ita, I got the cutest picture of Em this morning in her Krav t-shirt, holding her little fists up by her temples. I tried to get her feet into fighting stance, but she was not cooperating. I'll post pictures later on.

I'll post pictures later on.

Oh, cuteness!

I was home that day because we had some handymen coming in, so I got up a little on the late side, and switched on NPR when I came down to the kitchen. It was just a little after 9, and the BBC news was on, and I would have let it go in one ear and out the other, except they were talking excitedly about a plane hitting the WTC, and then they had someone on with an American accent who described seeing it hit.

I turned on CNN... who had NOTHING about it, and didn't for another 20 minutes at least. I'm pretty sure it was ABC who actually had some live coverage, which was just smoke billowing up and confirmation that it had been a jet plane.

Okay, breakfast is made.

I hadn't found Buffistas yet, but I spent the day in the company of Buffistas anyway (I'm pretty sure Aimee and MM were members by that point).

As I said, it was MM who woke me up with a phone call at about 6:30 or 7:00 or so. I didn't have to be to work until about 10:00, so I wasn't planning on getting up that early, but the phone woke me.

About two weeks before, a very close friend of mine had died suddenly at the age of 31 or so, so I was already in a "phone calls that wake you up are bad news" sort of mindset.

When I picked up the phone, MM told me to turn on the TV, with a certain edge in his voice. I remember asking "which channel," which is something you probably don't have to ask when someone tells you to "turn on the TV," but my mind wasn't working yet. MM was not in a mindset to properly handle that question, said, "I don't know, any of them."

I turned on the TV and decided to switch it from NBC, which I had been watching the night before, to Fox, which I usually watched in the morning. As I flipped through the channels, I noticed that all of them were showing the exact same thing, which disturbed me in a way I could not put into words. When I got to Fox, the morning anchors were silent, shocked into wordlessness at that point. They were showing the same two images everyone else had been showing -- one image of two tall things billowing smoke, possibly a nuclear plant (not good), and a seperate image of a low, long building billowing smoke.

Fox, especially around here, likes to cover fires. They would regularly preempt the entire morning broadcast (including traffic and weather) to cover some random fire, whether it be a house or a strip mall or whatever. It was unusual for them not to be talking during the firer, though. I stared at the images for several moments (who knows how long) without understanding what I was looking at. Two different fires. Who cares. Why did MM wake me up for this?

I finally asked him, "What the hell is going on?" I think at first he may have said something like "I don't know," expressing everyone's then lack of information as to what was happening in the big picture sense. Then he finally said "someone flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon," or something to that effect.

Like rack focus, the images instantly became identifiable. I now knew what I was looking at, or was beginning to get the idea.

As we talked on the phone (though there was little actual talking, I think), the first tower fell. We didn't know it right away. The shot was more of a distant shot at that point, and all we knew was that a giant cloud of some kind was quickly covering all of lower Manhatten. I think I said "what the hell is that?" to which MM rightly replied "I don't know." I think I speculated (with a bit of panic in my voice) that it was some kind of gas or chemical attack that had just been released. moments later, the announcers explained that the first tower had collapsed.

At some point around then, MM and I hung up, and I watched the next few minutes alone. I sent an email to my dad and stepmom, who were out of the country, explaining more or less calmy what was happening. Little did I know or understand that by that point, the whole world was watching.

I then went back to the TV and watched as the second tower fell. I distinctly remember the announcers telling us that this was tape replay of the first collapse, until someone told them over their earpieces that this wasn't tape, it was live, and they corrected themselves in trembling voices.

At that point, I sent off a second email to my folks, much less calm, telling them that the Twin Towers no longer existed.

At some point, I went to work for a few hours, and was sent home. Eventually, I made my way over to the MiracleBorns and spent the rest of the day there.

I suppose I could say the memories are still vivid, but only some of them still are. The shock points, I think. The rest is quite the blur, now.

I didn't think to get online until well after noon... I was pretty much glued to the TV and trying to get through to my Mom whom it belatedly occurred to me was going to worry about me being in downtown Boston at work -- and of course the landlines were by then really screwed up. In fact, it was damn hard to get a call into the MidAtlantic states at all, because IIRC some communication hub in NYC was down by then. I finally got a hold of her at my Aunt's down the beach near Seaside Heights. They could see smoke from Manhattan on the horizon there... and it was at least 60 miles away.

The most vivid thing to me was how beautiful a day it was in Boston (not unlike today, in fact, but it was warmer), and in the early shots from New York (later, of course everything was covered in billowing clouds of debris). We got sent home before 11 am, and I remember walking to North Station in a daze with lot of other people walking around in a daze.

I don't think I was here, yet. I spent the day at Polgara's, because I didn't want to be alone in case of rioting. Weird, right?

Weird, right?

No.

So I was there for whatever else they were playing (googling tells me it was Beethoven's 9th), but hearing that piece is seared in my brain. So very moving. And I do remember thinking that it would not be easy to perform, so kudos.

It was written to be performed with the Beethoven 9th, so we are also doing that. (The fact that the chorus is sick sick sick of the Beethoven 9th is an aside.)

The most vivid thing to me was how beautiful a day it was in Boston

Part of the lyrics in the Adams piece are "It was a beautiful day."

I spent the day at Polgara's, because I didn't want to be alone in case of rioting. Weird, right?

No, it makes perfect sense, in my mind, to find a reason, any reason, to be not-alone in times like this.

[Edited to remove a not-so-relevant memory.]