on the most heartbreakingly beautiful fall day

That's what strikes me. It started out as a perfect late-summer, early-fall day. I was looking forward to a light day at the office because I'd just finished a major project on the Friday before. I mean, the big thing oin my agenda was faxing a letter on a personal matter.

Then the guy in the office across from me asked me if I'd heard about a plane flying into the WTC. By then, CNN's Web site wasn't letting anyone in, so I checked out the BBC. Which had the story, complete with pictures. And suddenly I'm passing word on to all the New Yorkers (as in, native or had lived there) around.

Around 9:30 or 9:45, someone else pointed out a smoke cloud in the distance. So a group of us gathered in a conference room not 50 feet from where my office then was to see what was going on. My thought was that the Pentagon was in that direction.

Then my phone rang. It was Hubs, asking if I'd heard. And that was when I started hearing the wild rumors on my radio. I told Hubs about them, and he started telling his office.

Then someone grabbed the phone from Hubs. Apparently, the lines to the outside from his office weren't working. (Near as I can figure, he reached me through the interoffice phone system -- at the time, we worked for different bureaus of the same Department.) And this strange voice is asking how I know what's happening.

Just at that moment, a voice came over the intercom saying that the government was shutting down for the day. (Some people had already left. A colleague would later tell me of hearing that a bomb had toppled the Washington Monument. Just as she was passing same.) People thought I was crazy to take Metro because -- what if they hit Metro? (My response -- what if they hit the bridges?) (It wasn't a morning for the sane.) The last thing I heard before shutting off the radio -- a plane was circling over the Capitol. (Just what I needed to hear, working about 5 blocks from that building.)

So I walked over to the next Metro station. Luckily, trains were still running ok. Hubs even caught the same train. But it ended up being a very, very crowded train. Yet everyone was in surprisingly good humor.

We got home about 11:30, 11:45. I started calling people while Hubs turned on the TV -- just in time to watch footage of the Towers falling.

We took our sandwiches to a nearby park for lunch. Where we ran into another colleague of mine, who (with her husband) had decided to bring her 2 preschool-age children there to play.

Later in the afternoon, we drove out Route 50 past Chantilly -- I don't remember why, probably to get out of the house and fill the gas tank. For those of you who don't know the area, planes landing at Dulles Airport fly over that stretch of highway. At any given time, you can usually see a couple of planes in the area. But not that day. Absolutely clear sky.

When we got back home, Hubs went back to the news reports. I couldn't deal any more, so I went to the computer, where I'd been lurking on several boards (including the Buffistas) for some time. And I started posting. And I haven't stopped since.

A friend, who was a newspaper reporter at the time, called me from 17th street downtown. As close to the White House as you can drive. She said that she'd heard a rumor that a plane was headed for the White House (United 93, it came to pass) and she wanted to watch.

I nearly screamed myself hoarse admonishing her to get the hell out of downtown. She kept saying 'this will make my career'. I suppose I get that kind of ambition,/momentary insanity, but I could never really look at her the same after that.

IIRC, Animal Planet was also showing a bunch of documentaries about cute fluffy animals not meeting gruesome ends.

The Buffistas had long since coalesced as an important community-in-my-life by that point, but I can certainly understand why that day was a watershed in community cohesion for a bunch of yous.

IIRC, Animal Planet was also showing a bunch of documentaries about cute fluffy animals not meeting gruesome ends.

Or, as the Onion brilliantly put it, Fuck everything, here's some zebra footage.

Do you already have plans for later? Any other parts of Europe you wanna visit?

Everywhere! Um. Dublin's gotten a lot more cheap flights to parts of Europe since I last was here, so I'm spoiled for choice and don't know where to go. I want to go to Greece, and Spain and Portugal. And back to Rome. But, I don't know. we'll see. I probably can't plan anything before October, anyway.

Five years ago, it was the second week of my senior year of high school, and I was sitting in homeroom staring blankly at the board wishing I was anywhere else. It was about six weeks before I really found online community fandom, at least four months before I was directed to our old WX hangout. We had just finished watching Channel One, the little news program that's sent out to lots of high schools in the country. It had turned off, and then suddenly it came back on, and it was the news; we saw the smoke coming from the first tower, and no one knew what was going on. And I watched, horrified and mouth gaping, for hours while the school board tried to decide what to do, when the second plane hit.

Mostly I remember the wall color of that room, a deep rust-coloured red, dark and forboding, and unpleasantly appropriate for the mood pervading the country.

And really, aren't there times when we all really need zebra footage?

I can't help having yet another grim chuckle:

I'm re-reading the 9/11/01 WX Natter thread, and, about 5:30 in the afternoon (Eastern time), Amy Parker posted that crude oil prices had "jumped"....

....to $31/barrel.

Heh. $31. The good ol' days.

It's become one of my most oft-used mantras, Fred. It just kind of says everything, you know?

Man, I'd forgotten how perfect that whole grid was. From the archives.

DH was out of town. In Reno - with a bunch of front line first responders form MTA, arlington, NYC ,etc. I was home, the day was sunny. I turned on the tv - and thought what I was seeing was old footage of the bombing of the Towers - ( when they guy drove the truck in). Didn't know why they were showing that. Then I realized what was happening and Called Matt. and made him turn on a TV. He has never been a big tv person. he spent the next 3 days drinking and crying with frantic police and fireman. I had you guys.

That Onion thing is awesome.

My illicit cable was shut off that weekend before, so I basically had no TV for weeks, which was just as well. Except for the fact that I missed the finale of Big Brother, but I think so did everyone else? I forget.