Cellie Roulette 3: Eclectic Shrub
Well, today was eventful!
I moved from one dorm pod to another one in the same dorm today. I finished a program I was participating in last month, called a Faith and Character Based Program, and to free up a bed for a waiting participant, I got the shuffle.
Moving is always fraught with worries for everyone involved, as I alluded to in April. This time, I'm the new cellie in a different pod, and I thankfully am not sharing my cell with anyone as of yet.
I'm filled with mixed feelings, surprisingly.
When Slow Painter left in April, I ended up with Fast Painter, whose work is prolific across the entire compound. He's a good person who got entirely too much time for his crime: 30 years for a third degree felony where no-one was present at the scene. It was theft, which he admits was wrong of him to commit, but I believe his sentence is disparate and perhaps racially motivated -- others with similar crimes receive frequently less than a third of the time he was handed down. He's done most of his sentence now, and with him leaving prison in a few years (if nothing changes) after his fiftieth birthday, I feel he did not get a fair shake.
He is afraid to challenge his sentence again, having been sanctioned for what the court proclaims was a frivolous motion. If I could have looked at what he filed, I feel I could have helped him in some manner. As is, he is due to visit the Law Library soon; I've asked him to look into Erlinger v. United States, 602 U.S. 821 (2024), and see if it applies to his situation as there were enhancements thrown onto his sentence in a questionable manner in the eyes of Erlinger.
After all, there's hard on crime, and then there's this BS.
It'll be slightly harder to follow up with him to see if he's done that.
But on the other hand? Someone else now has the chatterbox -- the new person's stuff was already in my old cell, waiting for me to come back from Education this morning, haha!
I now get to see what I get out of the gumball machine this week.
So it's time for a cup of decaf and a struggle to stay awake to another two hours as I await Master Roster in a new cell.
The one time I could meditate, and I dare not, because I will likely conk out.
Ah, well. :)
Today's subject line was brought to you in part by an interesting beverage I tried when I lived in Oregon -- one whose name eluded me for an hour, running away every time I walked directly toward it. I ended up approaching it obliquely, from around the way of the word bramble.
Eventually, I remembered the kind lady at our farmer's market who sold bottles of --
"Shrub!! No wonder I can't remember it!"