email639.xml

email639.xml

born-digital

email

unknown

yes

2002-08-30

my real family not my birth family all checked in with messages of
love and concern. My two sister-in-laws, their new mates, and their
kids, my native american friends, and Mike and Roger, and my AA
buddies, the son of my Buffalo friend who I have know growing up from a
fourteen year old. So I am rich in love even when I have a kneejerk
reaction wishing it was the birth family. And among my local people, there
will be people who need us to be wih them as they get the bad news.

I am ok but I wake up very early and I can't sleep again because my mind
start running.

A son of my Indian friend Ronnie, was on a construction job nearby.
They are ironworkers. He told her he and the workers volunteered to
help the rescue the day of the fire. The first day they were asked to
evacuate, but now the
ironworkers are part of the teams helping to clear the debris to try to
find people.

The hospital is still in readiness, still without customers.

Atlantic Avenue is still cordoned off for emergency traffic, but it is
empty of traffic except city buses, not even parked cars. People are
dropping off gifts of food to the cops that man the intersection. The
cop presence is enormous. Never saw so many cops or cop vehicles in my
life. They must have emptied the precincts of every one. Those who
might be in plainclothes are in some sort of uniform, and where they ran
out of cars, they are out on bicycles.

I think Atlatntic Avenue may be cordoned off because it is an Arab
shopping street. Besides being a very upscale Yuppie neighborhood, this
is also the Arab neighborhood of Brooklyn, There were cops outside the
synagogues yesterday.

My real estate friend, went to check on a building of his behind a
department store, and he was told by a cop that they have been told
there may be random car bombings. That's all we need to drive the
frenzy. We can't start doing racial profiling and isolate any Arab from
the streets, or run because an arab has parked a car at a meter.
Arabs are a lot of the store owners and workers around here, newsstands,
grocery stores, food take out places.

People are still milling, out on the streets, eating with friends
instead of going home, but it closes early, probably out of emotional
exhaustion. At least that's how I came home and conked out.

A lot of the normality is starting today, schools, libraries, museums,
etc reopening.

I went last night to a synagogue service on my block. I sort of new
instinctively they would likely be doing a special service. During the
prayer for the sick which is traditional, people called out the names of
people they were worried about, and everyone which is unusual said the
mourner's prayer. we read out loud responsively prayers for just peace,
and for the country, these are standard prayers out of the prayer book
but they had stronger meaning. The service ended with singing first the
star spangled banner, then america the beautiful (all three verses)
which are both in the prayer book and then the israeli natl anthem. I
was glad the cops in front of the synagogue, who were not likely to be
jewish heard a loud singing of america's anthems.

Yesterday's news said Guiliani ordered 6000 body bags, this morning they
say the order is up to 11,000,

But the news gets it wrong a lot. Last night we heard another three
buildings had collapsed, this morning I read they are compromised but
not down.

So the surrealness is a city doing more or less normal life, and then
the entire bottom of Manhattan, about a three mile stretch, totally
closed off. My friends Mike and Roger live more orless on the boundary,
they said no stores were open, they took a subway to the village to eat
and buy groceries.

My bank, and headquarters, are in buildings on wall street, and a block
from the WTC, I cant get thru to find out my checking acct status. the
ATM machine in a brooklyn branch is out of service. I did get cash the
day of the planes, but I want to make a deposit to cover some checks
which may or not get processed. I have a $3000 no bounce credit line on
the account so it is not drop dead necessary, but I may try to get
uptown and make a deposit at an uptown branch. But I'll call first to
see if the system is working anywheres.

You will hear this on the TV but families are going to the crisis center
to try to locate families. and the radio station interviews the
individuals a lot of "hoping for the best, fearing the worst"

the fire dept has a good handle on who they have missing and its 300+

I am going to go out and get the papers, because they are sold out
quickly.

tuesday was Nathan's birthday, the day of the attack. I have some of
the newspapers for Karen and Dennis to put aside for him for when he is
older. They are both news people by profession.

Love, Suzi

September 13, 2001

Thursday morning