Howdy

I have little to report but just felt like I should blog, since I've not been so great at keeping up with things on here as of late.

Ramy is in the middle of a trial with the most difficult client he's ever had (and boy, that's saying a LOT) against a particularly evil prosecutor.  I went to LLU last weekend to run some analyses on my dissertation data and concluded that I have forgotten a lot of statistics in the couple of years it has been since I was running stats programs on a daily basis! Fortunately, my dissertation doesn't really require very complex stats, and I am up to speed.  Not done with my analyses, but at least up to speed.  My girlfriends bought their plane tickets to come to California for my graduation.  Hurray!!!!

Last week, Ramy broke the news to our Nanny Rebecca that I'm job-hunting in Alabama and after I graduate in June, she may no longer have a job.  We felt strongly that it was the right thing to do to give her as much advance notice as possible, because her husband is unemployed.  Although we really want her to stay with us until the very last day and know that she could decide to leave us any day, we still felt like we needed to give her the limited amount of information that we have.  On that front, the paperwork to create my job at Fox is going in right now!  There was some kind of visit from their headquarters from San Antonio last week, and apparently some kind of green light to proceed must have happened.  At the least, it seems like nothing to discourage them from proceeding came up.  I've been answering emails from the neuropsychologist about when my Ph.D. will post, when I anticipate being licensed, etc.  It will be awhile before I know anything more definite, which puts me in a state of limbo, and I don't like being in that state, but I feel surprisingly peaceful about it.

Things at work seem to be on an even keel.  Actually, I think it may just be that we've all adjusted to chaos being the status quo, because looking at our numbers is not pleasant.  I had to be a part of a team decision making to revoke someone's outpatient status today.  It happened to be a client of a good friend of mine, and this client is in a couple of my groups, so I have seen him decompensate first-hand.  Last week, we 5150d him and hoped we could get him stabilized, but after his release, the downward spiral has continued.  It was a sobering recognition that we were taking away the freedom of someone who hasn't committed any crime and whose decompensation is not due to anything he chose to do or not do.  Unfortunately, he is severely mentally ill and the environment has contributed to him decompensating to the point that we can't be sure the public is safe with him in the community. I came to work at this place on January 4, and since then, we've had a client murdered, a client suicide, a client go AWOL, 2 clients who've had to go to residential substance abuse facilities, 5 have had to be involuntarily hospitalized, and 4 have gone back to state hospital (3 whose outpatient status is revoked and one who will hopefully just be there a few months and can get stabilized and come back out).   Next week, our department has to report to the county board of supervisors about the state of our program and to demonstrate how they've made sweeping changes to our program to make it safer.  From the outside, we haven't had any more murders, so obviously things are going well!

Rebecca is, of course, still as wonderful as ever.  Moreso, even.  She's still enjoying her dance class, and she is signed up for their big recital in June (the weekend after I graduate). Last night, she wanted to paint, so she created a wonderful masterpiece for me to take to work and hang in my office.  She was quite proud of it and beamed tonight when I told her that I had many people notice and comment on my lovely artwork.  Rebecca continues to ask for "snoggle" time with Mommy and Daddy.  We've had a couple of recent battles of the wills when she was determined to not put away the toys she had drug out and tried to find a myriad of reasons why she was unable to do so.  Eventually though, she realizes that it isn't working and does what she was supposed to do, usually pretty cheerfully.  She's a delight!  She is looking forward to a long visit from Grammy starting later this week.