Check out this video of my gal pal’s ex-husband’s cat, Nikko. (Are you following me?) Nikko has a thing for swirling water.

Click here to watch

A few days after the September 11th tragedy, I wrote this essay. It was printed in a book called, “GLORY: A Nation’s Spirit Defeats the Attack on America”. It’s been a moving day for me. I forgot how much it hurt…

Thank You, bin Laden
By Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero

Thank you, bin Laden. It’s hard for me to say your name without curling my lips in disgust. But, thank you. I thought our world was marking time endlessly toward indifference. The heart that used to be the world in decades past had been strangled - replaced by money-grubbing, self-centered citizens. We used to invent things to complain about because our lives were so bereft of strife. We’d whine instead of appreciating that we are rich. We’d moan, instead of embracing health and life. It’s all different now. America lives and breathes as a UNITED country! Shaking our heads in disbelief and sadness at the depth of your unfathomable evil, the entire civilized world has solidified. I didn’t think anything would ever make that possible. You proved me wrong.

Not that your demonic acts are forgivable. Not by Americans. Not by the world. You and your cause are regarded with pathetic shame. Your wicked plot drove up the bile, yet ignited the life force deep down in all of our abdomens. You’ve brought God and spirituality back into our lives. We gather together in meaningful prayer and grief at churches and synagogues that we hadn’t darkened for years. We are strangers to each other no more. Hellos are exchanged generously now to all we pass. In any elevator or grocery line, we can have a meaningful dialogue about how our hearts are broken. Or we don’t even have to say a word. We look through the car windshields of drivers or the long faces of pedestrians and read it all. We are devastated. But we are devastated as ONE. We are much more courteous and noble to one another now. Far more forgiving. More generous with our love, money and time. Who would have thought you could accomplish so much with your vicious hate?

You melted tears from old steely men’s eyes, who before may never again have cried before death. You incited apathetic young males to want to die for their country, who before couldn’t see beyond their own self-centered wants. You inflamed the repugnance of young females with the treatment of your religion’s women as slaves, who before had taken their freedoms for granted. You twisted the loving peace of mothers into angry hatred by not caring that you would be slaughtering innocents, who before may have had compassion. You’ve changed everything from September 11 on. Forever. You have opened the curtains for a new era — the era of righteousness. That word has meaning again! The swelling pride at being Americans has been renewed. Is that what you were hoping for? You brought us together!

So again I say, thank you bin Laden. And God have mercy on your thick black soul.