Boston Marathon

Every year the third Monday in April is Patriot's Day here in Massachusetts. It's also Boston Marathon day. I seem to forget this each year and have to be reminded that I won't be able to cross Beacon St. This effectively limits where I can go in the city. I do have a test tomorrow, but I decided to take a chunk of time out of my day to go visit some cemeteries down south near the border of Rhode Island where I wanted to take pictures. I headed out just after lunch, and it took me about an hour to get down there. I did my thing, and just after 3pm I headed back to the city. On my way back nothing seemed amiss. I felt like I drove past more police cars than usual on the highway, but nothing out of the ordinary. There was one police car with what was more like a van than an ambulance that passed, both with lights and sirens. I shrugged it off and made my way back home. There was no more traffic than usual, and I had successfully avoided all of the marathon craziness.

I get back home, and Dovid is sitting on the couch not feeling well. I took his temperature and then spent nearly half an hour trying to get him to take some Tylenol. *grumble* When I had finally gotten most of the correct dose in him, I looked at my phone and saw a text from a friend of mine. "Oh my god please tell me you're ok" Umm...what? I looked at it with one eyebrow raised and replied "I'm fine, why?" It's not like I was missing or something... I had been on Twitter earlier in the day, so I couldn't imagine why she was freaking out about my safety. Then I log into Twitter and see numerous tweets sent to me from various friends:

"some jackass blew up the boston marathon finish line, you want to stay well away from the whole area, will be clogged up with EMTs"

"Are you alright?!"

Then from the friend who had texted me who was obviously more than a little worried. She only got more worried when I didn't respond right away:

"hey are you okay? I heard something about an explosion in Boston.."

"Has anyone heard from Elana recently?"

"God I wish I had Elana's phone number or address or something right now.."

"I won't be okay until I know that Elana is okay.."

"Watching the news, scanning every face, praying that I see Elana just so I know she's okay.."

Yep, those are all from the same person. I logged in just in time to see that last one and was still clueless as to what had happened. I got a lot more "I hope she's ok" type tweets just after that, but luckily by then I was online and could put everyone's fears to rest. I'm also lucky that Shmuel made it home before I even found out about it, otherwise I would have been worried sick. I'm actually a bit surprised that the T was running, but I guess he got lucky, too.

I'm still in shock that anyone would set off explosives at the Boston Marathon. It's completely ridiculous that this would happen in the place I've called home for over a decade. I consider Boston to be exceptionally safe, and now? It's unthinkable! I'm just lucky I don't ever have anything to do with the race. I don't live near the start or the finish lines, though the runners come right through my neighborhood, and I could technically walk over and watch them run through. I never go out to see them, and I don't think I've ever known anyone who's actually run it. But I'm in the minority with that. People all over Boston are looking for family and friends who might have been in the area.

I feel like this can't have been my city. MY city! Twitter's exploding with #PrayForBoston and other such hashtags. And I just can't even connect that this happened in my Boston. My home. This is where I raise my children! Parents took their kids as a treat to see the runners finish, and they were treated with two bombs going off, injuring several dozen people and killing at least two. One of them was an eight-year-old child. Who would do this? And why? It just doesn't make sense to me...