So, happy Thanksgiving. To celebrate we took the turkey over to Jesse's house. It was nice. He had a friend in from Portland. His mom and her friend came over. Other friends came by. It was a house full of kids and dogs and chaos. We had all the traditional food and spent the afternoon drinking, watching football and playing Modern Warfare 2 on the X-Box. The food was excellent. The turkey, in particular, was a hit. One guest said it was the best turkey he had ever had. After all that food, even AJ looks hammered. It is 8:30 pm. and this guy is going to bed. Alaska must be the only place in the United States where government workers have to work on the friday after Thanksgiving. Sucks ass. Hope everyone everywhere has a full belly and is thankful for what they have tonight.

So, I know what we are eating for Thanksgiving dinner. Do you? Or more importantly do you know how your meal lived? Died? What it ate? Thank you turkey. Even though, in your death throes, you did shatter the glass door to the chicken house. I respect you even more. Never go quietly into the night. 28 lbs dressed. You were right G....this is a big bird. I spent the rest of the day, unsucessfully, fixing the plumbing at the rental house. Good Lord. You know, despite it all (i.e the 'crack den' rental, the usual worries....) somehow I just feel 'better' this winter. In less than 30 days the days will begin getting longer. For some reason, I just feel 'ok'. What the hell?

So, despite a busy Saturday, I still got to see my kids play in the snow. That's it. I won't talk about pipes (purposefully?) filled with broken glass and now frozen. I won't talk about moldy sub-floors or painting. Or not having enough money. Or an upcoming murder trial. I will try and forget all the other frustration in my life. I will instead, remember my little girls in front of an Alaskan sunset. On a sled. Tomorrow we kill our Thanksgiving bird and I will document that. I have never killed a bird in this kind of weather...it will be interesting.

So, in a twist of irony, I called the police today. Made a report. Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. I had no choice. The deal with the renters has gotten out of control. I won't go into details, but it really sucks. Last night I went over the house and discovered even more damage. The room that they had been growing pot in suffered water damage to the sub-floor. The entire sub floor had to be ripped out. I discovered mold growing underneath. The whole thing is turning out to be a big, and expensive, job. Then I discovered that neither the bathtub nor kitchen sink are working. I'm not sure what they did there yet....but it is bad. I think what really got me was this. I am doing a murder trial in February. A trial where I genuinely believe my client is innocent. The stress will be enormous. Immediately thereafter I want to take the 4 of us to Miami to see Josh. I would have been in a financial position to do it, but for these little shitrats. I looked at Melissa Gentry's myspace page and saw that they got to go to Florida last month. The month they did not pay rent. Or fill the oil tank. Or clean. Or do anything that decent human beings would do. The month they smashed windows and doors. Left six truck loads of trash behind. Destroyed walls, floors and pipes. So I had enough. I didn't like calling the cops. But I had to. The wreckage of the place is a civil matter. But actually stealing from me. Going into my house after all that and taking my stuff. And then admitting it and telling me "good luck getting anything back...I am being sued anyways and intend to file Chapter 11". Well. It is on like donkey kong. I intend to have Danny Gentry charged with felonies. Rack 'em. So I found an exception to the 'missing child' rule of never calling the cops: getting f'ed in the A by people you repeatedly went out of your way to help.

So, it has gotten cold. It went from t-shirt weather a few days ago to -14 this morning when I went to work. It is about -10 outside right now. Even the animals feel it. We found this little owl right outside our back door perched on bottle of the finest whiskey. In other news, the administrative law judge denied Kadee's formal PFD appeal today. The division argued two things: first, that there was no guarantee that her sponsor (a local attorney) could be trusted with the money. I pointed out Alaska Rule of Professional Conduct 1.15 and the ALJ agreed. That ridiculous point is gone. However, the division also argued that our 'temporary intent' to stay in the United States could be imputed onto Kadee. The ALJ agreed. I am disappointed but not surprised. Zobel had to go all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States for justice. I may have to do the same. I am going to ask the ALJ to correct a few factual errors and then appeal to the Superior Court. Rack 'em. I just had one of those days today. The kind of day when I just felt like I couldn't do this job anymore. The kind of day when I am so sick of my clients I want to just quit. I mean stop breaking the fu*&king law. Stop stealing other people's shit. Stop drinking. Stop smoking oxycontin and leaving the tin foil behind. Stop beating each other up and having sex with children. Pull yourself together. Pay your bills. Keep your word. If someone had offered me a job as a DA today I would have taken it. Even as I was making bail arguments and getting clients out of jail, I hated myself. One of those days. Why do I have chest pains over people who don't care about themselves? The rental clean-up (the damage was caused by Danny and Melissa Gentry of Soldotna Alaska) is coming along. No thanks to Danny or Melissa Gentry of Soldotna Alaska.

So, my week of vacation is at an end. I didn't do much. The weather finally turned cold and on November 11, 2009, Soldotna got the first snow of the year. I worked on the rental a little. I didn't do as much as I might have as G was here. We played a lot of video games. Modern Warfare 2 is simply amazing. We drank a lot. Ate a lot of good food. Had a few adventures. Celebrated five years of marriage on November 13. Got some work done on the rental, although there is a lot to do. God, the damage is outstanding (thanks to Danny and Melissa Gentry of Alaska). The security guard from the courthouse (who is in his 70's) took pity on me and help lay the new laminate flooring. Thank God! I would have been there a month. I did mean to post more pictures but someone went into the rental in between jobs. Stole my camera and radio. Smoked oxycontin on tin foil. Left. I can't believe it! My FU&^ing camera! I just got it fixed too. This rental house causes me more stress than anything in my life. More than my job. More than family obligations. We were just starting to get ahead. Oh well. G leaves in the morning. I might as well go enjoy my last evening with him instead of stressing about things I can't change. I will buy a new camera and blog again next week. FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

So, I'm at the rental fixing holes in drywall (thanks to Danny and Melissa Gentry of Soldotna or Kenai Alaska) when I get a call for road kill moose. Hell yeah, I'm going. Trashed rental or not. Great news, I thought. It was a giant old cow. I'm thinking, this is a lot of meat. I have been lucky with road kill moose so I thought my luck would hold. But this one was hit so hard it was just mush. Almost all of it. We got no backstraps and had to discard the ribs entirely. The front quarters were shattered bone and goo. It looked more or less fine until we started to get the hide off. When I hit guts in an area they shouldn't have been, I went 'oh-oh'. Out of an animal that was probably 600 lbs or more on the hoof, we might get 100 lbs of meat. Maybe. If we are lucky. So who helped me? A State Trooper buddy. Shocking! A public defender with a Trooper! Um, no. You see, not all cops wish they had a skin lamp in their living room. Just a few. I know who they are. They are the special few who have a special place in hell along with those who hurt dogs and horses. I might not be able to prevent them from lying in this life. Hurting people. Being bullies and thugs. But justice will come for them. Oh, yes it will. For the rest, well hell. Come over. Drink beer. Butcher a moose. Talk about our kids. Things we have done and seen and all the things we want to see and do before our time comes. We are both doing law enforcement. Good cops do it on the street. Good lawyers do it in the courtroom and on the phone. But for now, I will let my mind drift into other things. Like making 100 lbs of spicy moose sausage tomorrow. And drinking beer. G will be here Saturday. When he goes home to California I want his place to have plumbing problems as it tries to digest all the meat he needs to get rid of.