Jim's quiet musings . . .

Chapter three of the Durian Fruit series.....

To digress a bit, I must say that I found the history of the Mooncake festival rather interesting, dating back to the Yuan dynasty in China. Wow. I love learning about stuff like that.

A short time after I had e-mailed Annie about my mooncake purchase, the terrible attack upon the twin towers in Manhattan occurred. I was working with my colleague Wanda and for reasons I cannot remember, we were working with a skeleton crew and only six clients when disaster struck. At first I was called into the upper classroom to view the news break on the TV. A plane had struck one of the towers and smoke was pouring out. I remember thinking that they shouldn't build buildings so tall as it seems as something like this was destined to happen eventually. Within minutes I learned of another plane hitting the buildings and the word was out that we were under attack.

The only word that comes to mind is, "Surreal." Things like this take time to wrap themselves around my brain and soak into my psyche. Wanda began crying as one of her son's was on a plane somewhere. I remember thinking, "Don't do this to me Wanda," due to my inability to deal with blatant displays of emotion. I remained calm as others appeared to react in different ways. I always end up taking charge in situations like this and I cancelled our group counseling session and directed the client's to continue to watch the TV as the events of that fateful day unfolded. I offered the use of office phones for client's to call loved ones, while remaining somewhat detached from the whole scene.

By the time evening was upon us, the events of the day had worn down upon me. It is hard to explain the feeling one gets when your safety is threatened. I walked through the door of my home, feeling some relief to be somewhere I call home and at a place where I seek comfort. In my bedroom I saw the red light blinking on my answering machine and pressed the button to receive my messages, figuring it was only the routine bill collector harassing me for payment.

Through the speaker came a female voice, distinctly foreign and vaguely Middle eastern sounding. This unnerved me at first, especially after the events of the day, as I couldn't understand the heavy accent the first time I listened to the message. Pressing the button again, I honed in on what this female voice was saying....

"Halo Jeeem! Theese es Ahhhne from Malaysia"

Actually, "Malaysia," sounded like, "Malaysher."

My body relaxed as I realized Anne Charmaine was calling me from Kuala Lumpur. Given the time difference, I don't think Annie was even aware of the events that had unfolded that day in the U.S. She was calling me to warn me of ordering Durian Fruit Mooncake! She offered to cancel my order from her office in the Petronas Towers as the web company selling the Mooncakes was only a stone's throw from where she worked. If I recall correctly, Anne laughed at the image of my co-workers sampling the rancid smelling cake! Ha! I then immediately got online and gave her the okay to cancel my order.

Annie offered to send me a sampling of Mooncake and save me some money as the company who sold the stuff required overseas orders to be a minimum of two cakes at something like $60.00 U.S. dollars. Annie is a sweetheart and a good friend. It took a while for the news of September 11th to reach around the world and the event even had an impact on Annie and where she worked.

So, my hankering for Durian Fruit was once again put on hold. More to follow about the stinky fruit.....

To be continued.....

-Jeeem-