are better than no minutes a week, and HE needs HER, too.

I did find a lawyer who is highly recommended and who isn't demanding insanely high fees up front, but I still have to come up with several thousand dollars in advance, and then bond money on top of that (if we can even GET bond, because Goddess forbid they should let the nasty old pot smoker back out to endanger the community with his nefarious...umm...smokerage!), and hope that we can get the charges dropped (there is some question of rights violations and incorrect procedure, and for once I hope the police DID screw up their case) or at least lessened and bring Someone home where we need him and he belongs.

So...yeah...I know not everyone agrees with me about legalizing and whatnot.  And I know there are plenty of people who just don't like Someone and/or think he should just sit there and/or don't care to lend a hand.  But...on the off chance you, gentle reader, feel like-minded and/or compassionate, in case you know anyone else who may feel like-minded and/or compassionate...please feel free to click, to share, to spread the word that a family has been rent and we could use all the help we can get to put ourselves back together - I will not settle for the Humpty-Dumpty story ending.  We will be whole again.