Our new “temporary” home

by Tamara Sawyer

Here I am, although we prayed it would never happen, it has. Jail. Lane County Jail, no less, for over 30 days, and then hopefully on to a Federal Camp in Dublin California for me and Sheridan for Kevin. 

I know you all must be wondering what a day in our lives looks like right now so we wanted to share with you. 

First we are in protective custody due to Kevin being a cop, what this means is, we are both in different  “pods” in the jail, although I did find out today when I got to see Kevin for forty minutes through glass, on a phone, that he is in the pod right next to mine. Believe it or not this brings me so much comfort. Each pod consists of 8 cell rooms that are 6×8 with a stainless steal sink and toilet the have heavy wooden doors that have a small window that looks out into the “day room”for each pod that we are let out into for one hour per day. The day room has a shower , a tv, a picnic table and the phone. 

The food is indescribable…breakfast is at 5:45am, lunch is served at noon and dinner at 5pm. For the first three days even I was afraid to eat it, and I will eat most anything. Breakfast is usually water, powdered eggs and occasionally something that resembles a very scary sausage substance. Lunch is usually white bread with a tablespoon of plain tuna. Always this yellow cake sprinkled with cinnamon. Today was pinto beans and rice, with coleslaw with no dressing. Dinner is mashed potatoes which is the whole potato with skin and all with clear chicken gravy and a piece of meat that is usually unrecognizable with corn or carrots and some more of that cake! How I miss fruit and salad!

Alos, we only get ten minutes on the dot to eat. Any of you that have shared a meal with Kevin know this is a problem! And all they let us eat with is a plastic spoon. So lots of fingers for the foods we cant cut.

They gave us clean clothes every 3 days and the underwear are granny panties and a pull over sports bra. Here is the gross part…they are ALL recycled which means we are all wearing someone else’s underwear!!! Orange plastic slip on Croc sandals, green scrub pants and shirt and a T-shirt for bed. 

Our beds are concret with a super thin plastic thing that goes over it and honestly thats the worst part. Our backs are killing us!

The noise is also bad. You can hear everything everyone says in the day roo, and most of it is so “colorful”. I have decided I dont really like the “F” word after all! 🙂 I know Kim Summers, hard to believe. 

They never turn the lights off in our cells or outside so thats hard, especially for sleeping. 

There is no fresh air, how I long for fresh air!

When we got here  they have us a small black comb, a 4 inch toothbrush, this small tube of toothpaste called “maximum security” gel toothpaste, and a 4 inch gold pencil. 

There is no garbage cans in any of the room, so everything stays in until you go out for your hour. 

Thankfully, they let us pick out a couple of books from a selection that people leave or I dont know what we would do all day!

The guards of course, are not nice, not friendly, NEVER say a word to you, or rarely explain any thing, but look at what they do all day long!

Yesterday, I was told that i was luck I didn’t get disciplined for a lip stick kiss Megan put on one of my letters 🙂 Apparently no highlighters, markers or marks of any kind, as we could get high off of it. 

When we have our hour out in the day room each day they have cleaning supplies so you can clean your room. I noticed that none of the disinfectant sprays have no odor??

All in all, we are good. Just so lonely for our friends, family and home an most of all each other. We sat and looked at each other and cried for the first ten minutes of our visit. 

XOXOXO Love to all.