The Accident and On-Going Legal BS

(Cross posted from Mom and Bill's blog)

If you'd like to get caught up on what was posted previously, the posts are here and here. As you'll read in the second post, I had intended to continue posting about the accident, but grief is dumb and I ran out of spoons to keep posting.

The accident was November 21, 2022 and we're just now getting around to seeing some action on the case. It took almost two years of hounding the Utah Highway Patrol and reaching out to the County Attorney to get some traction. Finally, on November 15th, 2024 (I wasn't kidding about it taking almost two years!), the County Attorney notified us that charges were being filed against the driver who hit Mom and Bill.

The initial charges were: automobile homicide, 2nd degree felony for Bill's death, and negligently operating a vehicle resulting in injury, 3rd degree felony for Mom's injuries. At some point, I'm unsure when, the charges were amended to:

• Negligently operating a vehicle resulting in death, 2nd degree felony (Bill)
• Negligently operating a vehicle resulting in serious bodily injury, 3rd degree felony (Mom)
• Driving under the influence - 1st offense in 10 years

The warrant was issued, which was a weight off our shoulders. It had been 725 days since the accident, and I'd basically given up. I figured the other driver got away with killing Bill and almost killing Mom and there was nothing to be done about it. I knew that the accident report was complete, which took until July 2, 2024 to finalize. But, knowing that the accident report was complete, I didn't see any reason why charges hadn't been filed. The evidence is pretty clear, in my eyes, that the other driver is at fault.

Honestly, it was rage at the injustice that forced me to "get mean" when I reached out the the County Attorneys in October, 2024. I wasn't sure which county would be handling the case, so I reached out to two adjoining counties and hounded them until I heard back. My relieve was short-lived at hearing that the other driver had been charged, and a warrant issued, because the other driver lives in Washington State. I knew they weren't going to go extradite him, that we'd have to wait until he was stopped for another traffic infringement. Then, his warrant would show in the system and he'd be arrested and sent back to Utah.

I (we, but I don't want to put words in anyone else's mouth) settled in for another long wait. I really thought it would be a traffic violation that would bring him in. Imagine my surprise when I got an email from the County Attorney on a Sunday night (March 2, 2025) that the other driver was in custody. But not for a traffic violation, because he'd been caught breaking and entering. For some reason, it never crossed my mind that he was a career criminal. It didn't matter how he was brought into custody, just that he was.

Since his first court appearance in March of this year, it has been nothing but hurry up and wait. We've had several virtual court dates. Most have resulted in an extension while he was searching for an attorney to represent him - he makes too much money for a public defender. He finally found an attorney, and we played hurry up and wait again while his attorney got caught up on the case. We were supposed to finally have an arraignment a week or so ago, but he got yet another extension while his attorney gathered the "factual evidence" of the case. I don't know, I think the objective toxicology report, the information pulled from each of the cars computers, and the reconstruction of the accident are pretty factual, but I know it's his attorney's job to question everything.

The one thing the other driver's attorney and I agree on is that this should not have taken over two years to get to this point. This case should be over and done by now.

We had a meeting with the County Attorney, and we were told that while he'll take our feelings into consideration, we really have no say in whether or not he offers a plea deal (drop to 3rd degree felony for Bill's death, 0-5 years prison) or goes to trial. He wants to offer the plea, we want to go to trial (2nd degree felony for Bill's death is 15 years to life).  He agreed to consult with a toxicologist regarding the levels of meth in the other driver's system and how fast it metabolizes, then make the determination if he can prove the other driver was impaired. If he can solidly prove the other driver was impaired, then he's more willing to pursue a trial.

He'll let us know his decision before the next arraignment date in August. I'm not hopeful for a trial, I suspect we're going to have to make peace with a plea. But ... I might be able to swallow the injustice of the plea as long as the other two charges aren't altered.

Logically, I get it. He has a huge case load, and needs to close them. But my sense of right and wrong is outraged.

A friend of mine is fond of saying, "We don't have a justice system, we have a legal system." He's absolutely correct. There will be no justice, no matter how this turns out. So, we'll play within the legal system and pray that he faces some consequences.

Over at Women on Writing, today's post was a writing challenge. I've always loved writing challenges, and have done several in the past. Since I'm trying to get back into writing shape, the Webb Writing Challenge is exactly the exercise I need. I've linked directly to the post, but I also want an easy to access list for myself, so I've copied it below:

1. Write a poem
2. Use your name as a writing prompt.
3. Pen a flash fiction in a genre you don't usually write.
4. Find inspiration in a favorite song - either the lyrics or memories connected to the song.
5. Everyone loves a surprise ending. Write something with a twist.
6. Try some epistolary writing - tell a story through other writing (letters, texts, emails, diary entries, police blotter, etc.).
7. Learn something new and use it in your writing.
8. Write about a place you've never been - an actual place or an imaginary world you create.
9. Create a random question (or use a question generator), then answer it with a piece of writing.
10. Condense the time period of your piece - have it happen in 24 hours or less.
11. Be someone new! Write from a viewpoint different from yours - different age, gender, religion, politics, financial situation, time period, profession, etc.
12. Choose another piece of writing as your jumping off point; anything from a novel to a news story to a birthday card from your Aunt Marion.
13. There are 27 emotions: admiration, adoration, aesthetic appreciation, amusement, anger, anxiety, awe, awkwardness, boredom, calmness, confusion, craving, disgust, empathic pain, entrancement, excitement, fear, horror, interest, joy, nostalgia, relief, romance, sadness, satisfaction, sexual desire, surprise. Focus on one in your next writing.
14. Allow the next person you eat a meal with to suggest a writing topic.
15. Infuse an inherently unlikable character with traits that make your readers root for them.

This one is going to be tough and require me to really push my boundaries. There's not a single prompt listed that is a no-brainer for me. I'm excited about this, and will be sprinkling these writings throughout my blog posts for the next year or so.

The Saga of the Outhouse, Part 2

I'm not sure when it happened, or why, but between turning 50 and Bill being killed*, I turned into some sentimental crazy lady. I find myself getting sentimental about the dumbest things. 

First, the Whimsical Treehouse. When I'd explained what I wanted to do with the old pallets and extra windows from the Lodge, Beel was all in. Hell, I am even sentimental about the pallets, because we'd used them to help train the horses. Instead of being horse bridges, the pallets became walls. Within just a few weeks of Jay and I returning from Italy, and telling Bell about my cockamamie idea of building a greenhouse so I could grow my own pomegranate trees, he was killed, but I didn't let the idea of the greenhouse die with him. Mom and I built Whimsy, which was a good healing project, and now she's got a great origin story.

Whimsy is home to a pineapple and pomegranate,
plus all of her outside friends: concord grapes,
honeysuckle, kiwi berries,
tomatoes, rosemary, and lavender.

Then the cross-buck fence. For Pete's sake, it's a section of stupid broken down old fence. But I couldn't let Mom get rid of all of it. That stupid broken down old fence contained three generations of our 'stangs. If the fence could talk, it would have some amazing stories. Now it's a part of my garden. 

Peas, cucumbers, and corn.

And now, the outhouse. I was so excited to get it back into service, to bring a part of our livery back to life. Then it crashed and burned. Again. 

I was worried about the handwash station blowing over,
not the outhouse (this time).

My heart sank when I saw the crack in the wall.

I didn't think much about the potential damage the night of our get-together, because the wind had knocked it over a couple of times previously, and the worst that happened was the roof had fallen off. However, I knew, when I walked up the next morning and saw the crack in the side that I might have to tell the outhouse goodbye, that the stupid wind might have finally killed it. I was crushed and a bit ashamed to admit how upset I was about the outhouse being gone.

At least the roof stayed on this time? LOL

It's a stupid little outhouse made of plywood and a pallet, nothing to get upset about. Except ... except ... that stupid little outhouse was a reminder of the summer that we ran the livery. 

The summer I worked three jobs, but each weekend I took a different child up to work with me and we got to spend one-on-one time together. 

The summer I fell in love with Queen Estes, my first heart horse. 

The more I thought about it, the more I realized it wasn't just a stupid little outhouse. That little building that Beel built had been around for some pivotal memories, no wonder I was upset about it.

The night after it was blown over, the night I realized the extent of the damage, I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned. In the middle of the night, as it so often happens, something Jay said came to mind, "it's just so top-heavy". He was right. The outhouse was too top-heavy and I should have not given in to my lazy side - I should have anchored it. I spent a couple of hours beating myself up about that, too. Then, just as I was finally drifting off, in the wee hours of the morning, a thought popped into my head, "what if I used tin on the roof just like Maggie? That would decrease the weight by a lot." I remembered that I had some leftover tin from building Maggie, maybe a piece would fit. Maybe I could just replace the cracked side of the outhouse. With that, I was finally able to sleep.

When Mom came down a couple of days later to watch the arraignment** with me, we decided it would be a good use of our time and would help us burn off some frustration to see if we could fix the outhouse.

We were both busy tearing off the roof, and forgot to take pictures, but we did manage to get it off. Mom thought that if we could just get the roof off, we could square up the sides and pull the cracked pieces back into place. We had to prop the backside of the outhouse up with cinder blocks after (wo)manhandled the roof off. She was right - with the roof off, we were able to square it up again.

The Bionic Cowgirl putting her bionics to work.

Adding more structural support.

It turns out I was right also - I did have some leftover tin from Maggie's roof. The bit that I had Chief cut off was just the perfect size! We scrounged around and pulled the screws from the old roof to use to attach the new tin roof. Yes, I'm using a hammer, but just to punch a bit of a hole into the tin so I could use the drill to drive the screw. I'm sure there is a proper tool for the job, but I used what we had within reach.

Lots of concentration to avoid hitting my thumb.

New roof installed!

We were able to square up the outhouse, and in doing so, just as we'd hoped, it pulled the cracked side into alignment.  For now, the outhouse is resting on the cinderblocks. When I have time, I will glue the crack, and add in the missing piece. It's not getting to stand up again until after I have the anchors securely placed in the ground and attachment points on the outhouse itself. I'm also going to change the orientation. I'd placed the outhouse along the periphery of the property, with the door opening to the west. It was cute that way, because it was "facing" the property. Now, though, I'm going to rotate the outhouse 90 degrees so that the door is facing south, allowing for the roof line to follow the same angles as Maggie and Whimsy - the wind seems to flow up and over them nicely, so I'm hoping it'll do the same with the outhouse.

*It makes people flinch when I flatly say that Bill was killed, instead of the kinder, gentler "we lost Bill" or "Bill died", but the fact of the matter is that a distracted, meth'd up driver killed him, and I'm not going to sugarcoat it.

**We're still in the beginning stages, believe it or not, of the court proceedings, despite it being two and a half years since the accident. We were hopeful that the arraignment would go well, but all that happened was another extension and court date in August for an arraignment then. I'll post a full update in the very near future over on Mom and Bill's blog.

The Saga of the Outhouse, Part 1

Jay and I love to host BBQs at our place. I use the term BBQ loosely. Maybe they should be called “food events” instead. We live in a very small house, so hosting has to be done during the summer months. Our events typically are attended by between 20-30 people. Not a ton, but not an insignificant number either.

Last summer, just as we were getting ready to host an event, we were headed home from the store and I was running down my to-do list in my head. Because our house is so small, and the only access to the bathroom is through the mudroom, kitchen, and our bedroom, I feel the need to clean the whole house. I’m a feral housewife, not a domestic one, so I keep the house lived-in, but not spotless. I mentioned to Jay that maybe we should just rent a porta-potty for our BBQs, then no one would have to go through our house to get to the bathroom

As soon as the words left my mouth, I remembered that Bill built a collapsible outhouse to use at the livery we ran 20-ish years ago. I knew for a fact that it was still standing at the lodge, so I called Mom to see if I could have it.

She was kind enough to say yes, and the next time I was up there, we disassembled it and loaded it onto the back of her truck. It was definitely worse for wear, but I was confident that we could revive it.

There was no way I could get the outhouse ready for the upcoming gathering, but looked forward to getting to use it for this year’s events.

I managed to assemble the outhouse, but not at all the way Bill did it. He’d designed it to fold flat, and then be stood up, like a cardboard box, but there was too much damage to some of the support structures to do that, and I had to replace them. It was a really cool design, but I couldn’t replicate it. Since my intention was not to have to move it from place to place, I figured I’d just screw it all together and not worry about its relocation potential.

All laid out and getting its cat scan

Bill had built it on a pallet with some linoleum flooring, but the pallet disintegrated when we took the outhouse apart. Pallets are not in short supply around our house, so I replaced the pallet and added some stick ‘em vinyl planks. 

Once I had the fancy floor in, it was time to assemble the walls. I think Bill's intention, in addition to making it moveable, was to make it so that one person could set it up and take it down. That one person, of course, being him. Since it was no longer the fold-flat design, I had to have help holding the walls up as I screwed them together.

The plywood roof had been too damaged to keep, so the outhouse remained an open-air version of itself until I could find replacement roof. Mom had some left-over shingles and a sheet of plywood that would work, so the next time Chief came over to work on Maggie, I asked him to put the roof up, too.

The kids' friends are certainly handy to have around.

Mom had offered me their chemical toilet that we’d used with the outhouse, but once I started looking into the waste disposal I passed. Bill always handled the waste disposal, and let me tell you, I had no idea what really went into it. He’d come to the livery every morning, take the toilet to the lodge, do some magic, and bring it back a little bit later ready to use.

I started looking into alternatives and came across some bags meant to line 5-gallon bucket toilets. Additionally, there is a gel to add to the waste that turns it into a compostable solid. The whole bag, once solid, becomes compostable. But let me tell you, no human waste is going into my garden. The bag o’ stuff can just compost at the county dump, not our house.

I’m not opposed to the 5-gallon bucket camping toilet set-up, but was certain I could find something better - and I did! An old chamber pot cabinet. I picked it up from FB marketplace for next to nothing. It's a little rough and needs some sanding/finishing, but I love it. It doesn't look very big, but the bucket is about a gallon, which should be plenty for a gathering of our size.

By the end of October last year, the outhouse was ready for use.

But, then winter hit, and with it, the winds. Stupid Colorado winds blew the outhouse over and knocked the roof clean off. I let the outhouse lie on its side for a while, then got motivated to put the roof back on and stand it back up. It stood without a problem for a few months until another big gust knocked it over again.

I knew by then that I needed to anchor it in some way, and bought some big screw-in ground anchors from the jungle website. Jay and I stood it up yet again. The anchors were awesome and had a bit attachment for my drill that would help drive them into the ground.

Except, I didn’t take into account that our ground is so rocky. Even with the drill, the anchors weren’t going into the ground. The outhouse was standing, and I decided figuring out the anchors was a problem for another day. My mental solution was to borrow Mom’s auger, drill the holes for the anchors, throw in a handful of concrete, backfill it, water it, and then the anchors wouldn’t be likely to pull out and the outhouse would stand despite our stupid winds.

The morning of our most recent gathering, the outhouse was still standing, but I mentioned to Jay that we really should get the anchors in the ground, just in case. We had time that day, but got busy doing other things while getting ready. As the party time got closer, I mentioned it again, not really wanting to get out the auger and drill holes, but thinking we should probably do it. We discussed it and Jay said, "it'll be fine unless we get some tornado-type winds". Giving into my lazy side, I agreed, then went about getting it ready for the get-together. I lined the chamber pot, added toilet paper to holder, and mounted the remote for the solar light on the wall. I then moved our handwashing station from the shop out next to the outhouse.

Only one thing left to do - take it for it's maiden voyage. So, I did. I had to pee anyway, why not use my handy dandy outhouse? It was a good thing I did, too. 

I realized that the door didn't latch from the inside, the door wasn't hanging square, not that it really ever did, but it was off just enough that latching it was not going to happen. It was an easy fix, took three minutes, and we were ready for people!

It stormed off and on for the hour before people were due to arrive, but the blue sky appeared and it looked like we dodged the biggest part of the storm. Jay was just getting ready to light the grill when the wind shifted and got violent. Really violent, like the edge of a tornado violent. It only lasted about five minutes, but when all was said and done, the outhouse with it's fresh liquid gold deposit was laying on its side again.

First Pomegranate, Now Pineapple

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine thought she'd try to propagate a pineapple by using the top of a store-bought one. Now, had I tried it, there's no way in hell it would have worked, but her green thumb is a thing of beauty. Not only was she able to grow from a cut pineapple top, her original plant had "pups" (sucker) and one plant turned into a few.

I had been oohing and aahing over her pineapples, and last year she offered me a pup. However, by the time we got around to meeting up, it wasn't so much a pup as an adolescent plant. She was kind enough to send it to me in one of her pots, but I needed to repot the plant into one of my own.

I know even less about pineapples than I do about pomegranates, and I was certain I'd killed Pina during the repotting process. Lucky for her, she went into the greenhouse at work within a day or two of me repotting her, so she had a fighting chance. 

Greenhouse move-in day

A pineapple's growth is glacially slow. Despite taking pictures of her almost weekly, I couldn't see it. Compared to Diana the Pomegranate's growth, it looked like all Pina was doing was what I expected - staying alive over winter.

In almost three months, she looked the same to me as the day she moved in. I hadn't killed her while repotting her - whew - and she was surviving the cold Colorado winter. I had initially intended to bring her home when I brought Diana home, but decided to wait until we got back from vacation. Pineapples don't do temperatures below 50* F well, and the night time temperatures were hovering right around that, plus it was cold and rainy for about three weeks straight.

Finally, our weather leveled out enough that I figured she wouldn't die in Whimsy, and I brought her home. All that growth that I was blind to? It literally slapped me in the face when I tried to move her from the greenhouse at work. She easily went through the doors on move-in day. On move-out day, I needed help from a friend to get her through. 

Because I didn't see her growth, I thought I'd just slip her into the back seat of my car for the ride home. I managed to get her in there, but it required me to move the front passenger seat all the way forward and tip the seat forward. I'd intended to put her on the passenger side of the car, but she was too big for that. I had to use my foot to push her pot into the middle of the car seat, and even then, I had to bend some leaves to get the door to shut.

During the move from the greenhouse to the car, I noticed that she'd grown a pup. Where that came from, I have no idea. I didn't see one before my vacation, but I also wasn't looking.

The drive home was uneventful, but getting her unloaded and into Whimsy was a bit of a challenge. I learned from moving Diana to pay attention to the way I orient her in Whimsy. I had to back in through the door, but was able to rotate her pot so that her arms weren't blocking the doorway. The pup had to go, though. As cool as it would be to grow a second one, I'm not certain that I'll be able to keep Pina happy enough to fruit as is. She'll thrive in Whimsy at least through the summer, but I'm not sure how she'll do over winter. I'll have to really work to keep her warm enough, and she's too big for the house. The good news is, if I can keep Whimsy warm enough for her (above 50*F, which is unlikely), then Diana will thrive as well.

I just sat her pot down in what used to be Yelena's tires. There's going to be some rearranging in the near future. The tires are going away, and Pina will have a stool to sit on. I still need to put insulation and OSB up on this end of Whimsy, but since Pina's in a pot, it'll be easy to move her and work around her. I have some time off next week, and am hopeful I can finish up.

It's been a long haul, but my greenhouse/garden dreams are slowly coming to fruition.