It is exactly one year this week-end that we went to New York City for a week long vacation. I miss New York. I think I have missed it all year.

We were very lucky to get a great Hotel location right in the 'middle' of the city. We were right around the corner from the David Letterman Show(Ed Sullivan Theater), which is at the beginning of Broadway and about a mile from Times Square.

Across the street (I think we were on 54th Street) was a small corner Grocer . They had about as many of those 'corner Gorcers' in the city as we have Starbucks on almost every corner here in L.A. For me these corner markets were more valuable than any Starbuck's or even any 5 Star Restaurant in the neighborhood.

I love to eat. So every morning I would run across the street and pick up some great eats from their incredible 'food bar' which was up 24 hours a day. There was a zillion food items to pick from. Fruits, vegetables, salads, cold and hot meats, Chinese Food, Mexican, and anything else you could think of. There was also a deli counter.........and every morning I would order 2 fried eggs to go with whatever I picked up at the Food Bar.

I hope you don't think I am a pig or anything. But the Hotel we stayed at offered a European Continental breakfast , with bagels and cream cheese and coffee, tea and juice. I just didn't think it was enough for me to last my New York adventure touring til Luchtime, when I would do it all over again.

We squeezed an awful lot of New York stuff into those eight days. One of the most impressive and memorable things we did was to go to Ground Zero. It had been just over a year after 9/11 and the site was incredible. It was sort of a practice in meditation. There was really nothing else to do but to stare at that huge empty space where two giant towers had once stood. I remember once looking at the list of names of people who died there that day. All those names were people.......and it just kind of hit me suddenly, the cold reality, right there at that spot.

There were large pieces of construction equipment and most of the debris had been cleared out. Someone had taken a couple of iron girders and fashioned them into a cross that stood at the west side of that huge chasm. I am not sure now if it was found that way or if it had been put together. All along the sides were posted the 'Story of the Twin Towers' . Tourists stopped by to read, or to take a picture of the Cross, or to gaze from different angles at the space that once was a powerful, important international business center.

We were across the street for a while, at the Winter Garden which had just reopened a few days before. It had been totally destroyed in the fiery maelstrom. We stopped there with our friends from Brooklyn for some tea and pastries.

There was a long walk back to the subway, as most of the subway stations near by had either been destroyed or were closed for construction. On our walking path toward the next open subway station, was a church a couple of blocks from Ground Zero. All around the entire square area where the church stood, were hundreds of letters, written on t-shirts, hats, messages, all affixed to the fence or walls around the church. Some were dedications to the New York Fire Dept., some were memorials and photos placed by family members or friends of loved ones who had died at Ground Zero.

Luigi and I stopped in a cafe close by where our Hotel was after we got off the subway. Luigi ordered a coffee and pastry and I had a tea. We sort of sat there, staring out the window at the moon, at the New York Neon Lights and all the life and action outside in the city streets. Life was going on as usual.

This past September 11th was a very busy day for me.....thinking of my cousin's surprise party the next day and my Mother's Birthday on Sunday and all the other preparations and junk I had to attend to. I almost forgot what day it was.

It has taken this entry to make me reflect once again the events of September 11, 2001. I suppose it doesn't make a difference that I am a few days late. I am just glad that many of us can take some time out once in a while to remember what happened. It reminds me that, the everyday innocence and security I took for granted my entire life has been changed forever.