Site Visit

Since I had to report to work super early for our “field trip” today, Jeff took both girls to Emerson’s final TOC check-up.

They took a third set of x-rays, and the break is completely healed! In case you don’t remember, that “split” in the ball of the shoulder area is the growth plates, and the large void below that on the far left is the break. Then in the center photo you can see there was definitely some healing, but not quite totally done yet. And then on the far right, which is from today, it was barely even noticeable anymore, and the doctor said she’s good to go with no more restrictions!

And they grabbed a breakfast sandwich and drinks from the cutie little coffee shop inside the TOC building, called Daily Cup of Jo Coffee Co.

And then they headed off to camp for the day!

Meanwhile, me and nine of my coworkers were off in a DOC van on I-10, heading towards one of our reception centers over in Chipley for a site visit. But about halfway there, someone called our Chief (who was driving) and said they ended up having a surprise “mock escape drill/training,” and so we couldn’t go there for our visit anymore. So instead, we switched gears really quickly and changed up our plan, and went to Liberty C.I. in Bristol instead. Our Chief actually used to work there before she moved up to Central Office, so she called them up and asked if they could host us since our plans changed mid-drive. And they were nice enough to accept us, and took great care of us. It was the first prison tour for eight of our group of 10, and it was very interesting. I personally learned a lot and it was good to see the other side of what our Department does, especially after working there for almost 16 years and never having visited a prison before!

I’m hoping we can re-route back to a reception center one day (that’s where we receive new inmates and put them through orientation, and the counterpart to what we do in my Bureau, which is “admissions” and sentencing specifically), so that I can meet people that I correspond with almost daily and get a glimpse of how things work in that area! (No pics other than this one I snapped through the van window, because ya know, security…. plus, we left all our phones and things in the van while we were inside the gate.)

I was able to get off work a little early since we started the day so early, so I picked up the girls from camp early, and we met one of Emmie’s friends (and her mom, obviously) at Nuberri for a frozen yogurt date.

When we left, we were in a severe thunderstorm warning and the clouds and sky were looking bad. And we definitely got caught in some crazy rain in our drive across town.

And today was Nana’s birthday! So we met up with them at Bonefish for a delicious birthday dinner. I hadn’t been there since literally before Jeff and I were married, so it’s been like 13 years or more. And obviously we had to start out with the bang bang shrimp appetizer to share. Then I had some mahi mahi for my entree, and then we shared a couple of desserts as well.

On our way home, Emmie and I hit up one of our repeat LFL’s, and I found this very cute cover (in hardback!) of this very good book.

I hit a wall towards the end of dinner, just so hot and so full and so tired… After walking around the prison compound in the direct 100-degree sunshine, and in the dorms with no a/c, and then in Bonefish with a broken a/c, I just spent the majority of the day overheated and felt so sticky and stinky and sweaty. So I hopped in the shower as soon as we got home tonight. I feel much better now, but now I need to go be horizontal for a while…