“Your husband is being arrested for armed robbery”. She had to let the words sink in. Panicking, she asked if she could see him before they took him away. Agent Goodman agreed and they went into the bedroom, where her husband was now fully dressed. She went over to him and hugged him, but he could not hug her back because his hands were cuffed behind his back. But his kissed the top of her head and softly spoke the magic words, “Don’t worry honey, everything is going to be all right.” With that he was taken away.
“We would like to ask you a few questions,” Agent Goodman was now joined by another plain clothes agent, this one male, he seemed very serious and took out a notebook and a folder. Oh my God, she began to panic again, she had seen many detective shows on television where they play, good cop bad cop. Is that what they were going to do to her? She needed a few minutes to collect her thoughts so she went into the kitchen to get the baby a bottle. She came back in and sat down at the dining room table.
“Has your husband recently changed his appearance, cut his hair or shaved his beard?’
She knew that he had, but she thought it was because he had gone on an interview. She wasn’t sure how to answer, she didn’t want to get him into trouble. Wasn’t there a law that said a wife couldn’t be forced to testify against her husband? She did not want to be involved in this. Her mind raced as she tried to think of a way to avoid answering the questions without actually lying. She had never been a good liar, she hated doing it, and she was afraid of lying to the detectives. But what exactly does recent mean? How recent? He had cut his hair and shaved his beard months ago. That’s not exactly recent, she thought, so she somewhat honestly answered “no”.
But the detectives were better at this than she was.
“Has your husband ever had a beard?”
Her mind raced as she tried to think of a way out of this one, it seemed impossible so she answered truthfully though she was still trying to defend him. She told them that he sometimes didn’t shave for a week his beard would grow, and then he would shave it. There, they couldn’t use that to prove anything. He may or may not have had a beard. So what?
Then the male agent opened his folder and began showing her pictures.
“Do you recognize any of these men?”
Most of the pictures were of men wearing business suits standing in front of a pizza place. They looked as though they could be Italian, and were somewhat older than her husband. Slowly the raid on her apartment began to make more sense. These men were mob connected, that’s why there had been so many officers in those scary uniforms. It was all starting to make sense now as she began putting it together like pieces of a twisted jigsaw puzzle. She thought back to the night when her husband had called and said that he was coming home with a few business associates and they would need some privacy. He told her not to ask any questions and that she would be better off not knowing anything about it. When they came she had obediently stayed in the other room with the baby, the men were smoking anyway and she didn’t want the baby around that, she had rationalized at the time.
She hadn’t even seen them and now she was grateful that she could honestly answer no.
Until they showed her another picture....

They were banging on the outer door, the one that led into the hallway and they were banging so hard she was sure they would break it down. She started to run to the phone to call the police, when she heard them call out, “Open up, it’s the police”. Without even thinking, she obeyed the command and opened up her living room door. Her husband had already opened up the bedroom door and stepped into the hallway, and was now standing completely naked with a huge gun pointed at his head. Instinctively she moved towards him but an agent then moved towards her, pointing his rifle and telling her to step back into the apartment. Again she obeyed and was followed by a number of agents wearing helmets and masks, carrying shields and automatic weapons. They were dressed in black and their uniforms had the letters ATF written on them. Later she found out they were from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. There were about thirty of them, they could hardly fit into the tiny apartment. They didn’t say anything to her, but they proceeded to search the apartment, and she just stood there, unsure of what to do. But when they headed towards her daughter’s room, she followed them and watched her child sleepily get to her feet in her crib. When an agent bent down to look under her crib the child started to cry, so she went over and picked her up.


Finally some one spoke to her, it was a woman, in regular clothes, and she introduced herself as FBI agent Lynn Goodman. “Why don’t we sit down and talk?” They went in and sat on the couch. Agent Goodman tried to put her at ease by asking about the baby,
“How old is she?
What’s her name?”
And it worked, she had been afraid she might be so frightened that she’d be unable to speak, like that time in the subway station. She had been pregnant and was feeling very tired, so she left work five minutes early so she could catch an earlier train and get a seat. The stairway had been empty, but on the landing a man had grabbed her, pushed her up against the wall and began fondling her breasts. She had wanted to scream, but she couldn’t, no sound would come out, it was like she had no voice and she felt totally helpless. Luckily for her some people came by and the man ran off. But she was unable to force herself to take the subway after that, she had had to quit her job. And she felt like that now, totally helpless. But the female detective was being very nice and talking about her daughter came naturally to her and so she managed to get out a few short answers, and then the major question, “What’s going on?” she asked.

to be continued.....

She woke up to a ringing, it was the telephone, she glanced at the clock, 3:45. Who could that be at this hour? She got out of bed and walked into the kitchen feeling a sense of dread. A call in the middle of the night could only mean bad news, people with good news always call first thing in the morning. Oh you worry too much, she thought, maybe it’s just a wrong number. She picked up the phone and said hello. At first there was no voice on the other end of the line and no sound of anyone breathing, only some static and a clicking noise. Then she heard a voice in the background which said, “Okay, we got an answer.” Then they were disconnected.

How odd, she thought, someone was calling to see if they were at home. But why? It was a weeknight and she had a baby. She was always home at this hour. Was someone planning on breaking in? They lived in a tiny apartment and didn’t have anything worth taking. Her husband had been working nights as a bouncer in a bar. Maybe someone from work was looking for him. But he hadn’t worked that night and was home sleeping, and they didn’t ask for him. That call was really weird, should she wake him up? But what could he do about it? He would probably just tell her not to worry about it, and roll over and go back to sleep. That’s the way he was, he never worried about anything. She on the other hand often worried about all kinds of things. But he would comfort her, with those magic words, “Don’t worry honey, everything is going to be all right”. When he said that, as she lay beside him, she actually believed it. She loved him with all her being, she simply adored him. Those magic words had helped her deal with him being fired from his job, being unable to find another one, and his working at the bar.

Feeling very uneasy about the phone call, she went in to check on the baby. Luckily the phone had not woken her up and she was sleeping peacefully. She just stood there watching her beautiful child sleep, as if she were waiting for something to happen and wanted to make sure she would be right there to protect her baby. Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by a loud banging on the door…….

To be continued....

I am getting ready to take my son to the airport, he is going back to New York. I’ll miss him, it was so nice having him here.

My mother, my sister and her 3 children are coming to visit for a week. The kids are 15, 14, and 11, and they are really good kids. I may not be on here much but it depends on their plans. My sister said that the purpose of her visit is to see me, but my mom and sister are the type of people that always have to be on the go. They really don’t know how to just sit around and relax. Once they are here they will probably want to go out and do things, I don’t blame them, I’m just not up to it. I can’t walk any distance and I despise being in the wheelchair, I’d rather just stay home.

My mother drives me crazy, although ever since I got sick she has been nice to me. She is very critical of everything, and she has a healthy eating disorder, which I just found out is called Orthorexia Nervosa. She obsesses over what she eats, and forces herself to eat tasteless but “healthy” foods. She’s short and only was 118 lbs. but she always thinks she’s too fat and weighs herself after every meal.

My sister is a lot like my mom, the two of them are very close. As a child and teenager I never got along with either of them. I get along with them just fine now because I usually only see them for one week each year.

July 19, 2006

On this and the following date in 1848, the very first woman's rights convention in the world met in Seneca Falls, N.Y.

Feminist and freethinker Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with four friends, instigated and convened the the Seneca Falls Convention on July 19-20, 1848. Stanton was the first woman to call for "woman suffrage," as part of the "Declaration of Rights and Sentiments" adopted at the convention. Stanton, initially warned that the suffrage plank was almost too shocking to utter, and would alienate supporters, prevailed. The suffrage plank won endorsement and galvanized U.S. women for the next 72 years. The 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women's right to vote, was finally passed in 1920, after nearly a century of struggle to overcome religion-rooted objections toward women's civil equality.