Being in law enforcement lends to some moral dilemmas. Right now I'm tracking a serial arsonist (sounds exciting right?!) and I have to say that I sometimes wonder why I'm expending so much energy on this guy when he's actually helping the area by burning down delapidated houses that are falling in on themselves anyway. While I understand there is a risk to firefighters, homeless people squatting in said buildings, and to neighboring properties I can't really say that it's a horrible crime in the grand scheme of things. When the fire bug is finally caught what are we going to charge him with... Felonious Rehabilitation of the City? Or maybe Criminal Impersonation of a Cleaning Crew? It's wrong, it's a crime, and I know that something needs to be done about it but that little voice in my head asks where the line of right and wrong gets blurred.
Thats the interesting part of my job... the law is the law. For every clear cut case of wrong there is always a blurry confusion of a case that makes you question the law, your own ethics, and society.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
The Brother
My brother is married with 2 young children. Typical suburban bliss of a life. He married my college roommate (maybe I should be specific since I went to a LOT of college... he married my first roommate), settled into a house with a secluded backyard and seems to be living his version of the American Dream.
I suspect he thinks I'm a sociopath. I am the perpetually unmarried, childless-by-choice little sister that he politely invites to the kids' birthday parties while internally wishing I'd have other plans. "Here's my sister, the only Party of One in the entire manicured backyard lawn party. She's really a nice girl even though she talks about homicides and can't cook and is allergic to children. Oh, and SHE LIVES WITH OUR PARENTS... but shhhhh don't mention that." Ok, maybe that's the dialogue in my head and not his voice but it's pretty much the sum of every family function I attend.
My sister-in-law is envious of my annual girlfriend getaways and my ability to follow a friend's cover band around at will. Her goal in life was to become a mommy; it seems that once that was accomplished she thought about how she should have traveled and enjoyed married life a bit first. But, she's great with the kids and she deals with my brother making a living by carting corpses around at all hours of the night. Being married to a funeral director can't be a great bragging point for her to tell her friends and co-workers but it pays for her and the kids food and clothes so it'll do. She has a knack for bringing up my personal life (or usually lack thereof) at these parties... elbowing me near the bounce house and saying "why don't you try Match.com". Seriously? Advice from the girl who I paid my brother to go out with because her cheating boyfriend broke her heart and I couldn't take the wailing all night long in our dorm anymore. I see that she is well intentioned and I pass the comment off by saying how cute the kids are even though kids come close to repulsing me. If she only knew how I was actually handling my "single" life. :)
I suppose I'm the "road less traveled" kind of girl and it suits me. I never wanted babies, marriage eludes me, and I work with 300 men so I realize the prince charming routine is for Lifetime movies. Still, each time I visit my brother in his 3 bedroom, toy-filled utopia I can't help but think... "wow, all this is his... the kid who knocked me unconscious with a Tonka truck and made me eat bugs not too long ago."
I excuse myself and head for the trampoline. The crazy, single little sister can still squeeze into the kids world. It's a lot more fun here.
I suspect he thinks I'm a sociopath. I am the perpetually unmarried, childless-by-choice little sister that he politely invites to the kids' birthday parties while internally wishing I'd have other plans. "Here's my sister, the only Party of One in the entire manicured backyard lawn party. She's really a nice girl even though she talks about homicides and can't cook and is allergic to children. Oh, and SHE LIVES WITH OUR PARENTS... but shhhhh don't mention that." Ok, maybe that's the dialogue in my head and not his voice but it's pretty much the sum of every family function I attend.
My sister-in-law is envious of my annual girlfriend getaways and my ability to follow a friend's cover band around at will. Her goal in life was to become a mommy; it seems that once that was accomplished she thought about how she should have traveled and enjoyed married life a bit first. But, she's great with the kids and she deals with my brother making a living by carting corpses around at all hours of the night. Being married to a funeral director can't be a great bragging point for her to tell her friends and co-workers but it pays for her and the kids food and clothes so it'll do. She has a knack for bringing up my personal life (or usually lack thereof) at these parties... elbowing me near the bounce house and saying "why don't you try Match.com". Seriously? Advice from the girl who I paid my brother to go out with because her cheating boyfriend broke her heart and I couldn't take the wailing all night long in our dorm anymore. I see that she is well intentioned and I pass the comment off by saying how cute the kids are even though kids come close to repulsing me. If she only knew how I was actually handling my "single" life. :)
I suppose I'm the "road less traveled" kind of girl and it suits me. I never wanted babies, marriage eludes me, and I work with 300 men so I realize the prince charming routine is for Lifetime movies. Still, each time I visit my brother in his 3 bedroom, toy-filled utopia I can't help but think... "wow, all this is his... the kid who knocked me unconscious with a Tonka truck and made me eat bugs not too long ago."
I excuse myself and head for the trampoline. The crazy, single little sister can still squeeze into the kids world. It's a lot more fun here.
Settling In
I spent most of the day navigating one of the goliath bank's website looking for mortgage rates and closing costs. I am not buying a house. I am playing parent to my own parents... trying to refinance their existing mortgage to save them money and hopefully get them on track to financial stability so that I am not adding on to my own home in 30 years for them to move in. I think it would be easier to take a day off of work and go down to the bank than to find the webpage I am searching for but this way I don't have to deal with any goliath bank customer service representative.
I have my own mortgage. Just no house. I make a typical mortgage payment every month to my student loans. I paid for my college education myself; or should I more accurately say I indebted myself for my own education. So 7 years after my last graduation I find myself with a Master's Degree, a Bachelor's, 2 Associate Degrees, a mediocre government job, and severe hairloss. The upside is that if I make it through 1 more union contract negoiation I will have a partial pension. If they don't take it away. If I can hang on another two years. If someone doesn't decide to slip some language into the contract eliminating my payments before I live long enough to receive them, like they already did with my health insurance.
So here I am, the makeshift financial advisor for my extended family, not knowing what I would do if I ever saw a positive number on my complicated personal finance spreadsheet. I guess I'm just the only person in the family that looks beyond today. The jury is still out on whether or not that is a good thing.
I have my own mortgage. Just no house. I make a typical mortgage payment every month to my student loans. I paid for my college education myself; or should I more accurately say I indebted myself for my own education. So 7 years after my last graduation I find myself with a Master's Degree, a Bachelor's, 2 Associate Degrees, a mediocre government job, and severe hairloss. The upside is that if I make it through 1 more union contract negoiation I will have a partial pension. If they don't take it away. If I can hang on another two years. If someone doesn't decide to slip some language into the contract eliminating my payments before I live long enough to receive them, like they already did with my health insurance.
So here I am, the makeshift financial advisor for my extended family, not knowing what I would do if I ever saw a positive number on my complicated personal finance spreadsheet. I guess I'm just the only person in the family that looks beyond today. The jury is still out on whether or not that is a good thing.
Yes, I live with my Parents
As if it weren't bad enough that I am in my thirties and still stuffed into my childhood bedroom, I also have the distinct honor of being trapped in the same home as my parents AND my grandmother. It all happened by accident. I'm not one of those kids who never grew up and sits home playing video games and bouncing from minimum wage job to job while eating through my family's food. I came home after a bad break up and had planned to stay only a few months. That was 6 years and a terminal illness ago.
Soon after I arrived in my 1992 Oldsmobile Cutlass, with rust spots resembling bullet holes in the side and my entire life shoved into the trunk and backseat, I announced to mom and dad that this was a temporary visit. They took pity on me and let me cry on the couch in my sweatpants for the first few weeks while I shed the hurt from losing a boyfriend (to a girl who I thought was a friend) and a job (to government cut backs). In my self absorbed woe I was actually comforted by the thought of being home. The room I grew up in and shared for most of my life with my brother, my polar opposite in every way, seemed a lot smaller now that I returned with a quarter century of clothes, knickknacks, books, and whatever else I could move out of my condo alone in the rain because I was too distraught and embarrassed to ask anyone to help. The boxes and piles of stuff fit about as well in the house as it had in my old car. Everything was one big jumbled mess... and that's sort of the way it has stayed. Even 6 years later some of those boxes remain unpacked as I still feel like a guest. Part of my subconscious must think (hope) that this is still temporary and I am on my way to bigger and better things... or at least bigger than 10'x12'.
Soon after I arrived in my 1992 Oldsmobile Cutlass, with rust spots resembling bullet holes in the side and my entire life shoved into the trunk and backseat, I announced to mom and dad that this was a temporary visit. They took pity on me and let me cry on the couch in my sweatpants for the first few weeks while I shed the hurt from losing a boyfriend (to a girl who I thought was a friend) and a job (to government cut backs). In my self absorbed woe I was actually comforted by the thought of being home. The room I grew up in and shared for most of my life with my brother, my polar opposite in every way, seemed a lot smaller now that I returned with a quarter century of clothes, knickknacks, books, and whatever else I could move out of my condo alone in the rain because I was too distraught and embarrassed to ask anyone to help. The boxes and piles of stuff fit about as well in the house as it had in my old car. Everything was one big jumbled mess... and that's sort of the way it has stayed. Even 6 years later some of those boxes remain unpacked as I still feel like a guest. Part of my subconscious must think (hope) that this is still temporary and I am on my way to bigger and better things... or at least bigger than 10'x12'.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Welcome to my Life
Since this is my first post I should introduce myself. I'm Lee, 31 years old and living in a multi-generational home with my 95 year old grandma, my parents, 2 dogs and 3 cats. I'm stuck in the middle of this crazy mess of a family that you will have to read about to believe. I consider myself a bit of a renaissance gal, modern day nomad, and general knower-of-all-things-useless. So while I navigate through my life as caregiver, crime fighter, and debt annihilator I make an attempt to pepper my conversations with trivia that no one has asked about or cares to hear. Did you know a group of cats is called a clowder?
I hope this blog gives me an outlet for dealing with my everyday insanity and maybe someone out there will read it and see a bit of themselves in me. Or, at least be thankful they spent five minutes of their life reading my ramblings and be able to impress co-workers with their declarations that Rhinos come in crashes and frogs are found in choruses.
Welcome to my Life.
I hope this blog gives me an outlet for dealing with my everyday insanity and maybe someone out there will read it and see a bit of themselves in me. Or, at least be thankful they spent five minutes of their life reading my ramblings and be able to impress co-workers with their declarations that Rhinos come in crashes and frogs are found in choruses.
Welcome to my Life.
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