Recent Articles of Interest

From time to time, I find an article on the internet that I find interesting enough or relevant enough that I’m compelled to share it with others – assuming that anyone other than myself is remotely even reading any of these entries! These few are worthy of mention to be sure. The first two focus primarily on methamphetamine but I’m sure, for the first article anyway, that could be substituted with any other drug of addiction. Ok, not so much the second one. The third article was one that I discovered approx two years ago but feel compelled to mention it once again. It kind of covers the whole gamut of drugs.

You Do the Meth

By Joel Warner
Published: June 28, 2007

Someone was at the front door. Miranda’s two-year-old daughter rushed toward it, figuring that her father was home. But then the door burst open, narrowly missing her, and the toddler saw that it wasn’t Daddy after all.

It was a SWAT team.

Armor-clad police officers stormed inside, weapons drawn. They pushed a shocked Miranda to the floor and fastened her hands behind her back with zip ties. While her three children — her daughter and five- and nine-year-old sons — sat beside her, the SWAT team quickly scouted the rest of the two-bedroom basement apartment. After that, narcotics operatives from the North Metro Task Force took over, led by Detective Rob Lopez. He’d received a tip several months earlier that folks had been scoring methamphetamine from this residence, located in a shabby stretch of low-lying apartments near U.S. 36 and Federal Boulevard in Westminster. He’d sent a wired informant there to buy meth — once from Miranda and once from her husband, Vince. Each time, there were children at home.

Combing through the apartment on this evening in December 2004, Lopez and his colleagues found half a gram of meth in a vitamin bottle and a fifth of a gram in a plastic baggie. In a sealed box in a closet, they discovered meth pipes and other drug paraphernalia, plus digital scales and various plastic baggies presumably used to sell meth; elsewhere, they found two stashes of marijuana.

The detectives asked about Vince, and the oldest boy said that his father was at the apartment building next door. They found him there, along with 26 grams of meth in a throat-lozenge container.

As the three children were handed off to representatives of the Adams County Social Services Department, Lopez read Miranda her rights, which she waived. Flustered and defensive, she admitted that she and Vince sold meth out of their home four to five times a day, making $20 to $50 per deal. She smoked meth, too, she said. Lopez asked if she realized what she was doing to herself, to her family. There was more to life than this — didn’t she see that? But it was impossible to know if any of that got through.

Lopez then talked to Vince, who was scruffy and skinny, with a goatee; Lopez was scruffy and built, with his long hair in a ponytail. Under different circumstances, in a different life, the two wouldn’t have looked out of place sitting down together for a beer. But now Vince said he sold meth to supplement his income — and used it himself. He was already on probation for a previous misdemeanor drug charge, so he was probably facing jail time. Vince seemed resigned to his fate, maybe ready to turn things around, but Lopez didn’t buy it. “When you have them at the jail, they’re willing to give up the world,” he says. “In this instance, I just thought it was more of the same.”

As a narc, it was Lopez’s job to find the drugs and bust the perps. He wasn’t operating a daycare center. The three kids might go to friends or relatives, but who knew if those new caretakers would be addicts? Or they could stay in the social-services system and bounce from one foster home to the next. Either way, they were just collateral damage in the drug war.

“So I dumped Vince off in jail and turned around and went home,” Lopez remembers. “And that’s usually where it ends.”

READ THE REST

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TOXIC SHOCK

By Alan Prendergast
Published: September 4, 2003

Randy Goin remembers his first visit to a methamphetamine lab six years ago. It was the beginning of a long and disturbing chemistry lesson.

A Thornton narcotics detective assigned to the North Metro Drug Task Force, Goin didn’t know quite what to expect. He’d heard the horror stories about crazed meth-cooks and their paranoia, guns and booby traps. He knew something about the ingredients they use, a vile brew of cold pills, household solvents and acids, iodine, phosphorous, ammonia — which, if inexpertly combined, can produce flash fires, deadly gases and toxic spills. But all of his training couldn’t prepare him for his first lab bust.

The target was an old barn on a 25-acre property in rural Adams County. Goin’s team found a fully automatic machine gun but no cook in progress; to their relief, the chemicals and glassware appeared to be neatly stored. What caught Goin’s attention, though, was the sink that the lab operator had used to dump his waste chemicals.

The sink wasn’t connected to the sewer system, and the waste simply oozed from a pipe outside — near a well pump and a trampoline where kids played. It was easy to trace the discharge as it trickled down a hill to a catch-pond. All you had to do was follow the ever-widening kill path in its wake, a swath of bare ground where the surrounding weeds just stopped.

“Nothing would grow there,” Goin recalls. “Nothing.”

The scene was his first intimation that he was dealing with something beyond the grasp of conventional law enforcement. What kind of dipstick could so casually poison the land around him — and possibly his children and his own water supply in the bargain?

Over the next three years, North Metro began to encounter meth labs with alarming frequency. The task force was soon hitting a couple a month, then one or two a week — labs in apartments, motel bathrooms, cars. Goin was in on 35 or 40 of those busts. In almost every case, his protective gear consisted of a pair of latex gloves.

Goin saw pristine apartments turned into iodine-stained dumps, a once-tidy mobile home scarred by unreported fires. He saw kids scavenging for whatever food they could find after their parents had been passed out for days.

“It’s all about the meth,” he says. “Kids get ignored, the property falls apart. Meth becomes their whole world.”

At first, few people — aside from the haz-mat teams that customarily made the initial entry — gave much thought to the dizzying vapors that permeated the labs. Even after the joint had been aired out, you could smell the chemicals and sometimes taste them — a sweet yet acrid smell, not unlike the odor of a hardware store stacked high with pesticides and fertilizer. Goin emerged lightheaded a couple of times. Other team members complained of headaches that lasted for days.

Goin saw one co-worker chase down a suspect and cuff him bare-handed. The cook’s clothing was saturated with chemicals; a few minutes later, the skin on the officer’s palms started blistering.

In time, Goin thought less about what the labs were doing to the weeds in Adams County. He began to worry about what they were doing to him.

READ THE REST

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Generation Rx

By Glenna Whitley

You couldn’t miss him: a teenager dressed always in black, with Elvis sideburns and a hard-charging way of bounding up the stairs, as if life were moving too slowly for him. In the same class as my oldest son at the Science and Engineering Magnet at Townview, occasionally at our house for all-night LAN parties, Luke Stone was likable, smart and had an appetite for adventure, the guy willing to try anything once. He was a natural leader, a person who drew people from all walks of life into his orbit with his energy and enthusiasm. He also had a sweet side. He’d grown up going to church and carried a picture of Jesus in his wallet. He was drawn to beautiful, troubled girlfriends who needed rescuing. Luke Stone was your basic good kid. But on May 14 a year ago, when Luke was a 20-year-old student at the University of Texas at Dallas, his daring nature killed him. The coroner’s verdict: accidental drug overdose.

This isn’t another “drugs are bad for you” story. It is a trip into another world, one far different from that of Luke’s parents–even though they’d grown up in the ’60s and ’70s and had their own encounters with illegal drugs. David and Sondra Stone viewed their experimentation, particularly with marijuana, as a normal part of growing up. They didn’t want their kids to become addicts, of course, but as long as they stayed away from “hard drugs” like cocaine and heroin, they figured the kids would come out all right, just like they had.

Luke Stone’s parents know that isn’t true anymore. They didn’t realize the landscape of substance abuse has radically changed.

Today, kids Luke’s age swim in a sea of psychotropic pharmacology–pills, potions and powders legally prescribed for everything from depression to attention deficit disorder. When they want to get high, they’re more likely to turn to benzodiazepines, a class of drugs like Valium that treat anxiety and panic attacks. Instead of shooting heroin, they score synthetic opiates such as Vicodin, Percocet, Dilaudid or Tylenol with codeine. To get a buzz or pull an all-nighter for an exam, they pop pills like Ritalin and Adderall, amphetamines that treat ADD.

It makes sense. You don’t have to find a drug dealer to get Xanax. You just have to rummage in Mom’s medicine chest. You don’t need to sneak around to score Adderall. A pediatrician prescribed it because you were driving your teachers crazy. Why not trade a few Adderall to your roommate, under the care of a psychiatrist for panic disorder, for some of his Xanax?

If you get caught–well, parents who discover a kid snitching a Lortab react differently from those who find a crack pipe or syringe. The explosion in pharmaceuticals has been magnified by the Internet. Not only are there more psychotropic drugs to choose from, it’s easier than ever to learn what to take, how much to take and what effects to anticipate. Luke scoured sites like erowid.org–”documenting the complex relationship between humans and psycho actives”–for information and “trip reports” on everything from peyote to Percocet. From there, teens are one click away from an illegal online pharmacy, a cyber medicine cabinet offering quick, discreet delivery.

A 2004 study at Columbia University found that only 6 percent of 157 Web sites selling medications actually required a prescription. And last month the DEA arrested 20 people, from Tyler, Texas, to Bombay, India, as part of “Operation Cyber Chase,” targeting an illegal international ring that used more than 200 Web sites to distribute prescription narcotics, amphetamines and steroids. Web sites to replace them will pop up overnight like psilocybin mushrooms sprouting in a cow patty.

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I Wanna Be Sedated!

Our generation and those that will follow us have had and will have the luxury that our parents nor grandparents were unable to experience. If at any time we are unsatisfied with our lot we can without any real effort redefine and reinvent ourselves. Don’t like that office job balancing columns of numbers? Not to fear…you can start your own business or go back to school or drop-out or whatever. We don’t necessarily have to choose wisely because most likely we are not going to be toiling at the same job and the same place for forty some odd years. Employment has become much more transient. What we did straight out of university will not necessarily be what we are doing by the time our twentieth year reunion rolls around.

I haven’t always worked in an office supporting computer software. Less than a decade ago, I owned my own business – a 100 seat bar that was primarily a live entertainment venue for the local punk rock bands. Those literally were the days. We were absolutely depraved during this time. It was one never ending party which we were able to float with relative ease because of the success of the bar. We always had cash on hand and with that cash we bought copious amounts of dope – I actually hired my dealer to be my doorman so we never even had to travel any distance to cop! Very convenient. But, I those stories are for another day.

And I have many stories to tell of my days as a bar maid but I thought that I would wet your appetite with a review of my establishment that was published originally in my local paper.

 

Hit-and-miss funk of ******* Lounge worth checking out. CLUB SPY 1998-07-17

There are a few places in town I wouldn’t recommend to anyone and there are a few places I’d say you simply shouldn’t miss. The trouble is, I don’t know in which category to place ******* Lounge.

For years, I’ve been a semi-regular patron of the *******. If you’ve never heard of it, that’s OK. It’s the smaller lounge directly beside the ******* on Dundas Street East and it’s used to taking a back seat to the more prominent bands that play the larger room next door.

I’m not sure how to categorize the ******* because while I would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of live music, it certainly isn’t suited to everyone’s taste. But, like sushi or bungee jumping, it’s the kind of thing you should probably try at least once, if for no other reason than to say you did.

At first glance, the ******* Lounge might not seem like much to look at, but it’s the kind of place that has a strange way of growing on you. The decor is 1960s mod and you can tell that when it was first built, it was the kind of place where Austen Powers might have liked to hang out. The room is long and thin with funky lighting. The bar itself is also quite long with puffy vinyl padding that’s both cheesy and comfortable. Most everything in the ******* Lounge has seen a better day, but to renovate would be to lose some of its strange appeal.

For years the ******* Lounge has been a kind of proving ground for undiscovered and burgeoning talent. You’ll find live entertainment there almost seven days a week. Its stock and trade is punk rock and many bands have names like Eating Disorder or Urban Goons, but the lounge also features just as many solo and acoustic performers, many of whom are from well-known bands trying out new material.

For example, Bill Eldridge, lead singer for Laughing Sam’s Breakdown and formerly of Ten Seconds Over Tokyo, appears there Monday. His solo show is remarkable.

UNIQUE PERFORMERS

In my travels, I’ve seen my fair share of talentless wonders hit the stage, but at the same time I’ve seen just as many fresh and remarkably unique performers. And if you’re lucky, you might see someone on their way up.

One evening I was introduced to an up-and-coming singer/songwriter performing an acoustic show. I was duly impressed with his material and rightly so. His name was Hayden and a couple of months later, he signed a six-figure recording contract with a major record label.

That being said, I should also say that the size of the crowd has no relative bearing on the talent of the performer. Hayden’s audience could not have been more than a half-dozen or so.

The same goes for my visit there last Saturday. Performing was Jennifer Mclaren, who, without a doubt, is one of the city’s finest singers and most underappreciated talents. She played a knockout solo set to about a dozen people, several of whom wandered back and forth from the show at the ******* next door.

Beer at the ******* sells for $3.25, draft for $1.75 a half-pint, $3.25 for a pint and $9.50 a pitcher. Bar shots are $3.50.

I can say this much: You can’t judge the ******* Lounge by one visit. The nature of the place is hit-and-miss. But, like London’s weather, things change overnight and the next time you’re in, you might well be amazed.

The ******* Lounge certainly isn’t everybody’s cup of tea and even for those who enjoy it, it isn’t a place you’d go all the time. But if you’re in the mood for something different, it’s worth checking out. You just never know who might be there.

*** out of *****

She Works Hard For the Money

While I was a student at university I waitressed and then finally graduated to bartending. I absolutely loved working in the service industry. Never in my life have I made as much money as I did then. The mid to late 80’s were still the golden age of the service industry. Expense accounts still existed for businessmen and women and the GST had yet to rear its ugly head. I was fortunate that I got into one of the more upscale establishments that my city had to offer because there was a small fortune to be made. I remember going to school full time for my third and fourth year at uni plus working at least 30 hours a week serving. I was taking home a minimum of $600 to $700 each week which was a small fortune to a 21 year old. After graduating university I found it very difficult to give up.

By then I had become so accustomed to the tips always having money available to me rather than waiting a fortnight for a pay cheque – which we actually also got but that was just gravy – that it took me a year to finally leave the industry. I had made a lot of great friends my four years serving. Some of them were like me, students, but many were “career” people, this is all that they would end up doing. Unfortunately serving is looked down upon in the frightfully white collar city that I reside in that had I stayed in service, I would have been perceived as a failure. Back then that apparently mattered to me although I have long since gotten over that mentality. I was dragging my feet though in making my exit. Not only would it be difficult to get used to the substantial reduction in earnings but suddenly I would be expected to be part of the land of the living. Part of the allure of bartending was that you didn’t start work until dark and the people that you encountered were by far much more interesting than their daytime counterparts.

As luck would have it, the decision was taken out of my hands when I had a bad fall the week before Christmas and broke my kneecap. After crutches, a cane, physio and not driving for five months I knew that it would be tough to go back to bartending or waitressing anytime soon but I now desperately needed an income of any sort. Plus my confidence had taken quite a beating. Getting my strength back in my leg and as a result my back, et al was slow going plus when I did make an early attempt at returning to bartending I had forgotten how messy we could be and those we floors behind the bar were just another accident waiting to happen.

My immediate loss of income right after the accident also made things tough going. But you gotta take the good with the bad and as the majority of tips are never declared by servers, they end up never paying tax on this income. As a result they are then denied the benefit of collecting any type of Employment Insurance as you can only end up collecting what you contribute and if you contribute a big fat zero then you are not entitled to any thing more. So hah on me. After about three months sitting at home with my dog I started to get a little restless and started to look for a “real” job. I found one and I went to work for what turned out to be a pretty darn nice company. For nine years they treated me well and in return I think that I was a definite assest for them but I always remembered my serving days with fondness. I was starting to get itchy feet. I wanted something a little less ordinary than going to work Monday to Friday from 9am until 5pm with three weeks vacation each year and some time off at Christmas and blah, blah, blah.

I was bored and I was getting bored with myself. Surprisingly enough I even managed to spend seven of those years pretty darn squeakey clean. For shame, for shame…to be continued…

HIGH PRIESTESS OF PUNK returns in high style next!!!

The "C" Word

In June 2002, we found out that my father had cancer, cancer of the esophagus. This particular kind of cancer is fairly rare, less than one percent of cancer victims will get this type, as well as being particularly harsh. If you are a candidate for surgery, you may extend your life by as much as five years but less than five percent of those that contract this cancer are able to have surgery. So going into this, my father’s chances looked pretty bleak.

He had had open heart surgery years ago and now had a pace maker. There was no way that he would be able to have surgery which meant that the next set of options would be chemo and/or radiation. My parents decided that both treatments were worth trying although right from the start, I had my doubts. This meant that he would have to go to the hospital five days a week for close to six months. Seemed like a huge commitment with no guarantee of even a little success.

After the first month of treatment, my father felt that he could no longer drive himself to the hospital every day so he asked me if I would do it. Seeing how I wasn’t crazy about my current job I said I’d love to even though it meant an incredible commitment. For five months, five days a week, I drove my father – and mother who accompanied him everywhere but unfortunately never learned to drive – to and from the hospital. It took me twenty five minutes to get from my house to theirs and then another twenty five minutes to get to the hospital. Some days we had to be there by 8am and could finish anywhere from five minutes to five hours later. Never knew from one day to the next.

I didn’t mind in the least although it made getting a job unrealistic and because of where we both lived, it made no sense for me to leave him at the hospital and return when he was finished. It was around this time that I started keeping a journal again in earnest. I had a lot of time on my hands but I also wanted to remember every last minute of my father’s final days. This was going to be my last chance at really connecting with him and I didn’t want to lose or forget a second of it.

The Notebook

I can’t believe that in half year my beloved daughter will be turning eighteen. This is mind blowing – for a number of reasons. The simple fact that its been nearly two decades since I discovered I was pregnant barely seems like yesterday I remember it so vividly. Doing the math this also means that I will have turned 44 by the time her birthday rolls around. Again it seems like yesterday that I was heading off to university while in fact it has been exactly 25 years since I was a freshman. My how time flies.

I met Jim twenty seven years ago next month. I marvel at all of the things that we have experienced, and sometimes endured, together. No one in this entire world knows me the way that he does and even today, I consider myself one of the luckiest girls in the world to have been able to share my life with a magnificent partner. I know what I have and try never to take this for granted.

I guess what I kind of want to ramble on about today is time and one’s perception of it. I’ve been keeping a journal – although way back when it was called a diary – for as long as I can remember. I started my first one when I was about eight years old after I had received this smallish red leather book with a little lock on it for Christmas. For months I stared at in fascination without writing anything at all in it. I was afraid that I would get it all wrong so I hesitated for ages before putting pen to paper. Suddenly, one day something “traumatic” happened and I had this overwhelming need to write down every little thing about this tragedy for fear I would one day forget its nuances. Of course, now thirty five years later, I couldn’t recall the actual event to save my life but that no longer matters.

What matters is that I had finally started on what would eventually become an integral part of me. Over the years I have had periods where I would write frantically and constantly, filling notebook after notebook with no end in sight until suddenly I wouldn’t write at all for lengthy periods ranging anywhere to a few weeks to literally a few years. Also over the years the journals themselves have ranged anywhere from being as plain and ordinary as a simple black school notebook to something horribly ornate and tacky and over the top covered in all sorts of decorations – and this was just the outside! Inside there would be collages of photos of actual friends as well as whatever celebrity I happened to be crushing on at the time to anything and everything imaginable. I often ended up putting more work into creating an aesthetically looking book rather than a book of any real substance.

I have been keeping my most recent set of journals now for almost five years without any substantial breaks. I had returned at this time after a break of close to a decade. Obviously, my thirties was a period of my life where I was just too busy and active and involved leaving me precious little time to write. In actuality, it wasn’t that at all, not exactly anyway. In fact, I think more than anything else this period of my life was notable for the lack of drama and upheaval.

Sure, important and significant things most definitely occurred that ultimately contributed to the person I am right now but looking back, it certainly was a quieter, tamer period. It wasn’t just complacency or resigning to the fact that this was probably it but I definitely felt calmer, less frustrated than the recent past.

This time round, my written journals anyway, took on a different tone than previous ones. I started writing again when my Dad was in the middle of his radiation and chemo treatments for cancer. Suddenly during this period of my life, I had a compulsive need to suddenly start writing. If I had so much as an idle second, I couldn’t help myself but I had to write. It became compulsive in nature.

MORE ON THIS LATER…TO BE CONTINUED

Amy confessed: ‘I’m addicted to heroin’

Amy confessed: ‘I’m addicted to heroin’

Sobbing Amy Winehouse sipped Ovaltine and tucked into chocolate cake as she confessed to her mum-in-law that she was a heroin addict.

The troubled singer held husband Blake Fielder-Civil’s hand while she poured out her heart to Georgette Civil and Blake’s stepfather Giles.

Then Georgette took Amy out on to a hotel balcony where the star revealed that she and Blake could not live without drugs.

Amy, 23, made her confession just days after she collapsed and was rushed to hospital following a three-day booze and drugs bender.

Now she and Blake, 25, are being treated together for heroin and cocaine addiction at a secret location in America.

Hair salon boss Georgette, 42, said last night: “You can’t blame Amy and you can’t blame Blake. They are both as bad as each other.

“It’s the hardest thing in the world for me to say in public that my son and his wife have a drug problem.

“They’ve admitted it. It’s not a crime to admit this and they must not feel ashamed.”

But soon after confessing what friends and family had feared for months, Amy and Blake were back indulging in their habit.

They smoked heroin delivered by a pal to their £3,000-a-night suite at the luxury country hotel.

The Mirror revealed how Amy and Blake agreed to treatment after seeing a top Harley Street GP recommended to them by Kelly Osbourne.

Ironically, the devoted couple only decided to seek help after a feud between their families.

They held a summit at the four star Four Seasons Hotel in Hook, Hants, last Friday called by Amy’s dad Mitch and paid for by the star’s record company.

Georgette revealed that before a blazing family row with Mitch, she heard Amy’s confession.

Georgette said: “Amy looked fabulous. She had earlier been for a spa sauna and massage and was relaxing in a big white gown.

“She was very bouncy and giggly and sat there with a huge tray of Ovaltine and cakes.”

Georgette went on: “Blake and Amy feel at ease with us because we treat them as adults not naughty children and don’t dictate to them.

“We can’t force them to give up drugs, it has to come from them, but we can encourage them to get help. I know my son’s had a drug problem ever since he was 20 and moved down to London.

“I needed to know about Amy’s problems and we had a chat – just the two of us – on the balcony.

“She told me she was addicted to heroin and cocaine.

“She admitted ‘It’s silly, but you just get carried away’.”

The confession was not a total shock to Georgette and she went to bed proud that her daughter-in-law had been so open with her.

But shortly afterwards, Blake and Amy collected some heroin from a dealer and smoked it until the early hours.

It was over breakfast the next morning that Amy’s best friend Juliette Ashby dropped the bombshell on both Blake and Amy’s families.

She said she had gone into Amy’s suite and spotted charred pieces of foil she suspected Amy had used to smoke heroin the night before.

Georgette revealed: “Mitch was very upset and angry. Amy denied it to her dad but later said she had taken heroin in her room with Blake.

“Mitch blamed Amy’s husband and blew his top when Giles tried to defend him.”

Primary school head teacher Giles added: “I didn’t say anything back to him and didn’t retaliate.

“He was getting highly emotional and kept blaming Blake for Amy’s problems.”

Georgette said: “Later Giles phoned him then he apologised unreservedly.” She added: “Ironically Mitch losing his temper at Giles has helped Amy and Blake.

“It has brought home the seriousness of their problems and they are now tackling them.”

Amy, who was left in tears by the spectacle, then confessed to both families that she and Blake were badly addicted to drugs.

Georgette said: “There was lots of emotion.”

Georgette rang the Harley Street GP who rushed to the hotel and arranged for them to have urgent treatment in the US. She went on: “Both families are just very pleased and proud for them to recognize they have a problem and that they are making steps to cure it.

“They couldn’t have done it separately – it’s something they had to do together.

It’s very reassuring to know they are getting the help they need.

“They’re both lost but we are going to get them back. They have to take control of their lives.”

Amy in Rehab for Heroin

EXCLUSIVE
Amy admits coke and heroin addiction. She strips to prove she’s not injecting. Couple fly to US for rehab together.

By Tracey Kandhola 14/08/2007

Amy Winehouse and husband Blake Fielder-Civil agreed to go into drugs rehab after seeing their dads nearly come to blows, friends said last night.Amy was in tears after the row during a showdown with their families over their heroin and cocaine addiction.

A source close to the family told the Mirror: “It broke Amy’s heart to see her parents and in-laws fighting.

“That was the point when she realised all the drink and drugs were causing huge problems for everybody.”

The party-loving couple flew to the US for intensive counselling and detox treatment after also seeing a leading Harley Street doctor recommended by former wild child Kelly Osbourne.

Jazz diva Amy’s drink and drug problems came to a head on Wednesday when she collapsed following a three-day bender with 25-year-old Blake.

To read original click HERE.

Cause She’s Beautiful!

Whatever

Had a huge post all composed and completed in my head but the minute that I sat down to my computer everything completely disappeared. Didn’t help at all that I’ve had too many interruptons now to remember plus I had a reasonably horrific day at work – and it was only a half day! Am already dreading tomorrow because I know that I’ll not only have to clean up today’s mess but contend with a whole assortment of other goodies.

My darling girls returned from Toronto safe and sound and absolutely floating on clouds – they had a marvelous time. Obviously I am thrilled for both of them. At least they’ll have one magnificent memorable experience to share on that dreaded “what did you do this summer?” question that will inevitably be asked of them upon their return to school in the fall.

Leaving On A Greyhound

Well here I am with the apartment all to myself – for a moment anyway. Jim should be up from the garbage room any second. Big weekend for me and my girls. They left yesterday morning on a Greyhound bus for Toronto and are not returning until Sunday evening leaving Toronto at 7:30pm. For all of us, this is huge. It is the first time that they have been away from us, out of town and doing it all on their own. Very proud – but equally nerve wracking moment for their Mama dearest!

About three months ago, just as their school year was coming to an end, we bought them Slayer/Marilyn Manson tickets for the Molson Amphitheater in Toronto. The concert was for Friday, August 10. For both tickets, it cost us $156 but we felt it was well worth it as they had done well in school and had been a pretty good help to me when we were moving house. We picked up their return bus tickets on Thursday evening and with their student card, were able to purchase them for $98.80 total. I wanted to make sure that whatever luggage they brought was in good shape with no rips or tears or broken straps or zippers so I also bought them each a brand new knapsack which they didn’t expect at all.

Jim had about a dozen Toronto subway tokens left over from one of our TO visits so we gave them to the girls so it will be easier, hopefully, for them to get around. I gave them $120 in spending money. Luckily they don’t have to worry about accomodation because they are staying with a friend who originally is from London but had moved to Toronto last year. At least they will be with someone that will be more familiar with the city than the two of them on their own.

I am so proud of them and equally worried to death that they will arrive home tomorrow evening safe and sound. We’ve at least received a text message from them this morning in which they said all was going fantastically, that they’re having the time of their life.