Sixth Visit to Taft

As I drove to Taft Friday morning I thought about the fact that Ron was finishing his seventh week of a 71 week sentence (probably). That's almost 10%! When I think about it that way, it seems time is moving along quickly. One of the things I have thought about alot, and I know Ron has too, is the many ways to count time.

There are many ways to count time. One woman told me about a countdown clock. You put in the length of the sentence, and it shows you exactly how many days, weeks and months you have left. I opted not to get that. When I lie in bed at night I often think of different ways to figure out the amount of time Ron has left at Taft. How many months, how many weeks, how many more Thanksgivings, or birthdays,or the percentage of time left. Never being much of a math student some of the calculations are difficult for me, but there is gratification in figuring this stuff out.

Other ways of counting time are the traditional monthly calendar, where I X out each date at the end of the day. Another fun way that I just started is this. I counted the number of days left in Ron's sentence, put that number of jelly beans in a jar, and each day I eat one jelly bean. When the jar is empty, Ron will be home.

Ron told me that when he was in the SHU (solitary) for the first 11 days, he figured out the hours of his sentence. Time passes very slowly there.

Lucky for him, and for me, time is moving right along. I can't honestly say "I don't know where the time went", but it is moving along, and we are both focused on getting what we can out of this experience (there's a lot to learn) and planning for the future.

Speaking of time, I arrived at Taft at 8:10 this morning, handed in my paperwork to the counselor on duty, and waited for Ron to come through the door. He knows I always arrive between 8-8:30, and he is always waiting by the door for me. Well, ten minutes went by, then fifteen, still no Ron. I didn't want to annoy the counselor, especially since he was new, but I figured something must be wrong. So I asked him to please call Ron again. He said to wait, that Ron was probably "getting ready" to see me. I said, no, that Ron had been waiting for me since breakfast at 6am. So he finally called him again. Sure enough, he had not heard the first call, and was wondering where I was. He came right out and we had a wonderful, five hour visit. After 40 years (our anniversary is in one week ) you know what each other is thinking and I knew when he wasn't right by the door at 8:00, he didn't know I was there.

We had such a great visit Friday, I just left Taft and enjoyed the ride home. The next day I was leaving for Colorado to visit my kids and their six month old baby. I awoke about 4am, realizing that I had not gotten my drivers license back when I left Taft. I was in Los Angeles, not San Diego, so I didn't have my passport. What was I going to do? I went to the airport hoping I could convince security to let me on, I showed them my picture ID from the YMCA, and a picture ID from the City of San Diego which I use to make golf reservations. Would you believe it, they let me on. There seems to be drama in everything I do these days. Next week I will continue, writing about facing reality.