Knowing what I don't know

It's almost time to get up -- I slept late this morning. And it's time for Inky to have a bite to eat. His routine (if it's not humiliating for them to say that cats do anything as normal as a routine) is to move from the foot of the bed, sit down next to me, and start vocalizing until I give in and move to the closet where I keep his food.

Today, however, he jumps on my stomach, kneads a few seconds (the guy is an efficient kneader) and closes his eyes. Like, purring, he could stay there for hours.

I don't know why, of all mornings, he decided to climb on my stomach. Perhaps he needed a little time close to the mammal he may think of as "mom." No one really know why cats purr, but his little black and white body reverbrates. And I'm not sure whether he's hungry, or could stay here for the rest of the day.

Probably not. But that's about all I can say, based on previous experience.

This past weekend a friend of mine drove with me down to Gettyburg. After a few hours hiking around, we decided to do a ghost tour after dinner. Gettyburg is allegedly one of the most haunted locations in the U.S., for obvious reasons.

Some of the stories seemed more convincing in the dark.

But do I know whether spectres exist? Of course not. I just know I don't want to see one, whether it's part of my imagination or no. At Pennsylvania Hall, the guide said that two women saw a field hospital, with a surgeon amputating --- and beckoning them to help him out?

And then there is the movie "Crash" which I just saw yesterday -- the white folk, like me, pissed me off through the whole movie.

And yeah, I know what some of the other groups did was bad (the only really virtuous person was Latino) but what the white guys did was much worse.

That being said, I wonder -- what would the movie look like from the perspective of a black friend? Another white friend?

Did the director want us to come out critical mostly of the white attorney, and gosh, his incredibly bitchy wife?

It seems that the more I experience the more ignorant I feel.

How about you?

Pennsylvania Hall pic is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

A little time off

I'm off to hang out with my friend TH in Princeton, NJ today -- a chance to get a little physical distance on the past week.

I find I can't write about what has happened yet -- it's too raw, too painful. What a counselor pal of mine calls "secondary trauma", which apparently happens often to counselors, medical staff and people of the cloth.

We'll hike around, talk religion and politics (he's a much higher breed of journalist than I am), drink a little wine, and maybe have some vittles to go with that...

And perhaps I'll hear about his family in Paris, and other "stuff".

Princeton was my home for a number of years while I was young and more sane than I am now. I can't wait to see it again, in the company of someone who has been all around the world, seen more than I ever can, and hasn't been there yet!