Yesterday morning I had breakfast with a friend I haven't seen since September 2001. We met in Duesseldorf, Germany - both expats from the US. She was there on a writing assignment for her Seattle paper but working with the WSJ at the same place where I was teaching English classes.... Die Handelsblatt - Germany's financial paper.
We met on a train - I could tell she was American because she was fumbling with her make up, applying it on the train and tubes of mascara and eyeliner falling all over the seat next to her. She stood up hurriedly and tried to open the door. It wasn't the stop exactly but just a pause before crossing a road. I spoke to her in English and we walked together towards the same destination.
She and I became friends for the remaining months before I left. We both watched the twin towers collapse on CNN International while in the WSJ Handelsblatt office. We watched her colleagues point at the TV at streets and buildings nearby the WTC and freak out at the devastation. We went out into the streets that night and found a local bar for her to interview the man on the street about the terrorist attacks.
I went home and met my other friend from Canada who was just flying in from Greece - barely able to make her layover flight out of Switzerland before the airports were shut down.
Yesterday I met with my friend in NYC, and we talked life since 9/11.
Pigeons are super weird. They sit on the wire wobbling back and forth as the wind moves the wire and then one gets freaked out so they all take off and fly a big loop out and around just to come back to the wire for a while. I sat in my car under the wires, out of the way of the bombs dropping, and ate lunch. These ladies/gents would take off every once in a while hysterically and then circle back around. Skittish creatures, pigeons.
Up early on this day I will call Gray Saturday, the Saturday after Black Friday. Ever wonder why it's called Black Friday? And why there's such an obsession with shopping in America? I can criticise it all I want, but I am also part of the group who puts shit out there to sell. Designing for the retail market is my job... such a hypocrite! ;)
Oh well... so I was up this Gray Saturday taking pics from my window of the sunrise. Lovely sun and screen textures in this pic.
Enjoy!
The view from the garden. Statue of Liberty in the upper left corner on the horizon line - the little blur.... NYC is over to the left, but it's not visible in this shot.
This is the view I wake up to.
