Aleria's Adventures

20 years have passed but it seems like yesterday. I was working from home in NJ and I saw a message flash across the screen that there was a plane crash in NY. So I turned on the TV. The plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I thought OMG what a terrible thing - I knew people who worked there. I had been there myself just the week before for a lunch meeting. Then the second plane hit. I called Alex at work and told him to come home -- that we were under attack and had to prepare to escape. I was convinced this was just the beginning. You could see the smoke on the NY skyline from just about everywhere in NJ. I started packing our backpacks and camping gear and devised a plan to walk out of NJ to our boat in Rye and sail off across the ocean. Then the towers collapsed. Soon everything stopped. No planes in the sky, no trains, trucks, buses or cars. Silence. I'd never heard true silence before. People walked across the GW bridge, like zombies covered in white dust. That

Alex working away, with Onyx the Edider keeping a close watch.  Before the novel hits the virtual shelves... We had been working hard for more than a year to get Alex's new novel completed. He started it last September when his mother broke her leg and we moved into her house to care for her, the house, and the farm. One day, Alex started writing. He wrote much and more, and then some more again. He was crazed, like a madman compelled to get every last word out of him. It was fascinating to watch. He didn't know where it came from or where it was heading, only that it had to come out. Alex was doing research online for historical tidbits to weave in. He was delving into our personal experiences with and around 9/11, as we had been living nearby and had many friends affected by the tragedy. He was conjuring up characters that cobbled together bits and pieces of people he'd known in his life.  It was all a fascinating adventure.