WHERE WE WERE THAT FATEFUL DAY....

We haven't been blogging for a long time, and with good reason(s). Right after Vietnam, work exploded like you wouldn't believe, we had guests after guests after guests, and then came Gwen, Andy and Lorc the Wade man, and then we went off to Bali, and then came back and had to deal with yet another visitor and attempting to work the same time. Breathe. Well, the end is in sight. Sorta. Got a journalist-friend from Vietnam still with us and we're expecting a lovely couple we know who are on a post-honeymoon honeymoon next week. Part of me is thrilled, because they are really great people and they showed us a great time in Saigon, but part of me is starting to get palpitations at the thought yet more entertaining. Good outweighs bad, though, really. Breathe. Either ways, the Gnat tagged us with their semi-serious 9-11 thingy about where we were, and I figured it was a good enough time as any to get the blog rolling and follow it up with pix of Vietnam (yes, I know, finally) and Bali. Okay, so 9-11. Actually Pete and I were together at the time. While we weren't a couple yet, I had solicited the help of the boys to do a piece for the paper. The topic (don't laugh): Finding out which Irish bar in Singapore did it best, from the craic and decor to pouring the perfect Guinness pint. The boys, of course, were ever willing to help, though I was soon to find out from the true blue Eire boy that all the Guinness in Singapore tastes absolutely nothing like the stuff back home... His choice of words was, clearly, stronger. Ah well. I think it was when we were on our way from Muddy's to Father Flanagan's in a cab when I got an sms from a friend saying a plane had clipped the World Trade Centre Tower. Someone else in the cab, I forget who, said it was probably a Cesna. The truth could not have been further. The Guinness tour ended then. As we got to Flan's, they were attempting to get connected to a channel with the story, but it was too grainy. By then, we got wind that it was a passenger plane. At that point, we decided to jump into a cab and get to Molly's. We got there to find dazed faces staring at the image of the WTC tower billowing with smoke. Some desperately tried reaching friends and family in New York. And then came the second plane. And the third. And then reports of a fourth. There was little conversation, few smiles. It may have happened far away, and most of our friends in the US were untouched by the tragedy, but that did not make it any less sad. Most of us spent the rest of the night glued to those images. Many others have spent the better part of the last five years forced to relive them, as they became the explanation and justification for more senseless killing to follow. Today, five years later, the images incite a whole smogasboard of other emotions, and opinions. This blog is not meant to be political, so I will stop here. In the name of continuity, I am tagging Ling, Lingam, and hmmm.... well, let's leave it at that for now. Where were you 9-11? Art.