In which she will be taking care of family business for a couple of days…

Hey Friends,

I probably won’t blog anything else this week, as we have had a tragedy in the family.  My second cousin was killed early last week by her boyfriend.  Her body was found late last week, and the funeral is Wednesday.  This is all a bit surreal, things like this “just don’t happen in my family”.  For anyone who knows anything about my life…irony?!?

The local police have made the arrest, based on a confession, but their work is just beginning.  They have done a fabulous job, and I sent the Chief an e-mail, thanking him and his department for their hard work and dedication.

Please, send your prayers and thoughts up for the immediate family, especially Diane’s kids.  She has a son serving in Iraq.  Pray for the police, the prosecutors, and the potential jury members.  Pray for the family of the man who took Diane from us, they must be in as much pain as this family is.  Even pray for the boyfriend.  I guess someone should.  I’m not quite there yet.

Here’s the story:  http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geu5YCoNpJYEQBL.BXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzYnJoODI3BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDOQRjb2xvA2FjMgR2dGlkA0gyOTlfMTM1/SIG=124062g8b/EXP=1239150978/**http%3a//www.kake.com/home/headlines/42367507.html

Thank you all.                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Arkangelontheradio

 

In which she starts with a short bit of history…

I suppose a good place to start off would be an explanation of my ‘handle’…arkangelontheradio.

I started my law enforcement career in the same manner that many do…I was a dispatcher.  Yep, I got to tell the cops where to go and just exactly how to get there.  On a daily basis.  And I was pretty darned good at it, if I do say so myself.  In fact, there is a former Sheriff in a small Southern town who will, to this day, tell anyone within earshot that I was the best dispatcher he ever had.  He will, however, add this caveat:  “She has been known to catch a mood now and then.”  But, then again, I got the job in the first place by barging into his office one evening, letting him know just how well I could dispatch, and he really needed to hire me.  Guess we’re both right.

So, I worked the 4:00-Midnight shift, Wednesday through Sunday.  The. craziest. shift.  I didn’t just handle the dispatch responsibilities, though.  I dispatched police, seven fire districts, E.M.S., State Police, Wildlife enforcement, Forestry enforcement, did booking, warrants, receipts, prisoner feeding and meds, and direction of trusty’s.  Jack of all trades, master of none.  The absolute definition of ‘multi-tasker’.

We had this State Trooper, let’s call him ‘Super Trooper’.  A legend in his own mind, and what we affectionately refer to as a ’sh*t magnet’.  If it was going to happen, and it was messed up in any way, Super Trooper was sure to be the cause of most of it.  One night, Super Trooper made a traffic stop on some back-woods dirt road that isn’t even in my county.  In the course of this traffic stop, the driver, Thug, pulls out an unknown type of firearm, and commences to take a few pot shots at Super Trooper.  The obligatory high-speed vehicle pursuit ensued.

Somewhere in all of this mess, both Thug and Super Trooper wreck their respective vehicles.  Thug flees on foot.  Super Trooper isn’t hurt, but is stuck like Chuck out in the middle of nowhere with Thug, who may still be armed.  Guess who the only person that Super Trooper can make radio contact with is?  You guessed it, your’s truly.  Super Trooper was in a very bad radio area, but I was able to get a tag number/vehicle description, a general location, and most of the important information.  Which I immediately relayed to other officers, State Police, E.M.S., etc.  Many, many tense and harried hours were spent getting Super Trooper back-up and help, as well as dealing with computer messages, radio, and the phone.  Most of the phone calls were from ’scanner-hounds’, wanting to know what was going on.  Scanner-hounds are a story for another day.

All is well that ends well.  Super Trooper got the back-up and help he needed, everyone stayed informed, Thug was arrested, charged accordingly, and jailed.  I got several (read:  a whole damn bunch) of new gray hairs and darned near had a stroke.  As soon as Super Trooper arrived at the office to fill out the paperwork and deliver Thug, I ‘caught a mood’, and gave Super Trooper an epic tongue lashing.  I let him know, in short one-syllable words that he could understand, that I was way too young (at the time) to be as gray as I was, which was mostly his fault, and just exactly why in the heck did he feel the need to only pull this type of dangerous, brain-dead crap on my shift anyway?!?

Super Trooper explained to me that my shift was the only one that he COULD pull his dangerous crap on, because I was the only dispatcher he trusted to take care of him.  He maintained that I was his ‘Archangel’ on the radio, there to watch over him, and he knew that he could trust me to handle whatever he threw at me.  True, but still.  To his credit, Super Trooper did experience a moment of generosity, and wrote a very nice letter about my performance during the incident for the Sheriff to add to my file.  That, along with five bucks, will get you a cup of coffee.  But it was still nice.

So, there you go.

On the knitting front, I have just finished a Goddess Knits Anniversary Mystery shawl.  Finally.  However, I have decided that I’m going to pick out the grafting, and have a re-do on it.  Then I have to block it.  I hope it will turn out well.  Keep your fingers, or needles, crossed.  Photos will be posted as soon as possible. 

I also have a couple (o.k., a few) W.I.P.’s:  a Queen Anne’s Lace shawl in 100 Pure Wool ‘Bebe Rosa’ (pink) on size 7’s(?), I think I’m on round 110-something.  QAL has been on hiatus for about two weeks.  A pair of “Spring Forward” socks from Knitty.com in Premier Yarns Superwash in the ‘Obsidian’ colorway.  A ‘Short-sleeved Cardigan’ from Stefanie Japel’s “Fitted Knits” in a dark charcole gray, yarn brand is a mystery.  Pretty soon, I’ll be starting a ‘Hemlock Ring’ blanket, a la B r o o k l y n T w e e d, for my former Sgt. and his wife as this year’s Christmas gift because they are both just really wonderful people.  I can’t wait, it looks like fun.

 

In which she creates the first post on the new blog…

This is all a little new to me, so, please, bear with me.  I am truly a Luddite at heart.  But, I figured that, since I have a little more time on my hands these days (a few of you will ‘get’ that), I may as well do something I’ve been planning on doing for quite awhile now.

My plan is to use this little space in the universe to wax poetic about two of the most important areas of my life:  knitting and my life as a law enforcement officer.  I know, I know.  Seems a bit incongruous, no?  A cop who knits?  A knitter who arrests people for a living?  Who’da thunk it?

The idea for the theme of this blog popped into my head one night after a particularly brutal day.  I was sitting on the couch, having just shed my monkey suit and the requisite toys, and picked up the lace shawl that I have been trying to finish, literally, for months.  I was sitting there, relaying stories of the various really stupid situations I’d been called on to ‘handle’ that day to my oldest son when I thought, “Hmmmm, that could be fun.  Blog about the incredibly stupid things I see from day to day, changing names and locations of course, and about my knitting.”  I’ve been in law enforcement for many, many years.  Long enough to be really good at it, and long enough to have a pretty good collection of the ‘war stories’ that everyone in this kind of service profession has.  I’ve been knitting, crocheting, and tatting even longer. 

So, let’s give it a go, and just see what happens.

A couple of quick notes… this is my blog, I make the rules.  Period.  Anything I post here belongs to me and only me.  Want to borrow it?  Ask me.  I reserve the right to edit and/or delete any and all comments as I see fit.  Don’t like what you’ve seen or read here?  Buh-bye.  Don’t let the door hit ya’ where the good Lord split ya’.