First, news from the new homefront-things continue to go well with us.

We are having a wonderful time adjusting to living with someone else after so many years as singles-it is somewhat amazing to me the things that don't bother me, lol! The towels on the floor, the uncapped toothpaste, the incredibly messy kitchen after he cooks, and of course his personal laundry strewn from front to back doors.

All the things men do that used to drive newly wedded women insane-the tools in the living room, the hunt for the house keys...WHO THE HELL CARES, AND WHY IN THE HELL WAS ALL THAT SUCH A BIG DEAL IN THE LAST MARRIAGE?! (Well, it just was-I sure do not want the ex back, shudder the thought, I'll happily pick-up after Slow_Dazzle:)

I keep saying this in private email to a friend back in the States-I am incredibly happy at last. So naturally I have some things to think about, especially this morning.

The UK is five hours ahead of the US time zone I once called home (North-West Georgia), but it is the same morning there as I am typing this blog entry-it is the morning of the ninth anniversary of 9/11. Oh God.

I woke up that morning feeling surrounded by a palpable hatred of the US, seriously felt as though an entity was standing at the foot of my bed pouring out hate towards me personally but as I pondered the peculiar feeling I realised the hatred was really directed toward the US. I got out of bed, pulled on a dressing gown and went downstairs to start water for chocolate (never have learned the tea or coffee habit, I've always started my day with a cup of hot chocolate).

That hideous morning I never made it to the kitchen.

I came down the stairs into the living room and turned on the tv; as I walked toward the little galley kitchen I turned to look at the screen and saw the first tower falling, a huge red LIVE blazoned across the CNN feed. I fell to my knees knowing TSHadJustHTF.

I tried reaching my son, then working as a clerk at the local BooksAMillion, the phones didn't answer. I tried reaching several people that awful morning, but one person I didn't think to call was my cousin John, by then already dead along with his co-passengers on Flt 11...

The phone did ring-but it had rung while I was still upstairs and the phone switched off, and my friend Joey's last message went to voice mail.

The man with pancreatic cancer, whom I'd gallows humour joked to that he would be hit by a bus before he died of the cancer. He was in the South Tower (he'd told me the day before he had an appointment the next morning with his lawyer to finish the last details on his will), making his way down the stairs with his lawyer, calling to ask me to make sure that his will was carried out.

"Something's happened here, a couple of planes have hit the complex. I'm going down the stairs but it doesn't look too good, the smell of gas is really strong...Make sure the off-campus back-up went through, OK, make sure those scholarships happen."

They never made it out. The off-campus back-up did go through, though, and there are several young men and women who've had a chance at an education thanks to Joey. An orphan, a businessman, he tried to leave his small fortune to do some good, providing an education to other orphans seemed a really good idea to Joey.

Oh God, how I miss him! I think he would have liked Slow_Dazzle.

Times like these, I feel as though I bailed on the US. I swore to defend and protect the Constitution, and I've gone four thousand miles from that promise.