Quiet Time

I haven’t felt like posting lately …

No reason ..

Well.. there was an issue involving coffee and my laptop but that’s been fixed..

I’ve been trying to get my sleep schedule back to something relatively normal .. not that I’ve been successful but being on the laptop all night doesn’t help any ..

But anyway..

Nothing major is going on .. nothing major has changed .. just going with the flow and almost managing the damage!! LoL!!

The situation with Baby Faith is still the same .. the original lawyer said that getting custody of her was going to be an up hill battle but didn’t seem to want to fight the good fight .. so another lawyer has been approached.

Let me tell you something tho .. Faith is one sweet, sweet baby. Yesterday I babysat for her for a few hours and she’s such a sweetheart and I swear she was giggling at my feeble attempts to change her diaper!

There was also a minor issue with Chief’s twin brother Sarge.

I’m not particularly fond of him because I can see right through him. He isn’t interested because he’s interested, he’s interested to get gossip. He doesn’t do anything unless it gives him some kind of leverage. He also has to have the latest and greatest and biggest and better. It’s stupid. It’s pathetic.

He also lies. A lot. About nothing..

Last week, him and his wife went to see Baby Faith. They didn’t go because they were excited to have her in the family, they wanted to go because Bird posted Faith’s picture and a fairly cryptic message on Facebook. He wanted to leave almost as soon as he got there.

Anyway.. Sarge’s stepdaughter is getting married this summer. Something her mother is over the moon about because she never thought her daughter would get married. Not going to go into the reason why but if you saw her, you’d understand why her mother was so excited.

Before I go further.. let’s get a time line here.

Last time I saw the bride to be? Never. Never met her. Never met her fiance. Although we are “friends” on FB, she never responded to any message I ever sent her congratulating her on her engagement or the sympathy note I sent when her aunt died. Her fiance is actually very nice. We post back and forth on FB.

Last time I saw or spoke Sarge’s wife? Last Christmas. Not the 2010 Christmas.. the 2009 Christmas. BEFORE her daughter got engaged.  I did send her a message after I found out her sister in law had died and she did respond thanking me. That’s it.

Last time I saw Sarge? A few months ago.. way before we closed the shop. I did wish them a Merry Christmas and  Happy New Year but never got a response back.

So imagine my surprise when Sarge pulled out his violin and started whining to Bird that me and Chief were mad at him and he has no idea why we were mad at him..

So imagine my surprise when Bird tells me that while they were discussing the upcoming wedding and it dawns on Bird that they are getting married on my birthday. Sarge’s wife insists that I told her that I definitely confirmed that I was going to the wedding.

Now.. let me make something even clearer here..

Since I don’t know this girl.. and have never met her.. I wasn’t under the assumption that we were even going to get invited. What started out as the swanky dreams of a newly engaged bride to be who wanted THE best of everything turned into a reception in a fire hall so.. yknow.. who knew if we were going to get invited or not.

So for me to say that I was I definitely going was a lie. For me to say that to someone I haven’t spoken to in over a year is a lie.

And I don’t like liars.

Liars and Thieves.. two things I despise the most and he’s both.

So ..

I happen to tell Chief that we are going away that weekend for my birthday. He was fine with it.. he doesn’t like his brother anymore then I do .. I will still send something to the bride because it’s the only right thing to do and I would have gone to the wedding if I was invited .. but not after now.

Am I wrong?

UPDATE PART SEVEN: Back To Court

… back on March 20th, Chief had to go to court for a preliminary hearing. At that time, his lawyer told him that the could get him in the ARD program :: Accelerated something-or-other ::, probabtion, community service and some fines but nothing that would stick to his permanent record.

Chief’s response was that he didn’t care about his records .. that he had his own business.. but the lawyer said that he should care because it could following in a negative way if Chief needed to get a business loan or something like that.

The lawyer said that Chief had to make a decision.. either do what needs to be done to end everything and get on with our lives, or keep fighting and spending 1000.00 everytime the lawyer faced a judge.

He said it was harsh to hear but you can’t play fair with an unfair system and it was ultimately up to Chief to decide.

I could feel my eyes welling up with tears and the anger inside of me was unbelievable. I felt like everything I thought to be true about democracy, about our justice system, about police officers was trashed.

Chief did nothing… ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.. but because we can’t afford attorney fees he was going to have to plead to something he didn’t do?

We didn’t even really discuss it.. Chief just went ahead and signed the paper work for the ARD program and waive his rights to a preliminary hearing in the borough so that it would be moved to the county seat.

My stomach hurt.. I felt like throwing up.. but what choice did we really have?

I started thinking about how many other people were in prison because of the same situation.. because they couldn’t afford a lawyer or maybe because their family had already been through enough. It was really too hard to think about and too taxing to come to terms with the fact that this was the way it was going to be .. especially because Weed, the bastard, was still walking the streets dealing pills and pot.

Initially, Chief was told that the new arraignment would be today but that he wouldn’t have to go the arraignment in the county seat.. that the lawyer was going to go. But Sunday when we stopped at the shop, the lawyer had put his business card in the door with a note to call him and that it wasn’t an emergency.

I called and the lawyer said that due to an emergency, he was going to be out of town today and that Chief was going to have to go to court and plead “Not Guilty” himself. He gave the time and other instructions and then he said that he had bad news.

He said that because of a previous gun charge, Chief would not be eligible for the ARD program.

NOTE: He was never convicted of a gun charge. Back when he was 17, his older brother got into a fight or something and there was a gun involved. Nobody was shot or hurt or anything, but because his brother was over 18 at the time and would have really fucked up his life with a gun charge, Chief took the wrap. Nothing ever became of it except a dusty blurb in his record of youthful mischief.

The lawyer went on to say that he didn’t know there was a gun charge and I told him that it was in the original warrant. He mumbled something but it pissed me off because OBVIOUSLY this jerk off didn’t even READ the warrant.

Chief said that he was glad he wasn’t able to get ARD because now he could just do what he wanted and fight the charges and we would do whatever needed to be done to see this thing through… even hire another lawyer because OBVIOUSLY we’re having serious second thoughts on this one!

So today he went up to the court house and was formally arraigned. He was back in about 2 hours :: they take people without lawyers with them first :: and now the pre-trial hearing is set for May 20th (I think).

Chief explained that the pre-trial is when they would probably try to hash a deal leaving him with nothing but a posession charge and a fine.

Hopefully that’s the way it will work but it still turns my stomache.

Oh.. and one other thing…

The Annonymous Informer? The one that we’re almost 100% sure was involved and haven’t seen since this all happened?

Yea.. well.. he came into the shop yesterday. I was there and Chief told me to hold my tongue.

Apparently, he had been in earlier and started asking Chief questions about the case and something about Chief fucking up whoever went to the cops or some bullshit like that.

Chief was really calm and said that there was nothing to talk about because he had nothing to worry about and let it go at that.

He explained was ironic that this dude happened to show up the day before his arraignment and that there was every possibility that he was wired to see if Chief would say anything ..  or it could just be that the dude knows how Chief is and wanted to find out if Chief knew he was involved. He also said that if he was the informant and was called to appear, that there would be no way in hell that he would show his face.

This whole thing just makes me head spin.