christmas in october

Okay, so I previously mentioned that my family has some juicy stuff going on that will have to wait for the Christmas letter. It's just, if I'm really hoping all of you will share the good dirt, it feels hypocritical to hold back on my own. So here goes...

Perhaps you've already surmised from our newest poll that one of my siblings was recently in jail. Poor Bad Boy Billy, my bipolar brother, was in the pokey - again. His adventures with the authorities began a mere four months ago when he inadvertently went off his meds for a number of weeks. This oversight didn't come to light until the month ended and his bottle of Abilify was strangely still full... Anyway, he was ultimately hauled away in handcuffs for smashing his work truck into his family van - something he did to punctuate the end of a marital spat. It turns out it is a felony to significantly damage your own property (who knew?) but the felony charges were ultimately dropped and he was excused with probation and a course in anger management.

So he quickly got back on his meds, started going to his classes (having our dad help him with his homework - just like in school - Dad liked to joke that having to do Billy's anger management homework was making him angry...), and everything was fine and dandy. Or so we thought. We've heard since that he had confided in friends that his meds weren't exactly doing the trick anymore. He finally shared this with his doctor on Thursday and his doctor upped his dosage and recommended a bit of R&R in the loony bin. Well, before he had a chance to check himself in, Billy got sidetracked and angry and, well, downright scary and so he ended up in the back of a police cruiser again.

I haven't talked to my brother yet (he just got out last night), but if he had any advice to offer any of his potentially felonious cousins, I'm pretty sure he would recommend that you avoid getting arrested on a Friday. Had he been taken in on Thursday night he could've been arraigned Friday. Instead he had to wait until Monday. Hopefully he got plenty of rest at least...

My husband, who works with the criminally insane, offers one more piece of advice - taken straight from the mouths of his patients. If you're going to be both crazy and criminal, it's best to move around a lot. Accumulating a lot of charges in one state is way worse that collecting various charges in a number of states. They would know. That's how they all ended up under court ordered hospitalization. Somehow, though, I don't see Bad Boy Billy pulling up his roots and relocating so I must say I'm more than a wee bit worried for his future.

But for now we're back to normal. Sounds like the charges were dismissed, though he was already on probation so I'm not sure how that works...

In the meanwhile, it seems like we may soon see our first east coast bloggers. I've just got to send out an instructional email and wait and see. Exciting times.