The dangers of listening

Our first day of Listening in Charlotte, North Carolina. We're working at a Children's hospital for the next three days and a lot of the stories we've heard so far have had to do with parents losing their children, or young children coming over to talk about what it's like being a patient.

I have not been professionally prepared for this. Every time I work I realize that I am not a trained psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker. I'm just a regular ole person with Degrees in English and Writing and I'm not sure I know how to handle all of this information.

Today, I've chosen to be as detached as possible. You can't be detached during the conversation, of course, because you need to be present when people are sharing their stories. But how to handle all of the stuff I'm taking in?

After work, I wanted to handle it by going to get fried Chicken, but Susan didn't want to do any meat after the fest that was Mac's. We ended up making our way to Beijing Chinese Restaurant so that we could gorge on Tofu.

Had some fried veggie dumplings to begin with.

As my main course: Ma Po Tofu with white rice.

Not the best Chinese I've ever had, of course, and I know some of you will be like "really, Chinese food in North Carolina?" but it fed the hunger, and the Tofu did feel good after all that meat.

To finish, my cookie fortune

which marked not only the very first "fortune telling" I've ever received from a fortune cookie, but also the first time I actually read the word fortune in one, so I was very fortunate and happy.

Last but not least, blurry pic of downtown Charlotte building