Known To The Law

Hello everyone. It's been a pretty interesting last little while. Today, I've already been out to the police station to get myself fingerprinted. This is so they can have my prints on file in case anything should happen and so they can complete my police check that everyone who volunteers with "vulnerable" people needs to get. It didn't take long at all. Nor was it a problem finding where we needed to be. I guess dad tends to think things wil be more difficult and time-consuming than they are sometimes. The process was different than I expected. I thought I'd be feeling some sort of soft velvet-like pad rather than the hard serfice where my prints presumeably ended up alright. Pretty soon, I guess even ink will be a thing of the past and everything will be digital. I can't say I heard anything very interesting while in the police station. Not really certain what I expected there but it just sounded like any other work environment I've passed through over the years. Mom and I stopped for brunch at Kora's. I hadn't eaten there in quite some time and enjoyed that thoroughly. Mom's digging into the first of the computer adventure games I've gotten her for her upcoming birthday. They're older games repackaged for WindowsXP and above. What got me started on that tack was one called The Last Express. It's a sort of adventure mystery simulation all rapped up into one and takes place on the Orient Express just before the first world war starts. She's plunging right in and seems to enjoy it so far. These more complex adventures should last her longer than the casual games she's speeding through.

Last weekend was terrific as I had visitors both friday and saturday evening. Nan and Doug plus their four sons came over for a Swiss Chalet dinner which went quite well. It was good to have the apartment so full of people for once. We had a great conversation. On saturday, I saw Mark and Wendy for dinner. I now have my brother's family's old kitchen table as my dining table capable of seeting four should the occasion demand it. It fits quite well against the wall with three of the chairs neatly tucked away. The other is in my bedroom and may occasionally come in handy in there should I have overnight company. I now have all the major permanent pieces of furnature I'll need. There are just a couple of slingback chairs for my balcony that I hope to acquire this year. There's also the tredmill which I'll eventually get from mom and dad's house as well as all my new computer stuff. Once that's all in and I've had a chance to grow accustomed to it all, this place will at last start to have that sense of stable sameness that a home ought to. I guess that process has begun already in a gradual sort of non-intrusive way. Over the past while, that sense of this being the right place for me has grown stronger. Now that I've lived here for a full year, things don't seem quite so tenuous. It was so good having friends over. I know there'll still be times when I feel isolated, disconnected and all that; Weekends where nothing at all goes on and weeks where the days start to blend together into one agonisingly long stretch of sameness. Just now though, I'm feeling remarkably whole. My life is certainly a different one than most peoples' but I no longer have such a profound sense of missing out on everything. Finally having gotten a good sleep last night without recourse to medication also helps. Things seem in their proper shape. I'll be folunteering at The Dam this afternoon in a couple of hours. It's slowly starting to become a normal part of the week. I'm still probably too driven to acomplish stuff with the kids rather than just hang out there as they seem to want me to do. It's getting better though. I'm starting to get used to doing that. I guess it'll grow and change in time as people there get to know me better slowly.

It's early in the evening now. I didn't bother at all with dinner. Just wasn't hungry after that wonderful brunch. Time at The Dam passed slowly today. I'm not quite as used to just hanging around there as I thought. Had a nice chat with some people in the states who have one of these conference line things. Skype makes it affordable for me to participate and it certainly helps the evening move along. They were quite an interesting group of people. I just get tired of wearing a headset after a while.. I'm actually pretty tired period. I'll definitely have some medication tonight to make certain I get a second good sleep in a row. Need to ditch this round of insomnia for a long while. At least now, it's biting off part of an empty evening rather than a day. It's a whole lot easier to live with that.