amy's live journal

Sunday, September 16, 2001

Today is almost 6 days after the day that changed America and probably the world forever...Sept. 11, 2001...the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, where thousands lost their lives.
That Tuesday morning started off like any other...I got up and had showered and was getting dressed for work. The phone rang, yet I didn't think anything of it because Jody's friend was supposed to be calling to get directions to our house. He was going to give Jody a ride to work 'cuz one of our cars was being worked on. So Jody answered the phone, but it didn't sound like he was talking to his friend. It sounded more urgent. I heard Jody say, "Oh my God," and I started to wonder what was going on. I looked at him and kept repeating, "What? What?" but Jody just listened to the voice at the other end of the line with a blank look on his face. He then went downstairs and turned on the tv. I immediately followed after him, still thinking that something must have happened to a family member or something. And then I saw it...the World Trade Centers had just collapsed. I immediately began to cry uncontrollably...I thought it was the beginning of the end of the world. Being that we are on Mountain Time, it was around 8:30 a.m. here when the two towers came crashing to the ground. The world as we knew it had just been alterred forever.
I was later to find out that the person on the phone was a coworker of mine asking if we had a little tv or radio to bring in so that we could hear the developments of the day while we were at our desks. I didn't even want to go to work. I was very scared. I finally calmed down a bit and went to wake up my sister. I felt that this was something she should definitely be awake for. She couldn't understand why I was crying at first, she thought I was making it up. Ugh, it was such an awful feeling to know that so many people's lives just ended or were drastically changed. :~(
I did make it into work...about 15 minutes late. The day was somewhat of a blur...being that I work for a newspaper, you can imagine how hectic things were. We were putting out a special extra edition in light of the events. Everyone was trying to find out as much information as fast as possible. It all felt so surreal. Surely this could not really be happening. But it was.
My dad called later that day just to check in with us. He was fine (and so was my mom), but sounded shook up a bit, as everyone seemed to be. We both got a little choked up when we said goodbye. There was so much uncertainty of what the next days and even hours would bring.
When I went home for lunch late that afternoon, I remembered a dream I had had about 2 weeks prior. I don't know how many of you will believe this (this is a time where I wish I still typed up my dreams in my dream journal, but I haven't done that for months), but here is what I had dreamt...
-- It was a day like no other, the wind began to pick up and soon the rain, thunder and lightning began. I was at my house (though it was slightly alterred) and Jody and my sister and mom were here as well, along with our 3 dogs. The storm grew worse and worse and we decided we had better take cover in our basement. It was a storm unlike any I had seen and it was rather scary. As we were in the basement, I could see out a groundlevel window. I looked out to see a large airplane crash into a very tall building off in the distance. I couldn't believe my eyes. Not long after the plane hit the building, large pieces of debris landed on top of our house, causing it to crash down, leaving only a few feet of crawlspace in the basement. Luckily (this is how the house was alterred), there was a back basement door that lead outside and I decided that we had better use it to escape before the entire house collapsed on top of us. My sister and I were just about to go outside, when I woke up terrified. I told Jody all about my dream the next day, so when I remembered it on the day of the terrorist attacks, I called him up immediately and reminded him. He was just saying, "Oh my gosh!" It is so bizarre that I had that dream only to have something so similar happen weeks later. Very weird. --

Anyway, I have to admit I am quite scared of what the future will bring. I don't think that war is the answer. Bin Laden's group (or whoever did this) has a reason. It's not because they are jealous of America. I believe it is because America thinks they can do whatever they want and they have been doing just that for years. We've allowed or contributed to the killing of innocent people in other countries. We think we are somehow superior. We are above the rest and therefore able to do whatever we want. Well, I wholeheartedly disagree with what the terrorists did, and feel terrible for everyone who lost a friend or family member in the attacks (my prayers are with them), but attacking Afghanistan is not the answer or a way to peace.

I received the following letter in an email forward. I think it makes a lot of sense and hopefully others will consider some of the things it says before they jump on the bandwagon of "let's go to war." I ask that you read it and keep an open mind. And pray for peace.

>==========================================================
Dear Friends,
The following was sent to me by my friend Tamim Ansary. Tamim is an Afghani-American writer. He is also one of the most
brilliant people I know in this life. When he writes, I read. When he talks, I listen. Here is his take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in.

-Gary T.

Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread:

I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO
Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with
this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?" Minutes
later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done." And I
thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've
lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I wany to tell anyone who
will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing.

I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people
were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters.

But the Taliban and Bin Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The
Taliban are a cult of ignorantpsychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal
with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you
think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the
Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They
would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of
international thugs holedup in their country.

Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved,
exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that here are
500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food.

There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The
soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the
reasonswhy the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban.

We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is, that's been done.
The Soviets took care of it already. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done.
Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done.
Eradicate their hospitals? Done.
Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care?
Too late. Someone already did all that.

New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not
likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip
away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't
even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the
criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban--by
raping once again the people they've been raping all this time.

So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only
way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do
what needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly o kill as many as needed. Having the
belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand.
What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting
their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any
troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest
of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're
flirting with a world war between Islam and the West.

And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read
his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might
seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize theworld into Islam and the West, he's got a billion
soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to
lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view.

He's probably wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for
years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does.
Anyone else?

Tamim Ansary

posted by Amy . 9/16/2001 11:33:07 PM

Sunday, August 26, 2001

Continuation of the journal of my trip...

Wed., Aug. 8...Went to breakfast in the hotel restaurant, 25 stories up, overlooking the falls. It was really kewl. Unfortuantely, the pics we took up there didn't turn out very well cuz the sun was shining right in the windows at our backs. So you can see the view in the pics, but we just look like two shadow people. Bummer.
After breakfast and checking out of the hotel, we walked down to the Maid of the Mist dock (a boat ride that takes you out into the mist of the falls). It was sooo hot that day, in the 90s, so going out on the boat to be sprayed with mist sounded like a great idea! :) They give u these blue plastic garbage bag rain ponchos, but Jody didn't even wear his. I put mine on, but left the hood off so that my head could feel the mist. :) It was fun.
After that, we walked around a bit to do a little touristy shopping. Then we went back to the hotel lot for the car, and drove back over to the U.S. The guard played a round of 20 questions with us, it seemed, before he was satisfied and let us back into the country. It's amazing how hard it is to get into the states, but when we went into Canada, the guard just waved us on without so much as glancing at us. Crazy! Anyway, we drove thru N.Y., and a little bit of Pennsylvania, before arriving in Ohio (which was our destination). We stopped for the night outside of Cleveland.

Thurs., Aug. 9...After sleeping in, we made our way over to Cedar Point and Soak City, in Sandusky, Ohio. Our plan was just to go to Soak City, the waterpark, but then we started talking about doing Cedar Point (the amusement park) as well. We decided to just go with the waterpark, as it was already about 1 p.m. and there was no way we'd have had time to do both. So we got to Soak City, and made our way to our first water slide. After standing in line for about 30 min., these ominous clouds rolled in, and shortly after, we were told to go back down the stairs...they were closing the slides. Everyone was ordered out of the water, as the rain started to fall. Then it started thundering and there were pretty strong winds as well. They urged everyone to go to a covered picnic area, while we waited for the storm to pass. It was actually a little scary. The rain was coming down really hard. Many people decided to call it a day and headed out to their cars to go home. Jody and I, however, we not about to give up after we had just paid to get into the park and hadn't even had a chance to go on ONE water slide yet. So we waited it out for about 60-90 min., when the skies cleared up and they let us all back into the park. It was great! So many ppl had left, we didn't have to wait for more than 10 min. for any of the slides. We had a really good time! We stayed til about 6, when we decided to head back to my parents' house. The drive went well and we got in around 10 p.m.

Friday, Aug. 10...Drove out to near Port Huron, MI, with my parents and sis, to visit my grandma. She's not in very good health, so everytime I see her, I have to wonder if it might be the last time I see her alive. Kind of morbid, but that's just the way it is. We spent some time visiting with her, before Jody, Carrie, and I went to go take a swim in Lake Huron. The water was a little cold, but the waves were awesome and we had a great time! :) After the swim, we went out to dinner with my folks at a little local restaurant/bar and had all you can eat fish. It was pretty good.
That night, Jody, Carrie and I hung out.

Saturday, Aug. 11...Went to my friend Jennifer's wedding. I had a really good time. All of my best friends were there and we had a great time dancing at the reception and just plain hanging out. :) Here are a cpl pics we took...(I might include others in a future feature if I ever get my crap together. hehe)

That night was a late one, packing up all of our stuff for the trip home. Ugh!

Sunday, Aug. 12...Caught an early flight, 9 a.m., back to Colorado. Had a connection in Chicago, but all went well.

It was a really nice, long vacation! :)
posted by Amy . 8/26/2001 05:09:07 PM

Sunday, August 19, 2001

I'll now attempt to provide you with a fairly complete account of my trip to Michigan (and elsewhere) Aug. 3 - 12.

Jody and I drove into Denver Thursday night, Aug. 2, to spend the night at a hotel. We would then catch a shuttle to the airport the next morning. That all went off without a hitch. We caught our first plane to Dallas, where we took a connecting flight up to Detroit. Both of the flights were smooth and on time! :)

We arrived in Detroit around 4:30, slightly ahead of schedule even, where we met Anthony, Jody's friend who had flown in from Oklahoma to go to our 2nd wedding reception with us. After picking up our luggage, we met my sis, Carrie, and my parents outside. We all drove into Detroit, where we went to "Greektown" for dinner. After dinner, my parents went home and left the 4 of us to cruise around Detroit on the People Mover. We gave Anthony a quick and easy tour of the city that way, as it was his first time to Detroit, and Jody had never really spent any time in Detroit either. We went down to the Detroit River, where a Hispanic Festival was taking place at Hart Plaza. After walking around for a bit, we headed back to the car and then back to my parents' house.

I have to admit, I was really tired that night. I just wanted to go to bed, but instead we all stayed up and watched "Charlie's Angels," the movie, which I brought along with us since Carrie hadn't seen it yet. I also spent some time assembling my photo album for display at our reception to be held the next night, Saturday, Aug. 4.

Next day: Sat., Aug. 4
Got up and finished up my album while chatting with my parents out on the back deck. My mom was putting together bouquets for the reception, which turned out really nice. Wish I would've had her do them the first time around...woulda saved major $$.
We decorated the hall that afternoon and then me, Mom, and Carrie went to get our hair done for the reception. I really liked the way mine turned out, and my Mom and Carrie's looked good too.
The reception went well, although the d.j. left little to be desired. My main complaint was that I gave him a play list and he still insisted on playing his own selection of songs until late in the evening when most people had left. Then he started playing my songs. Ugh! Anyway, besides that, the food was good, and I think a good time was had by all. I'll post some pics at some point in a feature.
My parents booked a hotel room for Jody and I that night at a really nice place. The bed was soooooo comfy! I've never stayed in a hotel that had such a comfy bed. :) We even got room service for breakfast the next morning. Yum! Too bad I had a bit of a hangover from too many fuzzy navels the night before. blah. Carrie and Anthony came to our hotel room cuz we were gonna all go swimming, but we decided instead to go to a lake (before Anthony had to be back to the airport to go home).
So Sun., Aug. 5, went to some lake (not even sure the name of it). But we had a good time swimming and hanging out. Then Carrie and Jody took Anthony to the airport while I went to a personal shower for my friend Jennifer (who was getting married the next weekend). That was a lot of fun. Got to hang out with my friends. :) Oooh, and we all got massages too. It was sooooo nice. I could use another one right now! :)

Let's see...Monday, Aug. 6, I went to lunch (sushi) with my friends, Tracy and Jen and Jen's friend Suzanne. We had some really good (but very expensive) sushi.
That evening we had dinner with my parents, grilled salmon. Mmmm :) And we played some badmitton, volleyball and lawndarts (jarts) with Carrie and my Dad. It was a lot of fun and some good exercise. :)

Tues., Aug. 7...Jody and I left around noon for our trip to Niagara Falls. After a few missed exits and turn arounds, we arrived in Niagara Falls, Canada, around 4:30 p.m. We set out to find ourselves a hotel. The first one we tried, Days Inn, had a smoking room for $170 (canadian $). The girl at the desk encouraged us to go look at it and see if it smelled too smokey (cuz smoking rooms were all that they had left). We were soooo glad to have checked it out cuz not only did it wreak of cig. smoke, the a/c didn't seem to work, and the view was of a fence. So we said thanks, but no thanks and drove on. After driving for a bit, I saw a Ramada (we are ClubRamada members becuz of our timeshare, so we usually get a discount), so we pulled in to check it out. The guy found us a room on the 29th floor with a view of the Canadian (horseshoe falls) and a partial view of the American falls for $170 (canadian also). So we took it. :) It was a great room with a huge window for us to see the falls with. Very nice! :) That evening we went walking down by the falls and then went for dinner at Rainforest Cafe. While the food was good, it was NOT worth the hour wait and then the food and drinks were hugely overpriced. We spent $80 there and it sure felt like we were getting ripped off. After dinner, we walked about a mile and a half back to the hotel.

(Account of the rest of the trip to be continued...) :)
posted by Amy . 8/19/2001 09:38:09 PM

Tuesday, August 07, 2001

just wanted to let y'all know that i'm having a really nice time on my vacation. our flights on aug. 3 went well and so did our 2nd wedding reception on aug. 4. :)

today we are driving over to niagara falls for a night or 2, then going to cleveland, ohio, to go to six flags amusement park and maybe the rock and roll hall of fame. we're gonna play it by ear.

so anyway, i'm having a great time and staying very busy! i'll try to write again when we get back from our lil trip. and then we'll be back in colorado on sunday, aug. 12. :)
posted by Amy . 8/7/2001 07:44:52 AM

Thursday, August 02, 2001

I will be out of town Aug. 3 thru Aug. 12. Jody and I are going to Michigan for our 2nd wedding reception (for all the MI friends and family who couldn't come to CO), a friend's wedding, and just for a vacation! :) We might go to Niagara Falls for a few days or at least up north in Michigan. It really doesn't matter to me...I'm just thrilled at the chance to get away for a little while. :)

We are leaving tonight to go to a hotel near the airport in Denver, where we can leave our car free of charge. Then we don't have to get up at the buttcrack of dawn tomorrow morning to make our flight, which is at 8:30 a.m. We have to go to Dallas first (weird) and then fly into Detroit at 4:30 p.m. Then we have all kinds of things to keep us busy once we get into Michigan. We're going out to dinner and for a night on the town Friday night after we get in. And then our reception is on Saturday! Then we'll probably take our lil vacation and spend some time with my family and then my friend's wedding is the next Saturday. We fly home on the 12th.

So, I'll try to get online to post an entry or a msg on the msg board while we're there, as i will have my laptop. :) Maybe I can even get on cam briefly, but who knows.

So, if ya don't see me sooner...see me on the 12th! :)
posted by Amy . 8/2/2001 02:31:11 PM

Thursday, July 26, 2001

What a crazy day!
It started off with me coming down with a migraine, so I decided to try one of my new presription migraine pills, Zomig. An hour after taking it, the headache was gone! I was ecstatic! :) Finally something that seemed to work for getting rid of my migraines.
Then, about an hour later, I started feeling some tightness in my throat. Not a good thing. So I talked to a pharmacist on the phone and he said it sounded like a mild allergic reaction and to call the prescribing doctor. And if I felt it was getting worse, to take 2 Benadryl, which he said would pretty much put me to sleep. Not a good thing to do when you are at work. So I called the doc's office and talked to a nurse...she made an appt. for me at 2:15 p.m. It was about noon when I called. She said if it got worse to go right to the ER. Whee. So at that point I was starting to worry even more and I hoped it wouldn't get worse.
Thankfully, it didn't. It actually began to get better. And by the time I left for my doctor's appt., the tightness had pretty much subsided. Phew!! I still went ahead and saw the doctor (who is damn good looking by the way LOL) and he told me not to take Zomig again. Instead he gave me a sample of a nosespray and a 'script to go with it if it works for me. So now I wait until my next migraine to see if this spray will help me. It's really a shame that the Zomig gave me a bad reaction cuz it got rid of my headache lickety split. Ah well...

After all that excitement, the rest of the day has been calm. I made a nice dinner of spaghetti and sauteed zucchini and squash and brownies for dessert. Yum! Jody went to a program at the local university tonight to find out about going back to school to complete his bachelor's degree. It sounds like his boss is going to help him pay for school, so that would be a definite plus!

In other news, Jody and I are leaving for Michigan on Aug. 3. My parents are throwing a 2nd wedding reception for us on Aug. 4 for all the friends/family in MI who were unable to come to the wedding in Colorado. I'm really looking forward to it! :) My folks even booked us a room at a nice hotel following the reception, complete with room service for breakfast, so it will be like our wedding night all over again. ;o)
We'll be in MI (or around that area) until we fly home on Aug. 12. While we're there, we are also going to the wedding of one of my good friends from high school, Jennifer. That is on the saturday after our reception. So we'll be busy busy. Plus I'm going to a personal shower for her on Aug. 5. And then Jody and I hope to do a little traveling to Niagara Falls or something while we are on that side of the country. It will be soooooooo nice to have a vacation! :) Oh, I am not sure if I'll be online much while we are gone. I will probably bring the laptop so that my email doesn't get all backed up and maybe I'll post a quick journal entry or msg on the msg board. Not sure about being on cam though. We'll see. :)

Now I'll leave ya with a cpl pix from our wedding here in Colorado...
Here's me and Jody walking down the aisle as husband and wife

Here's me and my sis, Carrie, before the wedding. Carrie is going to be moving in with us towards the end of August. :)

posted by Amy . 7/26/2001 10:08:49 PM