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Well, it's been quite a week.
Apr. 20th, 2013 01:51 pmIt's almost funny how my LJ feed is not all about the Boston Marathon bombings. My friends here are more geographically dispersed than my FB friends, and FB seems to be used more for up-to-the-minute news and announcements.
For me, the stuff you may have read on national news was local. On Monday everyone's work was disrupted when two explosions occurred in the stands at the Boston Marathon, about two miles from my office -- and citizens ran TOWARD the carnage to help. Some of them saved lives. Some people who had just run the marathon went two miles further to donate blood; Boston's amazing medical system snapped to attention, and not a single victim died who was not immediately killed by the blasts. I walked one of my direct reports home -- there were various scares related to the subway system, she didn't want to walk alone and I couldn't say no.
Late on Thursday night I was leaving an acro jam at MIT, about two blocks and five minutes from where shooting started at MIT's Stata Center and an MIT police officer was killed by one of the suspected bombers. The next morning I woke up to a Google security call telling me the office was closed, then a friend's call telling me about gunfights, carjackings, robberies and a manhunt. I worked from home half-heartedly as many of my friends were asked to shelter in place; short ventures outside in Somerville showed a half-shut-down Davis Square, while some of my co-workers had SWAT teams working their streets. Everyone did the right thing, staying out of the way of the cops, and the police force in turn didn't shoot at everything that moved. With both the gym and the circus school shut down, I went to yoga, and cringed a bit when told to stand "half a leg's distance from the wall" -- hoping nobody else was thinking what I was thinking, afraid that everyone was. As I walked home I read that shots had broken out again in Watertown; ninety minutes after that they found and took into custody the second bomber.
I didn't mention the explosion in Texas or the earthquake in China. All in all, it's been quite a week and local news has been enough for me. I'm two degrees removed from someone who was injured in the blasts, and also two degrees removed from one of the bombers(!). My style is to get back up, keep calm and carry on. Still, I'm shaken -- and proud to live in this city, which reacted beautifully to a nasty gut punch.
The next step is to find a reputable way to donate financially to the victims of the bomb blast (the amputees especially; prosthetic limbs are expensive). I went out this morning; Davis Square is bustling and the gym was overly crowded, and I was so happy to be standing in line at Starbucks listening to everyone's overly picky orders. Back to normal. Can I get just one more shot of vanilla in this? Yes, yes you can.
For me, the stuff you may have read on national news was local. On Monday everyone's work was disrupted when two explosions occurred in the stands at the Boston Marathon, about two miles from my office -- and citizens ran TOWARD the carnage to help. Some of them saved lives. Some people who had just run the marathon went two miles further to donate blood; Boston's amazing medical system snapped to attention, and not a single victim died who was not immediately killed by the blasts. I walked one of my direct reports home -- there were various scares related to the subway system, she didn't want to walk alone and I couldn't say no.
Late on Thursday night I was leaving an acro jam at MIT, about two blocks and five minutes from where shooting started at MIT's Stata Center and an MIT police officer was killed by one of the suspected bombers. The next morning I woke up to a Google security call telling me the office was closed, then a friend's call telling me about gunfights, carjackings, robberies and a manhunt. I worked from home half-heartedly as many of my friends were asked to shelter in place; short ventures outside in Somerville showed a half-shut-down Davis Square, while some of my co-workers had SWAT teams working their streets. Everyone did the right thing, staying out of the way of the cops, and the police force in turn didn't shoot at everything that moved. With both the gym and the circus school shut down, I went to yoga, and cringed a bit when told to stand "half a leg's distance from the wall" -- hoping nobody else was thinking what I was thinking, afraid that everyone was. As I walked home I read that shots had broken out again in Watertown; ninety minutes after that they found and took into custody the second bomber.
I didn't mention the explosion in Texas or the earthquake in China. All in all, it's been quite a week and local news has been enough for me. I'm two degrees removed from someone who was injured in the blasts, and also two degrees removed from one of the bombers(!). My style is to get back up, keep calm and carry on. Still, I'm shaken -- and proud to live in this city, which reacted beautifully to a nasty gut punch.
The next step is to find a reputable way to donate financially to the victims of the bomb blast (the amputees especially; prosthetic limbs are expensive). I went out this morning; Davis Square is bustling and the gym was overly crowded, and I was so happy to be standing in line at Starbucks listening to everyone's overly picky orders. Back to normal. Can I get just one more shot of vanilla in this? Yes, yes you can.
