LAPD Wife

In the News

There are a lot of articles and other bits and pieces that I've been wanting to point out to you, so will wrap them all up together here with a big bow on top for you. : )

>> If you're LAPD, or family of LAPD, or just like to keep up with the news on LAPD, the Protective League has started putting out an e-newsletter that I'm really liking. They've also kicked up their website and have a news section on it where you can check for LAPD-centric news. To get on the E-newsletter mailing list, you can register at www.LAPD.com.

>> LAPPL President Paul Weber wrote an opinion piece that ran in the LA Daily News this week headlined: America's law enforcement now facing greater threats.

>> Former LAPD Officer Kristina Ripatti recently completed the Boston Marathon in the handcycle category. You can read about it and see footage and photos at the LAPPL site here.

>> There's been some hubbub about "Code 2 1/2" lately. That's what the media called it. Officer Jake calls it "Code 2-high." It's basically an unofficial practice of driving Code 3 to an emergency call or similar situation, but without lights and sirens. This was due to restrictions on running Code 3. After much debate, the Code 3 policy has been revised, allowing LAPD officers to use lights and sirens more at their discretion. Read all the details here: Officers Given Discretion to Use Lights, Sirens in Emergency

>> I love to see positive stories about the LAPD in the newspapers. Here's a great, 2-part one that ran recently that shows just how great our officers can be:
Raised by Mom and the LAPD
An Outpouring Over Boy's Story

>> Last, but definitely not least, CoptheTruth kindly ran a story I passed to him on his blog about a Nat'l Guard Col. recently returned from Kosovo, who visited an L.A. area school that wrote letters to him and his fellow soldiers while they were deployed. I think the story fits better on his site than mine and hope more people get to read it there about how great these kids were supporting our troops and how grateful those troops are. Story here.

The Care and Feeding of a Police Officer

I've been pondering about the role of nutrition in a police officer's life. This is a tough one - these men and women have erratic work schedules, their activity level can be totally sedentary one day and running full out the next. They can try to pack a lunch but then never have time to eat it, or be stuck in fast food joints in between calls and often at the receiving end of plates of cookies and candy from people in the community looking to "thank" their local police force.

I would like to write a series of articles about this subject, but I need your help. Everybody loves a survey, right? Ok, well, learn to love it if you don't 'cause I'm starting one now. I've set up two short surveys via SurveyMonkey, a service I've used successfully in the past. Why 2? Because they only allow me 10 questions per survey and I had 20 I wanted to ask. So there you go.

I've put the links to the surveys in the top, left corner of this blog. They are totally anonymous - I don't ask any personal information and the site doesn't collect any personal information for you. Just click on the link and the survey will open right up and you can take it. Please, please help me out. And let you friends know too. I'm open to any first responders taking the quiz as well as their immediate family members. In fact, if you can get your husbands or wives who are on the job to take this also, that would be fantastic!

A few years ago I did a survey that dug deeply into the lives of police wives and it resulted in some pretty amazing articles and even got me a whole chapter in a book about blogging. I'm excited about the potential of this one and can't wait to see the results.

By the way, if anyone out there works in the field of diet and nutrition, I'd love some help. Drop me an email if you wouldn't mind me running some questions by you here and there. Thanks so much!

Visual Blogathon Entry

It's getting late, I'm a wuss and getting tired. Am about to retire for the evening, but wanted to put at least one last post up for the Blogathon. It's a soothing visual post. Sometimes it's nice to look at sites on the internet and see things of beauty. Reading about politics, life's ups and downs and all is great, but once in awhile I just crave peace. Here some of my peace that I find in my travels and nature that I'd like to share with you.

 

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For more information about the Police Wives Online Blogathon and to learn about how the funds raised during the event will be distributed, check out the Official Blog Here.

My Reading Addiction

I am a passionate reader. I love it, I can't get enough of it. I read magazines, novels, how-to's, cookbooks and the backs of every cereal box, to name a few things. I love to read so much that it often gets in the way of me accomplishing all my "to-do's" for daily life and work. Recently, when I was so absorbed in reading the Twilight series of books, I'd find myself working on a deadline project on the computer, but having the book propped open at my side, leaning over to read a few paragraphs when the computer connection would slow down. Except a few paragraphs would turn into a whole chapter and I would suddenly snap out of it and realize I just lost 20 minutes and am that much closer to deadline. It's like an addiction, but I just don't feel that guilty about it.

Blogathon Haiku

For the Blogathon
Police wives type and ponder
Life behind the badge

Screen glows, cursor taunts
Oh to write the perfect post
my life in short bursts

Yes, inspiration
Fingers fly, heart aflutter
I reach out to you

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For more information about the Police Wives Online Blogathon and to learn about how the funds raised during the event will be distributed, check out the Official Blog Here.

What the Heck....

Blogathon Entry #4

The latest challenge: Finish this sentence: "What the heck..."

Ok, here's my blast. "What the heck are people thinking when they put on a gallon of perfume before getting on an airplane for a 4-hour ride? Don't they think about the rest of the people sitting around them who now have to inhale their noxious mix of cheap perfume, body odor and foot stank because you also decided to take off your shoes?! What the heck?!"

This rant was inspired by my latest airplane ride. Thank you lady who sat next to me causing my eyes to water and the 10 people surrounding you to reach up simultaneously and crank up those vent nozzles to maximum for the duration of the ride.

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For more information about the Police Wives Online Blogathon and to learn about how the funds raised during the event will be distributed, check out the Official Blog Here.

The Dream: Getting Paid to Do Something I Love

Ok, I'm answering the writing challenges in no certain order. So now I will answer MJ's question: "If you could get paid to do what you love, what would it be?"

What do I love? Let me list the top things that come to mind. I love to read, I love to write. I love puttering around in my yard and my gardens. I love it when Jake gets home after a night shift and we take long walks together (since the kids are in school) and just talk - no interruptions. I love being home and there for my kids, no matter what they need. I love to cook. And I love playing Jane Geek on the computer.

So, my ideal job? When I look at this list, while I love doing some of those things, like gardening and cooking, I think I'd loose the love by having to do it for a living. It turns from fun to work, then. So the best thing I can imagine being paid to do? To work online from home, writing for a living. Anybody hiring? Give me a yell!

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For more information about the Police Wives Online Blogathon and to learn about how the funds raised during the event will be distributed, check out the Official Blog Here.

Rookie Stories

The first writing challenge for the blogathon is to tell a story about a rookie mistake my husband may have made or a time that he was totally embarassed as a rookie. Here's the full challenge and another leo wife's story - it's a good one!

I called Jake (he's working today) and asked him about this. Of course, his first response is that he didn't make mistakes, of course. Ummm, sure. Anyway, he finally reminded me the story of the rusty gun at the Academy.

When Jake was a few months in the Academy, there came the day that they were issued their work guns. Everyone was handed a shiny new box that contained a brand new 9mm - or so Jake thought. As he opened his new box, he was totally surprised to see an old, rusty, falling apart, piece-of-crap 38.

"What the...?" he was thinking, looking around at this classmate, who were all inspecting their shiny new 9mms without a problem. The Academy is like the military - you don't talk back, you don't question your superiors, etc. He was really hesitant to say anything, but figured there had to have been a mistake, so tenatively approached his superior. And got reamed out for complaining about the gun he was given, was ordered that he was to use and like using it, etc etc. He shut up, totally embarassed and went through the entire next day or two with the POS gun in his Sam Brown, worrying that pieces would fall off and having no idea what to do next.

His classmates were not help, either. They were all glad they didn't get that gun, agreed that it was horrible, but no one wanted to stick up for him and put their neck on the line. Finally, on the second day, the training officer's made him stand in front of the class and demonstrate something like loading or whatever to the class with his POS gun. As he's struggling to do this, while grabbing rusty pieces as they fall off, finally the training officer loses his poker face and starts to crack up. 

Jake was informed that the gun was compliments of a relative of his, who was currently on the job and tight buddies with the training officers in the Academy. It was all a great joke at Jake's expense. Poor guy thought he was going to have to carry that thing for the next few months. 

Apparently that gun is infamous at the Academy and it's used often for just this sort of thing. Everyone got a good laugh and Jake was relieved at the end of it all to get his own brand new work-issue 9mm. And it was so embarassing for him that he remembers it in great clarity, even today, over 20 years later.

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For more information about the Police Wives Online Blogathon and to learn about how the monies raised during the event will be distributed, check out the Official Blog Here.

Blogathon Today

Ok, I'm getting a late start, I know. Go figure, Saturdays are kind of hectic for me. Jake is working, the kids have their assorted practices to get to and oh, yeah, there needs to be food in the kitchen and toilet paper in the bathrooms, right? It's a day of running errands, but I'm going to post as much as I can in between running in and out to participate in the Police Wives Online Blogathon today. It's a 24-hour extravaganza of posting, posting, posting and fun, fun, fun. So join in, read all about my life and other police wives who are joining in.

I'll be posting sporadically throughout today and into the late evening. The coordinator is giving us writing "challenges" from the main blog, so I'll try to follow along with them. They are a few hours ahead of me, time-zone wise, but I'll try to catch up.

For more information about the Police Wives Online Blogathon and to learn about how the monies raised during the event will be distributed, check out the official Blogathon Blog here.

Safety Zone

There is a house on our street that is a rental. We see a new family come in about every year – usually it’s people who have moved here from out of state and are renting for a year while they get the lay of the land and are able to take their time house-hunting for something more permanent.

Jake and one of his buddies were out in the cul-de-sac playing bicycle cops this weekend, watching the kids riding around and "keeping the neighborhood safe." The new neighbors wandered down and started chatting with the guys.

Jake told me that the wife mentioned to the group how she felt so safe living on our street because the real estate agent had told them that a police officer lived nearby. Jake didn’t say anything – it was kind of funny because she obviously had no idea that "the officer" was standing next to her.

One of the other guys laughed, though, and pointed out that “yeah, he’s standing right next to you.” She wasn’t really embarrassed and went on to tell Jake about how her husband traveled a lot for work during the week and they felt so much safer during the week since they knew a police officer lived on the block and that he could come over and help if there were problems. Which is kind of funny since they didn’t know who the officer was until just then. They just had this sort of vague sense of safety just from our presence.

While Jake doesn’t mind helping out with little things he has a standard spiel he gives most people who assume things like this. While he doesn’t mind people asking for advice, etc, as long as it’s reasonable, he lets them know that he leaves work at work and lets the local police officers who are on duty handle law enforcement in the area. He doesn’t want to start being the “street sheriff” – as you can tell people already make a lot of assumptions as to how much he can do. And the last think we want is for our house to become a local substation.