Despite the shock of 9-11, which happened in New Zealand on September 12, 2001 thanks to the time difference (why don’t we insist on calling it 12-9?), I still had to attend the breakfast for the first day of the Wellington Fashion Festival for Lucire. And, that morning, I had to pay for car parking on Brandon Street, near the venue at Kirkcaldie & Stain’s.
   I had used this parking ticket to write on—the back has a note to my father—and when he lent me a suit to wear to the funeral of one of the great Chinese New Zealanders of the 20th century, Dan Chan, today, I found this item.
   It brought back a lot of memories and a lot of worries that morning—a friend of mine working for Verizon used to get off at the WTC stop on the subway. I rushed back to the office to see if I could get through to New York, found out everyone was alive, then hung up so other services could use the phone. Then I had to write my 9-11 op-ed.
   I watched a lot of plans go up in smoke that day—I had intended to return to NYC in October 2001, funnily enough with one intention of checking out the World Trade Center’s observation deck.