I'm back from my vacation!

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

My vacation was cut about a week short due to circumstances I may or may not eventually feel comfortable in talking about. All I can say right now is it was one HELL of a strange trip, in every sense of the word. Things happened to shape my visit home that I never would have expected or believed.

I watched my best friend's 23 year old son get married. It was a great ceremony, and I was very proud of the young man and the woman he chose to wed. The following reception was a real blow-out, too!

The upsetting part is, I found myself in a position of seriously considering having an investigation started against my friend for animal cruelty. I don't think I want to explain it just now, but I've sent an inquiry email to the ASPCA to learn some options. It may eventually mean the ending of a 25 year friendship, but I know all my fellow pet lovers here will understand if I proceed.

I flew back to Dallas this morning with mixed feelings. I'd managed to stay away from computers and TVs (for the most part) for a solid week, hearing only short bits about the ongoing rape of Iraq. I did notice they are now going back to 'Nam-style body counts- when they say "Lookie here, we killed 42 insurgents today!" what they really mean is "Lookie here, we killed 42 people today and decided they must be insurgents 'cause they're now dead!".

Old trick. It didn't work before, and it's not impressing anybody today.

I'm going to take a while to catch up and figure things out, politically and personally. Expect my usual semi-witticisms from time to time as I bring myself back up to speed.

One of the stranger-feeling things I did happened when I visited my father's grave (I was unable to attend his funeral last year). There's a single plot left in the family site, and it's for me. I walked across the spot I'll eventually occupy, and as I did so I twisted my ankle. Only SLIGHTLY creepy, eh?

I'd say "It's good to be back" but I'm not quite sure that's true yet.