The renters haven’t been out much lately. At least we know they’re cool, though I sure as hell wouldn’t want them for neighbors in the city, and I’d still prefer the dogless, childless couple who are rarely home. God wouldn’t be that nice to me, though.

Still haven’t gotten back the letter I sent the day after Mary left, and here’s the latest on her which is not good at all. Hopefully, things are better by now, but she’s sure been having a hell of a time of it over the last week. I feel so, so bad for her. See, they actually drove her to Florida. I thought they’d fly her, but she rode on a bus which took a whole week to get to the Lee County jail where she is in Fort Myers because they stopped many times along the way to drop people off. Her aunt said she said it was terrible. She was stuck next to someone whose breath was a nightmare, she’s been stuck in the same underwear for a week, and of course, the whole ride was spent handcuffed and shackled to each other, having to beg really hard to use the bathroom, and being forced to sleep on the bus as they sure as hell weren’t going to check into a motel or anything like that. Makes me wonder about those who need daily medication that’s essential to their staying alive and about those who get their periods along the way. Do they even give them pads? Did they get fed along the way? It must’ve been so cool to see things she hasn’t seen for so long, yet frustrating at the same time to see places like Denny’s and not be able to stop there.

Another horrible thing is that you can’t just request Ad-Seg there and she was sent to GP. She says she’s terrified, and I would be too, with a high-profile case like that. So her aunt’s going to call Terri to see if she can pull some strings to get her in Ad-Seg, something Tom says should be no problem in light of the fact that she’s a witness for the prosecution. I just hope they Ad-Seg her real soon. That is before she gets jumped and not after.

I was surprised, yet pleased to hear after Mary called her aunt, that along with a bible, they gave her a 5x7 picture of Gretchen. Who gave it to her and how they got it, I don’t know, but that’s way cool of them.

I guess her aunt didn’t know we were cellies. She said one of us might have mentioned it in the past, but it came up when I commented about how I knew firsthand how horrible Estrella food was. We didn’t get into why I was there, but if Mary wants to discuss it with her, that’s fine. She can tell people whatever she wants to cuz I really don’t care.

Her aunt says inmates can write to each other there and that Mary’s worried about Justin writing her, but I assured her that if he did, it’s just words and words cannot hurt us. Especially when we’re adults who can tell ourselves not to listen to anybody’s shit. As Tom suggested, all she has to do is just give them to the prosecution.

Her aunt called the jail about the mail rules and the picture rule is the same as Estrella. You can send up to 5 pictures and they can’t be bigger than 3 x 5. When I realized I had to crop a lot of the pictures down and that some couldn’t be cropped without cutting off people’s heads, we agreed I’d send those pictures to her aunt, though Mary will still get them. I have them scanned in and all I have to do is squeeze them down before I print them out. We also agreed it be best if I sent the religious cards to her aunt to hold onto for her. I just hope there’s no problem with the astrology scans, cards and word-find puzzles. I also hope they don’t count my address label as one of the 5 pics. Her aunt said they said I couldn’t send her book, but I’m hoping they misunderstood her question and that they thought she meant an actual published book.

Every 3-4 days I’ll send something. She should have all her stuff by May if all goes well. I’m not going to enclose any journal excerpts in the letter that will go out to her Monday till the two sent to Estrella after she left are returned to me and I see where I left off. Meanwhile, the first of the 3 manila envelopes went out yesterday and the next one will go out Monday, then Thursday. Then I’ll start with the 3 or 4 small manila envelopes (I decided to enclose the start of my Kate story, even though there are only 10 pages), then regular envelopes with pictures. There’ll be 7-8 of those between her pictures and mine. I even found a site online with a small pic of Monster, her and Gretchen. Poor quality, but hey, at least it was there! They’ll be in with the rest of her pics. Gretchen had such nice eyes, and boy was her hair a lot shorter! It was to her collarbone.

I noticed that one of the 6 cards was a Christmas card from the infamous Michelle and company and I asked if she still wanted it or if she wanted me to ditch it. I also asked if she’d like me to email Michelle to let her know what a jerk she and her son are for breaking her heart and then promising to send pictures they never sent.

I can’t wait to get the first letter from her telling me all about what the place is like. It’ll be a while before she gets commissary and gets established and adjusted. Though there’ll be some who won’t give a shit, soon enough most of the DOs will get to know her and see what a wonderful person she is.

At least she’s in the home stretch now and should never have to move again. Right now my vibes say she’ll be a free agent in September or October of ’05. The question is, though, what kinds of guys is she going to be getting pregnant by when she gets out, and how will they react to the babies once they’re born? Tom doesn’t think jail will cure her sick fondness for abuse, but that she’ll smarten up with age, but how old will she have to be before she does that? Forty? I just got to the part where he ran over her foot with the car when she was 6 months pregnant, yet she still stayed with him she loved abuse so much.