Cream of Wheat

I haven’t decided whether I am going to take a day off this weekend. Today is a peanut butter day, so it is out of the question to not go in. In spite of the fact, I have enough peanut butter stocked to last me a very long time. It seems that there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t eat the peanut butter. Everyday, I manage to have my hot cereal with a pack of squeezable peanut butter. I would like it to be of the natural variety but it isn’t. At least I am getting protein and I hope the intake outweighs the bad fats which are in this type. I seem to crave it each day, could this be another addiction? Maybe it is, but right now, it’s an important part of my protein intake along with skim milk, tuna fish, and beans.

I don’t believe I lost any weight (thank goodness) in fact, I may have gained some weight because my aerobic exercise is way down. On the “streets” (outside these fences) my normal aerobic exercise was between 5 and 7 hours a week. Now it is down to 3-5 hours especially when we don’t get yard. I am still exercising (thank God); however, it is a very different type (very good nonetheless). I do enjoy it because now I exercise with my neighbor and “normal inmate”.

My neighbor – the one who got me out of trouble the other day - is a very interesting character. We get along very well even though we come from different backgrounds. My neighbor has been to prison 6 times and he is the same age as me. He is currently serving a term for parole violation. This sentence is almost half of mine which brings up an observation I have made. It seems many here are parole violators and are serving sentences much less than mine. This evening I had a conversation with another inmate who is serving the same amount of time that I am serving, yet he is a four time offender and his parole violation was more of a violent nature than my charge. He said to me, “How does it make sense that my sentence and your sentence are identical, yet I have a very checkered past and you are a first time offender?” My response, “It makes no sense and I cannot make any sense of the criminal justice system.”

It is fascinating because here is a convicted criminal telling me the sentences make no sense. He is correct but there is nothing I can do about it and I cannot belabor the point. It is time for me to move on and move forward. However, I know there will be other occasions that arise and I must stay focused to move forward.

There is another inmate that I have been sharing the prison articles my mother has sent me and this inmate is another “white collar” criminal although when he speaks about his charges I am a bit suspicious. These are probation violations which means he was granted probation (which I would have done anything for) and somehow he violated one of these terms. I have been sharing these articles with him and unfortunately for him he has not come to terms with his reality. He keeps telling me the governor is going to let all the non-violent criminals out early by reducing their sentences to one third. He also believes criminals such as he and I will be let out much earlier due to the overcrowding.

When I first started speaking with him a few weeks ago, I believed what he said. Actually, I wanted to believe what he said because I want to be back with my family as soon as possible. Over the past few weeks, we had more conversations and we discussed these articles. His opinion and my opinion differed on many of these articles. What I discovered in our early conversations was that he has not come to grips with his reality and I was along for the ride. After discussing one of these items we had a difference of opinion on a statistic that was listed. He interpreted it one way and I interpreted it a different way. After discussing further, he dismissed my opinion and I agreed to disagree. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I am finally accepting my reality.

My reality is that I will be away from my family until or around July 17, 2008. This is the worse case scenario and anything earlier, even if it is one day earlier, would be wonderful. I have to maintain my positive spirit and not concern myself with what Arnold Schwartzenegger is doing with the “state of emergency” in the prison system. It is my reality that I will be a “customer” of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation – CDCR – for the next 21 plus months.

My next reality was another day in the kitchen with the same supervisor as yesterday. It started off much like it started off yesterday with suggesting something to him and then meeting this suggestion with negativity. The menu was very simple today – Aunt Jemima Frozen French Toast and cream of wheat cereal. These were the only two items which needed to be placed in the ovens. The French Toast is tricky because it goes from firm raw to burnt in a matter of seconds so someone must monitor this constantly. The cream of wheat is just like the other hot cereals and takes 35 to 45 minutes to heat. My suggestion came when the kitchen supervisor did something I have not seen in the month I have been working in the kitchen. He added water to each pan prior to heating, whereas, I normally add water after heating to achieve the proper consistency. Gee, I sound like some type of chef, but all I do is place items in the ovens and take them out – some chef! I was not opposed to adding water to the cream of wheat prior to heating. I merely suggested preparing the trays near the faucet so it would be easy to add the water instead of filling up two 5 gallon coffee containers and dragging them around the kitchen to the front near the ovens. After hearing my suggestion, I received a “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing, just watch.” Well I watched and in my opinion, there was more unnecessary work that didn’t need to be accomplished but I kept my mouth shut. I assisted with placing the pans of cream of wheat in the ovens and went about my normal duties.

I didn’t want anything to do with the French Toast, so the other inmate who handles the ovens and the kitchen supervisor were responsible for it. I took over the cream of wheat cereal as my responsibility. When the first oven with the cream of wheat was ready, I started to prepare it for the service line. Normally, it takes three pans with a few cups of water to fill a six inch pot which is then placed on the line for service. However, today it took six pans to fill the six inch pots and I could not add any water because it was heated prior to heating. If I had added more water, the cream of wheat would have turned into cream of soup. As soon as I noticed this, I alerted the kitchen supervisor that we would most likely run out of the cereal and he may want to get more from the main kitchen. Again my suggestion was dismissed to a “We’ll see.” This was fine because I did what I had to do and let the kitchen supervisor know.

I must say the cream of wheat tasted very good and was very easy to pour into the six inch pots. However, I was correct and we did run out at the last service. I had to take the remaining pot, add water to it (which watered it down to almost tasteless) in order to have enough for the remaining inmates. We did manage to feed everyone including the kitchen workers with the “new” cream of wheat. An interesting thing happened as we were running out of cereal; the CO’s who monitor the kitchen and the supervisor kept checking the hot boxes and the ovens for more cereal. I watched them do this four times. I thought they were thinking it would magically appear which it certainly did not!

Also, as the cream of wheat was running out, a few of the other inmates in the back kitchen got wind of what was going on. They came up to me because they knew I told the supervisor earlier about not having enough cereal. They asked if I told him, “I told you so.” I didn’t do this because it would have served no purpose. The other inmates disagreed and said it would have given me personal satisfaction. I told them that I didn’t say this to get personal satisfaction. I am not sure if the other inmates understood what I was talking about so I took it one step further in my explanation. I said, “I did what I was supposed to do and there is no reason for me to show up the kitchen supervisor because to me it serves no purpose.” Hopefully, I didn’t come off “high and mighty” when I said this, but as I explained, the other inmates shook their heads in agreement.

After the cream of wheat incident, I had another encounter with the inmate who took exception to my “excuse me” the other day. Please forgive me; this was during the cream of wheat incident. As it was running out, the inmate came over to me and asked if I would mix the remaining pot into another pot in order to have more by adding water to it. I gladly said “yes” with a smile on my face and took the pot out of the warmer, brought the pot to the prep area, added the water into another pot to make more. Then I brought the two pots back to the warmer and placed them into it. After closing the door, this inmate gave me a smile and also the two thumbs up sign. What a difference a few days make, and thankfully I have maintained my positive attitude throughout this process. Who knows what would have happened if I were unhappy, but thankfully this was not the case. As long as I stay positive, everything will continue to get better and what happened today was a perfect example.