Bendy-Friendies V.4 ... Drinks-A-Plenty with a Side Order of Tasty Food!!!

[oybolshoi]

another blog update for the bored and hungry who may be here ..

Sage

 

[oybolshoi]

another Vegas update ... Le Atelier Joel Robuchon. YUM!

Le Atelier

 

[Tink rules]

come on people... almost a MONTH since we've posted here...

What???? Is everyone on vacation???

 

[PNO4TE]

come on people... almost a MONTH since we've posted here...

What???? Is everyone on vacation???

Not yet... we are all too busy dealing with Mother Nature, you know?

 

[Dis_Yoda]

come on people... almost a MONTH since we've posted here...

What???? Is everyone on vacation???

Facebook and work

Although going to the south shore in mass for the weekend where I get to see the real cranberry bogs

 

[cbg1027]

I think this thread has migrated to our Food and Wine group on facebook!

 

[Tink rules]

& I'm STILL #3!!!

 

[Tink rules]

Can I sort of talk about something for a minute?

I'm dreading next weekend...

Not sure what to call it... but I think I'm going through a bit of 9/11 fatigue...

It's gonna be on TV 24/7 and it's not that I don't have feelings about the day.. I think I have too many.

Alison might be able to understand being close to NYC as I was...And perhaps Catherine knows from being in Washington... It was a different experience for those who lived nearby.

I was living in Jersey when 9/11 happened. Northern NJ... right outside of NYC... You could see the skyline when you drove over the hill on Rt 17... & I grew up being able to see the Empire State Building from my street... (not sure how that happened... with all the trees in the way.. but you could...)

there wasn't a person in my area who wasn't affected by 9/11.

We either lost someone, had someone involved in the clean up or in the investigation. I had all of those.

I still can't get the eerie feeling out of my head of the fighter jets screaming over my house that night. It was frightening.

One of the worse things I saw in my own town was all of the cars at the train station. They belonged to people who were never coming back.

Day after day of funerals... all the firemen/policemen that were lost.

I had been in those buildings MANY times. I had friends who worked there. Most of them got out.. but some didn't.

I went down to Ground Zero after the cleanup was done, and my eyes still burned from all of the "dust" there... but you knew that they were still finding body parts in the area.

I guess I'm afraid of going through it all again. & I'm worried that the commemoration will end up being a commercial showy spectacle as opposed to the very solemn event it should be.

I think some people are going to think me callous. I don't want to attend any memorials or do moments of silence. I want to remember it the way I experienced it. And I want to remember what it was like to go through it. & I want to remember those we lost.


Anyway... thanks for listening... I'm not going to post this anywhere else. But I thought that maybe you would all understand.

 

[cbg1027]

I don't think that's an odd or inappropriate feeling to have at all.

My boyfriend Kevin said almost the exact same thing as you just did.

I don't want to see anything on TV or go to memorials and I personally think that's fine. I almost didn't attend my own mother's 'celebration of life' (our version of a funeral) because I just didn't think I could handle it.

Recently, the local Ovarian Cancer support group held a memorial service for her where they bought a park bench in her name, but I didn't go. I have to deal with the loss and the aftermath of her death everyday, so I didn't want to go to an event that highlights the fact even more. So it seems that's how you're feeling about 9/11 and I think that's perfectly acceptable. There is no one way to grieve, so you should do what helps YOU handle it.

 

[whogirl'smom]

Michelle, you have every right to feel the way you do. I can't imagine being affected on every level like you and so many others were...all I saw and all I knew was what was on TV. You have a right to grieve and remember the way that is best for you--it is not callous in any way to not want to attend memorials...you know you won't forget the survivors and those lost...nor cease respecting them just because you don't respond like some are. Take care of yourself, wish you could just come down here next weekend!

I send you many hugs, my friend, and wish I could say something more comforting.

 

[PNO4TE]

Michelle - I don't think you are callous at all. And Abby, you explained it very well. Each of us has to deal with these things in our own way. We live in Northern Virginia. My boss' daughter-in-law had a sister who died at the Pentagon. I have friends who work there and luckily came home that day, most uninjured physically. I was teaching a morning class that day and every single Mom and child who were enrolled in that class had to leave when the news came on because their husbands/fathers either worked at the Pentagon or were emergency support staff who would be responding to something we still could not understand or fathom. Another Disney friend's DH was on the bridge as the plane flew over and into the building. He was on the phone with her for hours as he sat, watching things unfold. I have a burly, jolly father of students who sat in class one Saturday morning and just started to cry because the overwhelming responsibility his "top secret government job" had finally just been more than he could take.

I remember the silence of the skies, mostly. And then I remember flying on September 26, and undergoing a pat-down and wondering how much longer this was going to go on.

It doesn't seem like 10 years, does it? It seems like last year. Or 50 years ago. It is a horrible mark on our history; it is something we will have to deal with for generations to come.

I won't be watching it. I won't be celebrating anything. I will be thinking of everything we lost that day.

 

[TigerKat]

Michelle, everyone has so eloquently said everything I want to say to you. Disasters can't be compared but you know what I went through with Katrina's anniversary last week so I can understand how you are feeling. How you remember the day that changed all of our lives can only be decided by you and what your heart tells you is the right way for you to do it. I wish I were closer and could be with you.

 

[RachelTori]

I totally understand your feelings Michelle. I still get a strange feeling when I remember that day, and those weeks after.

As a kid, I watched those towers being built -- we lived in Bergen County and had a cabin cruiser docked in Englewood Cliffs; spent a lot of weekends circling Manhattan in that boat.

I can still vividly remember the horror I felt as I watched things unfold live on TV from my home in Georgia. The weeks after were awful, living with the uncertainty if there were more attacks to come. I had 3 kids all in different schools and I think I probably took 10 years off my life worrying how I would get us all together in the event of another attack.

Oh, and as Elin said, the silence of the skies -- that was eerie.

In January 2005 I took my middle child, then 18, to Ground Zero. We both wept.

I think many of us will keep the TV off and just have a quiet reflection of that time in our history.

 

[Tink rules]

thanks everyone...

It's true... we all deal with things our own way... I just think sometimes the news coverage gets to be too much. I was hoping that by now we could be remembering it like we do other days like this (ie pearl harbor, etc...) but it's too soon, I guess and then there's other who would like to keep it alive long after...(and unfortunately make money off of it (that just hits me like nails on a chalk board... ) (and that goes MOST for Rudy Guiliani... that man made MILLIONS off of 9/11..... )

Rachel...where did you grow up in Bergen? I grew up in Park Ridge and then moved to Mahwah... I was in Mahwah when 9/11 happened.

 

[*KeepMovingForward*]

I haven't posted on the friendies thread in a dogs age, but Michelle your post really hit me and I have to tell you that I feel much the same way. Its very hard to watch anything to do with 9/11 for me. Its just all to overwhelming.

Me and Fred were actually on the NJ Turnpike on our way to a meeting in Jersey City when the first tower was hit and we got to see it happen in real time. Watching it on tv is one thing, but seeing it happen right in front of your eyes... there really are no words. Soon after the second tower was hit the news started hitting the radio. We pulled over and we just sat on the side of the road stunned. Then we watched as the second tower was hit.

Panic struck when we heard the Pentagon was hit. My dad works at the Pentagon. At that point I wanted to throw up. You have to understand that with my dad and his job, terrorism was never from from my mind-even as a kid. During the 70's when it was really common for planes to be hijacked, my dad spent 50% or more of each month traveling overseas. My father made no bones about telling me and my mom that if his plane was ever hijacked and they found out who he was that he'd be the first one they killed. When 9/11 happened, it was a total game changer. Never occurred to us that he could be killed just by going to work here at home. It took hours, but we finally got in contact with my dad very late in the afternoon on 9/11. I am thankful every day that he is still with us. I don't however, like what 9/11 has turned into with the media. I commemorate and relive that day every day of my life.

I later learned that a girl I used to work with at my old company died in the terrorist attacks on the WTC. While we were no longer close, it still hits home. She was a good person. She left behind two children and a husband. It was such a waste. I make a point of not watching the tv news on 9/11. I try to avoid all the sensationalism on the net. I have never visited ground zero and probably never will. I've come within a few blocks, but can't bring myself to go there. Just last month my dad celebrated 50 years of government service (and no sign of stopping anytime soon). Terrorism and 9/11 are still a very big consideration in our everyday lives.

I'm sorry if I turned this into my own rant. I just wanted to say Michelle that your not alone in your thoughts. This tragedy has touched many of us in a deeply personal and different way. Your not callous at all. I think that right now the wound is still very fresh. Maybe with time we all will be able to view it a bit differently, maybe not.

Alison

 

[PNO4TE]

Alison - How awful that days to have been for you. I was waiting on friends. You were waiting for your Dad.

 

[Tink rules]

Thanks Alison...

Somehow I though you might understand what I was going through. It's SOO different if you experience it so close to home.

My brother and my SIL are both FBI... Tim was on his way into the city that day for a court date. He made it as far as Hoboken and the Path train. That day he called me and told me to stay home because I was the only one he could get in touch with (the phones were really bad) and he didn't know when he would be home again, he had been called in to help set up the offsite emergency headquarters because the FBI building was down the block from the World Trade Center.

My cousin was on the 102nd floor at midnight the night before working on a proposal. The only reason why he wasn't at his desk that morning was because he was chosen as the one to give it to the client uptown that morning.. everyone he worked with died.

My friend's son was a first responder (paramedic) and was there and dove into his ambulance when tower 7 came crashing down. He said it turned to night and they thought they would be trapped.

Another friend's husband worked for the Port Authority and was part of the crew that painted and maintained the huge antenna on top of the one tower. Luckily that day he was on the George Washington Bridge working, (and saw the planes fly right over them...) But to see the antenna fall over and over... They were also first responders and spent months down there working on the "pile"

I couldn't understand why people who didn't have to, just went on with the day like it was no other. I had just started a part time job at the library in town and when I called them to tell them I was staying home because my brother asked me to... they got mad (and I got written up for it...)

Anyway... for all the millions of people who went through it.. there are a million stories...

 

[Tink rules]

Alison - How awful that days to have been for you. I was waiting on friends. You were waiting for your Dad.

 

[RachelTori]

Rachel...where did you grow up in Bergen? I grew up in Park Ridge and then moved to Mahwah... I was in Mahwah when 9/11 happened.

Small World!! Started in Bergenfield but moved to Woodcliff Lake for high school (Pascack Hills)! Used to hang out in Park Ridge "back in the day"!!!

 

[whogirl'smom]

I couldn't understand why people who didn't have to, just went on with the day like it was no other. I had just started a part time job at the library in town and when I called them to tell them I was staying home because my brother asked me to... they got mad (and I got written up for it...)

QUOTE]

I remember feeling this way...just so scared after the Pentagon was hit that it would get worse, not knowing what was actually going on. I remember sitting there rocking Olivia (5 months then) and calling my friends at work--my best friend was leaving her kids at school, going to ball practice that evening...I just wanted my family all in one house. I called Jim and he came home from work to be with us (probation then, I think they had cancelled all court the rest of the day.)

Hugs to all of you that lived so close then. It's good to see you, Alison.