Clear Blue Friday

The busiest shopping day of the year and we managed to avoid it all thanks to lack of interest and a subway that can run underneath all the mayhem. Brian and I took the subway to Brooklyn and got coffees in DUMBO which is something like "Down Under Brooklyn" -sort of a werehousey artist/loft conversion area with a Starbucks OF COURSE. Whatever happened to "Brooklyn Coffee Company" of "DUMBO Java" or some cool one off place? No longer. Corporate America is here. As beautiful as it all can be, it is still Potterville in SO many ways.

But I digress.

We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and had our photo taken by a very nice Dutch couple over here doing what elese...Christmas shopping. Up through to the church where George Washington walked to after his inauguration. This is right by Ground Zero and many of the inured were taken to this church to be tended to. It was in George Washington's private pew where podiatrists administered to the firemen and workers whose feet were injured while working at Ground Zero. My dad would have LOVED that. I did for him. All these years later the photos in the church of the dead is still so heartbreaking.

We then went to Ground Zero which still packs an emotional wallop, but handily missuses the word "Hero" like every other place in this land of FREEDOM, PATRIOT, CHRISTIAN. OYYYYYYY, I say. (Lovely words, all, but they have been so abused of late as to have lost so much value/meaning.) There were certainly heroes on that day, but poor unfortunate people that were sitting in their cubes in their offices mostly had no chance to be anything else but victims of a terrorist attack, not heroes. And I guess I hate freedom by even saying this. Corporate Branded America is here.

But I digress.

Down through Wall Street and onto the Staten Island Ferry for a FREE boat ride to see the sights in the harbor.

An amazing Autumn day in New York under clear blue skies was had and I certainly appreciate the freedom to do what we did. Excellent.