Washington DC Fodorites...How are you coping?
 

You are in my thoughts and prayers!

One copes. Fighter jets flying overhead multiple times a day, particularly in the dark, early waking hours ... you wake to Remember Why. Two postal workers die from anthrax after working in the facility where YOUR mail is delivered from ... you wash your hands after opening your mail, though you swore you'd never worry about being a target for that kind of thing and you still think the odds are infinitesimal. You think twice about riding the Metro, but you go anyway. You do a double take at the Muslim lady cloaked in veils waiting in your lobby -- then you smile a silent greeting self-consciously when she eyes you back so she won't think your Awareness is Hostility. You make sure your 13-year old kid has a house key on him at all times, in case you all have to rush home and you can't get there before he does. You think about Situations to discuss with your kid and you abandon the idea--you're tired, you're in denial, it's overkill, who can say? You go to work, you cook dinner, you enjoy the beautiful leaves -- maybe a little more this year. You feel older. You wait for this to be Over. In spite of this, life feels relatively normal.

Strongly agree with Ginny. <BR> <BR>Hope the other "DC Regulars" will drop us a line here and let us know how they are doing. <BR> <BR>As I recall, a few actually worked in and around Cap Hill. <BR>Kal <BR>

The worst part is living with all that plane noise at night. In Northern Virginia in places that never received any plane noise after midnight, there is jet noise all night. Fighter planes protecting the White House. I am not nervous about terror attacks just tired from sleepless nights listing to jets flying by all night!

I hope Bethesda is close enough to DC to qualify. :-) <BR> <BR>I worry about friends who work on the Hill. It seems that we are always a few steps behind the bad guys, so you can't be sure what you're hearing from the authorities is correct. It certainly seems that the threat to postal employees wasn't identified nearly fast enough, which is really a shame. <BR> <BR>I feel guilty about not being willing to do things I would normally do, though. For instance, we're told to suck it up and get back to business, but I haven't been on Metro since Sept. 11, and I have no plans to. I haven't taken the kids to museums or monuments in the District either. DC just seems like a target, the Metro seems like a target, and the Mall seems like a target, so why go? <BR> <BR>I, too, have heard a tremendous number of planes and helicopters overhead (do they have to fly so low?). What are they all doing up there? <BR> <BR>On a lighter note, I think we're seeing a bit of anthrax hysteria. I saw on the news last night that you could iron, steam or microwave your mail to kill anthrax. I can just imagine my husband's face if he came home to find his wife ironing the mail.

I'm sorry, but I feel I need to speak up. My husband and I live 3 blocks from the State Department and 10 blocks from the White House. I'm rather baffled by the previous posters. Aside from added security around town, which is not intrusive by any means, life in DC has not changed any more so than anywhere else in the country. Yes, it is incredibly sad to drive by the Pentagon, and what happened on the 11th should not be downplayed. However, it should not be played up either. There is not the feelings of doom in the air that some have implied. This past weekend was wonderful. The weather was beautiful. People were downtown enjoying Georgetown, the Mall, the Tidal Basin, and Roosevelt Island. My husband and I drove out to Mount Vernon and stopped at a park on the side of the road to enjoy a picnic near the Potomac. Please don't make it seem as though DC is under siege.

Does anyone have any news about the planes flying over our houses all night. I will have to move if this continues, it is impossible to sleep even with a fan and ear plugs!

I'm with you, Kelli. I work three blocks from the White House and ride Metro back and forth every day. The subway is as crowded as ever. No one on it appears to be frightened or overly concerned about their safety. I took a walk at lunch today and saw just as many people enjoying the weather and eating lunch outside as I would any other nice fall day. From time to time, I can hear a jet or a helicopter flying over my home in Falls Church, but it's not nearly loud enough to bother me and certainly not enough to wake me up at night.

I also live in Bethesda and, honestly, I agree with Cindy. Granted, walking around here, you may not see anything out of the ordinary: I still go to my kids' soccer and lacrosse games, pumpkin picking, go shopping, plan for a vacation in January, have the kids go on sleep-overs, overnight field trips, etc. But I can also tell you that the nightly fighter planes, the anthrax cases, the "suspicious"-looking van, the mailman with latex gloves, the car search when picking my husband up at NIH to go out for dinner, sure make me nervous.

A view from Arlington - valid I think, since the Pentagon is in Arlington. <BR> <BR>I tend to agree with Kelli - We, too, went to Mount Vernon this past weekend - bicycled from Alexandria all the way along the cycle path. We probably passed you, Kelli, while you were having your picnic. It was beautiful out there and full of people enjoying the sunshine. Mount Vernon parking lot was full. Our local Outback Steakhouse was full, the usual long wait for a table. People really do seem to be behaving normally. My mailman today wasn't wearing latex gloves! There has certainly been some aircraft noise overhead at night - helicopters particularly - but not enough to keep us awake more than momentarily. <BR> <BR>Don't get me wrong, I am very saddened by what happened on September 11th - and I really do think the postal workers should have been tested for anthrax straight away and not just the people on Capitol Hill. But please don't think we are all cowering indoors. This city is beautiful at this time of the year and we are enjoying it.

I don't have a feeling of doom and I agree that people are out and about and enjoying the beautiful weather -- me included. But there's hardly a person I talk to who doesn't express at some point a nagging concern, or a wisp of sadness, or who hasn't taken some step, no matter how silly it seems or small, such as making sure there are flashlights with batteries, water in the basement, etc., or who isn't thinking about the possibilities. Many calm, rational friends who pooh-pooh most of the anthrax hysteria and who haven't had any concerns for their personal safety still say that they're not interested in travelling and leaving their kids behind right now. <BR> <BR>I've ridden Metro, I've been downtown, I go to the mall. But I think about it differently. You do the same stuff, but the thoughts still pass through your head. My family has been taking advantage of the beautiful weather outdoors especially because we want to shake off some of the nasties. We especially need peace and beauty right now. We were probably some of those people you saw out and about. Just because you see a bunch of Happy Campers out there picknicking, don't assume they're oblivious and not feeling the way others have described in this post.

Life goes on here, but this anthrax problem is frightening, no doubt about it. Yes, there are jets overhead, quite high up, but that's not new. Planes are leaving out of National, which is great (let people complain if they wish - I live under their path, and the noise is reassuring to me). I believe DC is really at risk ... I cannot say life is anything like normal. We are receiving e-mails constantly about the mail, fire drills and virus e-mailings. This simply is not normal. I for one am quite worried. I cannot speak for others. I hope that DC will not be placed at further risk. The authorities need to find the people mailing those letters, and fast. The White House keeps saying we are fighting on two fronts ... they are not kidding. We were out of the US for three weeks, and now to come back to this. I can only say it has hit us hard emotionally. Ciao

hay I grew up on an Air Force base,,, all those planes just put me to sleep,, I feel very protected! All in your point of view.

I appreciate Kelli's remarks, and I think they are valid. A lot of people are (outwardly, at least) behaving quite normally around here. <BR> <BR>I think that to the extent people are reacting differently to the recent threats, it is a function of two things: the choices they have, and the extent to which they believe these "attacks" are over. If I lived in the District, I wouldn't move, of course, and I wouldn't hunker down in the basement or quit my job. But the choices are a little different for those of us close to the District, but not in it. I don't HAVE to go downtown. To the extent I do go into the District, it is usually for recreation with my kids, which I can easily do closer to home, temporarily, anyway. <BR> <BR>I also don't think the attacks are over. I'm more than a little worried about the "crop duster" incident the other day. I hope I'm wrong. <BR>

Surprised by all the comments on the planes. I don't hear any over my neighborhood (Hayfield area of Fairfax County). Use to sometimes hear planes going to National but never hear them anymore. <BR>I work downtown - about 2 blocks from the White HOuse. I go over to the Reagan building to the gym almost every day at lunchtime. I don't see any outward changes except lack of tourists. As others have said the weather has been beautiful, the trees in glorious colors - it's so hard to imagine all these bad things going on. Until I pass the Pentagon everyday to/from work. Pictures can't describe what it's like in person. I work for US Customs and our building in NY was destroyed (it was one of the smaller WTC buildings). I worked there for 2 years. <BR>While I haven't changed anything in my life, I do admit I'm somewhat scared thinking what may happen and that DC would be a prime target. Guess I've just decided that I don't have any control over such stuff and what will be will be.

I'm with Kelli, Rosemary and the rest. Life for me is pretty much as it's always been. Yes, there's a sadness about the people who died. But I don't see the point in living my life in fear. I never had before, when I lived in a foreign city with terrorist attacks taking place on an almost weekly basis, so I certainly am not going to here. <BR>Obviously, had a friend, co-worker or family member died in the attacks, I'm sure I would have a somewhat different outlook on things. Fortunately for me, I was spared that grief. <BR> <BR>I do everything I used to. My husband and I go to dinner several times a week, we meet friends at bars, we play soccer and golf, we go to sporting events, we travel overseas (once to Europe since the attacks, and we're going back in December). We bought a new car and are refinancing the house. <BR> <BR>I'm in Alexandria, and I don't hear any planes. <BR> <BR>Cindy-the bit about ironing your mail is wrong. It doesn't do a thing. I guess it's the latest urban myth floating about. <BR> <BR>Why should my life change? Countries across the globe deal with terrorism on a daily basis. Why should it be any different with us, simply because we're Americans? Those people all get on with their lives. So should we.

Yeah, it's really easy to get on with your life in DC, right. Totally depends on who you are, what you do, where you live. I'm a regular middle class non-target living out in the 'burbs who today had to advise our courier to go down to DC General and get the Cipro they're handing out because he delivers hampers of mail to the Merrifield, VA post office back room every day, which, as we speak, is being tested for anthrax. The U.S. Postal Service website advises ANYONE who visits any non-public area of any DC-area post office to come down and get their drugs -- check it out at usps.com. My little company does direct mail and uses big bins and hampers from the Merrifield post office, so you can imagine how my employees are reacting right now, with two postal workers dead, four more in the hospital, and 30 others testing positive, and us transferring post office equipment back and forth from our little safe office in Tysons. A few days ago, what seemed like "hysteria" is now a reality, even in my little Northern Virginia nothing world. <BR> <BR>Incidentally, I heard a doctor on CNN say that ironing the mail WOULD kill spores.

They said bleach also kills the spores. I am glad you are all coping in DC. I hope they get the guys that are perpretraing all this crap....

I just had to throw my two cents in so please bear with me...the sound of those fighter jets are the sound of freedom working to protect you - and others...it is good to return to normal, but we are notorious for our short memories and shouldn't forget the tragic events of September 11th - its victims and heroes...I also want to say that there are men and women - other people's sons, daughters, sisters, and brothers fighting a war in Afghanistan to preserve our freedom - risking their lives for us - even though it was their choice to choose a life in the military - don't forget about them.

Well, I guess my take on things is a bit different since I am a bit closer to the situation than the other posters. My husband is with the Secret Service and works down at the White House. We constantly live under the possibility that he won't come home one day. I remember one night he called me to tell me he loved me and to make sure I knew where the insurance policies are (don't remember what was happening that evening). Frankly, while everyone gives the outward appearance of normalcy, I do not believe life is carrying on as normal in DC. I no longer work downtown, but I know my former co-workers are very concerned about their safety and had to adjust how they do business (we spent a lot of time on the Hill). Personally, I haven't been downtown since the end of August and for now, have no intention of going there.